Here at French Rice Games we pride ourselves in developing THE BEST city-building-survival-management chicken simulator in the world. However it has come to our attention that we rarely post anything informative about Survivors of Ragnarok. 99.9% of the time our posts have been about bad puns, lame jokes, or our monthly post simply stating how awesome our chickens are.
So we decided as our first true corporate decision for world domination we would take more time to do some truly informative news post. We have 100% trust in our CEO and self-appointed ruler of the world that this is the best course of action to take to world domination.
So please, enjoy this slightly more informative then usual post about features to expect from Survivors of Ragnarok.
Multiple Selection
One problematic issue that arises is how the game handles multiple objects on a single tile. Each tile is broken up into 3 categories; buildings, consumables, and combat.
When multiple tasks are assigned Dwarfs complete them based on priority. The highest priority action for a dwarf is combat, followed by consumables, and finally buildings.
When a tile has multiple objects in a single category the bottom interface changes and each object is grouped in the appropriate category.
And yes this means that good old Dwarf Fortress stockpiling will be implemented.
Jobs and Stats
Implementing a proper UI to effectively display jobs and stats presents some interesting challenges. You need to balance aesthetics with a functional design while constantly fighting the temptation to simply make a spreadsheet.
Health and Energy
The red bar represents how much health a dwarf has (pretty self-explanatory what health is). The yellow bar represents energy; the amount of tasks a dwarf can complete.
Needs
All dwarfs have three main Needs, thirst, hunger, and sleep. Each with a degenerating state; Satisfied, desires, and needs.
Trades and Professions
Trades:
All professions are categorized into trades; labor, construction, academics, arts, and combat.
Professions:
When a trade is selected it will display all the available jobs within the selected trade.
The top icons represents the professions; Woodcutting, mining, farming, and fishing (its suppose to be a piece of cut salmon OKAY! some of the icons need to be reworked).
The bottom icons represents what skill level each profession is and the bar to the right represents the progress in leveling the profession skill level.
Novice, Proficient, Skilled, Expert, Master, Legendary
A dwarf may have more then one job active at a time. However taking more then one job inhibits the leveling progression of both jobs.
A dwarf that has one job has 100% leveling progression, if he takes two jobs the progress for both is 50%, 3 jobs the progress for both is 33%, etc.
There is still a lot of features in terms of UI let alone game-play elements that need implementing. As well as many features we want to share but aren't yet ready to (like that icon that looks like an M for instance). We can't wait to share more features and plans we have for Survivors of Ragnarok as we get further into development.
I mean, I'm sure I can give a whole in-depth article about our randomly generated caves, tombs, and dungeons and the types of creatures you can expect to see populating these dark dangerous areas. However it has little to no substance when we don't even have a proper dwarf inventory implemented yet.
Oh yeah for those who haven't heard the news yet; Dual wielding shields confirmed.
We hope you guys check out Alpha 10 when it comes out, and we hope you guys continue to support us when pre-orders are available. Kay, turns out pre-orders are available already, we'll have a proper news post about what to expect later this week. So here is a pig.
As always don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Desura, IndieDB, Blogger, and Steam! You can now subscribe to our Pixel Pushers Podcast on iTunes!
oh this looks beautiful! I LOVE THe graphics and those type of games, it looks like we'll be able to do so many things, also those sprites/ animations whatever you call em look great :D gotta love them!!!
Will settler edition be available on linux? If I buy it now, will i have the game when linux client went out?
I wanna say yes, but to be safe, wait until I find out more info about Desura's Linux build. We will definitely be having a large post about it if so.
It looks like they will have support for that. I would like to do some more testing first on Linux to make sure everything works. If it does you get to play the game on both platforms.
So I'll buy it tomorrow, thanks for the responses
Bought it when I read this. ... even though Desura isn't out for linux yet. But whatever!
Sooooon. Trust me on that.
Yup. We have a build that works on Linux and mac currently. I don't know if we have uploaded it to Desura yet.
Yes if you pre-order it will work on multiple OS's. Mac too when we build the client out in that direction.
I heard you liek PIGGIES! :3 (see wut i did there?)
Dl.dropbox.com <-- Image link
Piggies are the new chickens ;)
Yeah, but they cant fit in the rice bowls at the bottom of your news page. xD
I'm obsessed with this game, which is saying something. Why? Cause I can't figure out how the @%^& to play it. Some sort of documentation on what to do other than dig, chop down a tree or two, then watch my dwarves stand there between chicken slayings... What am I missing?
Despite that, it -looks- fun, and if I could figure out what the hell I was doing I'd be totally hooked. I learned to play Dwarf Fortress. It's got to be possible.
Help me, Tasty-one-wasabi, you're my only hope.
Urist would want you to.
Seriously, though. This looks amazing. I will test this mother@%&#% to no end. All I need is a manual of some sort. Even a readme. Even a blurb that I can add to the wiki. I'll write a guide and everything, filling it with pithy humour and chickens.
And yes, that means you can employ me. :P I write and design professionally.
But outside that, I'm just psyched about a DF game that anyone can pick up, and I want to be involved. I could be more involved if I knew how to play! :D
We'll be working on some proper documentation :) and a tutorial/singleplayer that will help ease players through gameplay. Although I will make sure I have a news post this week on how exactly how to play the game.
Spelled Steam wrong
O_o? where?
Steamo on the icon.
this isn´t multyplayer is it ?
There are plans but right now we are focusing on the singleplayer and getting the basics done first before we start thinking about multiplayer.
oh nice then, a multiplayer feature would be nice (:
ill try it out.
You people at French Rice Games are so witty! Your pixel art is amazing too. I definitely can't wait to play this.
Am I the lucky one??? When SoR was released on Desura IT WAS FREE! and yeah I get one... Now... I need to buy it.
NO! That is not Unfair.. it's fair to give them credits (or money) for there HARD WORK! I mean... C'MAAAAAN LOOK AT THE PIXEL ART GUYS! And the ANImATION TOO! And now a Working Crafting....
So, Keep it up! Like your updates, and I love the "Chicken Edition".