Another week ends, and another Something's Brewing is here to give you an inside scoop on all things Ale Abbey, our upcoming Monastery Brewery tycoon!
In this week's post, we are happy to say we had so much asset work done we had to choose what to showcase! Most of the work related to assets was on the character design and animation front, with a lot of work also done on the Recipe Creation UI, which was mostly backend coding.
But, better jump right to it!
A quick reminder that what you see is WIP, but very close to how the final version will look like.
-- "... and hence, came to be Sister Pinta!"
After all this work on Monks, we started working on fleshing out our Nun character model as well! Inspired by the last brewing nun in Europe, Sister Doris from Mallersdorf (Germany), we created Sister Pinta, Ale Abbey's very own brewing nun! Sister Pinta's design will also give us enough room to build on other Nun character models.
But our Raimo didn't stop there, and after designing Sister Pinta he worked on some of her animations, specifically the ones used to bring Monks back to their senses after too much work, or too much ale!
-- Physical work and Maintenance in the Abbey
In previous posts, we talked about the Monastery evolving, expanding with more rooms, and choosing what those rooms will eventually be used for. "Who does all that work?" you say... The Monks of course!
And this is why we got to animate our Monks doing more than just brewing, be it maintaining, building, or refitting a room in the Abbey. We used all the Monk models to account for differences between the models, and we also experimented with a number of tools, a hammer, a saw, RPG-grade dual-wielded unique hammers... you know, "testing" :p
-- Dev work and UI
As for under the hood, the programming team finished work on the UI for the Recipe Creation system, and more precisely its backend engine. It's now possible to create lots of recipes, with all available ingredients, styles, monks, etc.
Calculating the potential outcome of a recipe is also completed, where after a given amount of time the player receives results, potentials, and... surprises tied to a recipe!
Calendars, timers, countdowns, etc, all are also tested and working by Gavin, and we are now moving on to Ingredients' Storage and Market. These need to be done before we start working on the Brewing system, so we can work on Brewing without interruptions for implementation!
-- How long do you need to wait to see if your wort is fermenting, and can you salvage it if it's not?
You wait, hope, wait some more, take some gravity measurements, and if nothing shows there, then it's not fermenting. It could be just that the wort fermented super fast, but - still - that's something only a gravity check can tell you.
If you do have a stuck or never-started fermentation, you can try saving it by re-pitching some yeast, adding some nutritionals, or just hop(e) some more!
If you decide to give your wort more time (and maybe re-inoculate with yeast), make sure your container is closed and sanitized, and resist the itch to open it constantly for a check. You still want that wort to stay uncontaminated!
Thanks for your time and see you all next Friday!
-- Hammer & Ravens
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