But for now, let’s take a look at what’s in the new mines.
The mines themselves are a map that consists of 25 subsections. Scale-wise it is exactly as big as the heartlands, however, there are more individual rooms in it. Besides the mines one additional mini-dungeon and the catacombs, from the demo, have been integrated into the game. The main quests now stretch over both major areas, and while parts of it are not mandatory, you’ll probably stumble over them if you carefully explore.
There are also a few new enemy types, most importantly spellcasters and their servants. Talking of spellcasting, new echo stones can be found in the new area as well.
The mines are well integrated with the original areas and you can easily reach them through teleportation, given that you know the right rune combinations. Technically you can finish the mines even before the heartlands - I made sure that the game could be finished in a non-sequential manner. However, you will have to know the game well and pull off a few tricks to actually make that work.
There have been a few aesthetic changes to existing areas as well. One of the more noticeable are probably the new idle animations for NPCs. Until now the inhabitants of Lysandria would all use the same pose. With the new update you can find them arguing, squatting, crossing their arms, praying, etc.
Another small feature I added are unique environmental audio cues. Some of you may remember this from the Thief series. Whenever you enter a specific section for the first time you’ll get an audio cue, which adds quite a bit to the atmosphere and draws your attention to important locations. I have added this in both the mines and the heartlands.
As far as the fishing goes, you can catch new fish in the mines. Most of them have unique effects depending on whether you consume them cooked or uncooked.
Lastly there have also been plenty of bug fixes and small adjustments in combat encounters. I am trying to expand enemy abilities organically with the normal progression through the game. Of course balancing will have to be reworked once all content has been introduced
So how do we continue from here on out? We are obviously behind time and it’s questionable how much sense it makes to push for another spring update, which would have to be out until mid-june the latest. It is probably more realistic to just shift the original update plan by one season, so the spring update becomes a summer update and the summer update becomes an autumn update.
Alternatively I could imagine bundling beta update 3 and 4 into a single bigger update. As mentioned before, the area of beta update 3 is largely done. It requires polishing, some itemization, performance optimizations and so on. The geometry is completely done, the main quest is fully implemented, etc. What’s not done yet, however, is the area for beta update 4, so that would be another big chunk of work. I guess it all depends on the feedback in the coming weeks and I’ll see what makes more sense timewise.
There are also some small, intermediate updates that I wanted to spend some time on, especially regarding enhanced steam deck support and some character aesthetics. We will have to see how that ideally fits into the schedule as well.
Anyway, beta update 2 is now on the main branch and I hope you’ll have fun playing and testing it. That’s all from me for the moment. I’ll keep you updated and see you soon![/i]