More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Find out what we're doing and thinking as we develop WolfQuest 3: Anniversary Edition and the Tower Fall expansion!

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loboLoco
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More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Post by loboLoco » Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:12 pm



First: WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is on sale this weekend — 25% off on itchio or Steam!
________________

We are in the last stretch of work for the next patch of WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, which will be v1.0.7l. This will have several significant improvements:

Tommi has refactored and overhauled the NPC navigation, pathfinding, and obstacle avoidance systems, making those smarter and more robust. No longer will mates get stuck on a boulder while trying to cross a creek, or circle endlessly around a meat chunk. Elk are also much more adept at navigating around trees and boulders as they flee for their lives.  It makes moving through the game world feel even more immersive!

I have been working on improvements to the natural environment, adding more (and better) tree stumps in the woods and more ground clutter in the form of dead logs. Istvan Szala, one of our freelance 3D artists (who has been making some new stuff for the upcoming Lost River DLC), created models for snowberry and huckleberry bushes, and Indian paintbrush flower. Put together, these make the forest floor much denser, and more realistic (though still a far cry from the truly dense forests along the south slopes of Slough Creek).  The splashes of new seasonal colors are also very nice.

Along with helping me with those improvements to the environment, Andrei has been fixing bugs and adding polish is many different ways. (Many of these were suggested by players via Feedback and Bug Reports, so thanks for those! It is satisfying that the bug reports are trending to minor tweaks as we slowly but surely polish the game.)

And Mikko has been making steady progress on Slough Creek multiplayer, which is really shaping up and should be ready for public beta pretty soon.  I get to spend time actually playing WolfQuest (not as common as you might think) with our dedicated and amazing core beta testers who are crucial to refining and balancing the systems before releasing it to a wider group.

All of the above (except for Slough Creek multiplayer) will be in patch 1.0.7l, coming very soon to public beta and then full release.

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WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition is available now for PC/Mac on Steam and itch.io, as Early Access. The game currently includes Episode 1: Amethyst Mountain, Episode 2: Slough Creek, Lost River: Classic, and multiplayer mode in Amethyst and Lost River. (Slough Creek multiplayer is coming soon,.) Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will turn our attention to other platforms. The next episode, Tower Fall (DLC) will follow. We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready!
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Re: More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Post by Windstrider » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:52 pm

Looks beautiful! I've always loved the graphics and realism of this game but with every update it looks even more amazing. The video looks immersively real and I feel almost like I'm there in Yellowstone, smelling the plants and fresh air and feeling the breeze. The audio and visuals for the weather really add a whole new dimension to it, and I love the plant variety, it definitely adds a lot to the realism of the game. As someone who likes botany and is trying to learn more about it, this is one of my favorite updates so far. I also learned a lot about how games are made and how they work with graphics cards and computers that I had no idea about before, which is interesting.

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Re: More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Post by BlackMetal » Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:19 am

The flora looks amazing! I especially like the new flowers. Great work as always. :wink:

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Re: More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Post by DinoDogDude209 » Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:54 pm

Wow, this is amazing! I love these new plants in the game. The new red huckleberry bushes and little maple shrubs in Amethyst add some nice fall colors, which really helps to sell the autumn feeling of the map. I haven't gotten the chance to check out the new plant life in Slough Creek yet, but from the screenshots and footage I've seen, they definitely help to make it look more realistic and sell that spring/summertime feeling. The new and improved stumps and other ground clutter also definitely helps to make the forested areas look a lot more realistic as well! I love seeing how far this game has come in regards to its depiction of Yellowstone's environment. I really appreciate how much effort is being put into creating a realistic depiction of the real place, especially having been to Yellowstone myself now. I hope that the team can continue to improve the game in this regard.

It's also very interesting to hear about the things going on under-the-hood like optimization and stuff like that. Considering the fact that WolfQuest has to work with the constraints of using a pre-existing game engine, I think the game does a pretty good job of balancing optimization with depicting a realistic environment.

In addition, the improved navigation is definitely a big step-up from the old navigation. It's all really good stuff, this is definitely one of the best quality-of-life updates that the game has ever received.
Istvan Szala, one of our freelance 3D artists (who has been making some new stuff for the upcoming Lost River DLC), created models for snowberry and huckleberry bushes, and Indian paintbrush flower.
I also find it interesting that one of the game's 3D artists is working on new stuff for the Lost River DLC, I wonder what that might include? Maybe some new vegetation for the expanded Lost River map? That would be so awesome if that were the case!

Keep up the great work!

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Re: More Flora and Nimbler Navigation

Post by wildejagdx » Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:11 pm

This update is one of my favourites so far! Thank you for all the hard work, the flowers are especially amazing here :flower:

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