Welcome to the first post of a monthly series that will track the main changes and updates of “Virtueror, the virtual conqueror”, a Real Time Strategy game I am developing as a solo indie developer.
Walls
One of the main features introduced this month is the construction of defensive walls.
In this image you can see a basic wall, but soon it will also be possible to upgrade it and to add defensive towers.
Designing walls is a bit convoluted for now, but a new design system based on way-points is on its way.
New UI elements
I designed and implemented part of the new UI to control units and buildings.
All the buttons have an associated shortcut (the small letter in the bottom-right corner), which allows to do things quite promptly once familiar with the keys.
For the UI of Virtueror I am going to follow a more modern approach compared to most traditional RTS games. The core concept is to minimize the number of elements on screen and to show only what’s needed when it’s needed. Time and testers will tell if this is good or not.
Map scrolling
This is a feature that I have been wanting to implement for a long time, especially since I introduced the new, bigger map.
At the moment it’s possible to navigate a map only with the arrow keys, but I will also implement mouse navigation that is activated when you move your mouse to the borders of your screen.
Cancelling actions
Now it’s possible to stop any game action while in the middle of it. For example it’s possible to stop a unit while moving or your base while building something.
This might seem like a minor feature, but I can assure you that’s a pretty important one, especially when you start any long process by mistake.
Video of the month
Check out the video dev log of this month to see some of the new features in action:
You can also subscribe on YouTube to not miss the next video coming in a couple of weeks.
Bug of the month
This happened while I was testing some new low level code to handle images:
It’s normal if it hurts your eyes, but don’t worry. I fixed it almost immediately… I had to!
What’s next
During May I will focus on fixing some major bugs and on introducing more core features like:
- Creation of new unit types
- Basic unit attack
- Defensive towers
All this will be in preparation for the first alpha build that is planned for early June. I will publish more details in my next update.
Join the open development
I always planned to involve gamers in the development of Virtueror and that’s why I created a Discord server and invited a few people when I started.
Now I am getting to the stage where I can finally open the doors to even more people!
If you like RTS games and if you would like to influence the development of Virtueror, you can sign up here to join me in this journey.
After doing that you will receive an email with an invite to join the Discord server (check your spam folder if you don’t).
See you online!
Awesometacular job man!