Recondite

Timberwall added to the game. This small fishing town in the Tai'Luna Empire is located on the coast south of the Grasslands. It's primary features are it's bustling bar and mysterious mystic. The people here have a different view on faith than most of the world and are much more easy going.

Currently working on the first major story path and subsequent side-quests. This is the Temple story-line of which the main hero "Walks the Path of The Four." The Four are the Goddesses Al'Atra (who), Al'Plias (where), Al'Xoce (when) and Al'Nemis (what). Together they form the Temple of The Four and are the primary religion of Luna. The game initially will push you into the temple quests as part of the games tutorial, but you can choose not to pursue these quests right away. If I do an early test release it will probably only have this major story path.

Clearly the temple quest is a religious path. The other major game paths will be based on Politics, Magic and Mystery.

The Temple path has you seeking out the Goddesses and completing their missions for their favor, in hopes they will provide a way for you to return to your own realm. This is dungeon and side-quest heavy.

The Political path is one that the hero uses to seek favor with powerful people in hopes they may help him find a way home. It involves plots, war, sabotage and all around cunning. There will be many player choice based quests in this timeline as well as stealth missions.

The Magic path requires you to enter the Mages Guild in hopes with their favor they will help you recreate the method of which brought you to this realm to send you back. This heavily spell based path will teach you a great deal of magic and help you obtain the strongest spells in the game, but will also pin you against some of the games strongest and most difficult opponents. All so you can come back and be looked down upon by your peers.

The Mystery path is just that. There is no clear path to follow, you are simply to "find the keys" for the Tower of Portunus and complete the very first quest which you are given. When you begin the player does not know what the keys look like, where they can be found, or where they are to be brought. On top of it all, there are dozens of them scattered throughout the world. This is the "Explore Everything There is To Explore" quest line. This quest line will be implemented along side the others to balance out the game.

All four main quest paths can be completed at any time, in any order, or all mixed up. Keeping in mind that some choices made in one path may have consequences on another. It could be as simple as missing an opportunity for gold, or as terrible as missing a critical item.

Back to programming this extremely complicated questing system.

Been finishing up some school work as of lately so not as much has been done. Over the last few days I've gone through and cleaned up some very minor things: spelling mistakes, mis-use of game grammar, small graphics glitches.

Today I decided to implement the fishing system. This was supposed to wait until after the Beta release of the game, but I decided, what the hell. New graphics have been made for this and in a few places the system is fully operational. I just need to make the events for fishing from the left as opposed to facing down. Graphics already made.

What else? Well, I decided I was going to make a Pirating System for the game. Started a rough draft of the programming and such. Graphics in place, basic programming there but needs a little work. Basically you can now trade with or pillage merchant ships that you meet at sea. You can also run into other pirates and duke it out.

Finally, name change. I've known for a long time I wasn't going to use "Realm of Luna" as the final name. It was really just a working title. The official title is now Recondite. If you wonder what that means, look it up at dictionary.com. In fact, many of the names and locations in the game have some kind of reference to them if you look them up on google.

New title screen is sweet.

Today I focused on a much needed graphical update of the world map. Some of the new graphics include mountains, hills, desert, cities, and wastelands.

I also updated the Unofficial Official Map (incomplete official map). Will post that at the end of this blog, replacing the old map. Some of the graphical improvements might be lost in the map because the map uses the 1st layer and most improvements were on the second layer, meaning they fade for the official map. Oh well.

Also edited achievements and achievement screen. New graphics included there as well.

Finally I did a little more work on the custom home building. Primarily creating the starting point on the world map and implementing the graphics on the world map for various stages of development, as well as some minor event editing.

Got to get back to real life, later folks!

Made more progress on the Custom Home Construction maps - all exteriors done, interiors started. New custom front facing interior stair graphics. Oh, and everything that can be purchased for your home has been decided (implementation to come soon.) Over 30 house upgrades available!

Teaser screenshot being added right now...

Only got one thing done today, sadly. However, it was something that desperately needed to be done that I was originally planning to ignore - torch animations. I replaced every torch in the game with new, spiffy, animated torches. Trust me, it makes all the difference.

Now I plan to make the furnace fires and lanterns animated as well. No reason to be inconsistent.

This may seem like a small thing, but it actually took a couple hours.