Feb 7, 2011

Posted by: eoc

Heya,

I'd love to tell you that nobody applied for writing an update post because we are so busy improving Unknown Horizons. Well, that's true to a certain degree: The part with busy holds true.
Besides all the stress we felt recently, there still was and is some progress though and we decided that is it about time to tell you (-,

Code improvements

Most importantly, we are implementing a new tile set structure that will allow us to provide a working island and map editor soon. In the meantime, if you are running our git source, only random maps will work on branch development.

Another not-so-visible improvement has been made to our folders. Cleaning up the structure that in most parts was more than two years old hopefully eases navigation through our code- and contentbase. There also have been new scenario conditions added in master, but you'll need to wait for our new maps before excessive testing and usage of these.

New game content

On to stuff you see and like to see: content, content, even more content. We have added a whole third increment to the game! You can now help and watch your inhabitants progressing to the 'settler' level. The main goal there currently is to produce tools. 
For that, you need a toolmaker.
For that, you need charcoal and iron ingots.
For that, you need a charcoal burning and lots of lumber as well as a smeltery.
For that, you need more charcoal and iron ore.
For that, you need iron ore deposits.
… you need … so much … wait.
Yep, we even have implemented the natural form of iron ore deposits: mountains!*

Shortage on graphic artists

As you see in the above list, there is a lot of parts you need to assemble a working production chain. Sadly, we have not enough graphics artists to produce high-quality assets that can go straight into Unknown Horizons. manthus has provided great pieces of work with the charcoal burning, the toolmaker and several (graphical) building upgrades you will find in the pioneer increment, but some buildings still only exist as placeholders. They are found under the component 'Graphics' in our trac and have a high priority. The smeltery for instance likes to get replaced for sure. Another task is creating a housing for our settlers, right now they reside in pioneer log huts. Help! They want half-timbered quality standards!

If you are interested in contributing and are able to put your work under a CC or GPL license, give it a try! We'll honestly not reject you, visit us on IRC, post on the forums or in our bugtracker.
* Or a first step towards having mountains at least. You'll see what I mean

here in this new picture!

Maybe we'll also show two of them.

All improvements are of course welcome, the mountain graphics are likely to be replaced if we have better ones available.

More new content

That said, let's sum up what other upgrades I talk about. We also added a field with sugar cane (P) and a distillery (P) for liquor. A tavern (P) uses this alcohol to produce another kind of get-together-and-meet-pals resource which increases tax income. These (P)-buildings lack proper graphics right now, too. New pioneer versions got added for the pavilion and the signal fire, more to come. If you help :)

We further populated the sea with a fish resource. This means that the fisher can only work properly if there is a school of fish in range now.
Still work to be done, of course, the animation e.g. looks odd and is synchronized all over our archipelago, but that's a huge step in the right direction already.
Later, you will be able to build boats at the boat builder and assign them to a certain fisher. A fisher without boat will only be able to hang around fishing with a rod, that is not the most effective way for sure.

To wrap up this huge text: We are moving forward, there is progress, but it could be better. With exactly your support. Not only are graphic artists needed, even playtesting users, evolving into professional bug hunters, are of invaluable help.

Help wanted:

• 3D-modelling, urgent need ;-)
• playtesting and balancing, can be done by everybody
• animation

Of course, if you are an interested programmer or have something different in mind, we can also make use of anything you work on!
For any questions, simply join our IRC (linked above) -- you might need to stay for some seconds however ;-)

Kind Regards
Your team of Unknown Horizons