Evowok Breeder update 4.5!

[Ryan]

This is to announce that Evowok Breeder version 4.5 is now available to download.

This update fixes several bugs discovered since the 4.4 release, but also drastically revises the way that evowok barding works in the game (something which I'd intended to change for some time), and adds the ability to repair damaged evowok nets:

• Fully revised evowok barding! All barding can now be purchased from all armourers, but can only be produced if the player is in possession of the correct blueprint! Evowok no longer grow out of barding once fitted. Blueprints for existing and new barding can now be found throughout the game!
• Damaged evowok nets can now be repaired by several characters!
• Damage to attackers from bioelectric defenses is now correctly increased by conductivity from barding or moisture.
• Wearing some barding can now cause non-chionophilic breeds to suffer reduced capabilities due to overheating in hot environments.
• Barding weight now reduces flight capabilities.
• Added new traders to two towns.
• Added three new special encounters.
• Added eight new barding designs for seven evowok breeds.
• Altered behaviour of Pietas in South Opal Village.
• Fixed bug causing bioelectric discharges from attacking evowok to damage more than one opponent when striking multiple opponents with a single attack.
• Fixed bug causing characters to purchase items in which they should have no interest.
• Fixed bug causing a crash when purchasing a character's last item.
• Fixed bug causing crash in inventory interface when carrying broken evowok nets.
• Fixed capitalisation error in the inventory interface.
• Fixed swapped descriptions for thermophilic and chionophilic evowok breeds.
• Fixed evowok encounter chances when exploring locales.
• Fixed incorrect behaviour of storyline relating to Guido in the Southern Isles.
• Corrected colouring issues affecting three evowok lineages.
• Minor interface improvements.
• Miscellaneous code and efficiency improvements.

The 4.5 update can be downloaded in the usual place, and as always, please do post below with any additional feedback/thoughts/comments/questions/suggestions.

Have fun!

Ryan

[Kull]

Hi,

Interesting game, if i may, i have some suggestions.

First, a bug report, when transferring XP to the venom skill (given to the flat turtle type without the spikes on its shell) after learning from the NPC in a house in the NW under swamps and mountains areas), when i click the skill again, the game crashes and i get the error #62, happened twice in a row.

Got an error #2 earlier i think but i can't find my notes.

As for the suggestions :

• Speed up the movement, at least in town x3 x4 or even x5, if it speeds up the message display, it's fine too, otherwise

• Instant text display would be great too.

• A sound menu for the SFX and music volumes or at least an option to shut the music down.

• Being able to switch from one evo character page to the next one would be great too instead of having to exit and then get back to the other one, a simple arrow on the top right corner would be just amazing.

About the gameplay, the early game is extremely grindy and punishing, not very engaging for a new player, i would suggest

• Free heal in the first village, or at least for evos of prowess < 15 or 20 or 1 gold per 5 level under prowess 20 (1 for prowess 5, 2 from 6 to 10 )

• Increase the carrying capacity or at least remove or change the penalty the -3% bravado is just too much and the message spamming is annoying too so making it less frequent and making it not stopping the movement would be great (less bravado loss and less nuisance)

Or just change the encumbrance system
Example :
- light encumbrance (= actual encumbrance) -1% bravado and occurrences cut by half (or by 3)
- medium encumbrance (actual encumbrance +50%) -2% (same occurrences than light)
- heavy encumbrance (+100%) -6% bravado (same occurrence as light)
- at +200% encumbrance, either double the penalty or you can't move at all.

About first aid and natural regeneration
- looks like there is no natural regeneration (i checked multiple times)
- first aid with the basic med kit heal very little even with 80% in first aid (maybe increase it by 50 or 100%?)

What about some natural regeneration?
Like +1%/2% total health every couple of steps (5 steps, 10 steps?)
Why not an increase based on first aid? Like +1 every 20% (+1% regen at 20%, +2 at 40%)

About money
The game gets better once you got a pack horse, it's a bit expensive though, the girl in one city wanting to get away from her mother and become a breeder asks for 300 coins for a horse and yet, i believe we hae to pay 1800.
Also, aren't maps a bit expensive ?

About training and evos skills
It's really grindy, i'd add some skill xp for the evos, each time they get some xp, they get as much as training xp they can use for any skill they have, this number could be increased even further by one trainer skill.
Or just increase training skills gain by x10 or x20, i'm serious.

About identifying evos
What about an auto ID if one of the training skill is high enough?

About the house
I liked that it got robbed when i forgot to lock the door but it's weird that the items i put in the bank got robbed too.
I was expecting to have my private kennels there and actually be able to get a healer/surgeon, and all the commodities, i didn't complete the game but really, having our own hub with all the commodities would be great and for the price asked, it'd be just fair, even if we have to meet and recruit various NPC to fill each role

About extra evos following
It'd be nice to be able to catch more evos on the way and not have to constantly search for an evos expert to identify them, then go to an arena to store them, this routine gets old.
Having expert identifying them in each arena would be a plus.
Being able to have a couple more of evos following, even if we can't switch them / use them in battle would be really nice.

Well, i think that's it, i realize it's probably enugh work for a couple of years if you were willing to make all the changes but i'm just giving some feedback.

I also thing this game could have some commercial success with all these quality of life changes and some graphics lifting.
It'd probably take some investment though and it doesn't look like it's more than a hobby for you.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your game and good luck.

[Ryan]

Interesting game, if i may, i have some suggestions.

Thanks. You're welcome!

First, a bug report, when transferring XP to the venom skill (given to the flat turtle type without the spikes on its shell) after learning from the NPC in a house in the NW under swamps and mountains areas), when i click the skill again, the game crashes and i get the error #62, happened twice in a row.

Thank you for the report - I'll test this and see if I can find the cause!

Got an error #2 earlier i think but i can't find my notes.

If you can remember exactly what you were doing in the game when this happened, that would be really helpful.

Speed up the movement, at least in town x3 x4 or even x5, if it speeds up the message display, it's fine too, otherwise

The character movement in towns is already pretty fast - I think you'd probably find the game would look pretty strange with the player running about at 5 times the current speed!

If movement in towns feels too slow, is it possible that the game is running slowly on your system, perhaps?

Instant text display would be great too.

Do you mean when speaking to NPCs? If so, do you know you can press the ENTER/SPACE keys etc. to skip dialogs?

A sound menu for the SFX and music volumes or at least an option to shut the music down.

Yes, I've considered a sound slider before - but it's not completely trivial to intelligently balance music and sound effects, and of course the system sound can be adjusted pretty easily by the user anyway in Windows, so I've not put the time into doing this yet as it didn't seem hugely important (I mean, I almost never bother with adjusting sound sliders in games myself!)

And the music is a huge part of the intended atmosphere of the game, so I wouldn't think it would make sense to disable it completely! I have considered releasing an optional version of the game with higher-quality music, but this would entail far greater download filesize, of course. I don't know, maybe it would be worthwhile - what do you think?

Being able to switch from one evo character page to the next one would be great too instead of having to exit and then get back to the other one, a simple arrow on the top right corner would be just amazing.

Okay, being able to switch between evowok within the evowok stats screen would be easy enough to add... But just to mention, you can already "swap hands" while in the evowok stats screen (moving your second evowok to the first slot, and vice-versa), and I tend to use the F1 and F2 keys to quickly switch between the stats screens when playing (pressing F1 will open or close the stats screen for the first evowok, and F2 will open or close the stats screen for the second evowok, so you can quickly toggle between the two slots using these keys).

About the gameplay, the early game is extremely grindy and punishing, not very engaging for a new player

I've put quite a bit of effort over the last few updates into balancing the early game, and I think it's currently playing much better than it did on early release. The "grindy" quality is in the nature of the game anyway (playing matches for money, renown and experience is the core gameplay mechanic!), so a certain amount of that is intentional - but I don't feel that the initial combat difficulty is necessarily too punishing, if approached strategically. I'm happy to consider any specific suggestions though.

Free heal in the first village, or at least for evos of prowess < 15 or 20 or 1 gold per 5 level under prowess 20 (1 for prowess 5, 2 from 6 to 10 )

Healing injuries with Doctor Gray while still starting out in Jasper is already fixed at a cost of 5 Coins, I believe? After this, healing is already scaled to the Prowess of the evowok.

Increase the carrying capacity or at least remove or change the penalty the -3% bravado is just too much and the message spamming is annoying too so making it less frequent and making it not stopping the movement would be great (less bravado loss and less nuisance)

I'm actually quite surprised that you've managed to reach your maximum encumbrance! While playtesting the encumbrance features, my main concern was that it was likely that most players would never even reach the maximum anyway! I wonder what you're carrying with you that's so heavy?

In any case, the idea is that using packhorses and depositing items at banks should allow you to keep your travel load light!

first aid with the basic med kit heal very little even with 80% in first aid (maybe increase it by 50 or 100%?)

With your character's First Aid Skill at 80% and treating an evowok whose breed you've identified, you should be healing about 90% of the injury's current damage (so, if your evowok's arm has received 100 points of damage, then using a First Aid Kit to heal the arm with a First Aid Skill of 80% should leave only 10 points of damage unhealed). If this isn't the case, perhaps you've encountered a bug?

What about some natural regeneration?
Like +1%/2% total health every couple of steps (5 steps, 10 steps?)

Earlier versions of the game actually did have a natural healing mechanic, but this effectively made it necessary to walk around aimlessly after every fight waiting to heal. We called it "heal-grinding" in playtesting. Trust me, it was awful.

the girl in one city wanting to get away from her mother and become a breeder asks for 300 coins for a horse and yet, i believe we hae to pay 1800.

Perhaps she knows the horse-trader personally?

What about an auto ID if one of the training skill is high enough?

Well, identifying all the evowok breeds and becoming an evowok expert yourself is possible... But by that time, you've already identified all the breeds, so...

I liked that it got robbed when i forgot to lock the door but it's weird that the items i put in the bank got robbed too.

Um, that sounds like it may be a bug! Thanks for mentioning. I'll investigate...

Edit/update: I've just checked this, and it seems to be working as it should (the cottage being robbed doesn't magically cause anywhere else to be robbed too). I wonder if it's possible that you're mistaken about this?

I was expecting to have my private kennels there and actually be able to get a healer/surgeon, and all the commodities, i didn't complete the game but really, having our own hub with all the commodities would be great and for the price asked, it'd be just fair, even if we have to meet and recruit various NPC to fill each role

Haha, this is a really cool idea actually! It wouldn't be trivial to implement, but I'll add it to my ideas list.

Having expert identifying them in each arena would be a plus.

Adding evowok experts to the Stadiums isn't a terrible idea. I'll consider that.

Being able to have a couple more of evos following, even if we can't switch them / use them in battle would be really nice.

I think I've answered this question in a previous thread, but there are two reasons that the player is limited to handling two evowok at once: firstly, the game's pace and economy are designed around choosing pairs of evowok which compliment each other for each challenge encountered; and secondly, evowok are able to breed when in threes, and I didn't want to include a whole evowok farming sub-game (just yet, at least!)

Well, i think that's it, i realize it's probably enugh work for a couple of years if you were willing to make all the changes but i'm just giving some feedback.

Feedback and ideas are always appreciated, and little features and bugfixes are quite easy to add. Also, knowing that people are even playing the game is a big boost to my motivation to work on it again, so thanks!

I also thing this game could have some commercial success with all these quality of life changes and some graphics lifting.

There are a lot of major gameplay changes I'd want to make if I were creating a commercial adaptation of the game (for a start I'd want to make it fully online with player-vs-player interactions), but I have no intention of commercialising this freeware version. However, with regards to graphics, the game's artwork is primarily by the talented Sjoerd Klinkenberg, but at present the graphics are essentially "unfinished", as Sjoerd became very busy with real life concerns before the final graphics were completed, so we decided to release it as it is (which hopefully isn't too ugly!) - I'd be more than happy to hear from someone who wanted to collaborate on finishing/updating the existing graphics though.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your game and good luck.

Thank you for playing.

[Ryan]

First, a bug report, when transferring XP to the venom skill (given to the flat turtle type without the spikes on its shell) after learning from the NPC in a house in the NW under swamps and mountains areas), when i click the skill again, the game crashes and i get the error #62, happened twice in a row.

Thank you for the report - I'll test this and see if I can find the cause!

Thanks again for the report. This is now fixed as of version 4.5.1.

I've also added a rudimentary master volume slider to the game menu.

Ryan

[Kull]

Hi, thanks for answering.

About the speed, well, yes, maybe that's slow on my system but i can run games released in 202X, and even the non optimized ones made with unity as long as i'm not too far behind the RAM requirements.

About the music, it's linked to the movement speed which i find way too slow so i'm using cheat engine to speed it up but then ,the music is just accelerated as well and it's not so nice to listen.

About the robbery, i was wrong, actually, i went to a bank after the city and the part of the world you reached by boat and the chest was empty but it wasn't in the other part of the world (even if they're apparently connected since i didn't take the boat to come back)
So, nice feature indeed, they only robbed the house.

About the encumbrance, i only reached it without the horse and didn't have much with me, a couple of first aid kits, 7 or 8 and multiple nets, like 2 of each at least (2x regular, 2x strong and 2x aquatic,), it looks like they don't break easy but i was unlucky enough to break one early on and i hate having to come back for that.
Nets encumbrance is quite something, it appears.
Also, looks like money increases encumbrance by quite a lot before you get the horse.

About the early healing, yes, it cost 5 coins and you get 5 coins when you win a match and you have to heal after each match so you don't earn any money, then, you win 10 but healing cost 10...
It takes a while to earn a living.

The intro and the main menu roaring are probably my favorite part of the game, a shame you couldn't get the same artstyle as the intro for the whole game but i can live without it.



I'll try your new version soon and write down any bug i encounter but i really lost my notes about the other one.

Still, i got this one right after i wrote my previous message:

BUG
#340
Teaching an ability then right clicking while the learning SFX is playing crashed the game (it was bodyslam if it matters)

[Ryan]

Hi, thanks for answering.

No problem - it's nice to hear from someone playing a game I spent such a long time making!

About the speed, well, yes, maybe that's slow on my system but i can run games released in 202X, and even the non optimized ones made with unity as long as i'm not too far behind the RAM requirements.

Well... Any system from the last 15 years or so should be more than capable of running Evowok Breeder at full speed - but honestly, I can't imagine that the movement speed in towns could be considered especially slow if everything is working correctly. If anything, the walking speed of the character is probably a little too fast for realism given that they're on foot!

One thing to bear in mind is that the character will walk much more slowly if over-encumbered, injured or intoxicated, so if you're overloaded, perhaps that's why your movement speed is slow? If so, that's intentional - the idea is to try to avoid overloading the character.

About the music, it's linked to the movement speed which i find way too slow so i'm using cheat engine to speed it up but then ,the music is just accelerated as well and it's not so nice to listen.

Well, obviously if you're doing something yourself to make the music sound bad, I can't really plan for that.

In any case, I wouldn't recommend running with a speed hack - it's entirely possible it may cause other issues/bugs by interfering with the game's timing routines (depending on how it operates).

Another thing: Evowok Breeder is intentionally a slow-paced (relaxed?) exploratory game, so it was never intended to be played in a rush. A lot of the sense of freedom and exploration is meant to be enjoyed in that way, and the music and game speed are meant to be a part of that experience.

About the robbery, i was wrong, actually, i went to a bank after the city and the part of the world you reached by boat and the chest was empty but it wasn't in the other part of the world (even if they're apparently connected since i didn't take the boat to come back)
So, nice feature indeed, they only robbed the house.

Great - glad to hear that's not a bug! And yes, chests are unique, so (unlike the evowok kennels) you need to return to the same chest to recollect items deposited there.

I actually did consider implementing a chest system ala Resident Evil, with a shared inventory, but decided against it for a number of reasons when playtesting. Apart from anything else, I couldn't think of a good explanation for how that could make sense in-world.

About the encumbrance, i only reached it without the horse and didn't have much with me, a couple of first aid kits, 7 or 8 and multiple nets, like 2 of each at least (2x regular, 2x strong and 2x aquatic,), it looks like they don't break easy but i was unlucky enough to break one early on and i hate having to come back for that.
Nets encumbrance is quite something, it appears.
Also, looks like money increases encumbrance by quite a lot before you get the horse.

Ah, now there's the reason you're over-encumbered: nets are intentionally heavy. One of the key elements in the game is inventory management: the idea is to choose just the equipment and evowok you need for your next goal, and to travel as lightly as possible. Each expedition into the wilderness should require equipping the necessary inventory items and choosing a well-selected evowok (or pair of evowok) for the matches you want to enter. Travelling between kennels and banks to do that and encountering competition and wild evowok along the way is really quite a big part of the game.

About the early healing, yes, it cost 5 coins and you get 5 coins when you win a match and you have to heal after each match so you don't earn any money, then, you win 10 but healing cost 10...
It takes a while to earn a living.

By playing carefully, you shouldn't need to heal after every match. Balancing when to heal particular injuries and judging when to enter into or withdraw from matches is another intentional part of the game's core character. If the economy of healing didn't provide at least somewhat of a financial dilemma, there wouldn't be much incentive to avoid injury.

The intro and the main menu roaring are probably my favorite part of the game, a shame you couldn't get the same artstyle as the intro for the whole game but i can live without it.

Funnily enough, one of the things that's left unfinished on the graphics to-do list is redrawing those hand-painted pieces to match style of the rest of the in-game graphics!

During development, we experimented with four or five different art-styles, and there are still a few items from each left in the game, which is why the graphics are... A little inconsistent. I'd love to have a chance to finish/remaster the graphics throughout the game, but it would require Sjoerd to find some time to revisit the to-do list, or for someone else with the necessary skills to offer to collaborate.

Still, at least I think it's not too ugly overall, and as you mentioned, it does have those lovely hand-painted scenes Sjoerd drew for the intros.

Still, i got this one right after i wrote my previous message:

BUG
#340
Teaching an ability then right clicking while the learning SFX is playing crashed the game (it was bodyslam if it matters)

Hmm... I'll investigate this - thanks for reporting.

Ryan

[Ryan]

Still, i got this one right after i wrote my previous message:

BUG
#340
Teaching an ability then right clicking while the learning SFX is playing crashed the game (it was bodyslam if it matters)

Hmm... I'll investigate this - thanks for reporting.

I've just looked into this and I can't seem to recreate it. I suspect that it's possible that your speedhacks might be the culprit (messing with system timers can do quirky things to the runtimes), but if you can find a way to reliably trigger this crash without hacks, please do let me know and I'll dig a little deeper.

Ryan

[Ryan]

• Being able to switch from one evo character page to the next one would be great too instead of having to exit and then get back to the other one, a simple arrow on the top right corner would be just amazing.

Just to mention here, this is now implemented as of the 4.5.2 update, pretty much exactly as suggested.

Ryan