Hey everyone,
the last few weeks have been slow. Most of our team is either on sick leave or vacation, while the rest of us have been trying to finish tasks related to our physical Vagrus products or were busy formulating plans for the future of Lost Pilgrims. Bear with us though, as we are getting closer to realizing these plans. For now, let us look at what we are working on in more detail.
And by Ahskul what a journey this has been so far. Speaking of which, there is a bit of a parallel here that could be drawn between caravans trudging across a barren, post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world and a tiny studio scrambling to deliver a huge open world game but we let's not go there on this fine day! :D
This week’s devblog is all about the plethora of quests being added to Vagrus with the full launch on October 5th. The update will include a revamped UI, a new companion to recruit, and plenty of quests to find on your journies across the wastelands. Let’s take a look at what’s coming!
Revamped User Interface and Extended Campaign Map
We've reached a point in the design of the physical rewards of our crowdfunding campaign and related merchandise that we decided to reveal what these items will look like. This includes a cloth chart, two kinds of T-shirts, and the two physical editions (Collector's and Emperor's Editions - more on their contents in a future post).
We presented our design mock-ups for the reworked settlement and crew UIs in a previous post but now you can see them in-game in this short video, including the new crew stats, Perk UI, and settlement panels.
We're very proud of these changes as they are the perfect example of player involvement. Your feedback and insights were the basis on what most of the changes were built - like the info box that shows formerly hidden crew stats, including Ambush chance or Vigilance.
For a long while now I've been working on what we call loyalty questlines for the eight companions in the game. These are long, complex stories, often with branching endings, personal to each companion. In this project update, we wanted to give you a heads-up about certain aspects of these without spoiling any content.
How Loyalty Questlines Work
The time has come to reveal the miniature of Finndurarth that is packed in the game's Collector's and Emperor's Edition (available via fig)! It is a 28mm scale figure and here you can see the 3D model that is the base of the final product. Soon, we'll reveal painted versions of it, too.
It's been a while since we've attended a game show but we are finally back in the - alas virtual - saddle! With none other than DreamHack, in fact. It's a gaming event that we have loved ever since our trip to showcase Vagrus at DH Summer in Sweden back in 2019.
DreamHack Beyond was held between July 24 and July 31 as a fully digital event. What made it unique was that they created an actually video game that you could log into, pick your avatar, and walk around in a world reminiscent of Rick and Morty's. We as developers were invited to participate in the event by customizing our virtual game console so that visitors could walk up and interact with it on the virtual show floor.
In the long line of UI reworks, our next stop is the crew UI where all the panes will now receive a lot of changes and upgrades. We planned to make these changes earlier but the design was in motion all the time - with new stats and mechanics being added - and so other things were completed and added before these in the end. And so now, so close to 1.0, we finally got around to implement the new crew UI.
There are a large number of settlements (cities, towns, villages, outposts, encampments) that you can visit in Vagrus, all of them unique locations even though they share some characteristics and features. For a long while now, we have planned a rework for the original UI - as we usually do with all UI elements, really.