Hello peeps!

I have made a chunk of progress so far this week with another day to go. I’m quite excited at what I’ve been able to do so far. All fringe businesses are available to place. The interiors aren’t functional but all of the transfers work as they should. The herbalist has the NPC placed and the interior is mapped but the shop doesn’t function fully yet. I added 10 spawnable trees and stones to every single map. I also added the fringe businesses to every map so they are fully functional when it comes to placement.

I added the bare bones of an interaction system. I don’t love it so I will change how it looks later but this is good enough for now. None of the selections are functional yet but it is all set up. I just have to put in what they will do in the future.

You have to love that placeholder art! I am starting to get some of the chatter for Thomas entered in so that when interacting chat does work for him. I will be slowly adding in more chat because I really want to take my time with the characters. My hope is to really flesh them out and give more depth to them. Thankfully it’s easy to set things up so that it isn’t tied directly to where the NPC is. Adding more is very easy.

Last night I implemented the day night system, a bare bones weather system, and ensured everything changed as it should when entering and exiting buildings. I feel like that alone breathed some extra life into the game.

I have also started working on getting sprites prepared. I’m using a new plugin that allows for a lot more flexibility. I was doing just three frames and now I have 6 so everything looks smoother. It also allows me to easily play action animations which I am very excited about. It didn’t take as long as I expected to set up. I am getting close to being open for another play test involving others. Originally I was going to wait until after I get all shops placeable but it might be better to do it now. That way all bugs are squashed before adding more things to look through if things go amiss.