Welcome to the "MoonWard Going Forward" (MGF) blog!
I'm Mr. Slate and I'm here to let you know what's been happening with MoonWard as of January 2025!
Please make sure to check out the MoonWard demo on the Google Play Store and our Discord Community!
For anyone who missed last MGF...
From myself, Mr.Slate, and my crew at Slate Games:
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year everyone!
We'll work hard to make 2025 a better one!
Let's talk about the new stuff! I'm focusing on the following in this month's MoonWard Going Forward.
Next Patch
Patch v0.9.39 for the MoonWard Demo on Android will come out on the 4th of February.
Adding Boss Brawls
I'm working on a major update for brawls - that's right, I'm adding bosses to MoonWard! There were technically enemies I considered boss fights previously but there was no distinction between them and regular fights other than a difficulty bump.
I've already started work on this but the full plan is to add support for a bunch of audio, visual, gameplay and narrative features. This will include multiple stages, music for each stage, audio/visual transitions, boss loadout changes, the ability to have conversations during the fight and a bunch more.
This is the biggest feature I've built in a while. Bigger than the codex. I'm gonna be completely honest - this is quite complicated and I'm expecting bugs when it's out. Hopefully none will be game-breaking! Either way, though, should be a fun feature to build and experience as a player!
Item Favourites
I noticed when I was playing that I was reluctant to use the bulk-sell buttons in the market. When I thought about it I realised that was because there were items of each rarity I didn't feel like selling at some time or another, making the feature somewhat useless for those of us on the hoarding side... I might need that one green helmet with the really high burn resistance....
Anyway... To solve this I added the ability to favourite some owned items. In effect that locks them into your inventory. You can't lock consumables because they are excluded from bulk-selling and quest items which you also can never sell. Everything else is lockable though. You click on the item's Icon, a badge symbol appears and it will be ignored when bulk-sell is used. This will be in effect until you click the icon again, removing the badge and un-favouriting the item.
iOS Release
There's finally some movement here! Dare I say, Slate Games might be the proud owner of an Apple Developer Account very soon! Wooooo!
Unfortunately I've changed my plans for iOS completely. My original plan was to release the demo in October 2024 and the full versions in parallel with the one on Android later this year. That's not happening anymore. I'm still planning on releasing the shortened version on iOS before the Android full release but I think I'll take my time before the full iOS version release.
I don't have dates but the iOS demo should be out before April this year. I'll make sure all of you awesome people hear about it!
Features
Here's a list of done, approved and work in progress features as of writing this. The WIP percentages are all over the place, that doesn't mean I've started and stopped work on these, or working on them in parallel. In games development larger features are broken down in standalone tasks that can be as small as 1 hour. For example, a "New Enemies" task can be 4 separate tasks of varying duration and the tasks can be done in any order. So with that in mind...
Enough rambling! Here's the current approved major feature list:
WIP 30%: Boss fights. Read above for more info.
Approved TBD: Increased hex variation. This won't affect the demo as much because I'm fairly happy with the hex variety in County 1 and County 2. You'll be able to see the new hexes on the map but the counties will still be locked.
WIP 90%: More County 2 content. There will most likely be one or two more side stories for county 2 and that should be the end of content updates for the demo.
WIP 70%: iOS Build. I cleaned up the iOS version and finished the content blocking logic. Builds to iPhone and iPad work 99%. There are some minor texture problems that I'll be addressing before v0.9.29. Still having the same apple developer account issues as before.
WIP 10%: Long term Save Game. Currently all of your characters are deleted forever when the game is uninstalled. This is obviously not ideal. Modern games save these in the cloud. I'm not interested in that. So I'm looking into options to let you save/load a character locally. I also have no interest in encoding those files so you could in theory just open them up and cheat. Wouldn't that be cool?!!
Pricing and Support
Lastly, I'd like to elaborate on a couple of things regarding the demo and pricing.
Price. The demo (and App Store intro version if that's even happening anymore) will always be free. The full version (on Android and iOS) will always be a one time purchase. There will never be any in-app purchases. There will never be any adverts. There will never be battle passes. There will never be Web3 technology.
Support/Patching. When the full version is released, the demo will continue to receive patches at the same rate as the full version. This will include new or changed content in county 1 and partially (side stories and bounties) in county 2, as well as any upgraded/new systems and mechanics available in those hubs. The demo will also get bugfixes and balance updates in parallel with the full version.
Before I go, if you'd like to support us, please check our Patreon and Ko-fi! Any donations and patronage towards Slate Games and MoonWard development are greatly appreciated!
Thank you all so much for your continued support! It's very humbling to be able to do what I love!
Like always,
stay awesome!
Comments