Today I got curious about what would it take to make some dungeon missions in the game. Here are the results:
Knights Province Alpha 11 is going to be ready soon and it’s time to talk about one more unique feature that it is going to have: Knights Tavern!
Knights Tavern (KT for short) is a codename for the accounts server we have been developing since 2019. Accounts were one of the more often requested features in KaM Remake, but we never had expertise or bravery to actually implement it (well, for numerous reasons). Attempts were made for the KP, but they did not succeed until recently, when a lucky chance has arrived (in form of an article (https://habr.com/ru/post/491272/) and a code repository (https://github.com/Cooler2/ApusEngineExamples)). Now, knowing that the backend server can be developed in the same language as the game, KT is finally taking its chance to come true.
Neat thing about KT, is that it can be used for both KaM Remake and Knights Province. Both games are very much alike in terms of accounts info they provide and can benefit from. So we can safely build KT in such a way that it allows for a single account for both Knights Province and KaM Remake. Register once and play twice. KP is our test-ground for the KT. Once it is sufficiently tested, KaM Remake can be upgraded and start using it too.
You can help with KT playtesting right now, but more on that later.
Basic auth functionality is mostly covered: KT has player accounts that can be registered, activated, logged in to and logged out of, forgotten passwords can be reset.
For a proof of concept, KT can report how many player accounts it has and how many players were active within the last hour.
The first useful feature in KT are mission highscores. If a single-player mission was prepared by the mapmaker in a specific way (2 lines of script, one dynamic and one static), the game can submit the mission’s winning score to KT and later on show the player his ranking in that mission.
Word of caution, KT is still in beta and might have bugs in all different areas. We hope to iron them out over time. That’s why we start testing with simple functionality, so flaws in the authentication (which there must be) can be fixed. So, since there might be bugs and weak spots, do not use your everyday life passwords for KT.
KT future allows for many interesting things:
KT poses new challenges to us:
Best of all – you can already try out KT and help us improve it! See the latest KP wip builds (available on Discord https://discord.gg/cEwJFSY). Please report any bugs or flaws. We are also open for suggestions on KT functionality. It can steer it into many directions and it would be best to pick ones that are more wanted.
Preparing to Alpha 11 release, the game has got an updated logo
Pressing F11 once will show the menu on top and the status bar below.
Pressing F11 second time will open a right-side panel with more developers controls.
Pressing F11 again will hide the menus.
For gameplay convenience cheatcodes work only with the F11 menus visible.
Fences have been long on the game’s todo list. Being a really neat feature described by a single word, it comes with a lot of problems to solve. How does one approaches a feature like that?
First the “wants” had to be outlined. Fences might have a number of variants and uses in the game:
Next comes the problems and features exploration phase. Here’s a short FAQ I did on fences before starting the work. Each line poses a problem and has a solution below. The FAQ is not final and solutions can be changed to accommodate for unforeseen problems, but for now I’m quite happy to have most of the questions answered:
This FAQ covered the player-side of things. Having that done the coding could begin. The code was written in a separate SVN branch to allow for easier comparison of before/after and overall changes made.
There was a number of cross-dependent problems in implementing of the fences. Here are some of the solved ones:
Remaining problems and features:
Fences are available since Alpha r8455. There’s already been some testing going on and a small bunch of bugs fixed.
Campaign menu is one of the menus that received the least attention during Alpha development so far. Why is that? Well, it’s not as important as the main game or map editor – it’s rarely used and serves a small role of allowing to click “Start mission” or choose to replay the previously beaten mission. It lagged so much behind now that it’s subpar even by Alpha standards. By requests from mapmakers it’s finally getting some dev time. Along with that campaigns are also getting some new features (campaign scripting, yay!)
What campaign menu should look like? The big idea is to have it in 3D as a sort of map laid on the table, with heights and 3D banners.
However this is far from priority, since it’s better to have a more developed game, rather than campaign menu, right? So for now, campaigns are getting most of their planned mechanics, but still retain its simpler (and easier to develop) menu.
Following features and customization abilities have been added already:
All these custom graphics can be png files in the campaign folder. If not supplied – the game will use default stand-in images.
New campaign format is mostly self-explanatory (just open the info.xml in a text editor). Images and texts are now referenced from within the campaign spec (info.xml) – less hardcode rules, more customization.
For the technical side – campaigns got scripting support! It’s made of two parts:
There’s also another neat addition – Campaign Builder – a tool to create and edit campaigns for the game. From now on it will be included in the pack. The tool is rather basic in its look and function, as it’s not the main dev focus. Still it’s handy to set up the template for the campaign and especially the flags/nodes placement.
Give it a try!
Playthrough of a Town Tutorial mission with new cinematics effects:
Video and Tutorial mission are both made by Laura – thanks to her!
Cinematic controls are being added to the Knights Province.
These are commands that allow to block the player input, do the fade out to black, move the camera and change its setup, fade in from black at new location and pan/zoom around, while showing text and subtitles. They will become accessible from dynamic script. Of course this is all mixable with existing dynamic script for playing WAVs and spawning units. This will allow for more atmospheric mission intros and story/campaign elements.
List of commands is as follows since r8155:
All the names are pretty self-explanatory.
Firstly you need to enable the Cinematic mode with CinematicBegin, then it will be a good idea to store the current players view with CinematicViewStore and show the movie bars with CinematicBarsShow. Then the cinematic can play out, finally being ended with CinematicEnd.
Example script for the mission intro cinematic will look much alike:
So far cinematics are enabled only for Single-Player.
Feedback and suggestions for new commands are welcome!
Alpha 11 is still in works, but I wanted to share a couple of new interesting things about it.
Firstly, there is a new map made by Klassix that takes advantage of new game features and dynamic script commands. Namely the messages with buttons to allow to choose difficulty level.
Here’s description by the map author – Klassix:
In the map you have to defend an old Romans Fort for as long as you can. You have to develop a working economy while fighting off waves of enemies that randomly spawn from one of four directions. As you progress in time random leather-tier and later iron-tier-troops, start to join the offenders and attack from multiple directions. There are various resources spread across the map just waiting to be picked up by you, but watch out for wild animals and deserters.
This map features:
– Handcrafted terrain
– Two selectable difficulties on mission start,
– An ‘Incoming Attack’-Indicator which tells you from what direction the enemy attacks,
– An acoustic warning signal by your scouts as soon as hostile troops move into the map,
– Randomly generated attack directions and troop constellations every time you play,
– Tons of pickable resources that need your attention and
– a lot of care for details and balance.
Have fun holding your fort!Bug reporting is very welcome.
Another neat addition are new music tracks by Juan – Dark Banners, Harvest. There’s also a third yet unnamed track, which is my current favorite and which I will add as soon as the name is chosen. I’m very happy with how the game gets more and more great music!
Alpha 11 wip builds (as always) can be found in the Discord channel.
I’m really excited to have Knights Province Steam page registered!
It took a while, but finally it’s there. So far only a page. There’s no known release date and no “Early Access” there yet (you know where it is ;-)). The game is listed as “coming soon” and it means ~2024-ish or so, given solo development tempo xD.
So .. add the Knights Province to your wishlist and keep on following the project in here, on Discord, Patreon and now on Steam!
