Running of the Wolves V6.1.0 - Released

Intro

It has been a long time since the last release, so let's just get straight into it.

We've got a bunch of new changes to how the game plays.  First, the combat system has changed completely because the previous version was just a bit too unreliable. This combat system now includes the current sex system and takedowns. On top of that, walls can now be vaulted and we have some climbing. Swimming also happens now instead of running under the water.

This is the first in a chain of phases that will update the core functionality of the game, so please bear with us as we drift slightly away from the games original intent. We will be drifting back, but we need to work through those next few phases for it to all come together. I'll explain in more detail in the relevant sections below.

Shop Improvements

Shops now have types. So you get Item shops, Weapon shops, clothing shops, etc. This includes out in the world map as well. Shops can now also buy your stuff for cash. I don't need to explain this, everyone knows how shops work in games.

Traversal

There's now a rudimentary traversal system. Low walls can be vaulted, or climbed. Some surfaces can actually be properly climbed up. This system is a work in progress and with the next phase, the plan is to make the traversal system a lot more interactive and flow way smoother.

Combat

Combat now happens in a small area. Whoever triggers it gets the first attack. Attacking while doing another attack will let you chain up a  combo, getting progressively stronger. When your Action bar reaches full you also get the option to do more powerful attacks. If you don't want to attack the enemies then you can switch from Fight to Fuck Mode and the combat changes from trying to knock them out to trying to raise their arousal enough for them to leave the combat. Or you can just do a Takedown on them and be more direct.

The enemies can do all that as well though, and what you do in the combat affects what the enemies do. If they get punched, their aggression rises, and they hit you back, but aggressive enemies can be calmed down and get more grabby if you do Fuck Mode attacks.

Supporter Stuff

https://buymeacoffee.com/saltandchilligames/extras

Finally, we've spent a little time building our own shop. Doing this game takes a lot of time and effort, so unfortunately that means either scaling back game development or trying to push the game harder for more sales and stuff. We also wanted a way to thank supporters. So, we now have the Hall of Heroes in Pineridge (go through the arches at Registration and turn left down the tunnel). Current Patreon and Subscribestar supporters at specific levels have been added to the walls, and the Shop is now selling additional Nameplate Slots. Or we have 5min doodles up for sale because we don't want to ask people for money with no reward.

As we build the next few phases of the game, we'll be opening up more support options like custom NPCs in the game along with unique animations, but we don't yet have the systems to handle that.

Currently we're trying to push towards some hardware upgrades because the equipment we're using is really out of date and restrictive. We only have one computer that can actually run Unreal Engine for development, while the other lacks a GPU. We also need to invest in storage so we have proper backups of the work, so we're on a funding push right now.

Next Phases

Something that the Testing Group have reminded me of is that the game is meant to have stealth at it's core. Combat should be a last resort rather than what it currently is. They are correct, but I think it needs to be done this way. The problem is that for the last resort combat, you need a decent combat system to use as that last resort. After that, we have two core things: Stealth and Sex. Although not quite 100%, the stealth part also needs to include bringing the actual wolves back into the game and giving them their hunting skills again. The problem with that is the skeletons for Wolves and Canids are different. That makes it currently hard to add them back in.

The next steps are going to be, in order:

1. Character standardisation & Improvements

2. Sex System

3. Wolves & Stealth mechanics

That first one is the next thing on the job list. Basically, we want the game to be able to handle models with different skeletons by using a standardised skeleton in-game.  This also means adding control rigs and taking advantage of Metahuman workflows to be able to pretty much build characters from just the meshes. Part of this would also add customisation options, but the main goal is building a pipeline that allows us to add more characters, then use them, and is directly setting up for the Sex System, but will also be key in clothing systems as well.

There's also a little bit of housekeeping in this phase. Mostly little bits that make sense to do at this stage. Getting the controller bindings into the game, setting up motion matching for smoother and more interactive movement and most importantly running some tests for procedural animation setups.

After that we get into the sex system, which relies on the previous phase to work. There'll be more on that when we get to it, but there's some interesting stuff about holes. Sex system will essentially let us build interactive animations along with an animation builder tool built into the game to allow players to build their own animations to add into the sex side of combat. We'll also be doing fluids, adding tutorials and finalising the character creation / base tutorials.

Finally, we'll be doing wolves. Everything in the two prior phases lets us integrate these new models quickly. We'll then have the hunting and scent mechanics finally coming into play. This phase will also see us switch from small levels to large open worlds and massive changes to enemy behaviour. Dungeons should change at this stage, as well as some tweaks to health/stamina handling, inventory and optimisations.

I won't go on about the phases after that other than this brief descriptions:

1. Enemies - Competitors, Dungeon baddies, world-specific enemies and the Forest Boss

2. Core Mechanics - Animation Gallery, Items, Clothing, new dialog system and throwable items, Plains Boss

3. Gamemodes - Adding in the 3 gamemodes and splitting mechanics into the correct modes

4. Foothills - Add Foothills world and boss

5. Mountains - Add Mountains World and Boss

So in total, there's 8 phases left. In reality, I see the first 3 to be the major ones that are going to be time-sinks. The ones where worlds are added should be long jobs, but we've got tools to improve the way we build them, and all 4 worlds will be getting work done throughout the other phases.

As it stands, it'll be a little time before I start on the next phase. I don't want to fire on into it and ignore bugs that get reported, so I'll be taking this week as downtime and bugfixing, then start on the character stuff on Monday.

Bug Reporting & Updates

With this release, we have a bugtracker again: https://forms.gle/pPhTu19viytsPJtx8

Although we've had the game out to testers for a few weeks, there's always going to be release bugs. I'm expecting to probably do a bugfix release in a week assuming it's smaller issues.. If there's anything major it'll be sooner. There's also a few things I want to tweak in the combat system, so expect glitches in there to get fixed where possible.

The game is now available to download on the Discord or the purchase page.