- Hard News - 4 August 2021
Hey Fellow Brewers, It come with a heavy heart to bring this news. Unfortunately all Vertnacular game development will come to an end. This started out as a fun project for myself to learn game development and became something so much more. I've learned a lot about programming, coding, animations, sound/music design, and even company development. There has been a lot of ups and downs, and a lot has been put forward for me to get this far. But this has been unsustainable. I thought I might be able to step away for a bit and come back, maybe keep it on the side. The cold hard fact about the world is that everything runs on money. As I've been developing Draught Kraft, I've been using my own funds and a lot of my personal time. It turns out that even as a side gig, there are a ton of time and financial requirements that I can no longer support. I want to thank all those who supported over…
- 177,232,627 - 30 April 2021
That's how many combinations of characters the new character system can make. This doesn't include the full spectrum of color each character part can have. So let me back up a bit. Last post I said I'd get to look dev'ing after the main game loop was finished, but I got tired of looking at gray boxes and spheres. I spent some time working on some nice cartoony shaders and got something I like. I kept the original character shape and added more customizable parts. I hope everyone likes the new look I'm moving towards. I know the old pixel art look was its own thing but it became a pain to work with after some time. Everything in this new look is shader based so I can iterate a lot faster without having to worry about UV's and getting the texture's pixels the correct size. Up next I'll get the main game loop finally complete. I'm also looking to make some very fundamental changes to the g…
- Tiny bit of news - 15 April 2021
Hey Fellow Brewers! Once again, it's been some time since the last update so I figured I'll fill you in on what's going on. Since Draught Kraft moved to a hobby state I've been working on it a little less these last few months, but that's not to say that it's sitting around getting all stale. During my free time I've been adding a little bit here and a little bit there and I have to say I'm pretty happy with the code base. I feel that every feature I put together is complete rather than just getting it finished. The main game loop is just about done. From cooking the ingredients to bottling, each bit of code has been tested and thoroughly checked for problems. The interaction feels more solid. I've supported text localization from the start so it's easy to play in your native language. One of the biggest things I've worked on is a workflow for mods. Every ingredient and all the equipmen…
- Draught Kraft Redux - 11 December 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! It's been some time since I last gave an update and I feel it's time to fill everyone in. So I've taken some time to myself, I completed a number of personal projects and tented to much neglected things. During this time I developed my programming and 3D artistic skills and freshened up on all the new happenings of Unity 3D. I started to look back on my older projects (mostly Draught Kraft) and realized that I went about it all wrong. Also Unity has changed quit a bit lately and I would like to try out some of the new systems. I racked up what's called a "technical debt" and saw why it would take so long for me to add anything new to the game. The architecture of the game gave way for convoluted and clunky controls, strange and weird bugs, and honestly not the best player experience. So I got to thinking, "if I were to do it again, how?". And this where I am now. I w…
- Weekly Recap: A new approach - 2 October 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! So I'm not entirely sure how to start this one off. It's a bit of a mixed bag of good and bad news. I'm trying to turn lemons into lemonade. So I'll start with how I start every weekly update and go into what has been done this week. I've worked more on the auto task system and it's coming out pretty cool. You set up the steps to do a task and then assign the task to an employee. They just go and do it on their own. It has a bit of a logic element in where the player has to think about what step comes first. It also opens up the door to using this system to store a recipe. This is the task editing mode where it shows the steps both in a list and in the game as a line connecting each element. There's some bug in the system right now, but I've been slowly going through each one. I've been trying to keep a very clean code base. Hopefully v0.3.0 will be here soon. Now fo…
- Weekly Recap: It's going to be a whole new experience! - 25 September 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! So this week I've been working really hard on the employee automation system. I've created a task system that allows you to create a step by step job that your employee can complete. I don't have a lot to show as most of the actions have been hot keyed for testing purposes. But I can tell you that it's going to be a great addition to the game! You'll be able to create a job, assign it to your employee, then sit back and watch them go! I feel this will make thing a bit less tedious for repetitive tasks but will allow the player to explore more of the game as the automation is going on. I also can't help myself but I keep getting sidetracked with some quality of life things. I just added an object highlight when you mouse over an object. This hints to the new players what can be selected. It's a nice little feature that adds a tiny bit of polish. I also wanted to show…
- Weekly Recap: Sidetracked - 20 September 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! So the past week I was a bit sidetracked from what I planned to do. I started off working on the employee system and wanted to implement the skills system. During this development I was thinking heavily about gameplay. More specifically I was thinking about making things less graduated/binary and more nebulous. Its a bit weird to describe but I'll try my best. The employees used to have a complaint system, if they weren't paid, it added a complaint, if they couldn't get out at the end of their shift, they would gain a complaint. Too many complaints and they would quit. Something similar was in the works for contracts too. It was more graduated in where each contract would gain a streak for fulfilling it. While this is simple in a sense, it did make it harder to know exactly why each issue was a problem for an employee or contract. This is where I worked on a satisfac…
- Weekly Recap: Skills - 14 September 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! I'll keep it short this week because I don't have too much to talk about. I wish I could just show some code, as a lot of what I've done has been clean up. But the new A.I. system is much much more cleaner than the old code. I'm actually really pleased with how it came out. It will be a lot easier to add patrons in the tap room update that I have slated for in the future. Along with the new A.I. system, I redid the employee stats. Now employees have five main skills, maintenance, service, brewing, cleaning, and autonomy. When they level up, you will receive a skill point that you can put towards one of these skills. Each skill will help with the amount of time that it takes to do some task or it may allow that employee to do a higher skilled task. I'm also working on a goals system. This new system will add randomly created goal that will net you some extra cash or b…
- Weekly Recap: Pacing, Onboarding, and Gameplay - 6 September 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! As you might know, I released a small update last week dealing with the tutorial. I realized that Draught Kraft can be a difficult game at times, especially your fist time around. So I tried to address this slightly with the new tutorial. I suggest checking it out, there might be something you didn't know. I know the learning curve might not be the only problem. I see that pacing can be an issue for some people and I tried to mitigate this somewhat with the game value adjustments. But I might do a slight overhaul of some of the pricing in general (both money and unlocking). I'm also open to suggestions that you might have. I also figure that pacing might be a problem with the fact that you are one person in the beginning, and one person can only do so much. But this is where the employee system will come in handy. As I'm reworking the employee system, I realized that…
- Update 0.2.2! - 2 September 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! You're probably thinking "hey wasn't there just an update a few days ago?" and you would be correct! But I recently realized that the on boarding process for Draught Kraft might be a bit much for some people. I think the main game loop is pretty simple but the learning curve is short and steep. So I took the time to redo the tutorial. This new tutorial points out every step in creating a brew. I made it so you can't even select the wrong option! I also went through the guide menu. The new menu is slightly less wordy but at least it now has pictures! I'll be refining it a bit more as I update in the future but I'm hoping it will give a good in depth but not too overwhelming background into the game. The last thing I added (re-added) is the menu guide button to the interaction menu. Now when you right click on something, you should see a box that you can use to jump to…
- 0.2.1 UPDATE! - 28 August 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! This one deals with all things big and small! There's some bug fixes and minor changes, also there's now weather and seasons! Changes: -Added seasons based on quarters -Added weather, each season has its own weather patterns -Player can now convert inside location to outside or vice versa after expanding to that location -Background color changes with weather, time of day, and season -Expanding location sounds -Added grids for placing equipment, walls, and location details -Equipment will break if created/left outside -Ambient sounds such as birds, wind, and rain -New wall and floor texture content -Added Ambient Occ. and Motion Blur settings Bug Fixes: -Build smoke particles now show when building equipment -Selected equipment will be removed when exiting equipment mode -Selected location detail will be removed when exiting location mode -Shipment will be placed cor…
- Weekly Recap: A Bit Of Seasoning - 23 August 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! I have some eye candy this week! I've been trying to break the monotony of each day. So with variety being the spice of life, I added weather and seasons! With these systems, each day feels unique; and each quarter (season) has it's own feel. You start in Spring where the days seem fairly even with a few overcast days, some rain, but mostly sunny skys. Then comes Summer where the days are long and hot, the Sun sits high in the sky. The heat is followed by those classic summer thunder storms. Then Autumn rolls around, the ground follows the trends of oranges and browns, the shadows are exaggerated, and the Sun seems to consistently linger above the tree tops. You finish the year with Winter. The sun light seems shy, the ground is always cold and hard, but it's worth it for those few magical snow storms. It was quite enjoyable to create these systems. It brings a much…
- Weekly Recap: PR, Reviews, YouTube - 16 August 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! So with the release of the 0.2.0 update I took the initiative to get the game out there. Most of the past week has been sending copies to Steam Curators and seeking interest from YouTubers. Admittedly self-promotion is my biggest shortcoming. From my research it's one of the biggest things solo devs have a hard time with. Granted there are a ton of services made to help promote (I'm gotten more than enough requests) but the issue for a solo dev is the whole budget and results thing. There's no real way to see if any of these services will produce worth while results (I've been disappointed in the past). But none the less, I'll be doing my best. And those of you in the community that would like to help, I'd be much appreciative of it. Let your favorite Steamers or YouTubers know about the game, or even follow me @Vertnacular on Twitter. I haven't only been waving arou…
- 0.2.0 UPDATE! - 7 August 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! It feels like it's been quite some time since the last update and now the next one is here! In this update you will be able to upgrade from your garage location to a small warehouse setting, then you'll be able to expand your facility from there. Customize your location with a variety of wall papers and ground textures! Also add doors and windows to let the light in! The location customization adds a whole new cosmetic element to Draught Kraft. This is one of the major feature updates on the road to v1.0. I've been working on this update for a little over a month now and it's made me realize how much progress this game has made and how much there is still to go! I actually started the basic features of this game almost a year ago in my free time. Now I'm working on it almost every day, all day. So what's next? Well I posted a road map a few weeks ago detailing the ge…
- Weekly Recap: Finalization - 2 August 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! Content is coming together and I'm making sure everything is in working order. I'll be spending the next few days balancing content and trying to catch any edge case errors (but I'm sure some will always come up after release). If I have time, I'd like to add more wall and floor textures just to have more possibilities! I believe this update will be an exciting one. It will push the player to not only build out the functional aspects of their brewery but also the cosmetic. It's a whole new element to the game that will keep players coming back for more. And I might be getting way ahead of myself here, but this will be another thing that modders will be able to customize. I'm aiming for next Friday for this release (given everything goes well). Finally I'll give you a bit of what you can expect with this update with this image showing off some of the wall and floor te…
- Weekly Recap: Home Stretch - 27 July 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! Really not much to say or show this week. I'm finalizing every bit of code and making sure everything works correctly. This week I'll be adding in content like wall and floor textures, also decor like doors and windows. By the end of the week I should be in a testing phase and if everything works as intended, we'll have a new update next week! So it's a short one this week but be on the look out because next week should be pretty awesome! Happy Brewing! -Vertnacular
- Weekly Recap: Atmosphere - 19 July 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! The past week saw a lot of behind the scenes work to make things a bit more optimized. I rewrote the floor painting system to work more like a texture editor rather than just switching out textures. This turned some 2,816 game objects into just 44. I wasn't able to move onto content just yet because I want to have every bit of code in place and working nicely. But I was able to get some visual stuff this week! I teased the idea of weather, and while this may not be a snow storm or heavy rain; it does add some dynamic atmosphere. These clouds pass overhead and are randomly generated. It's a nice little touch and the system itself is now in place for other weather patterns. This coming week is a bit more back end stuff such as integrating the location edits to the save and load system and making the loading zone expand to your needs. Then... hopefully content. One last…
- Weekly Recap: Location Tools - 12 July 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! It's that time again! So this past week was putting together more of the prototyped systems into the game. I worked on adding a paint mode as you can see below. I was thinking of how to best go about this in terms of cost to the player. I feel that just about everything in the game is trying to get into your wallet, but then again I don't want the player to have everything from the beginning. So I compromised with the location editing system and made it so you need to have a minimum popularity level and enough money to unlock the texture, after that you can paint as much as you want! Some less visual things I added this week had to do with path finding. I'm not using any special A* or dynamic path finding systems but just the basic Unity NavMesh. I think I may have found out how to best make it psudo-dynamic by cutting out different areas and not allowing the charact…
- Weekly Recap: A day late :P - 6 July 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! I usually do these updates on Sundays but because of Freedom Fest it's a day late :) So last week was mainly integrating the prototype location building system. It's been going pretty smoothly and the only real problems are around design choices. I keep coming up with different ways I'd like to do things and trying to figure out what would work best for the player. One of these small changes was to allow for outdoor areas when expanding your brewery. This feature is geared towards a later update involving the creation of a tap room. I'd like to give the player a chance to create a beer garden that will give a slight bonus to the "aesthetic" qualities their tap room. This week is more integration of the system and creating a friendly interface for the player. From there I can start creating content and hopefully start some testing soon. So keep checking out for these…
- Weekly Recap: Now With Pictures! - 28 June 2020
Hey Fellow Brewers! This week I have some pictures for you. The location editing is almost out of prototyping and will soon I'll be integrating it into the main game system! Some of this is place holder textures and models but the basic system is there. So first image will be the basic room you start out with after you upgrade from your garage. It's a bit bigger and the image doesn't show the loading zone just yet but I'll be putting that in soon. From there you'll be able to expand in (*most) any direction you want. Each expansion will be a bit more expensive than the last. You'll then be able to build walls within these main room bounds. Use this to divide your production from your tap room (when fully added). Next build doors or windows to allow access for people and light! Then decorate the inside and outside walls with different wallpapers. A default dry wall texture is shown here.…
