This is the first post of what I intend to make a monthly report near the end of or at the beginning of each month. It’ll give you some insight into what I’ve been working on and an early look at new features and bug fixes.

Setting sail

We start this first monthly report with an update to ships and ship gameplay.

New cargo trading UI

The cargo shop UI has received an overhaul, making it easier to navigate and use. Items available for sale or purchase are listed in the box which says “Item Name”. On the far right there’s some basic information about how much of the total carrying capacity and storage space is used. They are still waiting for new graphics.

Cargo storage

The cargo storage room is receiving a small facelift, as well. Instead of having all the crates in the cargo hold visible at all times, it will now instead only show crates when there’s actual items in them. There’s also a new table with the cargo manifest, where you will be able to see all your current cargo, as well as dump unwanted items out.

Crewmates

Work has continued a bit on the crewmates system, and I’ve scaled it back from the original plan. You will still be able to hire NPCs to work on your ship, but there’s only one NPC per job, so you will have to find them in taverns throughout the world. Hiring crew gives your ship extra abilities and upgrades, such as fast travel (navigator job), faster cargo handling (cargo handler job) or further view distance (lookout job). I don’t have anything to show here just yet, as I’ve only done some backend work.

Piracy

I have also started planning how piracy is supposed to work. By sinking NPC ships, you should be able to loot some of the items they were carrying (but not all of them) and if this is done too close to land, your ships Wanted/Infamy level will rise. Having a too high Wanted/Infamy level will prevent the player from landing at major ports, which brings us to the next section about how you will land your ship. Piracy is not a planned feature for version 0.3.12.

Secret docking areas

These secret areas will be available with version 0.3.12 and can be used freely. They are not marked on your map or while sailing by default, but can be found either while walking on land or sailing close to the coast.

Dressing up

For the longest time, there was only two shirts and one pair of pants that characters could wear. For female sprites, it’s even worse, with only one shirt and a pair of pants. This is something I’m working hard on and intend to fix in the best way; making more varied clothes! 

Here’s a snippet of new clothing sprites that I’ve made. Barely any of them are implemented or fully animated yet, and still require the female variations to be made. In the end, the goal is to also have unique looking armor for the different regions and their soldiers.

Hairstyles

Another way of customizing your character that is currently lacking is the variety of hair styles. This is also something I’m working on, and here’s a small collection of styles that will eventually become available!

Storage Containers

The Storage Container system is one of the oldest systems in Wanderboots, and can in many ways be considered to be a legacy thing. This is why I’ve spent some time updating it to instead work like a shop with two states, Inventory and Storage. You can freely transfer items between each and it will retain items you may already have in your storage. Another benefit is that it can now more easily be controlled using a gamepad as well!

This is all I have for this month, I hope you enjoyed this little write up.