The majority of the year so far has been focused on Adapt’s foundational architecture. On the player side, obvious changes include massive optimizations, new status effects and weapon select systems, both of which are dependent on new infrastructure behind the scenes, and increased density of both animals and vegetation. In addition to these technical enhancements, a good deal of time has been invested in expanding player interaction and feedback, with the intention of helping players feel connected with the world. Of course, these improvements will be on-going, but I am happy to say that the essential foundational elements are essentially complete.
Behind the scenes, this process has been a major undertaking. The new attribute infrastructure, lovingly dubbed “CAS,” (Character Attribute System), represents a complete rework of the way attributes are represented in Adapt, and has consolidated all genetics, food types, stats, status effects, abilities, and basically anything else with a name, icon, and value into one single comprehensive system, which can be completely built and rebuilt with minimal coding required. This is a major achievement, and in addition to being extremely extensible for me as a developer, has an added benefit. It is extremely modder-friendly.
So What’s Next?
The number one subject on my mind now is, “the road to release.” So let’s talk a bit about what that means. Aside from the expected cleanup and addition of more content such as parts, genetics, etc, there’s really only one major hurdle remaining before we can start talking about release dates, player advancement. In Adapt, player advancement will consist of three subsystems: Tasks, Objectives, and Achievements.
Tasks
Tasks are the lowest level of progression, and can be best thought of as NPC requests. They will replace the current social system, offering players a more involved and nuanced play loop when socializing. When a player interacts with another animal, they may be presented with a task. Once completed, the player will receive a small reward, as well as an improvement to their relationship with the animal offering the task.
Objectives
Objectives represent optional quest-like activities designed to incentivise behaving appropriately for your species. Activities such as mating/socializing during appropriate seasons, seeking out delicious treats, or displacing a pesky neighbor will reward players with DNA, as well as access to new genetics or part options for your species.
Achievements
The highest tier of this system is Achievements, which offer permanent access to parts and genetics for more significant or repeated successes. Like the other activities, rewards will be related to the type of achievement completed. Though achievements differ in that they allow players to begin future games with genetics they would otherwise have to unlock during play.
There’s a lot of work to do, and there are a number of other smaller additions and changes which will of course accompany this upcoming content. It’s been truly fantastic to see the excitement and creativity coming from players so far, and we can’t wait for what’s next. Thanks for reading and be sure to come join the discussion. We would love to hear your thoughts.
Roadmap
So as we heard from Paul there we are very much looking forward to the Road To Release (and further beyond!) – we recently consolidated the public roadmap, and migrated this over to Trello, so if you’re interest in checking this out, you can do so here: https://trello.com/b/XMQbYPee/adapt-roadmap