Version 1.1.0 Changelog:

• World is now near infinite in size
• View around character is limited
• Encounters that are too far away will despawn
• Now you can save your games!
• Save/Load options added to main menu
• Quicksave and Quickload keybindings
• Music is more melodic
• Game tips on title screen
• Rest restores 100% of your health
• Encounter difficulty reduced to get in more encounters between rests

This is the first major update of Sverdheim after declaring it “finished”.

This new update changes the world from a limited, rectangular size, bounded by void, to near infinite! Its size is bound by the limits of the 32 bit integer. Doing the math, that’s 2,147,483,647 areas, time 16 (areas are 16 x 16 hexes) gives you a world that’s 34,359,738,352 hexes along each axis. If you were to walk from one end to the other in a straight line, it would take you over 1,000 years.

So that’s plenty of room for adventure!

With that change, some other components of the game needed to change with it. Most notably is the new, circular field of view. Since the game generates the world as you move into new areas, I limited your view so you don’t see the magic happening beyond. I tried to chose a range that showed you enough of the world around you, yet not so huge that you could see everything. I’ve got it on the list to make it work like a fog of war, where visited areas remain revealed, but for now, you’ll just see your immediate surroundings.

It’s like a smaller window on a larger world.

I’ve tuned up the music a bit. Someone said that it was sounding harsh, and I agreed. So hopefully the changes are a bit more melodic. I’m leaning more on the random sequencer than the percussion samples. The game music is still generative, and now it’s infinite as well! Personally, I love it. I’ve found myself running the game in the background of other tasks I’m doing just to listen to the music. Since it changes over time, it never gets old for me.

Encounter balance has been adjusted. Before, it seemed like I would get into one fight, and more frequently needed to run away than stay and win. There also seemed to be a ratio of one fight, followed by five rest attempts. This wasn’t fun. I wanted the ratio to be about the other way around. So now the enemies are a little easier to beat and resting restores your full health. I’ll be tweaking this balance in future updates if we feel it’s too easy or hard.

There’s other, smaller changes and details that I’ll get into in future blog posts over the coming weeks.

But for now, go forth and kill some monsters!