A lot is being done for the up-and-coming singe player NPC And Loot Beta demo coming out shortly. The target date is October the 2nd and the project will be available for download baring any issues on our Itch page.

Internal testers will be getting a private link at least 24 hours beforehand. A lot has changed since our zone exploration demo that has been available since May 16 of 2021. As the loot table with 503 items and 25 zones will be populated with NPCs in the upcoming update.

While everything won’t be as I would like it. This is still quite an early version of the game with quite a long road ahead for development, learning, and improving. The last couple of months have been a bit of a struggle but like with most things keeping at it a little at a time and you start to reach where you are heading.

Here are some of the most recent changes made that will be included in the next demo. In addition to many things included in former posts. The focus will be on NPCs and loot. As such many things have not been tied into the new systems and will be disabled for the time being. Future updates bringing more things into the fold as they get bought up to speed.

Zone Changes

Main Menu

• Camera issues fixed
• Screenshot being used as backdrop removed revealing the scene
• UI issues fixed

Jail

• High-quality lighting re-baked
• Zone portal improved
• Quest NPC removed
• Unwanted NPCs removed
• Broken NPCS fixed
• Doors improved (slightly)
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• A couple of wall gaps closed
• Navigation mesh updated
• Lighting changes
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Upper Dungeon

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Unwanted NPCs removed
• Broken NPC type fixed

Outdoor Map

• Invisible walls closed in so players can no longer explore outside of town
• Quest NPCS removed
• Shop Keeper NPCs removed
• Lighting re-baked
• Zone portals to other zones added back in at starting area

Soldiers Quarters

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Broken NPC type fixed

Underground Crypt

• Zone mesh moved to close gaps
• Lighting re-built as high quality
• Doors improved (slightly)
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Lower Prison

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Anguish

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Abyss

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Navigation mesh updated

Underground Temple

• Invisible walls over the edge increased to prevent players from jumping out of the zone.
• Broken NPC type fixed
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Navigation mesh updated

The Passage

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Underground Ruins

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Navigation mesh updated

Insanity Realm

• Zone loot fixed
• Lag caused by particles reduced
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Navigation mesh updated

The Fallen

• Zone portal was missing and has been re-added
• Gaps in wall fixed
• Lighting re-built as high quality
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

The Tower

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Eternal River

• Invisible walls river improved
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Nightmare Oasis

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing
• Broken NPCs type fixed

Temple OF Minotaur

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Overgrowth

• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

The Great Divide

• Loot table fixed
• Invisible walls over the divide and bridge increased in size.
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved
• Navigation mesh updated
• NPC damage reduced for beta testing

Dragon's Lair

• Dragon’s decupling fixed
• Zone portal improved
• NPC animations improved
• NPC BP and AI improved

Arena 1

• Night Stalker boss fight changed

Arena 2

• Nightmare boss fight changed

Arena 3

• Night Walker boss fight changed

Arena 4

• Nightslith boss fight re-made

Arena 5

• Night Terror boss fight added

Item Table

• A conflict in the table resulting in 150 items equipping in the wrong slots fixed
• 50 Items missing their 2d icons have been fixed

NPCs Other

• Death sounds added to all NPCs
• Bone socket for weapon adjusted

UI

• Over 20 improvements were made to the UI to resolve issues, high-resolution monitors, where having
• Unused UI’s removed from main

Audio

• 55 warnings reported by UE4 resolved

Characters

• While only the paladin character will be playable for the up and coming demo some warnings have been resolved for the other characters.

Other

• 1 TB of old and redundant hard backups purged
• Unused action mapping removed/deactivated
• Dev action mapping removed
• missing files warning for packing reduced by 150
• 14 blueprint warnings resolved
• Over 200 other miscellaneous warnings resolved
• Many dozes of unused assets cleaned/removed

Test Build

Since it has been a considerable long time since a shipping build was compiled. One was made to find bugs and reduce the time the next one would take. The build ended up failing twice before all critical errors were corrected.

The first build took around six hours before it failed to compile. Subsequent builds have taken significantly less time to build as fewer shaders needing re-compiling and fewer warnings are slowing down the process.

Final Thoughts

While the up-and-coming beta test is a single player game. The project is slowly having a lot more server components added in for future multiplayer if I’m able to work all that out and go that route. If all else fails I’ll at least have created a single-player game.

There are still a lot of features that won’t be added by the next beta test like stats having the weight and usefulness I want from gear. Along with a lot of bugs like volume menu issues. The project seems to be more and more on track for a release in 2023. Whether that be a single player or a multiplayer with blockchain integration is still unknown. Still far too much to learn and problems to solve to be certain.

I’m looking forward to the days where I only spend my time in a couple of zones in a giving week. As opposed to 25 zones like I have been over the past few months every week. The insanity of this project only grows.

Other Posts

• 57. This Week At Nightly Dungeon 7/25/21
• 58. Considering Upgrading To Unreal Engine 4.27
• 59

Information

Screenshot(s) were taken and content was written by @Enjar of @EnjarGames. Screenshot(s) are from Nightly Dungeon and Unreal Engine 4.

Game roadmap.
Nightly Dungeon on Twitter.
Nightly Dungeon on Itch.