Kingdom Isles version 1.1 - The Explorer Update

Note: These patch notes are also available in-game as a visual presentation with pretty animations and ambient music! 

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the great support and the generous donations during the first beta release of Kingdom Isles! I have been given a lot of great feedback and messages from people who enjoy the game, which makes me super happy and motivated to keep on improving it! :)

Today i'm releasing a pretty large update. This is something i have been working on over the past couple of days, mainly addressing the feedback i have received and some further polishing i didn't have time for in the first release of the game. In this post, i will go over some of the changes shipping as of today. To describe it briefly, this update adds more depth to the game with new buildings and mechanics, makes game-play much more fluid with shortcuts and hotkeys, as well as a ton of bug fixes. 

Introducing: Spike Trap

The Spike Trap is a brand new military building. These sharp spikes damages enemies that attack them, while also having a respectable 1000 Hit Points. This means that they not only work as an extra layer to max out your defenses, but also as a cheaper wall in the early game. Overall, the spike trap aims to make the defensive part of the game more nuanced and fun. We will see how it plays, and if some variables are in need of tweaking.

The enemy wave system has also been tweaked, and enemies now attack consistently every 10 days. Waves do not always get exponentially larger though. Some are massive, and some are smaller to mainly keep the player on their toes, forcing them to strengthen their defenses and repair damaged regions of their island. Hopefully the Spike Trap can help make defending your kingdom a bit easier now that attacks are more frequent.

Introducing: Treasure Chest

The Treasure Chest appears rarely, but can give the player some great loot. It floats ashore just like other tiles, and can be opened for 1000 Gold. It contains great loot, such as up to 2000 gold, some rubies, tools, iron and gunpowder. There is however also a 20% chance that the chest grants you an ancient curse, reducing food and satisfaction. This makes it exciting to open them, and makes the overall game-play experience more fun.

If you get loot instead of a curse, you can see what the chest contains before you claim it. So, let's say that you for example are maxed out on gold when you open the chest. Then you can wait to claim the gold until you are in dire need of it, such as to build a mortar right before a large attack.

Introducing: Quick Deploy

A lot of the feedback received was regarding the Barracks and the general deploy mechanic. It was slow and annoying having to go into each Barack, deploy until it was empty, switch barracks and do the same procedure over and over again. This was especially tedious during the later stages of the game. 

This is no longer a problem, thanks to Quick Deploy! Simply right click on a tower to see how many soldiers are in it, and automatically deploy soldiers from non-empty barracks into it. This means that you can fill up your towers in just a couple of seconds! It works great and i am really happy with the result. 

The old mechanic is still active if you prefer that, or if you want to keep some extra soldiers in a particular, perhaps more safely placed barrack. The quick deploy mechanic searches barracks in the order they where built, meaning that the first barrack built will get emptied first if it has soldiers in it.

Introducing: New Repair Hut

The Repair Hut has also been one of the main subjects of change in this update. It was in a very basic state, being finished just days before the release of beta version 1.0. It was designed so that you only needed one, and it's user interface was very, very rough. 

The Repair Hut has now been given a range (same as the mortar), and can only repair within that range. This makes it so much more fun to use, requiring strategic placements and prioritizing different areas over others. It's UI has also been cleaned up. The beginning panel is smaller and less clunky, but still looks pretty ugly. This will get cleaned up in the future, but the repair interface however definitely looks a lot more clean. You now have a clearly visible icon on your mouse once the tool is active. The tool also has a different color if you are in range or not. Overall, the repair hut feels a lot more complete and faceted after this update.

Introducing: Kingdom Isles Soundtrack

The Kingdom Isles Soundtrack is now available in uncompressed quality, containing over 40 tracks! This is available to people who donate 2$ or more, and is a great way to support me and also get something extra in return. I am not sure how it works if you have already donated before. If the soundtrack is unavailable for you, please message me on twitter @Shad3x_dev and i will give it to you for free.

Bug fixes, changes and smaller improvements

-Satisfaction is now called "happiness"

-Ships now arrive at ports faster, reducing wait time

-Fixed a bug where the repair hut couldn't get destroyed

-Fixed a bug where the Blacksmith didn't restore happiness when destroyed

-Added tips when inspecting the castle and barracks

-Fixed a bug where the tutorial didn't turn off properly when disabled

-Fixed a rare bug where ships would sail through Ports, now putting them back to where they belong if this happens

-You can no longer build through the build menu interface

-The baracks UI can now be closed with "Escape"

-Added a Quick Help menu in the bottom right, telling the player some basic controls as well as days until the next attack

-Farms now cost 1 worker instead of 2, to help avoid getting stuck with no workers and too little food

-The Baracks now require 25 bricks instead of 30

-Enemies now attack every 10 days

-Mills now show how much food they will produce when you build them

-A bug where tiles sometimes stays red after enemies leave have been fixed, just wait a little and the tiles will eventually update.

-Fixed a bug where you could win when you had gotten the game over screen