Apr 25, 2022
Caveworld Progress Update #3
Dear fellow Cavemen,
Welcome to the third, of many, Caveworld development updates! Over the past month, since our last development deep dive, we have begun the process of migrating all of our development milestones into our game engine. In this update, we seek to provide further information about various new features we plan on bringing to Caveworld and give you all insights on the progress we’ve made! Let’s begin!
Mechanics & Game Design:
Resources Introduction
We have officially established an entire economy surrounding our resources. These resources, which can be gained from explorations and disassembling items, will be useful for crafting and repairing items in Caveworld. At this stage, we have created 3 different tiers of resources (Basic, Advanced, and Master), defined their values, and finalized a system for crafting higher-tier resources by “spending” lower-tier ones. Additionally, there is a trading system built-in for swapping same-tier resources for another. This will be possible by paying a small “tax”. Below is one section of our much larger resources map. As you can see, each resource is useful in obtaining certain other items that can then be used to repair or crafting! Let’s dive in deeper.
The Resources Economy
Crafting Mechanics: There will be 2 ways to craft items. The first way is done by trading 3 lower-tiered items for 1 higher-tiered item. The second way is by spending resources to fulfilling certain item recipes. This will give players multiple ways and strategies for acquiring the exact items they want, without relying completely on in-game drops.
Repair Mechanics: The more an item is used in battle, the more the values of its stats decrease. Because of this, players will need to repair their items from time to time to avoid losing them all together. The system of repairing items revolve around using resources that the items are made from to bring the item back to peak condition.
Leveling Up: Items can be leveled up by spending more resources. A leveled-up item will have improved looks and stats, but will keep its original values for disassembly or trading.
Minting New Items: When minting an item in Caveworld, each one will have randomized unique stats and effects that differentiate them from other identical items.
Arena & Environment Design:
Grid Design: Although discussed in previous updates, the battle grid has undergone some minor updates. Most importantly, we’ve rearranged the grid so that Cavemen can travel in straight lines towards their enemies without having to zig-zag to them. The size of the grid has now been expanded to a total size of 12 by 7. Battle moves can more easily be done with this new grid design.
Arena Assets: Excitingly, 3D asset creation is now in full force through our Unreal Engine look dev scene. This means we can now create assets that fit the exact lighting and style we are aiming for. Over the past few weeks, dozens of assets have been popping up around the various zones in the arena. Below is a great example of one of the sections of our arena. Each item in this corner was uniquely modeled, textured, and colored to fit within the scene. Who’s excited to relax by the fire and cook up some mammoth meats?
Character Design:
New Textures & Rigging: Believe it or not, creating a video game character is not as easy as simply creating the 3D Caveman model! Every part of the body has to be perfectly rigged to wear our armors and apparel, and every part of the body needs to be able to move fluidly around the arena. We have hired the creators of our incredible teaser trailer, Funkeyz Animation, to complete our rigs and animate each unique animation in the arena. Over the next few weeks, expect to see some epic IN-GAME animations start popping up.
Special Effects: Our Technical Artist has also been producing some incredible special effects for a few of our props such as Shielding, Cloaking, Poison, and Lava. Check out some of of the works-in-progress below!
Armor Sets: As many of you know, we’ve been continuously developing armor sets for our Cavemen. One of our favorite upcoming sets is the Bear Set! As you can see, each piece of the armor, including the shield, is filled with an incredible amount of detail. It’s almost unfathomable! We cannot wait to see this set being worn in the arena!
We are also continually making edits to some of our older armor sets as well, perfecting their textures, colors, and appearances in the arena. Lighting is a huge challenge when building a game within a Cave, because although it’s naturally a dark space, we must ensure ample lighting to show off all of the assets! Below is an updated photo of our Fur Set in progress!
UI/UX Design:
At the moment, our UX engineer is working on creating a unified mobile and desktop marketplace experience for the dozens of items and armors that are, and will become, a part of Caveworld in the future! Although this is a huge undertaking, we’re confident it will be ready in time for game release! Additionally, our UI designer has started work on the design of the dozens of 2D assets that will occupy player inventories inside the game. It’s taken us numerous attempts to determine the ideal layout and orientation of our icons, but we’ve just about finished! Below are examples of our damage potion and axe!
Collaborations & Partner NFTs:
Perhaps the most exciting update of them all is that the team is coordinating and negotiating some major partner projects for game launch. We didn’t anticipate launching with partners right off the bat, and we still aren’t sure which phase the partner program will release, but we are confident closing a deal with one or two major projects in Solana will expand our reach to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of additional community members. Although some of our potential projects don’t have pre-made 3D assets, we will be aiding in building the art teams to create the required 3D models, armors, and weapons. We want the Caveworld quality to permeate into every piece of the game, partnership art included. A partnership with Caveworld is so much more than simple access to the ecosystem, it’s a full-on integration!
Also, since our last update, we were proud to be one of the many launch partners for Opensea’s Solana Event! We are excited to see what the ecosystem continues to build and are always searching for additional ways to expose Caveworld to the world.
Join the Community:
If you are not a part of our Discord community, we highly recommend it, as we are constantly dropping great alpha to our community. Simply visit discord.gg/caveworld to join, it’s free!
To find links to purchase Crypto Cavemen NFTs (our in-game characters) or $CAVE coin (our in-game token) visit our Linktree: http://linktr.ee/Caveworld!
OOGA BOOGA to all!
