0.0.4 Alpha - Notifications 🔔

Hello you! Here is another alpha updated for Ringtail! 🦝

There are quite a few minor tweaks and bug fixes, but the headlining new feature is the Notification system.

Notifications

I needed to signal to the player that they learned a new word. The main mechanic of the game is talking to NPCs you don’t yet understand so that you can pick up words of their language. So I built this notification system that can be used for all kinds of notifications.

There is a new global NotificationManager that any entity can post a notification to with some text and an optional icon reference. A little box will pop up in the bottom left corner of the screen and pause there for a moment before disappearing. If multiple notifications come in at the same time they stack nicely and disappear in the order they come in.

Now players get notified whenever they learn a new word. Right now that is happening two at a time but as the world grows that will reduce down to one at a time to encourage exploration of the world.

Eventually I will use this system for other types of notifications as well, such as achievements earned and game feedback such as “game saved”.

Pond

I’ve started more work on the park area of the world including a new pond sprite. This area is going to grow to be sort of a “central park” that will be surrounded by houses and the city.

The Future

Here is a small list of features and enhancements to look forward to in the near future:

• Pause ability
• Options menu with text speed settings (eventually other accessibility settings as well such as more legible fonts)
• Save and continue game progress
• Known/unknown words interface
• and much more…

I post updates a couple times a week on my Twitter and Instagram accounts, both @wolfpeachgames.

Also follow us here on Itch.io for these more detailed updates. Each new update will be accompanied with the latest alpha version with new features and fixes!

🐺🍑🎮