March Development Update
What an unexpected month March turned out to be! It has been a very productive month for the Nestables team and we have lots of cool stuff to share with the community.
Pre-Alpha for all!
With NFTs going mainstream, the number of demands in our Telegram for people wanting to play the pre-alpha version of Nestables was so significant, we decided to release it for everyone to be able to play.
Previously, only those who had a Founder’s Nestable and Token could play. The requirement of these items meant people had to make a pretty significant investment in Nestables to be able to test out the pre-alpha version. If you haven’t tried out the pre-alpha version already and would like to do so, you can download it now. Make sure to download the version at the bottom of the download’s page.
Hundreds of people have downloaded it so far which is very exciting.
Development Progress
Furnace
Last month, we introduced the role of the furnace, a new tool that will be used to turn sand into glass, clay into bricks and will be used for a variety of other features into the future. Implementation of the furnace was completed and added ingame with animations.
Updated UI for Cooking
For those that have played around with the pre-alpha version, you would have noticed a mixture of UI in the game. We have slowly been moving from the basic testing UI across to something much more beautiful and user-friendly. This month, we have updated the cooking UI.
Continued AI Development
Last month, we talked a lot about the new AI system for Nestables. Significantly more work has been completed on it this month, with the introduction of an Activity Log to show what your Nestable has been up to while you were away.
A variety of new tasks have also been added into the AI for Nestables. If building a house / structure, the Nestable will now return to work on that project. Likewise, if the Nestable is researching a particular task, they will also continue on with that if they have had a nap. They will not start new tasks though.
Toys are Fun!
The pre-alpha version of Nestables had some very basic toys. Like all aspects of the game, there is significant room for growth and the introduction of more assets into the game. We have finally gotten around to adding a swing and slide to the game to keep your Nestables entertained.
Baby Nestables will also need their own set of toys to keep them entertained and happy. We have added several of these including a variety of soft toys which baby Nestables adore!
Compost and Trees
In the pre-alpha, fruit trees were very basic and we didn’t believe they would match up to community expectations. A new system was needed that would better integrate other aspects of gameplay and make the system more realistic. Unlike other crops that can be grown and harvested, how you harvest the produce of trees is very different.
Once a tree fruits, if players would like that tree to fruit again, compost will need to be applied to the tree. To start, compost will be collected in the mushroom biomes. Nestables will collect material for the compost bin. This material will take a while for compost to be created, with Nestables required to turn the compost at specific time intervals to get the most out of their compost bin.
