Legacy Roadmap (2022)

This is an archive of the development roadmap, as published in May 2022. See the current roadmap.

Concept demo

V2 "Night and Day" - November 2022 - published on 30 November 2022

• Time of day simulation via the global ambient color and sky color gradients.
• Sleep simulation for the player and the animals. Building a shelter is now highly recommended: the predators do roam at night!
• Magic spell editor improvements:
  • Fragment descriptions.
  • Fragment parameter names.
• Mental exhaustion when drawing energy.
• New spell fragments: force pull and terrain anchor.

V3 "Fire and Frost" - May 2023 - published on 30 June 2023

• Fire propagation. Making a campfire inside your wooden hut is not a great idea anymore.
• Temperature mechanics. The nights just got colder.
• Mountain generation. Rock terrain blocks. Cliffs and ravines. - pushed back to V4
• Magic spell editor improvements:
  • Fragment configuration that does not require the player to know by heart the option names or the value ranges.
  • Fragment information at a glance (directly in the left pane).
• Enchantments (the ability to add spells to objects).

Pre-alpha

V4 "Berries and Weeds" - November 2023 - published on 13 May 2024

• Improved interface:
  • Updated menu backgrounds.
  • Better fonts.
  • Decent icons.
• Thirst mechanics. Liquid containers. Wells. - not published yet
• Foraging. Berries and new types of grass.
• Illness mechanics. Infections and poisoning. - infections not published yet
• Information on the player's health in the main menu (a new tab).
• Fullscreen support.
• Built-in feedback support.

The V4 is the first version I plan to announce to a larger audience (via forums etc.).

V5 - March 2024

• Fixes and usability improvements following the launch of the V4.
• Better object placement and snapping (in particular, for roof construction).
• Natural-looking trees (randomized size, number of branches, and so on).

Alpha

Starting from summer 2024, and provided there is at least some feedback from the community (meaning people I do not personally know) with respect to the V4 and V5, I plan to speed up the development significantly. The release cycle will accelerate accordingly, with a new release every 6 or 8 weeks.

The topics I would like to work on during this phase include, roughly in this order:

• Skills. Skill experience: increased efficiency and unlockable actions.
• Clothes. Cloth salvaging and sewing.
• Advanced woodcutting: ability to cut logs into smaller chunks.
• Rabbits or other small animals.
• Structure generation: abandoned houses or towers.
• Climbing.
• Small rivers and lakes. One can play in a world without bodies of water only for so long! This topic includes air supply and drowning mechanics.
• Semi-dynamic local lighting. Underground, in particular, it should be dark.
• New regions: savannas and steppes.
• Rain.
• Visibility increased to 200 meters (650 feet).
• Birds.
• Swimming.
• Modding. The MagicScript engine behind the magic simulation, the AI, and even the menus makes Arcs Of Magic perfectly suited for the full modding support. In particular, all world generation routines will be made available to the MagicScript engine. This will give a great world creation freedom to mod authors.
• New regions: deserts and snow planes.
• Music.

Beta ("Early access")

The ultimate goal for me is to put together a team that would be able to give this project the time and the care it deserves.

At this stage (most likely, by summer 2026), the roadmap should become heavily influenced by the community feedback. But, of course, I already have some ideas of my own:

• Flowing water simulation.
• Seas and oceans. Islands and archipelagos.
• New regions: wetlands and swamps.
• Visibility increased to 800 meters (0.5 miles).
• New regions: rainforests and jungles.
• Controlling animals. Too wounded to get back to your cabin for medical supplies? Possess a wolf and fetch what is needed in no time. Want to see what's hidden behind the walls? Become a raven and fly over them.

Long term:

• Multiplayer. The foundations for the multiplayer engine are already there, as the game was built from the very beginning with multiplayer in mind. Yet, defining and balancing the multiplayer modes, and solving various performance issues that may arise will certainly prove tricky. This makes me focus on getting the single player experience as advanced as possible before spending any time on the multiplayer.
• Villages and towns, missions and quests. I love the survival games and their ambience. But I also believe that the unlimited magic crafting possibilities will truly shine in a game world filled with hamlets, villages, farms, port towns, castles, outposts, and all kinds of people living and working in them. This would be a huge undertaking and will only be possible if I manage to secure the necessary resources for its development.

I do not have an exact timeline for this, but as soon as I feel that the project starts to stand on its own feet and the game becomes truly fun to play, I will consider selling it rather than giving it out for free. The goal is, of course, to eventually finance the development of progressively more features, more regions, ... more magic!

Until then, please bear with me. I hope you enjoy playing the game, even in its early stages, as much as I enjoy creating it!

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See the current roadmap