Goodbye 2024, Hello 2025!

Happy new year! On behalf of the entire Erios development team (which is just me), I’d want to thank you for being part of this community. Eventhough most of you are silent spectators, once the demo is ready, I am sure that you are going to enjoy your first experience within the magical world of Erios.

I started writing Erios back in 2015, so 2025 is going to mark the 10th year anniversary of the World of Erios!

Although it has been a while since my last blog, a lot of progress has happened to the game. Perhaps so much, that I was too focussed to start writing another blog post. The main issue I encounter with Erios is finding time for its development, so when I do have the time, I prefer to spend as much as possible of it on development. Making a great game is the first priority, advertising it will come more once the demo is there. If you aren’t in the discord yet, I’d highly advise you to join it, as I do share progress there very frequently.

2024

So, what happened in 2024? Well, a lot. Lets do a short recap over the major features that were introduced this year:

Mod Editor

I have invested a lot of time into setting up the structure to make Erios compatible for mods. Yet as I was making the logic compatible with mods, as with the design you have to keep in mind that dynamic data most be able to be loaded & unloaded throughout various points of the game, I started to realize that all of this is quite technical. Sure, an experienced programmer could just access their own IDE & tools to start to develop mods, yet this isn’t so accessible for the average user. It also all relies on external tools which aren’t part of Erios. So, what did I do? I made an in-game mod editor. Yup, a whole in-game mod editor to play around with and create mods. You can basically create a game build upon Erios its mechanics, within Erios. So Erios is now a game that can make new games. Pretty cool right?

The Mod Editor currently features:

• Level Editor
  • Node & component based system
  • Object manip tool (position, rotation, scale, local, snap)
  • Terrain editor
  • Templates, allowing to easily re-use previously created objects
• Code Editor
• Json Editor
• Image Inspector (supports all common image file extensions)
• Dependency manager (to use other mods as dependencies)

Low Polifier

I created this tool back in 2022 in Unity, and now I have ported it over to Godot. With the Low Polifier, I can convert high poly objects into the low poly art style so that it will match Erios. This basically means that I can use any 3D model, convert it to be compatible with Erios its art style, and thus use it within the game. This allows me to use so many assets, that its difficult to chose which to use O_o

Automated Testing & Deployment

I develop Erios all by myself. Which means I am the lead developer, lead level designer, lead quest writing, lead artist and so forth. Just the solo developer. The less repetitive tasks I have to do, the more time I can spend on other tasks. Testing takes time. For instance the main menu, to make sure that each button works, and shows the correct UI menus once pressed. Sure, this task itself just takes seconds, but if I’d have to do this everytime prior to a build, it would sum up together with everything else that needs to be tested. The more systems Erios gets, the more complex it becomes, and thus the more time it requires to test it. This task is also partially covered by the testing team, but it will be unrealistic to expect them to test everything again during each new build. So, automated testing via integration tests! It will run the game, perform actions and assert that they are correct (AAA testing).

One other thing which would always take time, is to create a build and share it with testers. It would take around 30 minutes for me to go through this process. Set the correct verion number, hit the build, create zip files, upload it, write the patch notes. Basically doing the same thing each time. So, I automated the CI/CD pprocess (Continious Integration & Continious Development).

So, how the flow works now: I click on a button on Github, and:

1. The game will be build for Windows & Linux
2. Integration tests will be ran on both Windows & Linux
3. The build will be uploaded to Steam
4. A message is sent on discord to notify the testers that a new build is available

Saves me a lot of time, and also enables me to share builds more easily with the testers (if you are tester and you read this, you are awesome!. You can also become a tester, just join the discord and give me a ping!)

Everything else

So, I’d say, those are just 3 highlights for Erios, for me theres a lot more! So here a short list of everything else.

• I got married, woooo~
• Improved a design for ECG (Erios Card Game). Based on a card game I designed in 2019, now I want to bring this project back to life in Erios. So in Erios you can collect cards, and eventually you can also play a game with these cards. Erios, the game of games!
• Implemented EDL (Erios Dialogue Language). NPCs don’t have voice acting, but they will create sounds while speaking
• Time System. Time flies so quickly, luckily I can pause it through the time service in Erios. I haven’t found this option yet on earth…
• Multiplayer: Chat System. You can chat with other people in an online session! How to start an online session? Well, I think that part is almost working… But the chat works!
• Chat Commands: Type a command, and the command does something. Mods can also add extra commands, and the commands also work for the console
• Multiplayer: Lobby System. I have written a Lobby API system, so whenever you host a server, it will, if hosted as a public server, register itself to the lobby server. Then at the lobby server, other players can discover the server and connect to it. If a server is hosted as private, then players will need the IP address to connect.
• Saving & Loading. As a fun fact, I first implemented saving. So the game could be saved, but only after a week, you could also load the game again. Priorities.
• If you are reading this far, thank you! Send me a message on discord and I will name an item after you (you have to message me before the 6th of January 2025 tho)
• Key Bindings! Default key bindings are best key bindings, but accessibility is very import to me. So, you can change them, its okay.
• Notifications system! If something goes wrong, you will see a message at the top of your screen, so hopefully you will not see this at all!
• Implemented creatures, with the deer being the first creature. It can run 10000 deer at 70+ FPS, should be more than enough performance for now. I want to increase this further, but I had to tell myself to continue with other features
• Quick Save & Quick Load. The challenge was to make sure the saving & loading was actually quick! More performance!
• UI Scaling. UI too small or too big, you can scale it up/down! Accessibility points++
• Custom fonts & font settings. You can change the default font of the game, and also tweak with its settings
• ResourcePacks: Kinda like a mod, but only for customization features like custom fonts
• More UI Scaling. Godot its UI system allows either everything to be scaled, or nothing to be scaled. So I had to write my own implementation so that specific elements will scale, whereas others will not.
• Lots of Mod & Level Editor features (just try it out). Mods can now actually be started within the game!
• Erios has its own scripting language: Lunaris! Based on LUA, but with extra features! This will have its own announcement later.
• Erios has its own forums! Join now at: https://forum.erios.io and become its 6th member! Yeah, we are still a small community.

And finally, items, equipment & inventory. I am currently working on this feature. I will show it once its done.

Upcoming

So what’s next? Well, a lot. 2025 is going to be another year full with updates. The main things I want to implement next year are:

• Finishing the Items, Equipment & Inventory systems
• Skills, mining is going to be the first skill, but there is going to be a lot more of them (perhaps 18?)
• Dialogue System. Talk with the NPCs, and learn more things
• Quest, Schedule & Task System. NPCs will follow a daily routine, complete tasks and ask/tell you to do things
• Dynamic Events. Erios is a world, random stuff is bound to happen, and that will be possible through the dynamic events system

Is there something you want to see added in 2025? Well, send me a message and I will try to include it. Erios is a world that we should all enjoy, and feedback from the community is greatly valued!

Message from the developer

Thank you for being part of Erios in 2024, and I am looking forward to see everyone of you in 2025! 2025 will not be the year in which the public demo is going to be ready, but for sure I will be able to make a lot of progress towards it. See you soon!

- Lithrun