User Ergonomics 2026

Cute Feet

 Flaming June was particularly flaming, at least that's what the troglodytes of the MSM would want us to believe. At one point I found my father wearing a Christmas Jumper in the hope of staving off hypothermia ... admittedly that was only a single and abbarent occaision, and it has mostly been "PIGGING HOT".

So, ignoring straining CPU/GPU fans, we have still been productive on the development front.

This has mostly been about a continuation of enlistment with the AI raiding parties, and interfacing information of what the hecking doolalies the NPC are doing, so the player does not feel random embafflement as they just follow the Ai around blindly.

 This has all been part of upgrading the ergonomics, aka user comfort, of having an actual human bean, interfacing with the whole game environment, and not expecting them to be telepathic as to what my actual intentions were when designing the game. This has naturally been more of pain in the bottom than expected, and taken longer than desired due to faffing with GUIs.

There has also been some faffing with testing engine upgrades, due to Sony, that massive billion dollarooney corporation having created the model format the game engine relies on, somewhat ignoring it's own creation over the years, leading to Blender 3D dropping the exporter plugin recently. This has resulted in FBX becoming the dominant format, and a whole lot of engine rewriting to make certain that it actually works as intended.

 So after a month of mostly record breaking sweatiness, interspaced with a small period of freezing bloody cold, we have come to the stage of having to create the final parts of the User Interface, so the squidgy human (at least we hope it's going to be human but you can't tell these days) can actually get the game to work as the designer intended.

Next up, some branding images, and the long processes of a Steam submission, hoping that I have remembered all of the things required to pass said Steam submission process. 

Avoid The Draft - Enlist Today!

 I woke up drunk and found myself in the army, and that is why I forgot it was time for end of the month devBlog! A tale as old as time itself no doubt, personal experience not included, honest.

Well, here it is, a few days late. And what, pray tell was I doing that occupied my attention so much that I missed that fabled deadline which I had kept for the past 4 years? Enlisting of course! Enlisting in a favoured band of hardened warriors! Or maybe not even favoured, maybe any company of cut throat raiders that would have me. Because it's all an RNG as to how each and every warband will accept the player, and this RNG changes every time the player or that warband respawns.

Five Levels Of Diplomacy

 So there are 5 levels of diplomacy that each Raiding Party shows towards a neutral player. These range from; "Just find some pants to wear and we will take you", to the much more hostile; "Anything less than level 20 XP isn't good enough".

These responses also decide how that warband will treat the player when their blood is u, ranging from the friendliest avoiding the player at all costs, going through only engaging the player if they get in the way during combat, all the way to treating the player as a mortal enemy. It is usually best to avoid walking into someone elses pitched battle, and wait for things to calm down a little before inquiring about membership, or looting the corpses of the fallen for those all important pants.

But once you have enlisted in a warband, you get a cool motif on your shield, and every other warband declares you a sworn enemy. 

Blood Brother For One, Blood Vengeance For All Others

 You don't have to enlist in a warband if offered, and they will peacefully go about their business and ignore you - unless you cause them trouble, or until the player or themselves meet an untimely end and respawn.

But once you have enlisted, and become a sworn blood brother of that company of heroes, you get to follow them around on their merry journey and have pitched battles against many foes. This is when I discovered that the target lockOn system was useless in a melee as it would lock onto any target, friend or foe, and a melee was confusing enough without the camera sticking on the wrong target. A little bit of C++ later and the targeting system now only locks onto enemies which is a lot less confusing.

Me And The Danelaw Boys Heading Out To Cause A Ruckus!

 

The Ruckus Went Badly ...

 

Currently the player can only follow the warband around, or ignore them completely and go cause trouble alone on their behalf, but it is a shame to miss a pitched battle. In the future I do plan to code a ranking system, were the player can rise up the ranks and eventually lead the raiding party, with them then following the player around rather than vice versa.

Also allow me to introduce the Carolingians. They were supposed to be in from the start but the future planned warbands seemed a little Gallic heavy so I replaced them with the Lombards, but now they have been added in as well, bringing the current number of active warbands up to 8, which is about half of what I have planned, and I am still only up to the 11th Century.

Arming Yourself As A Warrior Involves More Than Just Finding Some Pants

 And here it is in video action! As my Saxon comrades and I take on the newcomers, the Carolingians. I have good weapons and armour, we have the high ground and our archers have superior range, and I was feeling quite confident ... right up to the moment I got staggered from a long axe blow coming in from the side and then skewered from behind when unable to defend myself. Ouch.

 So, that was the merry month of May. It started off with wind and rain, there was a bit of a heatwave over a weekend, and then it ended with wind and rain again.

This month will mostly be concerned with a bit of tweaking of code and assets, and generally making the menus more attractive, before finally sorting out a listing for Steam.

Classic RPG Inventory For Classic RPG Attributes

 A little difficult to have a game that heavily features looting - without having an inventory to buy, sell, upgrade and equip that loot! So the last month has been mostly spent making an interactive inventory system.

The system is fairly simple, sell loot at campfires for XP, then upgrade your stats so that you can equip and wear better combinations of the weapons and armour that you have looted!

The game features a rather classic RPG attributes system of STR, DEX, CON, etc as well as two career paths, of High Knight Noble and Low Knight Errant, which increase the player's wearable AP stat. The High Path costs more XP whilst increasing Rage Bar buffs - when critical strikes in battle negate enemy defence and massively increase damage - whilst the Low Path allows for quicker AP increases for far less Rage buffing. No more running about in your underpants once you unlock an armour type.

STR and DEX stats allow ever increasing weapon equipment, whilst CON is HP and STA allows for more sprinting, dodging, jumping, and heavy attacks. There is also ATH(letics) for faster running and further jumping and dodging. All very classic RPG style statistics and behaviours that any gamer (video or tabletop) would recognize - to the extent that I've only used the 3 letter abbreviations for the names (except ATHlectics which could equally be called AGIlity).

Whilst I might keep saying "simple" in this blogpost, actually getting the inventory working was a huge mix of trial and error (especially with gamepad only usage) and took the whole month of development.

And here it is in video action!

 With the player now able to loot and gain XP from it, and spend that XP to enhance and equip their character, the next big development milestone is to allow interaction with the NPC warbands. Whilst the various factions happily play the game all by themselves that is not particularly interesting for the squidgy humanoid sat behind the screen - so next up is making friends and enemies of the roaming NPC raiders! And after that, it's sorting out a page on the Steam Store for early access release! (which looks like it will be after the summer sale with the vetting time).