1st September 2023
NOMAD MONTHLY ROUND-UP - AUGUST 2023 EDITION
Hello everyone!
If you asked anyone else what we’d been up to as a studio in August, they’d probably tell you that we’d been quite quiet. And while it might look like we’ve not done much from the outside, behind the scenes we’ve looked a lot more like this:
That’s right - we’ve been working our butts off on developing new stuff for CATAN® - Console Edition and our super secret projects we keep on talking about. It’s not been easy, but we’re all super proud of the work we’ve done over the last month.
So, let’s go over everything we’ve been doing!
August marked another big batch of CATAN - Console Edition milestones being smashed, as we continue working on new exciting content for the game! We mainly focused on development for Cities & Knights and the upcoming season packs, so there is a lot to cover!
The key things we worked on in August included:
Cities & Knights Design Doc
We mentioned this in last month’s round-up, but in August we put in the time to actually finish up the design document for Cities & Knights! This means that our team now have a clear image of what we need to implement, how we’re going to do the implementing, and how exactly all the different elements this DLC link together. Handy!
Milestone Check-Ins
As part of our ongoing development of CATAN - Console Edition, we have a number of different milestones that we need to meet at specific points in development - this is to make sure that we’re progressing on development as we’re expecting to, and that we’re on track to meet those release deadlines!
Progress Cards
For those unfamiliar with Cities & Knights, it replaces the development card deck from the base game with progress cards, to represent the advance of Science, Trade and Politics. We’ve now implemented these cards into the game, which is a big part of the Cities & Knights experience!
Description Text + Translations
With new expansions and seasonal content, comes the need to describe exactly what all this shiny new stuff is! So in August we finalised the store text for all of the new content coming your way. That also meant we could send it off to be translated, so everyone can know exactly what they’re getting!
Checking Expansion Compatibility
Something that we’ve tried to keep in mind from the very start of making CATAN - Console Edition is that it’s a game with a LOT of different expansions. These expansions all work together in different ways (check out the ‘possible combinations’ tab on this page on the official CATAN website for good examples of this), which can get confusing! The last thing we want to do is code ourselves into a corner, so we’re making sure that we don’t end up having to start fresh if we ever do implement these extra expansions!
Cities & Knights - Menu Options
What’s better than Cities & Knights technically working on a development build? Actually being able to choose it! In August, we updated the main menu and pre-game menus for the game, so that you can now enable Cities & Knights before you start.
Assigning Product IDs
Let’s say you buy a piece of DLC on the Xbox store. Store Product IDs make it so that each game knows what content to allow you to download, and what to enable in game. In August, we grabbed the Product IDs for all of the new stuff we’re working on, and then assign the same code to our in-game content (e.g. the Cities & Knights Expansion). So when you pay for Cities & Knights, you’ll get Cities & Knights!
Development Flip-Chart Implementation
Another key part of the Cities & Knights experience are the development flip-cards that each player is given. These are used to track your city improvements as the game progresses, and in August we took our first steps towards implementing this mechanic - we’re still at early stages, but the art mock-ups already look great!
And don’t forget, you can keep up with all the latest CATAN - Console Edition news by following the game on social media. The Helpers is only the beginning of future content for the game, so it’s well worth making sure you stay in the loop!
Another month, another secret project update! Now that we’re working on a full prototype of the final game, development work is occurring at a solid pace. While we can’t give out as much detail as we can with CATAN - Console Edition (you know, on account of it being SECRET and all), we can still give some fun updates - this is a game development blog after all!
So, in August we worked on:
Improving the collision detection between the environment and characters in the game.
Our QA team tried their absolute best to break the prototype in each way it could be broken - noticing these things early means it’s easier to fix them now than later!
Made some functional UI updates to better display information - we’re still a long way off from needing to put in effort for the UI, but we still need our QA/Design teams to be able to play the game easily!
Added some examples of aesthetic features the player will be able to choose from and unlock. What exactly are these aesthetic features? Wouldn’t you like to know!
We also have a big list of dialogue that we’ve been slowly adding to, and we have implemented some of that dialogue just to show that we can - the good news is, we can indeed do it!
We also prototyped the current version of the game to some very cool people, who confirmed that what we’re working on is indeed… very cool.
Like we’ve said every month of 2023, we’re super excited to show you all what we’re working on, but for now, we appreciate your patience.
Possibly the worst kept secret ever, we’re pleased to confirm we are indeed working on a physical disc/cartridge version of Talisman: Digital Edition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the physical board game! You’ll finally be able to hold Talisman: Digital Edition in your hands, which we hope you’re all excited for.
We’ll put out a proper announcement for it once we’ve got everything together we need to fully shout about it, but in the meantime, make sure you follow us on our various social media to hear announcements first!
Did you know that if you own Talisman expansions, characters and Legendary Decks on certain platforms, you can share that content with your other versions of Talisman? Turns out not everyone did!
That’s why we’ve put together a handy DLC syncing guide here on our website, so you should be able to easily set up your Nomad Account and enjoy Talisman on multiple devices.
We didn’t get any questions in the mailbag this month, so instead the Nomad team have questions for all of you!
What’s your favourite board game cafe that you’ve visited, and why?
And that’s the end of this months update! Don’t forget, if you’ve got questions you want to ask the Nomad team, you can always send your questions to questions@nomadgames.co.uk, or fill in the form below! We answer each and every question that comes in, so don’t worry if you want to ask us something weird. In fact, we’d encourage it!
If you’d like to follow us, keep up to date with us and generally just see all the cool things we do, you can find all our social links, games and more over on our Linktree - how handy!