Grindshell alpha, two weeks in

The Grindshell alpha went live two weeks ago, and the game has changed almost daily since then.

Core systems

• Harvesting: gather resources out in the world
• Crafiting/Construction: build things instead relying on drops or buying them
• Quests: a first intro questline with more to come
• Tougher boss fights: bosses now move through phases and have breakable parts along with roaming beasts that can be pinned down and fought within a zone
• MUD-style input: explore inside zones using text inputs

Extra good stuff

• Simulated players: NPCs that behave like real players. They fight, recover, wander between zones, and keep the world feeling populated even when it’s quiet (and all using the same game logic as real players!)
  • The alpha has been running with 1,024 simulated players with minimal additional server load
• Skills, titles, and achievements: trainable passive skills (with a trainer to learn them from), equippable unit titles, and achievements to chase (account-wide and per-unit)
• Status effects: buffs and debuffs wired through both idle and active combat, with dispels.
• Local markets: per-zone markets with restocking and sell orders, sitting alongside the existing global market. A simulated player travels between markets to restock them with built-in items as well!
• A journal: contains quest details, an enemy bestiary, and account achievements
• Patch notes and a public task board: both visible in the client, so it’s easy to see what just changed and what’s being worked on next
• Account essentials: email verification, password reset, upgrading a guest account into a full one, and full data export and account deletion
• New player onboarding: a tutorial to ease new players in to the various systems and general gameplay loop
• Lots of performance and hardening work: memory, allocations, batching, and caching across both the server and the client, alongside steady mobile UI refinements

Two earlier projects also graduated from standalone pieces into the live game: stat derivation and combat math now run on Grindlang, and plugin-triggered dialog now goes through Dialogmark (sometimes).

Monetization

Monetization is still being worked out with one rule: no pay-to-win. At least, as much as possible while still making content that’s worth spending money on. More updates to come.

A beta is coming

The alpha has held together well enough that a beta isn’t far off. Alpha progress and accounts will be wiped and at least one wipe will be expected during the beta.