Wild West and Wizards Dev Blog

This update includes a number of new quests and more content to fill out the world. You can now find settler camps scattered across the land. Trade with their merchants, and talk to them to receive quests or hints about things in the area.

The Bounty Hunter's guild quest line has now been expanded and includes many new dungeons and points of interest. Talk to the leader of the bounty hunter outpost in the desert to find out how to raise in the ranks.

- Added settler camps in the Desert, Plains, and Forest zones.

- Expanded the Bounty Hunter quest line, and added a number of new associated dungeons and points of interest.

- Added new weapon drops

- Adjusting the near clipping plane to reduce problems with the camera clipping through walls.

- Added some new visuals to the Museum of Magic.

- New common enemy armor drops now work for enemies in the yonder.

- You can now re-obtain the Dragon Lilly if you've lost it during the quest The Chair Curse.

- Added some new teleport runes.

- Slightly increased the size of dialogue response boxes.

- Fixed torso disappearing at certain camera angles on dead enemies wearing dusters.

- Fixed colliders on some glass cases.

- Fixed description on the plains tower cell keys.

- Fixed description of the bellows weapon.

- Fixed lamp post in lake town being marked as an inn interior object.

- Fixed typo in the failed to place item message during the quest "A Treasure Hunt".

- Shield of souls no longer overwrites cloak of flames effect.

- Fixed an issue where a heal would count as dealing damage for Shield of Souls effect and Soul Splitter talent.

We added in two new outfit models, the Duster and the Cassock. Both of these new models will replace the clothes of certain NPCs throughout the game, as well as update the models of some items that you can equip.

A few things have been updated near edge town to improve the initial experience. This includes the addition of a new quest, a slight improvement to the Tools of the Trade quest, some new NPCs, and more. This is intended to bring the quality of some of the early quests up to more closely match those found in the later game.

Thanks to everyone who have taken the time to report bugs and other problems. With the influx of new players since we left early access, we were able to identify a number of bugs that previously went unnoticed. Some of these have been fixed in minor hotfixes, as well as in this update.

Previously, wearable equipment drops were, in general, exclusive to bosses and chests. We have now made it so that common enemies also have a rare chance of dropping these items.

We have some larger content additions in the works that will expand the quest line of the Bounty Hunter guild as well as add some new points of interest in the world. This update will likely come within the next few weeks.

- Added new clothing items: The Duster and Cassock Robe.
- Updated some NPCs with new clothes visuals.
- Fixed some visual issues in Forest Town.
- Fixed some visual issues in Edge Town.
- Added some new small areas to the beginning area.
- Added new potions to some loot tables.
- Bandits can now sometimes drop armor.
- Added some new points of interest to the desert.
- Buffed some repeater rifles.
- Improved the "Tools of The Trade" quest
- Decreased the difficulty of Furnace Master Edgar slightly.
- Added a new quest near Edge Town.
- Portals now save if you've activated them in the Shimmering Caverns.
- Tabitha can now re-give you a key if you lose it during her quest.
- Added collider to keep you from being able to interact with a blocked door by looking through a crack.
- You can no longer dodge while in the air.
- Fixed a hole in the geometry on top of Heaven's Overlook.
- Fixed overlapping floor geometry in museum of magic.
- Fixed malformed bottles in Elron's house.
- Fixed falling bottles in the mountain town blacksmith shop.
- Fixed some colliders on the exterior of Nigel's house in Down Town.
- Fixed a tilted shrine rock in Tinderfall Hollow.
- Fixed being able to interact with a secret door early in the abandoned wizard school.
- Fixed z-fighting on alchemist's shack in plains.
- Fixed the water effects of Lake Town's lake not extending deep enough.
- Removed collider from ice on the Brine rife, which could intercept spells.
- Fixed Gavyn still blocking the cellar door even after you have completed the quest Private Eye.
- Added tip when you start on how to wield your weapon.
- Fixed a bunch of typos.
- Soul Splitter orbs now fall to the ground, so they no longer get stuck way in the air.

We started working on Wild West and Wizards a little over two years ago. One of our main goals with this game was to cut our development time down to a two year cycle, but also increase the quantity and quality of content compared to our previous game, Salt. This was a challenge because this game, unlike Salt, was not procedurally generated. This means we had to build the entire world by hand which in theory takes a lot more time. 

Overall we are very happy with the amount of content in the game. Currently there are over 200 points of interest to discover, over 80 quests, three classes with unique talent trees, hundreds of items to loot, and a lot of secrets and puzzles spread across the world. Right now our development team only consists of two people, which means it can be a huge challenge trying to balance content, quality, and time with development. A lot of this also depends on how well a product sells which heavily influences how long we can support ourselves and the game. 

That being said, Wild West and Wizards didn't perform as well as we'd hoped but we were still able to complete our roadmap for the game and implement a ton of content. After launch, we'd like to continue to support the game with a least a few more content updates. The updates will include things like brand new bounty quests to complete, new large points of interests to explore, new quest lines, and new gear and loot to earn. We will also be fixing bugs and things of that nature as well.

So what is next for us at Lavaboots? Some of you will be happy to know we will be working on a sequel to our open world pirate game, Salt. With Salt 2, we'd like to drastically improve the visuals and aesthetics of the game from the original, as well as focus on what made Salt so fun to play and add some new twists as well. A large focus with the sequel will be on exploration, crafting, and ship customization. We want you to really be able to make a cozy home on your ship and spend a lot of time crafting and making it unique to you. 

Obviously right now we are in the very early stages of development and design with Salt 2, but we will be releasing more info on that soon. We plan on taking the same approach that we did with Wild West and Wizards, which is to increase quality and content, but decrease the development time so that you can play the game quicker and get updates faster. 

We are so appreciative of our community and couldn't make these games without you! Stay tuned over the next few months for more updates on Wild West and Wizards, as well as updates on the development of Salt 2. 

Thanks for reading!

A large focus of this update was to upgrade the look of the interface. Most placeholder interface elements have been replaced. There are still a few elements which still need to be udpated such as the stat bars for instance, so look for that to come later.

We have made some changes that will improve performance for some players, especially those who are CPU bound. The day/night cycle in particular was a source of a lot of CPU overhead. Instead of updating the sun and moon positions every frame, we now keep up with what time it should be internally, but update it visually only at strategic times, such as when you are going through a door or teleport. This will hopefully improve frame rate overall.

We have added volumetric lighting to the world, which adds a slight fog to the distance, and adds sunshafts. We think it especially improves the look of night-time. This can be disabled in the in-game options if you prefer it the old way.

While a large part of this update was focused on interface, performance, and graphics, we also added in a couple of new quests and points of interest to further progress on our mission to pack the world full.

Howdy everyone!

We are so excited to be releasing this game for you all and can’t wait for you to start your journey. 

Here’s a quick link to our launch trailer if you’d like to see what the gameplay is all about. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cidm6UDKCv0

As you start your adventure in the wild west you’ll be set free to explore at your own pace and discover the world of outlaws and wizards. There are three huge zones for you to explore: the desert, plains, and the forest. Each zone has quests, tons of points of interests, loot, puzzles, and secrets to discover. Here’s a look at just some of the content we plan on adding during the early access period. 

Cast Your Spells - Learn new abilities, cast an array of unique spells, and become the most powerful wizard in the west.

Discover the World - Explore a vast re-imagined wild west with over a hundred points of interests including homes, settlements, bandit camps, churches, cemeteries, caves, and more! All filled with quests, secrets, and puzzles.

Shoot and Loot - Loot tons of rare armor, weapons, and gold earning your fortune as you fight bosses, find secret treasure chests, and complete quests.

Customize Your Character - Level up your character and unlock new talents unique to your chosen class.

Stop by the Saloon - Discover towns and settlements filled with people, quests, and unique items to buy.

Also, don't forget to join our communities and let us know your feedback! Thanks for reading!

We love loot as much as the next person, but it just feels special to be able to see that loot on your character. That's why we implemented a system where you can see your character in your inventory and most of the equipment you have as well. We've also implemented a character creation system where you can do some small customization with your character's appearance before starting a new character. This change has really helped hone in on the RPG feel of the game and we're very excited to have it in. 

We knew before launch we needed more spells in the game and so recently we started working on implementing some. While we've still got more to go, we feel like we now have a decent base and variety of spells to earn throughout the game that will make you think about your playstyle. We've got multiple new damage spells such as fire bolt, orb of poison, or fire zone if you're into area-of-effect abilities. We've also added lots of new buff spells so you can buff certain stats before going into battle. 

As I said we've still got a lot more abilities we want to add and will continue to implement them as the game develops. 

Max level in Wild West and Wizards is level 20 but the game doesn't stop there. This past week we've been working on implementing some end game functionality so you can still earn good loot and experience a challenge past max level. As of right now, when you hit level 20 you'll have the option to transport yourself into an alternate dimension version of the game that looks much the same, except the enemies and treasure chests are all scaled up much higher. You'll also be able to continue to earn xp and every level you would gain past level 20 will earn you a random reward including new gear, weapons, or a rare upgrade orb. In addition to that, you'll be able to level your items a few levels past level 20 using brand new and rare upgrade orbs only attainable in the alternate dimension. 

We will still be adding more to the end game in the future including more unique loot, bosses, and content. 

We've also recently been working on finishing up the map implementation and changing some travel functionality. You can now zoom all the way out of your map and see any teleport runes you've unlocked. You can then travel to them from anywhere. This way you don't have to unnecessarily travel back to town to be able to use a teleport rune. This helps a lot in preventing you from having to back track over areas you've been too often. 

Another new change we've made recently is the addition of weapon chests. You can now find weapon key fragments on enemies every once in a while. If you collect five of these, a blacksmith can craft them into a tiered weapon key for you. These then can be used to open weapon chests scattered throughout the world that guarantee you a weapon drop. 

In addition to adding some new options and settings, we've also added the ability to set your own custom keybinds. This was a big requested feature so we were happy to get this in before launch! 

We've also added the ability to store your items by talking to any banker in town. And of course we've been consistently adding new quests and points of interests, as well as bug fixes and balancing changes. 

As always thank you for reading and we'd love to hear your feedback!

Last week added a new bounty to each town in the game. When you stroll into a new settlment you'll find a bounty board with a wanted poster on it. You can pick up these posters and it'll start a quest to find and hunt down a certain outlaw. Completing these quests will award you gold, upgrade orbs, quest xp, and sometimes unique items. These named outlaws are often found in camps, caves, and other places. We'll be adding more of these bounties after early access launch but we wanted to make sure that each town had it least one wanted quest for you to find. 

We also recently added a new puzzle cave area of the game called The Prophet's Sanctum. This is related to a longer quest line requiring you to track down a secret cult and stop them from...well I'll let you figure out the rest once you play. This area adds new puzzles, enemies, and some unique rewards. 

This past week we also added a lot of new journals and lore books. Now you'll often find small journals and notes at bandit camps, houses, and other places. Sometimes these are simply just the writings of a disgruntled old outlaw, but other times these can hint at unique items buried or hidden nearby. In addition to journals we've also added excerpts from larger texts hinting to some of the back story of the game. 

In addition to new content , we also added in Steam Cloud saving. So now your games will be saved in the cloud. We've also been working on a lot of bug fixes, balancing, and optimization to prepare for early access launch. We want the launch to be smooth as possible, and while I'm sure there will still be bugs we've missed, we're trying to make sure we get everything we can smooth and polished.

As always thank for reading and we'd love your feedback!  

If you've been following Wild West and Wizards, then you know one major aspect of the game is loot. We want there to be a ton of loot and for you to get excited when you open a chest or defeat a boss. We've spent a lot of time adding in different rarities of armor, weapons, and abilities. Most commonly you'll find armor but rarely you'll get a new gun upgrade or a new ability. On top of that, because we have our item level system, you'll be able to spend your gold and upgrade your abilities as you level. 

So for example let's you see find a rare shotgun that you really like at level 7, but then at level 12 it's starting to lag behind some of the current guns you're using. With our item upgrade system, you can level that gun up so it can stay current and powerful with your level. You can also level up armor and abilities. 

Over the last few weeks our main focus as far as loot goes has been adding new weapons. We've been working on adding some static weapon drops at bosses and also a pool of uncommon and rare weapons you can loot from chests. There are currently six weapon types in the world: revolvers, shotguns, double barrel shotguns, sawed off double barrel shotguns, rifles, and repeaters. Within each of those categories we've got different rarities, colors, and stats. Each gun functions differently as far as damage, range, rate of fire, bullet spread, etc. 

Overall we're pretty happy with the current pool of loot (over 300 items and counting) but we will continually be adding more as the game develops. 

We want your experience playing the game to be as easy and intuitive as possible, so we've been doing some work on the UI to make that happen. We've added functionality where you can now pretty much drag and drop an item wherever you want and that there are multiple ways to do things so it's easy to figure out. We've also rearranged some things such as your utility bar and added text to let you know that you can hold certain buttons to open your radial menus. This is an area we'll likely keep updating as we get more feedback but we wanted it to be in a good place at launch and be easy to figure out. 

We've also starting working on a settings menu to let you adjust audio, graphics, and things of that nature! 

As always we try to continually add new quests and things to do in the game with each update. We've recently added more quests to the starting area of the game to help you get acquainted with some of the mechanics and to earn some decent loot to get you started on your adventure. In addition to that we've added in a recommended level feature so when you obtain a quest, you can see what level you want to be before attempting it. Some quests may require you to travel farther into the world to some dangerous areas and this will help you know what you're getting into. 

We've recently added ice wizards as an enemy that can spawn in addition to the fire wizards. Since magic is a big part of the game, we want enemies to have different abilities they can use on you. This means now you have to watch for wizards casting fireballs that can do damage over time, or wizards casting ice shards that can slow down your movement speed. This is an area we're still updating so that we can have more enemy ability variations in the future. 

When making a large open world it's very easy to lose performance quickly when developing. There's a ton of things going on all around you and you have to optimize it in a way where it looks good but still runs smooth. We've spent a lot of time doing everything we can to make sure the game runs as good as possible. We use some streaming systems and other things so that you can see far out into the world but it won't bog down your performance. Recently we updated pretty much all building interiors to be their own "loadable" area which has helps a great deal in towns as far as performance goes. We've also built some systems to limit how far away AI will spawn which has also helped quite a bit. 

In addition to optimization we've also fixed a ton of bugs. We've pretty much been playing through as much of the game as possible looking for any issues and trying to polish it up. Our main focus is always to fix any major or game-breaking bugs, but since we've got most of those under control, we've been able to polish and fix a lot more minor things as well. 

Some other things we've been working on include new music and balancing. We're still adding more music to the game but our main focus has been making sure towns have music, bosses have music, and that there are some song variations when exploring the wilds. In addition to that we're still spending a good bit of time balancing the game such as enemy health and damage, how many enemies there are, and what kind of stats the player has as well. 

Thank you for your reading and as always we'd love to hear your feedback! 

Now throughout the world you can find scorpions wandering the wilds ready to attack! We believe that there's a good balance between exploration, combat, and quests. Adding in some creatures like scorpions help us achieve that balance. We don't want you to be overstimulated with constant outlaws and bandit camps, but we also don't want super long stretches of the world where you don't encounter enemies. Adding in scorpions helps us make this feel a bit more dynamic. You may be out in the wilderness exploring and instead of hitting yet another camp of outlaws, you might see a scorpion roaming around or be surprised by one shooting poison at you from the bushes. 

There are also multiple scorpion types and some of the rare ones, while more difficult, will offer good loot drops and therefore a reason to hunt for them. 

One of our main focuses with this game is to make sure there is a ton of content for you to experience. And as such we are always working on adding new quests. We have tried to strike a balance between quests you get from an NPC, and quests you find naturally while exploring. For example, you may enter a new town and discover there's been a murder and the sheriff wants you to investigate it and track down the killer. Or you may be exploring the wild and come across a graveyard with a rare ability scroll requiring you to complete a puzzle to unlock it. This balance between natural discoveries and quests found through NPCs is something we are always trying to refine but we feel like it's coming along well. 

This game at its core is about exploration, and of course, loot. Loot is very important in a game like this and so we're trying to constantly create new pieces of armor and weapons for you to find. Here's how the loot loop is working as of right now. Most bandit camps or bosses you find can drop a random piece of armor. Armor has different rarities, stats, and an item level that fit different playstyles. You'll find new armor pretty consistently and a lot of your time will be spent taking the armor that fits your playstyle to blacksmiths in order to upgrade its level and stats. 

Weapons and abilities however, are a bit more rare. When you find a new weapon or ability, it really means something. We want it to be exciting to get a new revolver or shotgun, and for it to be alongside you for a decent bit of the journey. That being said, we are adding a decent variety of weapons scattered throughout the world so be sure and explore every nook and cranny to collect them all. Different weapons will be like armor in that they have varying stats, but can also vary in ways such as reload speed, bullet spread, damage drop off, and things like that. 

In addition to the content mentioned above we've also been spending a lot of time balancing the game, fixing bugs, working on performance, and other under the hood tweaks to make the game polished and run well. This is still a work in progress as the world is very large and there's a lot to take into account when trying to polish and balance it. Overall it's coming along great though. 

As always thanks for reading and we'd love to hear your feedback! 

When playtesting we realized our world is pretty big and we wanted a nice balance between having to walk places but also some fast travel systems to avoid frustration. We generally want to avoid the concept of being able to fast travel anywhere, as it kind of cheapens the exploration. But on the other end of that it can be frustrating to have to go way back to town to upgrade gear, buy supplies, turn in quests, and so forth. 

So we've designed two basic travel systems for the time being. The first are bindstones. Each town in the game (there are six) will have a bindstone. You can interact with it and bind yourself to that location. This means you can use a return-to-home spell and instantly travel back to the place you last binded too. This is helpful as a big part of the game is returning to towns to level up gear, spells, replenish your stock, and turn in quests. However, there are still large expanses of the world where there are no towns and so we wanted a way outside of bindstones to be able to travel quickly to certain areas. This is where teleport runes come in. 

You can now find teleport runes in some places in the world. These are different than bindstones in that you have to be at a teleport rune in order to travel to another. You also have to unlock them before you can travel them. Each town wizard will have one but there will also be a few spread throughout the world. We're keeping them far enough part so there's still a good bit of exploration required. And not all teleport runes are easy to find. This way they are more of a reward for exploration rather than a way to avoid it.

We are still eventually planning to add a train system that you can actually ride in real time, but we wanted travel runes and bindstones in the meantime to act as a way to travel long distances later in the game.

Every good rpg needs a character creation system and so we've also been working on a system to allow you to create multiple characters, pick your class, and name your character. While we will likely only have one class at early access launch, we will be adding many more later and so you're going to want to create multiple new characters to test out the new classes. Eventually we'd like to add a way to see and customize some visuals of your character as well.

Every game deserves good music and so we've been working hard to make sure this game has the right balance between environmental ambiance and music. Some of the systems we've implemented recently are exploration music, new town music, and combat music. We've also set up a custom system to handle boss music so you can really feel epic when taking on unique enemies. 

A huge part of our work over the past couple of weeks has been balancing the game. The max player level right now is level 20. Your armor, spells, and weapons can also be leveled. And on top of that there will be various levels of enemies. We've been working a lot to make sure the natural progression of the game feels balanced so you actually feel like you're getting more powerful, but not so much that early parts of the game aren't fun anymore. We feel like we're honing in on a good mix of difficulty and player progression but of course we look forward to getting feedback from the community and further updating this system in the future as needed.

In addition to the content mentioned above, we've also been working on our map system and new loot chests. The map system allows you to see what you've uncovered in each zone and gives you an idea of where points of interest are in the world. The new loot chests are different tiered chests that can drop high level gear depending on where you are in the world. As you adventure into higher level areas, the chances for higher level loot chests increase and as such, a chance at rare or even epic gear. 

Not only have we added new loot but we've also added a lot of fun new quests. This is an area we'll also be continually updating after early access launch. Right now our goal is to have a good base number of quests, puzzles, and things to discover, but we'll be expanding upon that a lot as we update the game. 

As always thank you for reading and we'd love to hear your feedback!

One major area we've been working on recently is combat. We added a new hand animation for when you cast a spell and have been working on new enemy abilities and behaviors. When you encounter enemy wizards out in the wild west, we want them to have a variety of different spell options they can throw at you to keep you on your toes. Combat is still a work in progress but we're pretty happy with how it's coming along so far. 

The world of Wild West and Wizards is huge and we are working hard to make sure it doesn't feel too empty. This has been a lot of work for our small team but we think it's worth it and necessary for you to have a fun and adventurous exploration experience. We've been doing a lot of work adding new points interests, quests, and puzzles to each zone. This is something we will still be adding more to after early access launch but we want to make sure there is a good base of content for you to play from the beginning. 

We want exploring the world and fighting enemies to be rewarding, and as such we are adding a lot of loot! This past week we spent some time populating various treasure and bandit chests in the world with loot tables so you'll few rewarded when you clear a bandit camp or complete a puzzle. We're still working on this area of the game and are adding new and unique loot consistently. 

In addition to new loot, we've also been working on adding some unique spells and abilities! Recently we added an ability called Life Steal that allows you to take health from an opponent. We also added some abilities like Sacrifice Blood that lets you take your own health in exchange for mana (good for you non-muggle types), and abilities like Counter Spell that silence and stop an enemy's spell attack if timed correctly.

As always, thanks for reading and we'd love to hear your feedback!

One of the main areas of focus right now is still adding tons of new points of interests, quests, puzzles, and just things for you to do in general. We've got the world pretty much built from an environmental standpoint, but now we're going through and adding content for you to experience. This week we finished adding most points of interest to the desert biome and now we are moving on to the forest. Some of the points of interest you can expect to find are merchants, bandit camps, churches, caves, abandoned houses, towns, and a lot of secret places as well. While some areas are shorter than others, you'll come across some places that are full of intricate puzzles, challenges, and loot! 

In addition to working on things to do in the world, we also want there to be fun things to loot! Looting is a huge aspect of our game and we'll have the traditional RPG rarity system as well as item levels for loot. Over the past couple of weeks we worked on creating three new weapon types: the double barrel shotgun, the rifle, and repeater. Each gun feels very different and adds a unique playstyle whether it be up close and personal, or taking enemies out from a distance. We've also updated the hand models to look better with the new weapons!

On top of that we also finished getting our new clothing models implemented as well as hair and beard models. While this is something we will likely be expanding on in the future, we wanted a decent base of clothing and hair styles so you can customize your character and feel unique. This also helps us create more varied NPCs and enemies throughout the world. 

As I stated earlier we've been adding points of interest to world. We've also been adding enemies and enemy camps. A lot time has been spent deciding what level we want enemies to be in certain areas and things of that nature. In addition to that we've worked on new enemy types and unique loot drops. 

Also we've done some work on new behaviors such as dodging. Enemies can sometimes sidestep shots or spell attacks now. Also there are new enemy types such as shotgun enemies that will act differently and be more aggressive. 

We've also been doing a ton of work on other small things such as performance improvements, UI and icon updates, and under the hood tweaks. We want to have a big world full of stuff to do but we also want it to be a seamless and smooth experience. As such we are working hard on making sure the game runs well and loads everything smoothly. 

Thank you all so much again for reading and as always we would love to hear your feedback!