Niche Worlds Cult is back this week with an update on everything the indie studio accomplished in January on its throwback MMO Monsters & Memories – including an art test it’s calling Biome Jam.
“The goal of the Biome Jam was to see how quickly we could create new environmental themes,” NWC’s Shawn Lord explains. “We weren’t looking to make complete zones (and mostly reused the same terrain), but rather convey the theme through minimal use of new textures, props, lighting, and fog. This was meant to give us some insight into future work, while also just being fun and giving you a taste of things to come (both in the nearer term, as well as long-term).”
The Jam generated effort on the forest, snow, swamp, hill, and volcanic biomes; the studio has also been hard at work on the spider dungeon, a High Elf city, gnomes, wood elves, spiders, orcs, ogres, from the early art stage to animations and playable models.
Finally, NWC has a breakdown of its December playtest, which saw over 2000 players participate in some leg of the event – nearly 1000 of them concurrently. “A fair number of Stress Test players did not come back for the Public Test,” the team writes, noting that technical issues (frame rater and the server itself crapping out) probably kept some players from enjoying themselves, but the devs are working on that for the future. “The December public test greatly benefited from the November stress tests breaking so badly,” they note.
Tucked down at the end of the dev blog is a recap of two major features in the game: guilds and housing.
“In an end of year curveball, houses have been implemented in a very basic state. You can own a house (but not yet buy a house), and you can have co-owners, guests, and permissions defined. Doors may be locked or unlocked, and the whole house may be marked private and will kick Gnomish trespassers (who can as of now fit through many windows) to just outside the main door.”
