Hello all, welcome to the new devlog for Tales of Elondria, a single-player RPG for PC (doing this for SEO :D).

This month was OK with some solid progress.

After wrapping up the combat mechanics last month, I focused on expanding the tavern’s functionality. While there was already a tavern in the game, it had been purely cosmetic until now.

I started by working on the store. Similar to the small farms in the game, the tavern mostly sells food like meat and vegetables. Every morning at 4 AM, their stock is refreshed.

Next, I wanted to create an immersive atmosphere for the tavern. So, I added a bard who plays a completely different playlist from the game’s music. When you enter the tavern, the main game music stops, and you’re treated to the bard’s tunes alongside the lively chatter of the tavern crowd. I’m really happy with how this turned out.

After that, I moved on to adding gambling. I did some research on medieval games and those from Tolkien’s world, and I settled on a high/low dice game (I can swear that I read it somewhere that high/low was a popular game in medieval times but later I couldnt find it where). Anyway, I implemented the high/low dice game, complete with UI, win/lose logic, and sound effects.

Speaking of sound, shoutout to Halfwits & Failed Crits (https://www.halfwitsfailedcrits.com/) for providing such great dice sounds. If you’re into actual play podcasts, check them out.

After finishing the high/low game, I took a small break because something wasn’t sitting right with me. I spent some time figuring out what the issue was and realized it was the tile panels—I had too many options on them, and it felt cluttered. So, I decided to restyle the panels. Thanks to feedback from the Discord community, we came up with a much cleaner design for all the tile panels in the game.

I also separated actions into two categories: tile-related and player-related. I removed player-related options like “Cook” and “Rest” from the tile panels. The “Invest” and “Buy Property” options were also removed and now appear in conversations with the tavern owner. This change freed up more space on the panels, and I took the opportunity to add more text to the tile descriptions, boosting immersion.

Next, I added some skills to the game. Since I don’t yet have skill trees for the player, I decided to introduce simple skills for NPCs. In this case, I focused on a wolf NPC. I added a bite skill and a howl skill, which buffs the wolf.

I’m really happy with how that turned out. I also added two new items dropped by wolves: wolf meat and wolf pelt.

So, that was September in a nutshell. Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you next month!

I’m also leaving a video from the tavern below you can watch 🙂