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Hope you enjoy the game in its currently state. :)

***** CASTLE LO MANIA *****
* OPEN PUBLIC Alpha V0.46 OUT NOW
Free to Play

If you are interested in being kept up to date then a Discord for CASTLE LOW MANIA is available.
FOLLOW THE GAME HERE ON ITCH.IO THE HOME OF GREAT INDIE

About this Download
V0.46 is an open alpha and is available for free. It is currently only available for Windows 64bit. As an open alpha a lot of the game remains either to be added in, finished or for bugs to be fixed. It is provided as is and does not represent the finished game. A discord is available should you wish to get involved in the games development and keep up to date with the latest development news.

Creating a New Cuastom Map
* First name the map and press enter, this creates a save file
* Next create your heraldry and then your biome
* Then Edit your map using the seed numbers as you wish.
* Then start new game
* Wait until enemy factions have been placed on the map before exiting the map.
* Your map has now been saved successfuly and will appear in the drop down list of saved games. 

Fantasy Map Creation
When you have created you map save file name you can select if you want the map to be a fantasy map by ticking the check box "Fantasy". After a few moments the map will update to include a lot more cliffs and other epic landscape feature.

Battle Maps
There has been limited development of this game mode.

Biome Options
You can ajust the sliders provided to customise your map even more. Some trees etc only appear at certain altitudes such as pine. Broad leaf trees prefer flatter and lower level areas.

Reporting Bugs
* You can report bugs on the Discord in the feedback channel.

Know Bugs & Other Issues
In this development build the hostage system is yet to fully added. Buttons on the main game UI offer you the chance to ransom a hostage, try and escape of cancel. Should you wish to buy a hostage back you will need the gold. Should you wish to try and escape you will need to find the exit to the dungeon. Wait until the game generation (bottom left) states Finished before tying any gameplay in the dungeons.

Farming
You will not be able to farm during winter. If for some reason your villagers refuse to farm in any other season then go back to the main menu and load in the game again.

Towers
You are unable to collect bodies, swords, armour, helmets and sheilds from towers. This will be fixed later through development. Towers showing your flag will not open fire on enemy. Left click on a tower to alternative between opening fire and ceasing. Right click and select produce should a villager or knight die while defending a tower, this clears it ready for someone else to take thier place. 

Skipping Seasons
If you wish to skip a month do so during daytime otherwise you will end up with some strange effects. These will correct themselves come morning. When loading your game time of day is not yet included.

Mining
Sometimes your villages will attempt to get too close to mines, pickup items or generaly glitch out. Persist by moving your villager away and trying to select the item again.If they point blank refuse to work then check to see that they have access to your town hall building as this  is most likely the reason for their refusing to do as instructed. Keep in mind all the tasks you assign a villager will go towards their skills.

Generating Text - Bottom Left
This text provides you with information on the games loading status. Only once this text states that the Generating is Finished will you be able to try and escape the dungeons.

Villager Recovery
Should a villager be injured you will need the herbalist building to save them. The Herbalist building like all producing buildings need to be set to produce to work. To do this left click on the building and select produce. An active building has your heraldry showing outside.

Enemy Factions & Diplomacy
Enemy factions wage war on a random loop at the moment. Any alliances you form may be short lived. Once  peace is agreed with a waring faction that does not mean the knights out in the field have heard this information yet.

Repairing Weapons
You can repair weapons if you build a blacksmith. A small icon will appear in the villagers weapon layout panel giving you a cost to do so.

Weapons
When you pick up weapons and ask a villager to drop that weapon, or if they are involved in a fight and drop the box containing the weapon it will not appear in your inventory list even though the main weapon UI (left side below resources) has increased by +1 upon delivery. This is a known bug. Other issues can arise when you start to produce your own weapons through the blacksmith building.

Wolves
In order to kill wolves your villagers will need weapons. If they do not have a weaopn then some protection can be had with helmets and other armour.

Viking Camps
You will be able to see camp fires burning on the island and these are viking camp sites. To remove the menace simply walk towards them and they will be put out, thus confusing the vikings so that they no longer gather on your island. Town Centre Building Do not fence this building in too tightly as it is needed by villagers, if you surround and lock the doors to your Town Hall Building villagers will struggle to perform work tasks, make sure they have access in and out unless it is an emergency.

Hi Exca,
Glad you like the new name, I think its a lot better than the CA one I was using.

Thank you Marion, I hope you enjoy the dev build when its available and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it. 

Hi Alexx,
If you are having some problem with the paths then this video will help you. More points are better as it allows you to then expand from those path points later on when your park has more cash. Your first path will always be a loop if that helps you.

Thank you for your post as its important I find out how people are playing, issues they have, things they find easy to do etc. Hope you stick at it and I look forward to seeing how you get on.

5x5 22 Monument Park Test
This was a big park with a lot of paths and is the largest Ive made in a while. It was made on a custom ecology with just Oak Trees and some lakes. I let the oak grow and removed ones later on which did not grown to renown status. This is something you can try yourself.


Above: This monument reached 100 visitors so a small firework display was held to mark the occasion.


Above: Large Scotts Pine dwarf other tree species and will give your park a more stately home feel.




Above: Thats a of monuments and a lot to manage, its also a lot of firework displays.


Above: The effect of snow at the base of trees is something I will be working on as development continues. I think it looks GREAT!!!!

Hi Parkers,

I have good news as the old UE5.0.3 has now been upgraded to the Unreal Engine 5.1 which is a relief. Throughout the development of the game way back in UE4 it was my intention to avoid too many plugins, engine edits and so on so that updating to newer engine versions was less painful, and thanks to EPIC that has largely been the case. I am delighted to get the game into 5.1 and will be moving it onto 5.2 as and when I feel that version of the engine has had enough time for bug fixes etc. Obviously an engine update brings with it all the advancements the EPIC team have made over the past year and I look forward to implementing some of the more advanced features when I get chance. For now my focus, as always, is in finishing off the game to a reasonable standard before I start the process of fine tuning it all and adding in improvements.

Development Update News on 3rd July 2023

Hi Parkers,
Development of the game is progressing well in Unreal Engine 5 and I hope to update the engine over the coming weeks, from 5.0.1 to 5.1 and then up onto 5.2. This is a fairly time consuming task given in every update EPIC will have changed something that needs changed in the code to make it compile again. But that is the way it goes and the benefits are worth the hassle. I will  keep you posted on this side of development as it does make a difference to what I can do in the game with the latest tech being available and updated etc.

Demo updates will continue as I develope the game so that you can test out and check out the latest game features.

A place to share your opinions on development, share ideas and so on.

4x4 European Ecology Map Test With Stone Age Monuments


Above: A fairly complicated park with a lot of paths


Above: Cactus are one the plant species you can scale yourself instead of them growing.


Above: Retail outlets were spaced out in this park to catch every tourist possible.


Above: As you can see it was a fairly complicated park


Above: Come Autumn the park looked even more amazing :)

GETTING A FARM UP AND RUNNING
Farming can be a very profitable way to get a park up and running and in this simple guide we will get you started on your way.



In order to start planting you will need to go to the CROP MENU and build the park office building (cost 1000*) and also generate a small amount of power from a solar panel.

Once you have those two items purchased and placed on your map its time to add in some fields. To do this select the field tool and then right click on your park to start terraforming the land into fields, it costs 50* per click. Once you have created your field area you should see some white boxes appear, these are your fields. To highlight them all use the option in the CROP MENU, once you have them all selected then select a crop to plant. Some crops are more profitable than others, some grow faster, some are more expensive and so on. Once planted your crops will grow and once ready will provide your park with some income. 

To ensure great crop profits make sure your fields have irrigation around them. You can check on your crops by using the crop indicators found at the top right.

Remeber that you can use farming, livestock and tourists to generate profits all at the same time.

5x5 14 Monument Park Test


Above: I used diffrent colour lighting to make the monument stand out.


Above: This park has a lot of donation items and a repair shop to keep them all working.


Above: Most of the park is now lit but I have more expandsion and landscaping to do.


Above: I invested a lot in rental outlets.


Above: With the Greek Monuments I did some terraforming to produce a pond round the one in the foreground. :)

GETTING A SHEEP FARM UP AND RUNNING
Sheep can be purchased from the open market for 1000* each. How many you want to buy to start with is up to you. 1x sheep will breed so you can start with one and wait for the lambs to appear to increase your flock.  A sheep will need to reach 3 years of age before it will produce lambs. You can see sheep by right clicking on them and your park will receive the cash amount shown in the sheep UI indicators. Sheep have a maximum value of around 500* so you will need to decide when to sell them to maximise profits.


Above: To buy sheep head to the CROP MENU and at the end you will find sheep controls.

Controling Sheep
Sheep currently have a few control options, these are follow the player or graze. Clicking on the follow player will make the sheep follow the player, Graze mode allows them to wander freely and find food for themselves. You can also speed the sheep up with the other menu button. These buttons are On/Off so if you want to stop the sheep following the player remember to click the button again. For sheep information use the sheep icon found at the top right.

Creating Pastures
In the CROP MENU you will find a pasture tool at the start of the Menu, select it. Once selected right click on your land to start creating pastures for your sheep. Sheep eat grass and the pastures will produce a lot of grass consistantly for them to eat. If you dont have pastures sheep will head towards grass to eat. You can fence sheep in to pastures if you wish. Gates and some fence code improvements will be added as development continues, for now just jump over fences.




Above: An experiment using trees to keep the sheep in the field.


Above: Your more traditional fence approach to keeping your sheep and lambs safe.

Coming Soon
I will be experimenting with field hedges as development continues. In the image above you can see that I have used spruce trees to form a basic hedge to keep the sheep in, opposed to a fence. This worked fairly well but will need some additional code and new models for hedges before its included in the game. Some sheep will die due to natural causes and simply vanish off the map. Other livestock options will be made available as development continues.

3x3 Test Map
Greek Park Theme

PEACH PARK
5x5 Map Testing

GETTING A TOURIST PARK UP AND RUNNING

Your first priority is to get a path made and add in some basic park services, that is if you are wanting to go the way of a tourist based park.

To get your path made click on PATHS and then click on the first icon. Once you have done that right click on the map where you want your park points to go. Once you have made a rough looping path click the second button from the left to create your path.

Once you have done that you will see blue path nodes, these can be right clicked and moved should you want to edit you path at any point in time. The nodes are also used to extend you path system by adding on junctions, they can also be raised and lowerd to give your paths more variety and allow your tourists better views of your park.

Once you are happy with your path its time to think about some basic park services, these come in the form of trash disposal and seating. Click on PARK and then select a type of trash can you want to use. Next place some around your park at even intervals so that your tourists dont just drop litter around your park, which will bring with it a park penalty and fewer tourists.

Then add in a large trash processing bin so that your smaller bins are emptied. If your park has black bags laying around then you will end up attracting rats. To make sure you dont have any rats in your park highlight the warning icon in the very top right of the menu. Remember that the more tourists and retail outlets your park has the more litter your park will produce. If you end up seeing black bags in your park you can manualy remove them or whats more recommended is to buy more large trash processing bins.

You can now OPEN your park and tourists will start to visit, the number of tourists your park receives is based on your parks PARK SCORE ( PS+ ). By adding seating, retail, attractions etc your park score will increase as it will by adding in nature such as trees, rocks etc. Its important to keep an eye on your park score as selling trees for imber and mining rock will reduce your  park score, after all tourists come to see nature and monuments not a barren wasteland. Editing the terrain and adding in water features and hills will also increase your park score.