I think I have this concept art as far as I want to take it, which, for concept art, probably was overkill, but I figured I’d learn some things while doing it, and it would be good practice for making the real assets. I’m sure I’ll make many tweaks going forward, but it’s a start. I was starting to feel like rendering this out was taking a lot of time, and it did, so I’m eager to move on to something else.
Up Next: Map-Making & Auto-Tiling
I think making some actual game tiles and learning how to use Game Maker’s auto-tiling feature (or Tiled instead), may be my next task. I’m also considering whether I should procedurally-generate the maps, but my initial thought was that the game may be better served with pre-designed levels, as the challenge of building a city is largely regulated by the terrain and resource access. So a very grassy area makes for ease in placing new structures, but without access to water and resources, like trees and rocks, etc., it would be difficult to build a town that thrived. I feel that going the procedural route may make it difficult to create maps that offer the player challenging and interesting gameplay.
Trading Ability and Realistic Simulation
The sign in the window of the mercantile shop triggered a thought: it would be cool to have sales – so one day coffee might be 10 cents, and maybe 13 cents the next. In building your town, getting good deals and trading seems fun, and is in line with my desire to make the game a kind of realistic simulation.
I think I need to organize my thoughts surrounding the game play, as right now it’s a hodge-podge of ideas written in multiple notepads, and it’s hard to know what I’m aiming at and to really effectively brainstorm ideas. For that, I may give Milanote a try.
See you next time!
