Hi everyone We're back with another Planetiles devlog and this time its inspired by a recurring question we're being asked - how in the world we have a spherical, curved surface and square blocks that wrap around it?
The short answer is - we sprinkled the planet with the quantum technology from the future! The longer answer is... ... we experiment a lot with prototypes before you see any game content we share. With Planetiles, our initial goal was to create a thinky tile-based game and explore different genres at the same time. We picked city/settlement builders as we're all avid fans of such games, keeping in mind all the incoming challenges such as wrapping non-bend tiles around a sphere.

Spherical Grid vs Square Tiles

We knew that keeping tiles square will be critical for having a good overview of the map, so we decided to use a special projection instead of a regular sphere. The trick is that as soon as the tiles begin to move away from the center, their vertices are being bent and their Y coordinate is adjusted instead of following the sphere on which they'd be placed normally. Below, you can see this in action:
Below, you can see that the squares are actually not squares - they just have a deformed geometry and we set the deformation grading at a very low level that is only slightly visible. This gif presents fields that are 100% square and the ones that are deformed. Our preference lays somewhere in between:
The idea presented above quite heavily influences players ability to count squares quickly and decide upon the next move. Having squares helps players to navigate through the grid and focus on the important part - structures evolution and solving missions.

Planet sizes

In Planetiles, you'll encounter different planets. There will be a variety of themes, pole caps, weather and of course - the size. Currently we're focusing on 3 types: Small planet - 360 squares total (9 vertical x 40 horizontal) Large planet - 800 squares total (16 vertical x 50 horizontal) Endless planet - no limit as the planet 'unwraps' like a rug We might add another size and also look forward to see your ideas and suggestions - feel invited to join our official Discord channel and chat about Planetiles. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2447030/Planetiles/ Follow MythicOwl & Planetiles: Planetiles website: https://theiterative.co/planetiles/ Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/MythicOwl/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MythicOwl/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/MythicOwlGames and https://twitter.com/planetiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mythicowl TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/mythicowl_games