Hello! Just a brief update this week. Like a lot of work recently, most of it has been focused on code and getting things up and running flawlessly for the early access release. But theres been some picture friendly work done as well. One thing Im putting a lot of work into at the moment, is expanding the number of decorations and customization items available at EA-launch. Ive added a few more decoration tiles along with a sort of step decoration inspired by rice paddies:
This can be used to cut off some of the blockiness. There will also be a sort of edge decoration made to hide the concrete look of the blocks. Some more decorations can be seen here:
Starting next week, I will start adding in a few more RCI buildings. These will be small footprint versions, instead of 44 they will be 22 in size. They will appear only in two densities for starters, as opposed to 5 for regular residences and commercial buildings and 4 for industrial. Also, they will only be available in 3 classes, as opposed to 5. This might change once the game has been released and more content gets added.
Research is more or less finished now. I need to add the save function to it, but that should be fairly straightforward with the system I have going. The research tree features 32 items, some of which unlock buildings and some which improve the functionality of buildings. Improving building efficiency comes in increments of 5%, so although it takes time and resources to research them fully, it can surely be worth it.
Ive continued to polish block placement and made some adjustments to avoid misplacement and other annoyances. All in all, the system works much better and allows for more flexibility. The campaign mode is now properly in the works too. The campaign will feature fairly simple levels that are meant to ease the player into the different systems in the game (building/sculpting, planning, trade, taxes/economy and research among others).