Well, after the open source announcement and the final sale that some of you wanted, the game will finally be removed from Steam on Friday the 19th August at an unknown time. Sorry for everyone who believed in the game but also a big thank you for all your support that I have received during the time developing the game. It wasn't at all for the bin. I learned a lot and I am applying that knowledge right now in building a base project. A project that has all the core features like savegames and my data-driven workflow that me and my programmer developed for Endciv. Instead of using the custom ECS Setup I move to Unitys ECS and DOTS packages. This allows for much higher performant games, hundreds of thousands of objects and I am intrigued to see what can be done. But I don't want to promise anything. Just so much that if you like RTS/Econ Sim and Building games and have some faith in my skills then you are invited to join the Endciv discord: https://discord.gg/ahazEZT Because this is the easiest place where I will post my progress and all the future steps, but don't expect posts and concrete projects too early. I simply say that because there are in general ways to benefit owners of Endciv in one way or the other. Farewell!

[ 2022-08-16 10:45:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

A stripped-down version of the game is now open source. Functionality and content is limited: https://github.com/McDev02/Endciv-OpenSource In case you need support and help with development visit the Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UC9PjhF In case you have a concrete interest in continuing the development of Endciv as a "fan" project or your own derivative of it, based on the full project and additional sources, then reach out to: contact@crowbox.de All this is done to provide potential content for customers as I have promised in the past if development won't finish. Maybe the game will continue somehow, maybe other games are made quicker with parts of the code base from Endciv. Maybe a new open-source and free game will be made and I am glad to help if I can as this project is not easy to work with but provides the fundamental basics to kickstart a project quicker. Not only for personal reasons development of Endciv had to be halted and is now finally taken down from sale on Steam as soon as possible. EDIT: I'll consider the sale/price drop beforehand.

[ 2022-07-03 13:27:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Everyone. Today Id like to explain a few technical aspects of what we have been working on recently. The next playable update to download will be available in June. Grid map data The map is divided into grids. As you can see here, the resolution of the grid is two times higher than the grid you see when you construct buildings. The reason for that is that it allows us to end up with a variety of patterns when placing buildings.
As you see below in the middle, there can still be a path between objects even though they are placed next to each other. If we would allow you to build on the small grid then you would have much more micromanagement to do in order to keep the desired space.
For some objects this is not the case, such as houses. Those you can place wall on wall while their full area is not walkable by units. The blue cells indicate this, those have a special value. This also means that we can have multiple objects on the same grid cell as long as the rules allow it. We add more and more layers but this has proven itself. It aids performance, decoupled code architecture, and multithreading to read the values from the grid map rather than iterating over entities and their data. Grid map Simulation We have several layers of data that are derived from the core data which we assign through the terrain or the buildings. Some of them are updated constantly but at a low rate. Due to performance issues, these layers had to be downsampled and we could even downscale them once more if we have to. The system works good and on a separate Task (C#). Currently, we only suffer a bit from garbage allocation but we will tackle this next week, the core algorithm is very memory friendly.
Open Area Used for pathfinding. The trader vehicle is a much bigger object than a human being. The vehicle should avoid narrow paths where it wouldnt fit or had issues to steer. By using thresholds to cost on such tiles (on Dijkstra integration cost) we achieve that the vehicle bypasses narrow paths. Nevertheless, this is a threshold and not explicit. If the required bypass becomes too big then the vehicle would even drive over piles on the ground. Density Indicates how densely an area is cultivated. This can be used to find out where city borders are and where it might be nicer to live. Animals will usually avoid the town area. Therefore children usually stay within the town area. Well, usually. Pollution So far the only simulated value. By that I mean it changes over time. If there are corpses, waste or unclean outhouses then their environment will become polluted. Once the source of pollution is gone the area will recover. Pollution is not only stinky but also a threat to health. Food will rot faster in polluted areas and that can be a tipping point as rotting food causes organic waste which causes a higher rate of rotting. Islands Island IDs are used for pathfinding and tell the AI if there even exists a path between two points even before a pathfinding algorithm is being initiated. For each encapsulated area there is a new island. There are also portals (general term for doors, gates, stairs, etc.) that can connect islands.
There are many more data sets but these are the derived data sets. Entity Component System We are using an Entity Component System (ECS). In short form, this divides the code into entities, components, and systems. All aspects in the game like a building or a unit is an entity with various components assigned. Components are for instance Production, Cattle, or Inventory which hold relevant data and can be saved to disk. Most of the game logic is performed in systems. Usually, there is one system for each Component but some systems also handle multiple components. We use this right from the beginning but made tremendous changes to the code base. Now it is much more flexible and easier to extend and maintain. Our entities are designed in the editor using ScriptableObjects which we call StaticData. Here is an example of what this looks like for the pasture.
Notice that it has a pasture component which (in fact its system) is responsible for most of the logic of this building but it also needs other components like the inventory so it can store food for the animals. Also, each building has a construction component that defines everything required to construct the building. Energy/Power system We developed a new system for power. Power is a general term, it can be produced by various sources: wind, solar, combustion, and electricity. Electricity basically is only a medium for power and was generated by one of the other sources. What we changed was the way power generation and consumption happens. We are now very flexible in designing new facilities, thanks to the new ECS setup. For instance, each component can be powered. By default it has an efficiency of 100%. When we link a power source to the feature then the efficiency will be defined by the source instead. Here are some examples to illustrate this: A workshop only requires labor force, therefore the production component has no power source attached. A workshop that requires electricity is linked to a power source: electricity component and will therefore only work if it is connected to the electricity grid and power is available. A solar collector has a power generator component which is connected to a power source: solar component. So depending on sunlight the efficiency of the power generator changes and outputs more or less electricity. The flexibility here is that we can use the same component and change its behavior by simply adding another component and leaving the other one unchanged. But most importantly each existing component class like the production component does not have to know anything about the power system at all. Next up I will go into more detail on the gameplay related updates and what is planned for the next few months.

[ 2019-06-01 18:44:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Everyone. Things are taking a little longer but more and more features are coming together right now. Here is a list of the recent developments and what you can except soon. Construction Animations I was planning this for a while now and finally I could make a first version of this system. Without performance loss each object can now grow piece by piece. I will add this animation for each building one by one to replace the placeholder scale-up animation we currently have.
Performance note Shadow rendering is not very efficient right now and I noticed on a slower machine that the game can run very slow. Also the shadow options seem not working properly. So if the game runs bad on you machine it can be related to that issue and I will provide the option to reduce shadow quality that really aids performance. In the long run I will also be able to improve overall performance so that higher quality will also run on slower machines. Refactoring and labor force As you may know this game is mainly developed by one programmer (2 days a week) and myself (up to 4 days a week). That is not much workforce at all. Usually we are very effective and get things done without major tweaks and issues afterwards. Although from time to time you must maintain code and one of these things was our Entity-Component system as well as the AI system. Originally it was developed by myself, but my programmer had a few ideas to streamline the system. What I try to explain is that it took him about 6 days to make these changes which results in 3 weeks as he can only work fixed hours per week. Also this prevents me from doing anything game-logic related. That is the downside of such a small team. Therefore, we will only make such changes if they seem necessary and provide a benefit to the development process. With the growing number of components/features it was necessary to make this change. Adding new features is now much easier and some aspects like saving the data is automated by that framework. As a result the video was delayed and I want to update it once the new features are in the game. Weather and season system I was working on the weather model and came up with a rather simple solution that seems to fulfill all requirements. For example the weather should be predictable and consistent. For example, If you play three matches with a slight change of rain then the average amount of rainfall of all three games shall be similar and not rely on luck.
Here are two graphs which show the same weather seed with two different parameters. If it is cold enough rain will turn into snow. You can notice for example that thunder is much more likely in summer and very unlikely in winter, which is usual at least here in Europe. The major benefit of this system is that it can be adapted quickly by providing different presets. Later in development I plan to offer different scenarios like hot and dry weather or heavy winters. Rain sounds have been added, too. Thunder, wind and all the other sounds will be added step by step. Texture Streaming Currently the load times of people are very slow. I therefore added async texture creation so if you have many people in your city and load a savegame for example the people may remain grey for a while. Later I will improve this to load much faster, there are several ways such as utilizing the GPU. Cattle and Farming We are improving the agriculture and livestock aspect of the game. Farming is already part of the game and will be updated with the next build. Cattle is in the making but I cannot promise that it is in the next build already but most likely in the second next build. A more technical related post will come later this week. Thanks for reading!

[ 2019-05-13 14:03:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Screenshots on the store front have been updated. A video will follow! Today I want to go into more detail on what is new. Next to the UI update you basically got more control over certain aspects. That is a general way this early access plan works, first we may introduce features in a simple way and then add more control and details to it over time. Town info There are banners on the top panel which tell you what is going on in the town. You can click on these and they select the affected entities or open a window. Here they show 5 homeless, 2 thirsty people, an available trader and 2 people who want to join the town.
Toolbar On the bottom of the screen is the toolbar. I tried color coded underlines, let me know if you like that. It shall be pretty self explanatory but here is a hint:
Notice: People now autonomously gather resources from the environment. With the pickaxe tool you can mark these piles which shall be gathered first. You can adjust this later but for now people gather resources as long as you have at least 10% empty space in your storages. The notifications that pop up on the lower left hand side of the screen currently disappear when you click on them but they shall behave the same way. Trader The trader finally made it to the game. He will come in various iterations but currently at least each 3rd day. A trader truck arrives nearby your town. When you click on it you can open the trader window for a limited amount of time and make only one trade. Then he disappears. We dont have to talk about balancing yet, this will be a task lasting beyond the early access state. Also some of the items dont make sense currently but we are about to change this next.
Rations You can now adjust how much food and water your citizens consume each day. People can survive quite a while without nutrition but become unhappy quite quickly. Later the options in this window will be extended, e.g. water consumption for hygiene or other things will be necessary.
As a side node these windows can now be dragged around and they will snap to each other. Immigration In order to get new people to join your town you first need to have excessive housing space. Then according to this value more people will ask for shelter. You can click on the blue banner on the top of the screen to open the Immigration window. There you can accept or deny a group of people.
For further iteration there shall be stories of each individual group and the kind of people you can choose from will vary. Also it would eventually cost you reputation if you dont accept a lonely group of children for example. Children and society Economically children are actually a burden. They work only up to half of the day as adults do and they only perform labor tasks. Also children get shelter and food in a higher priority than adults. But of course they will have positive effects on your society, but currently there is no such feature. Children usually equal family and families are more likely to behave properly. If you have a town only full of scum then you will have a lot of trouble. That was a quick introduction. I may can go into detail of some more development related changes next. Thanks for your support :)

[ 2019-03-28 18:42:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! I know, I betrayed you guys again. To me Steam is still a platform for release related things and sadly in the past 3 months the game was not ready to be published. For the most part of this year only I was working on the game but my programmer will continue as usual from next week. Reasons for that was that I had to deal with other things first before I could have someone else working on the project. Now when my programmer is again working on the project we are not only having better pace again but I can also deal with other things such as communication, graphics etc. and as these fundamental work is done we can now focus on new features again which make regular updates a given. One of such issues was that I ported to a new Unity version but apparently it turned out that this produced a major bug in the editor and downgrading again took me a whole weekend for example. One of the big updates and why it took so long was the UI. Maybe it sounds not that important but it was really necessary. With the UI redesign not only the visuals changed but a few things under the hood. So for example there now is a true retina UI which means you can scale the UI up if it is too small and the quality doesnt suffer from that.
Another thing is that you can move most windows around now and they snap to the screen and other windows.
But also usability has improved a lot as you will notice. UI is one of the most time-consuming aspects of game development but now it is done. The new version is out and I will update the media on the Frontpage this week. Lots of things have changed and one article is not enough, therefore I will give you the first insight tomorrow. Just one shot here, weather was included again. Seasons are not yet part of the game but soon.

[ 2019-03-27 20:09:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Finally a new update is out. Many things have been improved as you might know from Facebook and Discord. Again a lot of boring and background work has been done but these core features are about to wrap up. During winter we can add some more exciting content to the game!

User settings

UI Scale is implemented which lets you scale up the UI on highres screens. Mouse sensitivity has been added.

Scenarios

The game now has a Scenario selection screen. For now you can select between the tutorial and a default game. The default game can be adjusted by defining map size, resources and people you start with. In the long run of course more options will be added and some special scenarios will follow.

Milestones

There is a system which allows us to provide challenges and tell a story. For now this is a simple tutorial but later in the game we can build up on that and tell small or larger stories to keep the game engaging.

Savegame deprecation

As it was announced old savegames had to be deprecated and can no longer be used.

Citizen mood

Citizens have needs and mood which you can see by clicking on them or by looking at the average of all your citizens. These values have limited effect now but soon will be relevant. Of course when your people run out of water or food, they die.

Citizen overview

You have an overview of all your citizens. Later we will extend this so you can sort by different things. This would be helpful for large populations.

Linux

Linux versions should now work, please let us know if there are any issues. (Linux is still not officially supported yet)

Trading

The trading window has been finalized but some final touches have to be made. Therefore, the trading window is one of the next upcoming features.

[ 2018-12-13 20:23:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

There is a small update today. We worked on the notification system which informs you about what happens in the game.
There only is one set o objectives (on the left side on the screen) but it will soon be extended. A few of these tutorial objectives are already designed but need some time for implementation in the game. Furthermore there shall be additional information which pop up when you click on these objectives and when new ones come up. We can also tell stories with this system later on!

Version 0.0.7

• Bug fixed were people could not bring a box to the storage
• Notifications added which inform you about happenings in the game
• Objectives added which guide you through the game

[ 2018-11-14 22:26:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.0.6b

• The tutorial did not show up.
• Linux version availalbe (unofficial)

The following issues have been fixed:

• Game crashes when saving (autosave also caused this)
• People got stuck in the Water collector, if this still happens please let us know
• People brought too many resources to the construction sites
• The feedback report did not send logfiles, now it works and we can look into these.

Other changes

• Autosave is set to 10 minutes
• The general settings have been removed as they had no effect

What comes next

• Autosafe interval can be set or disabled
• UI scale will be implemented, for highres screens
• Mouse sensitivity can be adjusted
• Tutorial improvement and objectives

Feedback and objective system

As it has been explained on Discord we are working on improving the player feedback. Currently we work on a notification system which tells you more about what is going on in your town and which needs the people have. But before this will be fully implemented and working, we improve the tutorial using an objective system. This can later also be used to tell stories within the game. Its pretty simple, you get a new milestone which consists of a few objectives, like collect 20 Boards and build 2 homes. These are linked to info windows which explain things to you. I think it is important to do it now, because some people seemed to have issues understanding how the game functions. Also I believe that this kind of feedback is where the fun in games comes from as it keeps you engaged.

Graphics

The new graphics are in progress as well but it will take a while until we have enough to add them to the game.

[ 2018-11-11 16:25:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

A new version is out, this mainly improves usability and bugfixes.

Changelog

In the Discussion seciton oyu can see the changelog thread and you find them on our Discord Channel.

Whats next

• Tutorial updates and explanation of production.
• In game notifications so that you get more feedback from the game.
• Tech levels, this is not research, but a way to guide you. For example some buildings will only be available until other requirements are met.
• A trading window where you can sell goods for things you need such as seeds and animals.
• Animal husbandry might be implemented at a later stage in development but it is definitely planned for this year.

Version 0.0.5

• Tooltips now explain a few elements of the UI, such as resource icons.
• Mapsize increased (later you can choose by yourself)
• Construction menu shows resource cost
• Inventory info shows resources and the scrapyard has visual feedback
• Construction site info panel shows missing resources
• When using the construction tool the grid is displayed on the map
• Shadow moves fluent and not in steps
• Units rotate smoothly to direction and not instantly
• More dummy graphics added

Version 0.0.4

• AI uses the outhouse (untested, still in progress)
• Buildings can be toggled with C and randomize after each placement (currently only the Shack house has variations)
• Occupations are added to the savegames

Bugs

• Graphic settings did not load properly on game start
• Old Savegame loading errors fixed

Dummy graphics added:

[ 2018-11-03 21:56:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Video update

The storepage was updated but the video is still in Steams convertion queue for more than 30 hours. It is available on Youtube

Info about resources

It is not clear which resources are which or what buildings cost so this will be addressed soon. The resources on the top are: Boards, Scrap, Plastic, Tarp, Food, Water The : grey piles provide: Scrap and Food The : blue piles provide: Plastic and Tarp The : brown: piles provide: Boards, Scrap and Wood (not yet necessary)

Changes

Game freeze fixed At least one cause of the citizens being frozen was fixed. We try to keep the game functioning at least so if this happens to you another time, try to save the game and reload it. Corrupted savefiles can be loaded It is not trivial to make savegame data 100% accurate. Each time we add data or make changes to it we have to handle the saving and louting routine by hand for each value. We try at least to keep the errors minimal. At least some of the errors that occurred are now handled and it should be possible to load some of the savegame files which you could not load previously. Feedback panel By default you send the latest logfile with the feedback system. It can be removed with a checkbox. No need to email us or search it! Also the character limit has been increased to 3000, 300 was a little too less Workshop can now be constructed The workshop could not finish construction because it required deprecated resources. As explained above, it is functional but not yet useful.

Upcoming Changes

We will focus especially on Usability and bugfixing before we add more content to the game. Our goal is to provide a solid vertical slice, we do not believe that Alpha builds are an excuse for bugs and issues. Info panel updates The panels which appear when you click on an object are not proper for all objects. We need to define more types of these windows for different objects and add more information. Construction sites need info about which resources are missing for example. Production tutorial The whole production system wasnt explained and kinda has no use now anyway. We will make it useful and explain how it works in one of the next updates. It will be useful to make resources which you can not find in the environment and which you need for more advanced buildings. Building information The construction panel will show which resources are required. An image of the building will come later in development, KISS you know. Tooltips Introducing tooltips, e.g. for icons and buttons on the UI.

[ 2018-10-20 14:25:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

About an hour ago we released the reboot version of Endciv.

Update:

The video is still in Steam's processing queue, it is unclear when it will be ready. Tomorrow I shall be able to fix some of the nasty bugs that freeze the game or make the savegame unloadable. I was able to reproduce all of these issues.

Don't Buy It Yet

As I said some time ago, the current version is meant to show the existing players that the recent changes are not just thin air and it should show you where the journey goes and how the game has changed. Therefore, I would like to make it clear that there is still some work to do to come up with real content. The game is on steam and I wish it wasn't there anymore but that can't be changed without burying it completely. But Endciv is Endciv, even if it takes a while I think we already stand out of the mass of abandoned titles as we try to get it done. In the end, something comes out, even though the way was hard. I therefore draw attention to this fact in the Storepage which has been upated as well. Publicity therefore is not what we actively do. The game has to develop until about spring 2019 before we start boosting the game more. So there are no press keys currently.

The Update

But to the essence. Some will have fun on this version, some may be disappointed. I hope you recognize the difference in quality. The game is much more robust and more intuitive. Content is of course missing but the game should be running without major problems. If you get unplayable bugs, I'm asking for clues. Best if you use the internal feedback system. Imagine elements like weather, the environment and graphics of the old version coupled with the new mechanics and UI. This is what you can expect and, of course, in addition to the features that have never been delivered You can find the old version in the steam beta area:
The save and load function is now available, but as already described in the last news, there can be mistakes. It's unfortunately late but the update was scheduled, a third time I wont postpone it :) I'm excited for your feedback.

[ 2018-10-16 22:10:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

The last two weeks have been very productive. The game is very stable and it's fun to develop it again. How to balance and expand a game that only produces glitches after every little change. This was unfortunately the situation in the currently available version. Of course, bigger bugs can still occur, but the foundation is solid! We can finally work more on extensions instead of running in circles as we did before. The expected update is now planned for Tuesday. The current version is already fine, but there are still some needs, i.e. the tutorial has to be extended and a few missing UI elements have to be added. It is also intended to adjust the steam-page and the media contents.

Savegame

The save works well, but it can't be guaranteed at first that each game can be restored to 100 % or the larger bugs occur. Just in the first days after new features have been installed there can be mistakes. Of course, we try to keep the problems low and the old scores can still be loaded for a while. Ideally, it should be possible at any time to receive the most important things, i.e. buildings, resources and residents. However, after some updates, it will be useful to start a new game.

Recent Progress

A bigger functional update is that the citizens have a shedule over the day. At night they sleep and during hte day they take a little time off to eat and rest. There's not so much to see though. This mainly includes the new user interface.
The feedback system in which you can send feedback or bug from the game.
The 3D artist has been briefed and the assets are planned, after a short vacation of his we will start at the latest in November. But we're still doing great with the previous assets and placeholders. Like here the shelter, the first residential stage, that's just a placeholder.
And you already saw this, but it is more refined:

[ 2018-10-14 21:00:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello together. Unfortunately, the deadline could not be met in September. There were some things that had stolen some time. My day job as very demanding recently. After all from November I work part-time and currently I have two weeks off :) It is of course better if the first release includes everything it should have. Nevertheless, good progress was made in September. Some features have been added like the departure of buildings and the user interface has been extended. Anyway, there will be the game version in two weeks, with update of the front page. The roadmap was recently updated as well. The page is not complete yet, but it's already showing the changes and content. http://www.endciv.de/roadmap The new 3D artist will be briefed this and next week then we can finally start to creating the buildings. I think there is a good compromise on quality and flexibility, but more in a few weeks. People in any case have some variations:
Current tasks are the citizen simulation. Currently they only work, but they still have to eat and drink and the resources have to come from somewhere. For example from the farmland and water collectors. Hope you have some patience, thanks for your support.

[ 2018-09-30 19:38:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

I may have raised a few questions, so I would like to explain the current situation again.

Discord Channel

We are now on Discord! Join and get more frequent and exclusive Updates. If you have questions and issues, feel free to post them there as well and I can react more quickly to those. https://discord.gg/ahazEZT

The Team

I don't work alone on the project, as I described it a while ago. I'm still working full time, but it changes in November and then I have about 30 hours a week available for Endciv. This will give the development a corresponding boost. There has been a programmer for a few months now, serving up to 20 hours a week. It's the same I used to work with previously. Besides there are some freelancers. Currently there is an animator and a 3D Artist, another one I have as a backup if we need more progress. As I invest some time in preparing the art assignments it will take a while to finish new graphics.

The Price

With the release in September, the price will be reset to 16 USD. Currently there is still a discount since development was halted.

Recent Progress

My programmer is still fighting the AI Savegame feature as this turned out to be a big task but he shall be finished on Monday. My drawing skills are limited but I do my best to brief the artists so they know what i have in mind. For the buildings we try to minimize modelling effort and texture space by reusing and replacing parts. We want to model seperate elements and later merge everything down to one mesh.
Today I managed to implement the character customization engine. We still miss a few textures and settings but overal it is working great. As you can see the system can generate people with random colors for skin, hair and clothes. Of course it won't be that colorful later on.

[ 2018-08-26 18:32:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are working hard on the last features to publish a decent version at the end of September. As already said, it should include the main core features.

Not a Hobby anymore

As some may know, I'm still employed fulltime. That's why it took so long to come up with this relaunch. I can now tell you that I will have more time at the latest from November. Then you can expect more activity in regards of development and communication. Therefore 2019 shall be the year when Endciv will finally become what it was supposed to be.

Remaining Tasks

Some of the tasks still to be done are the needs of citizens and balancing. There also will be a feedback and bug reporter in the game. Even though many of the resources of the game are defined, the right approach has to be figured out in the following months. For example, the diversity of resources. Shall a building require 2 or 5 different kinds of resources to be build. In doubt, less likely is better. Another part we are working on is the AI. It works well in general but only the savegame implementation is a little tricky but it looks good. Also the terrain engine from the old game has already been ported and should be finished this week, too. The first farm animals are in the making and the first crops will be able to grow soon. The aim is to provide the early moments of the game as complete as possible. We even work on savegame downward-compatibility, so ideally every update can run each savegame. At least for a limited time. In the end, a small tutorial will be implemented. That was certainly an aspect that was missing in the last game. There are still some things to do, but I am optimistic. If not everything is implemented by September, then it will be added quickly after. This time, due to the new code base, the daemon of bugs has a harder time :P That still will change over the course of development, but yes less diagonals is better :)

[ 2018-08-20 19:59:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is going to be closer for the first playable update of the new version of the game and September is set as a date. The update will replace the current game version, but I will keep it as an option in the Beta section of Steam for a short duration. My goal is to show you how the changes affect the game positively in the long run. Even though this new version came out completely out of nothing, it shall provide more gameplay than the current version does. The main tasks will be to collect resources, build shelters, produce goods and nourish your citizens. This version is mainly meant for you guys who already own the game. I can not yet predict how much fun it provides, but over the next couple of months it will grow continuously.

Differences from the old version

Keep in mind that this version will not include everything that you know already, such as the weather and daytime system, which anyway had no real impact. It will come later on, when it makes sense. Farms for example are simplified to remove micromanagement. Previously you placed individual plants and even fences, now you only place a field and select the crop you want to plant. I plan to have crops and cattle in the next version, but it might not yet be in the final state. So no animations for instance. Gameplay first.

UI Redesign

I made a new attempt on the UI design and this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think. It is not final but shows the overall direction. I would especially be interested if you think that the Options menu has too many diagonals :) The checkboxes are still placeholders anyway.

Roadmap and Shop-Page

Before the new version is out I will also update the frontpage on Steam. The Roadmap on the website requires a bit more work but it will also be done within Fall.

Early Access

To participate in development, I plan to add a feedback system into the game. So you will be able to report a bug or feedback with just two clicks (and some writing) right in the game. This feature might not be available in the first version. I hope that this makes it easier for both sides.

Recent Progress

There wasnt much more visual progress. The people are finally rigged and animations are in progress. Also some new buildings are ordered and shall be ready before the release. This week we will finalize the AI system, it is the backbone of the project and requires a few more touches. The pathfinding was improved and is using C# Tasks now. Linux tests will be also made this week. For the next Update I have some exciting news, you will like it ;)

[ 2018-08-05 21:05:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey Folks. We are making great progress now! June was not a good month, there have been a few things to deal with like a new computer to set up and I got surgery, but just removal of metal parts. Also a bit of time went into setting up tasks for artists, one of witch I am still waiting for a reply and maybe I need another one. This week we will tackle Construction, Resource Gathering and just today finalized Production.

Resource management

Here is the new Production UI. Other than issuing individual goods per workbench or citizen, you will have one window to define how many resources should be produced. I plan to include 2 sliders, a min and a max amount value, here is how it should work.
When your total storage of a good is above max amount then the resource will not be produced. When it is below we will calculate a priority of this resource, so the production workers can choose which resource to produce next. In general, the higher the gap between available amount and max amount the higher the priority is. With the min slider you can even add priority, as the gap between it and available amount will also be included. All resources that are below the min value will be produced first. And to not limit production to just one resource we add currently produced items into account, so if 2 or 3 lines of production already produce an important material, the next worker might choose another material. All is just done in one simple formula. I also plan to include helpers to the UI, e.g. when your storages grow you should not have to increase each individual slider to match your storage capacity, same when your storage shrink. Similarly, the Trading window will be, here you adjust amount which can be sold and a reference price. Players of Anno (aka Dawn of Discovery) might be familiar with this.

Content improvement

I was able to revert some of the old assets to the new project. I had to make some adaptions but overall they fit in quite nicely. The placement system (how you place objects on the grid, and which grid size to use) was now finalized today. I am much happier with this than it was previously.
I think I even solved something that was never quite right. When you build your city you will go over different stages, first you have these weak tents, then your ugly, slum like shacks and later you can afford some more comfortable houses. The shack like buildings so are what is most interesting to me personally, you should be able to trade space vs quality of living and other negative aspects like hazard of illness and fire. Look at this image, it looks like a mess, but each house can be reached by just a small corridor. You are free to leave one or two tiles more between the buildings though.
Here is another image, not all of these things like the animas work already, but I wanted to make an impression of what we are going to tackle this and next month. I do plan to have everything working which you can see right there, including electricity which I missed to add to the image. Finally, here are some of the humans, textures are in progress now.
I know it is about time to get the first update out and I had a personal deadline for fall. We are working hard the next two months and I am at least trying to make this update in August for you to test. I believe, even when not everything is in place you will notice quickly why this step was done and where the game is heading now. One reason to have it released a bit later might be to add some more info like a simple tutorial, because I had to learn that shipping a tutorial of some kind is very important, even or especially at this early stage.

[ 2018-07-08 20:54:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Everyone. April was a productive month. We managed to get more basic systems in place such as the main menu and a proper loading and exiting routine which is not as trivial as it might sound.

Savegames and settings

Another point was the whole user settings. We can store and load settings and savegames for multiple users. Savegames will also have backward compatibility as this game is in constant progress during the alpha. We do that by simply having a converter from one version to the next once something has changed. Of course, just basic UI but it does its job.

Character models

I also hired a 3D artist who is doing the unit models. It is important to get the workflow final right now. The ideas I had for the characters previously were rather complex but in hindsight, as many things, some aspects are unnecessary. You can barely see any close details at the scale we are going to have. I wanted to be able to show starving people by actually making them thinner for example. But before I wrap my head around that lets first implement all that, it would still be possible to do it if it turns out to be a good idea, which I doubt. Still I wanted to have variation and flexibility, so I came up with a modular system that is not too complex. We only use 4 mesh and texture parts that are combined on runtime: body, head, hair and misc (accessories like hat, backpack or additional clothing). We can define rules and presets on which parts are going to be combined. So a butcher at to work can look appropriately and when he goes home he could wear normal clothes again. Each part has its own texture and all are packed in one quadratic texture. We target 512 pixels but for the game 256 pixel is enough so we have room for other purposes like close-ups or citizen portraits. Each part has UVs that match the smaller textures simply to make texturing easier, to prevent errors and simply stay more flexible. Most humans stay below 800 triangles and we can implement LODs if we have to.

Game economy

We still gnaw at the whole production process. For sure we did other things this month but it also turns out to be more time consuming as intended. But we are close to the goal, the AI system is in place and citizens successfully transfer resources form a storage to the production facility. All we got to do now is to start production and put those resources back to the storage. The whole AI decision is in place like when to get resources from where based on what should be produced. A bunch of resources and products are in place. One that is working I will go and port over the old terrain system and distribute some resources which can then be gathered. Gameplay wise we will then be equal to the current version of Endciv. The UI is another big topic but it should grow over the next two months as well. Before that I will update to Unity 2018 as there are quite some new features that we should build on.

[ 2018-05-11 13:01:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. Its time for an update. For my excuse, we are very busy right now to get the main game mechanics done. Yes, you read right, I hired one of the former programmers of Endciv again and he will help me for at least half a year from now on. Also he is a good programmer and not the reason why everything was so broken last time. For task management I moved over to HacknPlan, I recommend that for other developers. It has all the basics of Jira while not being so complex. We implemented a few basics like the save game system, player configuration and the inventory system. The latter one took some more time but will never annoy us again, it works great. In fact it is very similar to the previous one but all the pitfalls were removed.

Production System

The current goal is to get the whole production loop in place, today we implemented the basic system. But in order to get that far I spend a lot of hours simply on writing that system down. It might sound straight forward but there are many tiny details that have to be covered. One of those things is logistics. I wanted a system that is not too simple because that can lead to inefficiency and illogical behavior. On the other hand, a too complex system takes more time and planning and is prone to issues. The system I came up with I think is a great foundation. One uniqueness of Endciv compared to most other games might be that we have multiple production facilities which can produce a number of different goods. Also one facility will be able to produce more than one of those at once e.g. by having space for one or more workers. I call that production lines. The player will now mainly tell on a global level how many resources should be produced at any time. So you can define that 20 tools should be in stock all the time, if that is not the case then it will be produced. In addition, you can always add specific tasks like produce 10 mechanical parts and prioritize all tasks and resources. One critical point was how to actually manage that. First point was how to tell which resources to produce. I believe that if you have 60/70 of product A but 2/40 of product B then B should be prioritized. I came up with a formula that does that, but of course it requires some balancing. But here it is: Comparing priority = priority * (batchesLeft / MaxAmount)^activeLines What it basically does is that if no facility is producing a resource then base priority is taken for comparison. Then the more facilities produce that same resource the less likely it is to be taken by another facility. Another issue connected to that was how to manage logistics to provide the right amount of resources. A production facility ideally runs all the time and gets provided with resources. On the other hand, one facility should not take all the resources that would then not be available for another facility. To solve that we divide those tasks in batches which will be increased before the facility runs out of resources. That way two facilities can easily produce either the same resource or different ones at once.

About Programming

The whole coding rebuild turns out to be great. The Entity-Component pattern is a great relief. It never was that easy to implement independent modules like debug and cheat codes so easily. Without going too much into detail (let me know if I should) having a System that uses static methods for all the major game logic makes it very easy to implement modules like this. From each space in code I can simply call InventorySystem.AddResources(inventory, resources) for example. Before you protest, this is not a Singleton pattern. All those methods simply perform logic based on the parameters. The alternative might be calling inventory.AddResources(resources) but that would include logic in the model classes. Some of those methods do require an initialized system but we make sure that there is no Entity before there is the according system. Again, if you are interested in those kind of things, let me know and I will focus on those things more often.

[ 2018-04-05 22:25:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. Its time for an update. For my excuse, we are very busy right now to get the main game mechanics done. Yes, you read right, I hired one of the former programmers of Endciv again and he will help me for at least half a year from now on. Also he is a good programmer and not the reason why everything was so broken last time. For task management I moved over to HacknPlan, I recommend that for other developers. It has all the basics of Jira while not being so complex. We implemented a few basics like the save game system, player configuration and the inventory system. The latter one took some more time but will never annoy us again, it works great. In fact it is very similar to the previous one but all the pitfalls were removed.

Production System

The current goal is to get the whole production loop in place, today we implemented the basic system. But in order to get that far I spend a lot of hours simply on writing that system down. It might sound straight forward but there are many tiny details that have to be covered. One of those things is logistics. I wanted a system that is not too simple because that can lead to inefficiency and illogical behavior. On the other hand, a too complex system takes more time and planning and is prone to issues. The system I came up with I think is a great foundation. One uniqueness of Endciv compared to most other games might be that we have multiple production facilities which can produce a number of different goods. Also one facility will be able to produce more than one of those at once e.g. by having space for one or more workers. I call that production lines. The player will now mainly tell on a global level how many resources should be produced at any time. So you can define that 20 tools should be in stock all the time, if that is not the case then it will be produced. In addition, you can always add specific tasks like produce 10 mechanical parts and prioritize all tasks and resources. One critical point was how to actually manage that. First point was how to tell which resources to produce. I believe that if you have 60/70 of product A but 2/40 of product B then B should be prioritized. I came up with a formula that does that, but of course it requires some balancing. But here it is: Comparing priority = priority * (batchesLeft / MaxAmount)^activeLines What it basically does is that if no facility is producing a resource then base priority is taken for comparison. Then the more facilities produce that same resource the less likely it is to be taken by another facility. Another issue connected to that was how to manage logistics to provide the right amount of resources. A production facility ideally runs all the time and gets provided with resources. On the other hand, one facility should not take all the resources that would then not be available for another facility. To solve that we divide those tasks in batches which will be increased before the facility runs out of resources. That way two facilities can easily produce either the same resource or different ones at once.

About Programming

The whole coding rebuild turns out to be great. The Entity-Component pattern is a great relief. It never was that easy to implement independent modules like debug and cheat codes so easily. Without going too much into detail (let me know if I should) having a System that uses static methods for all the major game logic makes it very easy to implement modules like this. From each space in code I can simply call InventorySystem.AddResources(inventory, resources) for example. Before you protest, this is not a Singleton pattern. All those methods simply perform logic based on the parameters. The alternative might be calling inventory.AddResources(resources) but that would include logic in the model classes. Some of those methods do require an initialized system but we make sure that there is no Entity before there is the according system. Again, if you are interested in those kind of things, let me know and I will focus on those things more often.

[ 2018-04-05 22:25:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is the second part of the January update. Read Part 1 here. I refined the materials of the game and how they are made and relate to each other. But first there is a quick info on the types of buildings.

Building types

All houses have at least a small and a medium variation next to visual variations. These types are not finally defined, at least there is room for one or two more if it makes sense. Tents: Made of tarp that is made of plastic bags, fabric or are remaining from the old world like tarpaulin of trucks or backyards. Those are the weakest and most poor type of buildings. Shacks: Made of board which is solid material of metal, wood or synthetic material. Shacks are unappealing but more solid and personal than tents. Solid Houses These are the most common type of buildings from the mid term of the game. These buildings are made of the same materials as shacks but are clean and well designed (need more time to build). I think about that they look like common real world houses but are simply made from corrugated plates and the like. The buildings will have a backyard, mailbox and all that stuff (depending on size). Wooden Huts Might be the most luxurious type of buildings but also cost the most time and resources. The huts are made of processed and sealed wood. Also they contain a garden, a porch and other such elements (depending on size). You see that the idea is to go beyond the post apocalyptic settings by progression. Just as Endciv always was, these kind of houses always have been planned. Usually you will have poor buildings mixed with wealthy buildings. Now here are the basic materials, those are still not all. Let me know what you think and if you have better ideas for some of their names.

Resources overview

HEre are some of my brainstorming diagramms.
Here is a draft on how the resources are made and some ideas for food.

Basic Material

Basic material cannot be(explicitly) produced and have to be traded, collected or recycled. Waste Waste can be found all around the wasteland and is produced as a side product by people. It mostly consists of organic waste like food and also contains paper. Scrap All kind of metallic pieces. Plastic All kind of pieces of plastic and synthetic material. Board Pieces of boards and planks made of metal, plastic or wood.Used for construction. Debris Pieces of hard material like stone, bricks, concrete and the like or simply cobblestone. Wood Pieces of wood, e.g.from trees, furniture or fences. Fabric Pieces of all kinds of tissue. Paper Paper can sometimes be found and can be recycled from Waste. Chemicals All kind of chemicals and synthetic material that can be used to refine other materials in the lab.

Manufactured Material

Fastener Naming unclear All kind of material that is helpful to connect things just like nails, screws, bolts, tape, string and the like. Alternative name: Bits and bites, connectors, utility stuff, simply stuff? Id call it Utilities but I am not sure if this makes sense in English. Lumber Manufactured wood.Used for nicer constructions in the later stage of the game. Tarp Makeshift tarp made from fabric or plastic parts like bags.Can be used to collect water and is a cheap and quick method for construction. Mechanic parts Naming unclear All kinds of mechanical parts like gears, hinges, belts, bearings and the like. Electronic parts Electronic parts like cables, sockets, light bulbs, leds or switches Microchips Used for advanced electronic devices. Generator Able to generate electricity or be used as an electric motor. Tools Tools improve construction and labor speed.There are 2-3 Tech levels. Weapons Obviously used for defense and hunting. There will be at least 3 Tech levels (Melee, low caliber and high caliber) Ammunition Ammunition for Weapons.There will be one for each Tech level, except Melee weapons.

Consume Goods

Natural Medication Made of herbs Herbs Can be used for medication or luxury goods like tea and cigarettes. Clothes Clothing has at least two tech levels. Toilet Paper May sound weird but this is an important luxury article in the waste lands :) Bandages / Medkit? In addition to herbs there should be one kind of medical item that has to be stored in a doctors building. Clean Paper Paper that can be written on.E.g.can boost research and is a luxury article.

[ 2018-02-05 20:36:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

This is the second part of the January update. Read Part 1 here. I refined the materials of the game and how they are made and relate to each other. But first there is a quick info on the types of buildings.

Building types

All houses have at least a small and a medium variation next to visual variations. These types are not finally defined, at least there is room for one or two more if it makes sense. Tents: Made of tarp that is made of plastic bags, fabric or are remaining from the old world like tarpaulin of trucks or backyards. Those are the weakest and most poor type of buildings. Shacks: Made of board which is solid material of metal, wood or synthetic material. Shacks are unappealing but more solid and personal than tents. Solid Houses These are the most common type of buildings from the mid term of the game. These buildings are made of the same materials as shacks but are clean and well designed (need more time to build). I think about that they look like common real world houses but are simply made from corrugated plates and the like. The buildings will have a backyard, mailbox and all that stuff (depending on size). Wooden Huts Might be the most luxurious type of buildings but also cost the most time and resources. The huts are made of processed and sealed wood. Also they contain a garden, a porch and other such elements (depending on size). You see that the idea is to go beyond the post apocalyptic settings by progression. Just as Endciv always was, these kind of houses always have been planned. Usually you will have poor buildings mixed with wealthy buildings. Now here are the basic materials, those are still not all. Let me know what you think and if you have better ideas for some of their names.

Resources overview

HEre are some of my brainstorming diagramms.
Here is a draft on how the resources are made and some ideas for food.

Basic Material

Basic material cannot be(explicitly) produced and have to be traded, collected or recycled. Waste Waste can be found all around the wasteland and is produced as a side product by people. It mostly consists of organic waste like food and also contains paper. Scrap All kind of metallic pieces. Plastic All kind of pieces of plastic and synthetic material. Board Pieces of boards and planks made of metal, plastic or wood.Used for construction. Debris Pieces of hard material like stone, bricks, concrete and the like or simply cobblestone. Wood Pieces of wood, e.g.from trees, furniture or fences. Fabric Pieces of all kinds of tissue. Paper Paper can sometimes be found and can be recycled from Waste. Chemicals All kind of chemicals and synthetic material that can be used to refine other materials in the lab.

Manufactured Material

Fastener Naming unclear All kind of material that is helpful to connect things just like nails, screws, bolts, tape, string and the like. Alternative name: Bits and bites, connectors, utility stuff, simply stuff? Id call it Utilities but I am not sure if this makes sense in English. Lumber Manufactured wood.Used for nicer constructions in the later stage of the game. Tarp Makeshift tarp made from fabric or plastic parts like bags.Can be used to collect water and is a cheap and quick method for construction. Mechanic parts Naming unclear All kinds of mechanical parts like gears, hinges, belts, bearings and the like. Electronic parts Electronic parts like cables, sockets, light bulbs, leds or switches Microchips Used for advanced electronic devices. Generator Able to generate electricity or be used as an electric motor. Tools Tools improve construction and labor speed.There are 2-3 Tech levels. Weapons Obviously used for defense and hunting. There will be at least 3 Tech levels (Melee, low caliber and high caliber) Ammunition Ammunition for Weapons.There will be one for each Tech level, except Melee weapons.

Consume Goods

Natural Medication Made of herbs Herbs Can be used for medication or luxury goods like tea and cigarettes. Clothes Clothing has at least two tech levels. Toilet Paper May sound weird but this is an important luxury article in the waste lands :) Bandages / Medkit? In addition to herbs there should be one kind of medical item that has to be stored in a doctors building. Clean Paper Paper that can be written on.E.g.can boost research and is a luxury article.

[ 2018-02-05 20:36:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. I made some good progress last month. Most was about game design and mechanics but I solved a number of issues and wrote down the basis for implementation into code. By next month I believe that there will be a good amount of game mechanics working such as collection, storage and production. Sure that already works in the current version but as I said earlier there will quickly be more diversity and depth to all of it. More can be read here. I know the shop page is out of date and it is still on the list to become updated.

Performance

I am even more confident that the game will work well. I not just learned frm Endciv but also from other projects that early work towards performance optimization helps a lot in the later stage of the process. Because then it can be very hard to start optimization. Better to design your content around optimization systems rather than the other way around. So one solution was that I made a custom LOD system. The one of Unity is not really great for my type of game. Previous Endciv already used parts of that system to control light settings dynamically.
Here you can see LOD stages (Blue, Orange, Red). Red units for instance arent casting shadows. The GPU is definitely the bottleneck for the amount of people on the screen, especially once they have animations. I think that maybe 200 people is already much for this game, but at least technically there is no issue that 2000 walk at the same time. The game systems also work fine and efficient. Each aspect is scheduled successively. So basically in one frame all the production is done, the next frame deals with crop growth, the next does make construction happen. That is actually how Endciv already worked previously, but now much more consequently. Under the hood this is actually a round based game and one round currently is 3 seconds. You might run the game in time-lapse most of the time anyway, that is also the reason why I choose that system. I am a fan of bulletproof game mechanics where timing or other chaotic events do not affect the output. For instance the result should be exactly the same whether the game runs at 1x or 10x speed.

How Graphics will evolve

Art assets are the biggest pitfall of this game. A city builder should be nice to look at besides having great game play. Some people just want to look close and see all the details the citizens do, me included. I had such plans but those where the reason why the previous Endciv failed. There is a simple solution: Lets ignore graphics for a start. I will use simple artwork, maybe citizens wont even have animations for a long time. I hope that you can live with that but this is the only way to get this game forward. Once the game play and performance do what they should I will make updates on graphics. The current workflow will allow doing that without any issues. This sounds like a great workflow anyway. I can focus one a few topics at a time and when the game is shaped it is easier to work on artwork. Aside the fact that I already reserved a budget from previous sales hopefully there will be a few more owners by that time.
Here is how it looks now. Those buildings didnt even take an hour each so there is room for a bit more detail and I can quickly do some dummy models without wasting resources.

Resources and Buildings

I made some updates on the game design and redefined materials there are. Read Part 2 here.

[ 2018-02-04 22:54:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey there, I certainly have to make things clear. Time is passing by quickly and I actually cant believe it is already 4 months after my last post, I had some posts planned but postponed them all the time. I did a lot of fundamental work so far and it wasn't worth an update. Next year you can expect regular updates.

Its a rework, not an update

The game on Steam is going to be updated. But the game I am working on is getting done from scratch, it is not an update on the existing code base. As I have explained it is too messed up both conceptually and on the technical side. This required a lot of fundamental things to be done first. That is dozens of classes and thousand lines of code. And maybe you will think holly cow he is insane, working on it for so long and then starting all over again, it will take another 10 years to get a demo or so. I understand that and that is also the reason why I didnt show anything yet, I may also thought that it was self explanatory. It is the right thing to do and it is coming along fine. I may underestimated the AI part a bit but overall the pace of development is much better than on the last version. I do reuse all the things that I can. For a system I was working on for weeks with headaches on the old game I was able to implement it completely in just a few hours as I already did all the troubleshooting.

What is done

The good news is that you see there 540 People walking consecutively at 44FPS and there is room to optimize the system, 300 run at 80+FPS. With the old system 40 people already challenged the CPU that was not intended at all. Also a number of 100-200 is already a very big amount of people for this game, but I dont limit that number, its up to the player and mechanics how much is possible.
Currently people walk in the scene, they choose a home to live and do simple AI decisions on whether they walk around or go home. I have a big part of the resource and item system in place (basically the same as before) so the next step is to harvest, produce and consume goods. Some AI and mechanics for that already is in place. The point is that once it is working there already is much more game than there ever was. That is certainly far away from what you call a finished game but the essential gameplay is actually there pretty early. Endciv now has really little in that sense. It has weather, it has doggies walking around and such but that is all not the essence of what a game should be about. That was my mistake, focusing on the wrong parts first and my attempt to correct that is to go for the basics first. I hope you believe in that once we actually got the game running those decorative things like graphics, audio and feeling can be added then, you have seen what the idea is. And of course that content still exists. But now the first game version might even use dummy people without animations but it will be something you can enjoy for way more than just a few minutes. It takes time but before I make a useless Christmas themed main menu next time I better give you some gameplay first.

An overview and open questions

Some of the overall features will remain such as finding goods in the wasteland, recycle trash, make a sad place a nice place, trade goods with others. The mechanics do change and instead of micromanagement and looking at each individual thing the focus is on the bigger picture. Also I want to make clear that is is all about to develop further, if you and me find that certain features that have been scraped are worth it then it can happen. One of those things is the Day/Night cycle. I will not implement it in the first version as I am not sure if it makes any sense. Games like this usually dont implement it for good reason. I will implement it later as an optional feature and then we can find out if it makes sense or not. I can go back to Endciv in the mid of January and I will focus on the features described. I can not tell you how long it will take that is the only honest estimate I can give. Have a good new year and I will get back to you in a month.

[ 2017-12-31 14:58:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Everyone. It has been a few months now since the development of the game has been halted and I was surprised on how kind some of you reacted to that. As I went back to the Steam page a while ago I expected some bad readings but this was not the case. The community is still small and this can be an advantage as I believe that the damage can be smoothed out. Info: The game will remain on Steam and will be updated. It was my fault What I want to tell you today is that Endciv will receive a reboot. Endciv is at it's current state and vision like a misconfigured and misassembled machine. It started like it should have but during those numerous changes in my and my team's situation it morphed into something else and I was blindfolded from time to time. In hindsight you could say That escalated quickly. It basically became two games in once and was just stuffed with ideas and features as there was nobody that could prevent me from doing so. I tried to keep it alive but it just didnt work and issues were piling up. The following image describes it well:
This is how I saw the game for the past year or so. I knew it was wrong and I wanted to fix it. I havent realized that I was on the wrong track. Endciv like what it is today is not what it should be and not what it ever can be. Dont get me wrong. the major vision still remains but I have to cut all those features which do not provide a favour to either the gameplay and the development process. Pooping dogs that leave their stuff as a physical material on the ground? I don't think that we need that. Weather, Combat and Trade is all still very well for that game. The issues are not in the bigger picture, but in the details. Think small Having an AI that works more like the Sims or RPG Characters combined with a city builder may works, but not for me. You cant imagine what kind of stuff I drafted and how complex the AI is. But this is not good for scaling. You cant manage a big city with all that micromanagement and that complex mechanics running on the CPU. Therefore all the micromanagement content must be erased. No more experiments, no fiddled in features. This also means that the interiors of buildings will be sacrificed. It is much more complex to handle. I will make a solid foundation with simplified gameplay and a regular city builder as we know it. Once this is running well, we can together see where it shall go. I will take some time to rethink this concept and how it can be organised on the development side. The Project will start totally from scratch. Of course I can make use of all what has been made so far but a total restart is the only way that will work out. Also I learned so much in that time that a new code base will enhance the game in many ways. Plan C Another reason is that I will consider the topic Open Source. I am not sure about that and one reason simply is third party content in the game. The current version is impossible to publish without a major review even though most of it was made from scratch. But one thing is for sure if I will find myself again in the situation that I can no longer support the development then I will publish the new source of Endciv. I will be back in some time, dont expect me to have news within a few weeks. But I am already on it. Thanks for standing by.

[ 2017-08-30 19:58:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Folks. It has been a year now since Endciv was released and it was a great experience to develop this game. But this is not the full truth, it was quite depressing from time to time either and the game is far from where it was intended to be now. In the past I attended other jobs in order to get some income which is one of the reasons why development was paused in-between. The game was planned to be developed by a team of people and it started as such. As I then continued on my own and hired freelancers I was always optimistic that it will turn out as it should. When I start a business I want it to be sustainable all the time and the risk I was willing to take was still not enough to go all-in on this project. Endciv is a complex project which requires a lot of work for individual features. My expertise is technical art so I wanted to have nice graphical features and content in the game, the downside is that all of this has to be produced by artists which are capable of doing it. Especially the people in the game are an issue. They should be modular which requires a more complex rigging process. Also each animation must be created and managed in code each time a new feature would be added. These are all things that either require time or additional workforce. Not that this is not doable but keeping all the other things in mind especially the countless debugging turned this game into a burden. If you want to do a professional project then you require a professional environment and this is the part where I failed.

How is it going on?

You might be asking, no the game is not cancelled. Features such as savegames are still in the pipeline and will be provided. The price of the game has been reduced (this might take time to update on the shop). I definitely want to work on the Core-Features as described, so mainly building and economy features and a bit of budget is still reserved which is going to be invested in game models. But I will attend a new day job in March and my business as a self employed developer has ended. I will be less available for the first few months as I wont be home often and have to relocate then. Yet in the weekends I do have time to finish the savegame feature first. To be honest in terms of time spent for development it might not have that much of an impact. Its not that it takes x months to develop certain feature but it is the constant pressure and other obligations that held me back, and yes sometimes the lack of motivation. My new job is not very stressful and going home without having to worry about my future is a big help. Even though I plan to balance my life I will have time to continue. Endciv now is a hobby project again. Some of you might be angry now but you did definitely contribute to the project and I am sorry if you feel that I used your trust. It is not completely over but it is fair to say that the future of the project is limited now. As I said earlier the core features are still planned to be developed and I need to see for myself how the next few weeks will turn out. TLDR; savegames are still coming. Thanks and sorry for all of you supporting the game.

[ 2017-02-25 16:31:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95h_n46WI04 Just in time there is a winter themed update to Endciv. You can now adjust the starting season in the game to play in winter for example. (But it doesn't affect gameplay yet). http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=823511203 Highest priority was to stabilize the game and therefore not many new features have been added. But one helpful improvement is that you can now move small already built objects.
We are still working on more updates, savegames are coming closer. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=823511501 We wish you Happy Holidays.

[ 2016-12-22 21:33:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

As posted on the Discussion section many new features are currently in the making and are to be expected during the next months. The Savegame feature should also come this year.

Changelog

Hotfix 0.0.370c Nov 21st This contains an Engine Update. Some Terrain Textures have improved and the Credits screen works again.
Also an alternative Steam version was provided where you can load the previous game version whenever something went wrong with an update. In order to do that open the Settings page of a game (right click in the Library -> Settings) and then in the "Betas" tab select the Version you want. Make sure to restore to "NONE" if you want to be up to date. Hotfix 0.0.370b Minor fixes. Fixes storage area extension and removing tool. Version 0.0.370 Loading speed has improved. Several UI Improvements, the Construction-Site Tooltip provides more information.
The orange number above the icon indicates the missing amount of each resource. The white number above indicates all the resources which are already available at the site. The striped line shows how far the building can be constructed with the available resources. The number on the top right is an experimental time indicator. The exclamation mark informs you about issues of tasks so that you know what is going on. The job panel has changed so that you can assign up to 3 jobs for one person at decreasing priority. An "Anything" option will potentially follow as well.
Bugfix - Objects disappeared after construction. - The demolishing tool works again. - Selection rectangle (drag to select many units) works better now

Upcoming

People do not drink out of containers Savegames Better tutorial Chopping down the Buglist

[ 2016-11-18 11:00:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here is an overview of the assets which are going to be created this month or later this year as well as some additional information to describethe context. I made the following concepts myself so the artist's work is yet to come to fill in the missing onesor to add detail.
Merchants Travelling merchants will visit your town from time to time and there are various types of them with special goods and prices. You would have to buy animals or crop seeds from them in order to start agriculture or animal husbandry.
Carts Carts function to transport greater amounts of goods from one point to the other and will be relevant at a later stage of the game.
Waste management If a dumpster is relevant is not yet decided but a Composter will help to generate natural fertilizer.
Another interesting procedure is to convert these feces into power and I will further investigate the possibility to add this to Endciv. But I assume it is (in real measurements) only efficient for a larger amount of animals or people which produce the required raw material. Here is an interesting insight on Poo Power. Water collectors Water collectors like the image shows will help to maintain the water supply in the early game. The 3D model here is just a quick concept. Currently there is a small (2x2) and a medium (4x4) version planned.
Wells Later on wells of different sizes can be constructed. I'd like to illustratethe full construction process in the game but this is a bit of work for the animation, but as the construction will take a couple of hours and days it shall be worth the effort.
Workbench At a workbench simple object can be assembled, such as tools, cartridges, cigarettes and other utilities. Lathe A lathe is used to produce more complex mechanical and mostly metallic components. It has milling, drilling and bending machines and both electrical and manual elements. (When it has no electricity production is slower). Can produce: Guns & Rifles, mechanical parts, cartridge-hulses, fastener Workbench II (Fine mechanics) A workbench used for fine work, it is more clean and organized than the others. It contains a number of fine tools (such as small screwdrivers, pliers, cutters, pens, fastener, cable), a soldering bolt and measuring tools (electronic measure, rulers, stencils). Can produce: Microelectronic, electronically parts, lights, solar panels, generators and electronic tools. Laboratory Laboratory is used to produce synthetic products as well as to research. Appears more to be a meth laboratory than a school laboratory. Contains Distillery, blowtorch, small smelter and a number of substances (glasses or plastic bottles). Other content: glasses, buckets, tubes, pipes, pipettes, sprays, cans Can produce: Chemicals, explosives, synthetic fertilizer, medication etc. Drafting Table Angled table with a stool used to draft and research technology. Kitchen Some sort of Kitchen or butchery table is planned but yet just conceptually. Livestock Animal husbandry is an essential aspect for a thriving and big city. Major: Chicken (eggs), Pigs, Cows (dairy products). Secondary: Goats, Deer, Rabbits and Rats. These secondary animals are conceptual and may turn out to be redundant. To hold livestock there is the fences as well as Coops for small animals. Eventually the size and freedom of the animal enclosures will affect certain aspects of gameplay. Maybe bad treatment let animals die earlier or affect productivity. It mayalso affects the image and satisfaction level of the town. Dogs are not rated as livestock but can also be hold and breed. They are in fact halfway between animals and citizens regarding to behavior and parameters.
Electricity Solar panels and Wind power plants are going to be implemented at a later stage and research is required to produce them. There are more concepts then these for wind power plants. It is interesting how broken solar panel pieces can be put together as shownin this video.
The campfire is going to be updated as well and will come in two sizes.
Bury mechanic and makeshift graves will come soon as well.

[ 2016-07-11 12:28:37 CET ] [ Original post ]