Hello Merchants! Just wanted to give you an update on what I've been working on: this week has been spent on setting up the game objectives and working on the game map. Here's how the normal game of Merchant of the Skies can go:
1) When you start a new game, you can pick an objective that you want to reach. This is going to be your winning condition. You can choose "no objectives" too for the infinite mode, but I like it when there are global goals. These will give you a purpose and alter your gameplay strategies over the gaming sessions. The goals vary by length which you can often customize (right now the estimates shall be about 20 / 40 / 60 / 90 minutes) - these estimates should give you an idea of how long the game can take. Of course it mostly depends on how you play the game, there is no hard limit as we want the game to feel relaxing :)
Afterwards, the game map is being generated with multiple points of interests and (depending on the goals) different islands. In the beginning, you don't know what these islands contain so you have to visit them. After your first visit, you'll get full information about the island (as shown on screenshot). This will help you navigate the map better and improve your trade route planning further on. If you have any questions - feel free to ask them here or join our discord channel!