The graphics overhaul has finally arrived! I've reworked around 3000 textures and hundreds of models, but the game now has a cohesive, pleasant, and cyberpunk palette behind it. Before we dive into a recap of all of the changes, let's take a look at some before and after, should we? The evening view is warmer, more balanced, and dustier.

The day view has been heavily reworked as you see. I went for a gray, well-lit, cloudy feeling.
The night-time was already ok, but now it's extremely gritty, cyberpunky, and wet. I really love the night view! Another big change: New countries! You can now build your city anywhere in the Americas and in Europe. Africa and Asia are being worked on and will be coming up soon! Top all of that with a nice sprinkle of bug fixing and multiplayer customization, and you have this update. Now that the graphics overhaul is out of the way, I plan to get back to release the game more often and hopefully get it out of Early Access at some point in early 22. Stay tuned!

Textures overhaul

Almost any model in the game has either been re-textured or remodeled completely. Skid Cities contains around 500 models, and each model uses from 5 to 10 textures. So yeah, a lot of colors, shapes, grainy dust and neon lights have been re-colored and re-modeled based on a consistent color palette. As you probably know, I'm a solo developer working on this game, so this has been quite the feat. I think that the final result makes the game more pleasant to look at - less saturated, more realistic, and in general higher quality.

Terrain overhaul

One of the consistent feedback from the playtesters was how the terrain looked. And for good reasons: I was not excited about spending time on the terrain when I started working on the game, as the procedural terrain generation was still in infancy. Now that we have mountains, lakes, and rivers, it's a different story. I reworked all of the 3D models and details for any terrain type, as well as the main terrain textures. There is still work to do, but the result is already ten times better. Keep in mind that the terrain look will depend on where you start your city. The Greenland Autonomous Zone will not look like the United States of Brazil!

Advertising Overhaul

I've also created new advertising videos from scratch, as now I'm a better cyberpunk propagandist. On top of that, the new advertising videos all sport the new color palette. Let me know what you think - your citizens seem very happy already to have giant screens that blast your message YOU ARE VALUED.

New cars

If you've been following previous blog posts, I've also added a lot of new, shiny car models that will roam around your city. The speedy ones are owned by your wealthy citizens and the others, well, you know.

New countries

I've added a ton of new countries! Now the whole European continent is available, as well as the rest of the Americas.
As always, this update is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[ 2021-10-25 23:04:13 CET ] [ Original post ]