Devlog #48 - Housing for All
Meowllo everyone! We’re a little late on this month’s devlog due to a certain little stinker having a health scare. Turns out he’s perfectly healthy, just needs to grow more…
But now that all the vet appointments are over, I’m free to write my rambling devlogs! Yay!(?)
🏠 Playing Games on the Job
I touched on this topic vaguely in the past before, but I love using the Sims as a tool to help me play around with ideas for houses in Snacko. While the scale, materials, and colors don’t end up 1:1, it’s a good starting point that’s faster to iterate on than traditional concept art.
Plus, I get to play the Sims while working…
I wanted the houses to match the personality of their inhabitant, and this bold house with big windows and different style from the regular wooden cabins fits Date’s personality well.
I hope you enjoy getting to know Date and his eccentricities!
All in all, this month, we added 3 new houses for the additional NPCs that will be in the Kickstarter backer build. Everyone else already had houses, but Date, Hanna, and Riku were homeless…until now.
Now, they can enjoy paying property tax like everyone else (there is no property tax).
A little new touch I added to the houses to give them some character is interactable placards. View them to remind yourself of their opening hours, or just what the resident has scribbled on them.
I tried phrasing every one slightly differently to match their personality.
🏃 Progression Design
The bulk of last month’s work was on progression design. Remember how we put in all the assets and cutscenes for the main story? That’s cool and all, but…the game needed more meat on its bones.
The way story beats were triggered meant you could pretty much speed run a lot of it. It just felt a little empty and sad. To help pace the game better, we’ve changed from hard-triggers (X happens on day 5, Y happens on day 8), it’s now a cascading series of events and triggers that can cause something else to happen and unlock.
That way, people who want to speedrun the content can, and for those of us who like to chill a little and play at our own pace, you’re not getting cutscenes thrown at you randomly.
We’ve also added a bunch of different changes and quests to how you can obtain rewards like crafting recipes or items… (that I won’t get into but I spent a lot of brain power on)
But our hope is with these new quests and cutscenes, it’ll make your settlement into Snacko life a lot easier and filled with dopamine hits!
And…that’s the bulk of August! There’s somehow more work popping up the more work we do, because of things like the progression where we feel like an aspect of the game still needs some polish. But this is a good sign, right? That means there’s enough of a game there to criticize…right??
Ahh, games are hard. I’m going back to work.
See you next month, and thank you for reading until the end!
Extra thank you to our Patrons and Ko-fi supporters! Without you, Snacko development would look very different. We appreciate every one of you 🐾
