If you've seen our roadmap, you know we were supposed to work on some existing systems like mining and fishing. Somehow along the way, we decided to completely rework the building system! The good news is, it was absolutely worth pushing everything back for it. Before I get ahead of myself and forget about everything else we did this month, let's start from the very beginning.
🍑 New resource collection nodes
Last month, you've seen the mining nodes - now are the trees! Different trees will spawn in different parts of the map every day - each tree has three growth phases, and the number of wood you can obtain from it will vary depending on which growth stage it's at. Different kinds of wood will allow you to craft different varieties of furniture, buildings, and other goodies!
🍑 New map but not really
We've started reworking the world to be more organic, as opposed to squares as before. While the farm is going to retain the shape as it is now (see below), with our new building system, we're going to have to rework the town...again! If only I had a dollar every time we remade the town...
We're planning to allow players to choose where to place their plot of farm. This could be anywhere within certain boundaries, but the size of the first plot will always be the same. Your farm is now also surrounded by water instead of cliffs, and a bridge to the east will lead you to the town and the rest of the main island.
There's a lot of fakery going on! If it's not in the camera...I won't build it ;) After making camera rotation a thing, however, there's a lot more I have to fill in compared to before. It makes world creation take longer, but the options that camera rotation open up are too good to pass up.
Unfortunately, this iteration of the town will never be playable since we're scrapping it and remaking it before the October patch. I'd like to keep the waterfalls and rivers, though. As much as they are a pain to make, they add a nice feeling to the map.
🍑 Building system rework
Ah yes, the real meat of June. The big event. A new building system! Many of you will probably have already seen the videos on Twitter or Discord - if you haven't yet, here it is:
When I started working on the new town map, I realized the tile system really limited how the map could look, especially with our new camera rotation. Everything had to be straight and on a grid, and quite frankly, it was also kind of annoying setting up the tiles (it even made the frame rate a little slower!) In the end, both recursive and I decided we had to just take away the tile system for building, and make a whole new one that could be also used for interiors as well. The new features include:
- world-aligned grid snapping - this means no matter where you are on the map, you can always make a perfectly straight line, even if the building area is offset from the others.
- rotate freely - rotate on 45 degree angle increments by holding CTRL and sliding your mouse...just like in the Sims! Part of October's update will also be adding additional support for controllers, although it won't be fully polished
- free build mode - my personal favourite: you can go off the grid and rotate at any degree you want! Although the default is set to snapping since we feel like most players would prefer that, you can toggle on free build mode to place things wherever you'd like
- placing multiple things on surfaces - as long as there's enough room, you can stuff as many things on top of a surface, such as a table or counter, as you'd like. No more messy snapping algorithms that limit how you can decorate your kitchen counters when you can just use free build mode!
- dyes - certain objects, indoors or outdoors, can be dyed with items and their patterns changed. Dyes can be crafted or purchased, and items with different patterns can be purchased from certain NPCs. For example, you can keep the style of your bed frame but swap out the blanket pattern by purchasing a new blanket...you can dye it afterwards, too!
🍑 Miscellaneous things
In between all the big changes, I've made some small tweaks too. The player home has changed completely to accommodate the new camera by fading out walls, and also to accommodate a new feature we'll be working on in the future...
The different times of day also received a facelift with new lighting - I realized the nighttime lighting was hard to see on older, darker, or less saturated monitors, so I adjusted the brightness and colours to make it easier to see for everyone.
Treasure spots are also a thing - they spawn randomly just like resource nodes on the island. If you happen to find one, you can dig it up and test your luck!
That's all for the month of June. Snacko development wouldn't be possible with the generosity of our patrons - the Snackie Guild members!
