Hey gals and guys,

It’s only been two weeks but a lot has happened to the game:

• A basic economy system has been implemented,
• The map has grown and camera movement (pan and zoom) is implemented,
• The build system has been improved.

The basic economy system takes money out of your account when you buy items and hire or fire actors. When a movie is released, you’re awarded between 5 and 20 grand, totally randomly (for now...). As simple as it sounds, it allowed me to place critical pieces of code that will be easily tweaked in the next version.

Implementing the economy system

Once the economy system was in place, the next step was to enlarge the map. Initially, the map had a size of 32x20 but it was going to be too small for what we were trying to achieve. I decided to redesign the map to be 100x100 tiles. Adding extra tiles was pretty straightforward despite a few mishaps with the layers. Camera movement was also added and later clamped to avoid traveling in the void of this world.

Map rework

I hope to eventually have the map automatically generated at the start, but that’s a feature for later down the road. The prototype aims to have the main components drawn out; the fanciness will come later!

Last but not least, I thought it was important for the build system to display the walls correctly. While I was at it, I completely redesigned the building assets:

• The grass is a bit smoother,
• Off with the flashy wood floor, enter dull concrete floor,
• The fences have been overhauled,
• The brick walls now have corners and edges that blend together correctly.

Here are two screenshots of the same building- see the difference?

Prototype 1.0 - Building assets

Prototype 2.0 - Building assets

Having to design new assets was quite challenging since it’s not my area of expertise, but I like how it turned out. It is a bit less intense on the eye!

For the next version, I will work at adding zones to continue improving the movie making system. But, more on that in the next devlog!

If you have any questions, suggestions or ideas, let me know in the comments!

Cheers!