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[LackOfGrace]

Hi guys!  

Finally i'm able to post a devlog here!



Introduction

Cloudscape, put bluntly, is a “sandbox city management” game.

Gameplay

You will control your population by assigning orders for different tasks that should be executed, be it building a wall, mining ores or farming wheat. Your people will then try to complete these orders.

This way you will guide your people into creating wondrous cities, exploring diverse landscapes and amass physical and cultural wealth.
But you will also have to protect you people from foreign invaders, famine and plague.

Win condition

Since its “sandbox” nature, Cloudscape will not feature an ending.
However, we may add missions and story to spice up the gameplay if deemed necessary.

Lose condition

You will lose the game when you lose your last citizen too any of the dangers in the world.
The future will tell if we add some way of recovering your city, or if loading an earlier save will be the only way.

Current development

Currently the game features:

An “endless” procedurally generated world
A day and night cycle
A dynamic light system
Assigning work orders
Resource stockpiles
We are currently working on workshops, so we can get resource refinement and crafting in the game.

Future

Before releasing a beta, we aim to have at least one way to lose the game, this will probably mean failure to feed the citizens.

After all the basic building and crafting systems are in place we will switch focus to military management and invasions. This will introduce more ways to lose have fun.

What i hope to get out of this devlog

Discussing gameplay, graphics and just getting plain critique so that i can develop a better game.
You can also check out the homepage at PlayCloudscape.com, but i will probably post all development related things here as well.

And i leave you with a pretty screenshot




Update - 2013-12-14:

Today i made a refactoring pass over the save and construction system.
After that i decided to play for a while
This was the result:


Please don't mind the graphics at this point, alot of the sprites are programmer art atm

[AullenVerch]

Awe!! All great elements for a game under the features. I'd love to see a video.  

[LackOfGrace]

Hi AullenVerch!

We are planning to release a Video as soon as we have basic graphics for everything.
Artist is currently working on new trees and visuals for one of the citizen classes.

I will probably post some more screenshots this weekend, showing off building and the citizens

[LackOfGrace]

Updated the head post with a new screenshot.

[Recs]

following.

[AullenVerch]

I like the new screen shot with the torches 

[LackOfGrace]

Thanks! :D

[LackOfGrace]

Still refactoring while thinking about how i want to implement workshops.

Code

Updated my AI goals to account for creature height, this means that a two tile citizen can now reach all tiles around it.

Fixed some minor errors in the search algorithms.

Gamedesign

The current plan is to have workshop "modules" that do different things.
So for example, a bakery area would have one grindstone that turns wheat into flour, that in turn powers several baking tables.

I think this method of doing things will give players more freedom to design their workshop areas.

Future

I have some more minor refactoring too do this refactor pass. But it is nearing completion.

After that i will take a serious look on workshops and implementing some sort of "need" system for the citizens.

[LackOfGrace]

Ahhh, the holdidays are finally over 

Code
Started with workshops, seems like i need to refactor my searching algorithms a tiny bit to account for multithreading.

Art
Solkatt has made some concept art for the miner profession.

What do you guys think?

[LackOfGrace]

 

Code
AI code for executing workstation jobs are finished.
I also wrote a system for defining these jobs via XML, this should make it very simple to add new jobs on the fly.

I've also started to write a sound system, so we can start working with music and sound.

Also added scrollwheel zooming, to allow for some nice .gif closeups
On that point, anyone have any tips on screen capturing/gif tools?

Art
Currently testing different proportions for the characters.
Also did some work on the main menu.