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[AlexVsCoding]

Oh no! I wasn't suggesting wood - you can cut card with a laser cutter as long as you optimize it correctly (so that it doesn't burst into flames). I've seen it done before and there's cool stuff all over the internet where it's gone well)

[tristydee]

Hmmm... I've been thinking some more about analogue vs digital and I'm not sure if it's condusive to the art style I'm aiming for. Analogue art has wonderful details and nooks and crannies, but I'm aiming for something very minimal with full colors and sharp black outlines.

And wood was my idea But working with a 3d dimensional material would make it much harder to put the layers on top of each other

[Donutttt]

I really like the look of this. It sounds like you've got an innovative idea for combat, and I skidoo like the fact that it's single screen. I'll try to keep up with this devlog, nice work!

[tristydee]

Thank you!

[johnhackworth]

the art style is amazing! :D

by the way, I demand a crossover with The Curious Expedition!

[tristydee]

Thanks so much!

Haha! I'm working as an intern on the Curious Expedition! So I'm super glad that it's something people are excited about !!!

[Ludius]

This looks really really promising! I like pretty much every aspect of this, the art, the concept, theme, mechanics. Great concept! I hope to play the final build someday.

[tristydee]

This looks really really promising! I like pretty much every aspect of this, the art, the concept, theme, mechanics. Great concept! I hope to play the final build someday.

Thanks so much! And I hope the final build won't disappoint!

[tristydee]

I've arrived at a design crossroads for the game.

One the one hand I like the strong resemblance to a board game that was in place. Where one moved units one at a time and enemies would also move one at a time. However, while working, multiple villagers could move at once, since they got locked in a movement pattern. Communicating this to players is difficult however, since one has to tell the player that for some reason he can move multiple people, as long as they're heading towards the tree or back from the river, but not otherwise.

I have thrown this feature out. One can now move multiple units around all the time. It makes the game a little less strategic and more frantic. But I hope that one can get depth back to the gameplay through tweaking other features.

and here's a big gif of the current build! I'll start making animations soon! Also, the funny grass flying upward will be thrown out! I also rather let the child die than drop the fish which makes me feel like a bad person.

[Ludius]

I watched that gif thinking the "flying grass" was just birds and I thought it was a really nice touch. I think clusters of birds flying overhead would be cool. I don't really know if that makes sense for the geographical region/time period this game is set in, but it makes the game feel very "wild".

[tristydee]

I watched that gif thinking the "flying grass" was just birds and I thought it was a really nice touch. I think clusters of birds flying overhead would be cool. I don't really know if that makes sense for the geographical region/time period this game is set in, but it makes the game feel very "wild".

Some environment animations will definitely help with the game's juiciness and I think that a simple v shape bird would do the trick. Thanks for the tip

[tristydee]

I had some people playtest the game recently and it was a complete and utter fail 
No one knew what to do, they clicked from villager to villager without realizing that someone was selected. They tried in vain to interact with an empty table and managed to ignore the tree most of the time and the river all of the time.
I do of course realize that this is my fault and am going to revise the interface. The selection box around a villager when they were selected was far too subtle, so I've made a larger box with an animation. I've made an icon that appears above the villagers head when they try to interact with something that currently can't be interacted with. I've made a fish that jumps about in the river so that it's clear that one can fish there.
And then selection is getting redone as well. Previously a villager would automatically be deselected when you tell him to move somewhere. Instead, they now stay selected until one right clicks. Interacting with an object still does deselect them, since they are then locked into a movement pattern anyway. I wanted to avoid a right click in order to remain touch friendly, but I plan on implementing a swipe to deselect villagers on touch devices.

And here's the jumping fish animation

[AlexVsCoding]

I had some people playtest the game recently and it was a complete and utter fail 
No one knew what to do, they clicked from villager to villager without realizing that someone was selected. They tried in vain to interact with an empty table and managed to ignore the tree most of the time and the river all of the time.
I do of course realize that this is my fault and am going to revise the interface. The selection box around a villager when they were selected was far too subtle, so I've made a larger box with an animation. I've made an icon that appears above the villagers head when they try to interact with something that currently can't be interacted with. I've made a fish that jumps about in the river so that it's clear that one can fish there.
And then selection is getting redone as well. Previously a villager would automatically be deselected when you tell him to move somewhere. Instead, they now stay selected until one right clicks. Interacting with an object still does deselect them, since they are then locked into a movement pattern anyway. I wanted to avoid a right click in order to remain touch friendly, but I plan on implementing a swipe to deselect villagers on touch devices.

And here's the jumping fish animation

"Development was hard back then" comes to mind

Trust me, whilst it sucks to see people struggle, it's great that you're getting people to test gameplay as you'll learn SO MUCH. Get an video camera/audio recorder so you get all of the verbal feedback (I usually miss stuff if I try and remember it all). Also sending it out to Youtubers I find to be a useful strategy: They are very vocal when they play so you can use them playing as a documented play test you can go back through and analyse.

Love the fish animation. Keep it up!