Here's what I worked on this week:

1. The quantity of resources needed to complete each job now depends on the difficulty rating of the planet.
   1. Higher rating means: more resources to deliver. Harder to complete jobs.
   2. Lower rating means: less resources to deliver. Easy to complete jobs.
2. The quantity of the resources gathered while exploring now depends on the difficulty rating of the planet.
   1. Higher rating means: its harder to find enough resources. Harder to complete jobs.
   2. Lower rating means: its very easy to find enough resources. Easy to complete jobs.
3. I designed the actions better so that they make more sense when trying to find which ones will work and which won't.
   1. (Check the graphic for extra info about this).
4. Added more resources that can only be gathered by doing specific actions on specific properties of entities.
   1. I still need to paint the sprites for them, so for now they all share the same placeholder graphic, that means its unplayable for now.
5. Changed the layout of the actions so that they are visually organized a bit better.
6. I won't upload a new version today because I think you cannot play with this changes, so it does not change much with the previous version you can play right now.

About the graphic/diagram:

When I design games, I first start writing ideas in a numbered list (like the one above). But at some point, everything starts to get very confusing and hard to think about.

So, I start making diagrams to make the design easier to understand and to analyze. This graphic is an example of that.

I color coded each type of entity, and section, and I can easily copy and paste, move, and drag and drop object wherever I want. This makes designing so much easier because I can evaluate and compare things really fast, which is really hard compared to going up and down a numbered list.

This diagrams shows specifically which actions work on what type of entity,  the effects they have when applied to different properties, and the requirements of each.

This diagram is also easy to convert to code. By the way, I use "diagrams.net" to make my diagrams and graphics.

This is what I finished this week:

1. Added new sprites for new actions, entity properties and resources.
2. Now each entity “specie” is a bit more unique and different from the rest, because each action can have varied effects over different species of entities.
   1. Example: if you break a fruit, one entity may give you “juice”, while other species of fruit will only give you “seeds”.
3. Now you can complete jobs. The delivery button on the base should work.
   1. Choose a job by clicking on the “jobs list” button and selecting one job by clicking it. When you click “Deliver” it read the resources you gathered when exploring, and delivers the resources requested to the base.
   2. The completed job in the list is left marked as complete and cannot be selected again.
   3. When you complete a job, it pays you increasing your amount of money indicated on the upper right corner of the screen.
   4. In the future you will be able to travel to another planet once you complete a specific number of jobs.
   5. There are some resources already included so you can try this function quickly.

I uploaded a new version of the game with these changes mentioned above, its a new version that also includes the changes mentioned in the previous devlog, check it out too if you want details.

Link to the game page.

Here's what I worked on this week:

1. The map state is saved (to memory, not disk).
   1. The robot position is saved.
   2. The entities that you find on each sector is saved.
   3. The actions that you apply to the entities you find are also saved. So if you go back to a sector where you activated actions, you will see that you cannot activate the same action again on the same entities than before.
      1. In the future I plan to reset the entities to their original state after a few days have passed.
2. The map is made of sectors that contain biomes.
   1. You can recognize each biome by its unique tile graphic, that way you can also remember what is inside.
      1. If you need to find a specific entity type, remember how the tile looks, you'll find the same type of entities in other tiles that look the same.
   2. Each biome holds different entity species.
   3. Each biome has its color, and each planet has its own characteristic color.
3. Entity species have unique colors now, so they are easier to recognize when you encounter them.
4. Added a few new map biome sprites. 

The game is more playable than before, so please try it and let me know what you think!.
https://chrisibarra.itch.io/pec

One of the most important things I've learned is to be honest on how much fun I'm having with my own games, not as a game developer, but as a player. Because if I'm not having fun with my own game, probably other people won't have fun playing it either.

This week I realized that exploring sectors sucks. Whenever I had to do it to test something, I just feel I don't want to do it. It's very boring to just click "move" and wait for something to happen, and since exploration is one of the core experiences of the game, something that you will do very often, I have no other option but to change it and make it fun.

I succeeded at my initial goal, which was to simulate the experience of giving orders to an employee which is on the sector exploring, you should not be able to see anything because you are supposed to be inside a robot, you just receive information of what the explorer sees. In the end this experience is very boring.

Even though I succeeded in creating the experience I initially intended, I need to forget that direction I committed to, and change it for the good of the game and its success. This was not an easy decision to make, I wasted a lot of time designing and coding this part of the game, but I also realize I need to design something better, or else this game won't be fun enough, I will not enjoy it, and nobody else will enjoy it.

I hope to not make the same mistake again ( even though testing ideas is what prototypes are for, I could have saved a lot of time and effort ), so I started to write the design of my game in a slightly different way, now I write ideas in this order:

1. Always keep in mind that the mechanics are just a "means to an end", not an "end" in themselves. The end is to make the player go trough a meaningful, emotional experience.
2. First: define an objective, the experience I want to player to feel.
3. Second: define requirements to be able to reach that objective, the things that need to happen in order to reach it.
4. Third: propose a mechanic designed to achieve the objective, one that fulfills the requirements above.
5. Fourth: define "why" each aspect of the mechanic exists, this is to make sure that each part of the mechanic exist for a good reason. Some ideas seem good at first, but should be discarded after finding that their "why" does not contribute to the objective.

Once I write the first draft of the mechanic, I correct it again and again, until I get a final version I can analyze further.

To analyze a mechanic its very useful to make a diagram of it, like the one below, where I write a step by step guide of the player experience. Then I analyze each step of the experience, I can write things I need to avoid or correct, I can write what possible thing could happen, that's why from one box can grow many arrows that point to other boxes.

(the starting point is in yellow, the red things are things I need to avoid, the dark green part is the exit).

Besides the experience diagram, I also draw screen mockups with all the basic elements that could appear:

Well, that's it for today, I hope I created a better exploration experience, next week I'll start coding it.

This week I worked on implementing the new exploration mini-game. Once you enter a sector and decide to explore it, you will see a small section in the middle of the screen where you will be able to direct your explorer to discover what the sector contains.

Besides finding entities like in the previous version, you will also find new terrain tiles, for now they only show graphics, but in the near future they will have different effects on the explorer. That way it will be more interesting to explore, having to evade some terrains that are hard or dangerous to traverse. Some could be too hot, like lava, or be walls that can be climbed with the right tools.

The things I implemented in this new sector map are:

1. Fog: when you enter a sector it will be covered with fog, which hides the contents of each tile, when you get close enough, the fog disappears and it reveals what is underneath.
2. Terrain depends on the biome: on the planet map you can see all the biomes of the planet. When you enter a map sector, you enter in its biome, which contains a specific terrain set for that biome. All other sectors of the planet that share the same biome will have the same terrain types.
3. The sector is big: it can change its size too, some sectors can be bigger than others. If you hold your mouse button, and if you move the scroll bars, you can see more of the sector being explored.
4. The sector has entities: like the previous exploration screen, the sector has entities you can inspect and gather its resources. Just choose an entity when you find it, click the "inspect" button, and wait until the entity is revealed.
5. Click on the "return to robot" button to go back to the planet map screen.

I think this version of the exploration is much more interesting than the previous one, and has the potential of more possibilities, please try it and let me know what you think. Link to the game.

This week I worked on adding terrain effects: When you explore, and you touch a terrain, the effects belonging to that terrain are triggered and specific explorer properties are changed.

Each terrain can have a specific attributes, like "swamp", "rocky", "icy", etc, that determines which properties it affects, but each terrain has its own variation of those effects.

This allows for a lot of variety when you travel to different planets, since you will be able to find the same attributes, but with different effects, and its terrains, with different variations of those effects. The version I uploaded does not work perfectly yet, but it shows the main idea.

Try it here: https://chrisibarra.itch.io/pec

1. In this version you can explore the planet map with a new fog of war.
2. It also has bigger dimensions which can change depending on the planet.
3. You can drag and drop to see more of the planet map.
4. The position of the robot gets saved after exploring a sector and going back to the planet
5. I fixed some bugs on the sector exploration screen, now it detects only the terrain the explorer is standing on. Before it detected many terrains at the same time which provoked some bugs.
6. The terrain effects while exploring should make more sense now. Each terrain has a couple of effects which can be viewed on the left side of the screen:
   1. All terrains affect speed of movement in some way, the speed is determined by the tool used to traverse the terrain, for example: boots.
   2. You can see immediately which properties and tools get affected at the top.
   3. If you want more details you can check the list at the bottom left side of the screen.
7. Sorry for so little progress this week, correcting bugs took most of my time.

New things this week:

1. Changed the active effects windows so the effects are easier to read.
2. Now you can see the base on the planet map. You can enter inside too.
3. Fixed being able to click map sectors outside of the window area.
4. Fixed some visual glitches with the tooltips.
5. Fixed opening multiple windows when inspecting entities.
6. Added tooltips to the icons in the active effects section of the explore screen.

This week was mostly bug fixes, next week I'll work on improving the exploration experience because I still feel it's not good enough.

https://chrisibarra.itch.io/pec/devlog/278952/improved-exploration-screen

This week:

1. Added the ability to shoot at creatures. Press the right mouse button to shoot anywhere you want.
2. Creatures can move around the sector.
3. Creatures can detect you when you discover them. For now they attack you on sight. Maybe later I can add stealth abilities.
4. Creatures now have health.
   1. When you shoot a creature enough times, it dies, then you can interact with its properties, harvest its resources, etc.
5. Changed how the effects of actions are visualized so now they are more simple and easier to understand.
   
   Link to the game page.

This week I worked on fixing GUI bugs, Unity is so un-intuitive sometimes, its hard to believe, I think I solved the problem now, but there are still some minor bug where some tooltips appear mixed with the tooltips below, I'll have it fixed for next week.

Now you can see in which entities you can find the resources inside the jobs list. You can see tooltips inside the tooltips, so if you hover over a resource, you can see the sources of that selected resource, and then the name of the source if you hover over it. There is also a little improvement where the bullet sprite changes when it hits a monster.

Link to the game page.

This week I worked on:

1. Added a more immediate way to see your health, oxygen and energy, since they are so crucial to stay alive while you explore.
   1. Now you can see big bars of different colors next to the explorer portrait. They fill or deplete as the values of each property changes in real time.
2. Actions:
   1. Added a few random effects for all actions, so that the decision to do it or not do it is more interesting.
   2. Action Requirements work once again. When a requirement is not met, the missing properties are highlighted so you know you need to increase it for next time.
   3. Changed which actions are available: the entity only allows the actions that can be done to it.
      1. Now its not so annoying or frustrating when you cannot do an action for no apparent reason. (I forgot to mention this on the previous devlog).
3. Tooltips:
   1. Fixed the tooltips, now they look correct.
   2. Also added more tooltips to properties that didn't have them.
4. Changed the UI of the exploration a little to try to use the space a bit better.
5. Fixed bugs that appeared when trying some actions on a couple of entities.

Link to the game page.

Until now, I have been designing my mechanics with a type of diagram that goes from node to node (like the one above), that way I can analyze the player experience in a step by step manner.

The bad thing about this way of designing the player experience, is that there is no way to visually measure the emotions the players feel, or when they feel it. So I created a new way to draw the diagrams.

With this new way I can better predict how the mechanics and systems will affect the emotional experience of the player.

I still draw nodes like before, but now they are placed in a X and Y axis.

The Y axis is the time-line, it shows how far apart in time each step is in the experience.

The X axis is the intensity of the emotion, so if its a very boring or subtle emotion, the node is to the left, and when its a very intense emotion, the node is to the right. The color green shows if its a desirable emotion, like happiness, and red for the undesirable emotions, for example boredom or frustration.

The latest way I used this was when I designed the effects of actions when exploring a planet sector. Before using this technique I had the problem of feeling that the effects where too boring, it was very easy make a decision, basically I had to activate all the actions since all of them were desirable, and that was boring.

So I analyzed this in the following diagram.

You can clearly see that there are some experiences that are more positive than others. If I see that a part of the experience is boring, I put it close the the vertical axis, and if its interesting I put in more to the right.

That way I can analyze the experience of play, and create a new mechanic that is a consequence of this analysis.

In this example, I could clearly see that I had to identify which properties where positive and which where negative, and then add a couple of them to the effects list of each action, that way I could make the player go trough a more interesting “decision making process” after deciding which effects where desirable and which where not.

This week I did these:

1. Added a payment deadline:
   1. When you move your robot on the planet map, in-game time advances and days pass, if you reach the deadline you have to pay money for business maintenance and salaries.
   2. If you run out of money you go bankrupt and you loose the game.
   3. Hover your mouse over the deadline text at the upper bar to see a summary of your expenses.
2. When you explore, if your explorer runs out of oxygen he starts loosing health until he dies.
   1. In future updates: You'll need to hire a new explorer to be able to explore again (I don't want to disable exploration since there is no way to hire employees right now).
3. Creatures can attack the explorer and kill him.

1. Added “news notification” pop-ups on the “planet map” screen.
   1. When an event happens, for example a deadline arrives, a pop-up appears so you don't miss it.
2. Fixed dead creatures that revived when you touched them.
3. Changed bullet size so its a bit more challenging.
4. Now the explorer has use the ladder to exit and enter the transport robot.
   1. If you want to explore a sector you have to use the ladder to exit the robot.
   2. When you want to leave the sector, first move the explorer to the robot, and then use the ladder, then you can return to the planet map.
5. Here's a fun bug you can play with:
   1. If you shoot at the robot, the bullets will stick to it without disappearing.
   2. This will be fixed in the next update.

Link to the game page.

1. Bullets no longer stick to the robot.
2. Added a new continual effect when the explorer steps on a terrain, giving more variety to the terrains.
   1. Now the speed of travel is calculated by taking a percentage of an explorer tool. Example: Some terrains will use a percentage of the “boots” to calculate the speed of travel.
3. Now you can see the discovered entities on the map.
   1. Select a map cell on the planet map, and you will see the entities you discovered before inside the sector info panel.
   2. In this way you can select where to find the resources requested by jobs. You first need to explore the planet sectors to automatically save the location of each entity.
4. Fixed a bug where the tooltips did not dissapear.
5. Fixed other boring bugs.

Link to the game page.

This week:

1. There is a new item Store on the base!.
   1. If you run out of oxygen or other common resources, you can buy them at the store at the base.
   2. Just be careful not to run out of money!.
2. There are new resources scattered in each sector.
   1. As you explore a sector, you can find resources laying on the ground.
   2. Just touch them to take them.

New things this week:

1. Small resources scattered in sectors:
   1. Now they appear at the same time that a map sector is fully visible.
      1. Before, they appeared a second after discovering a sector, which looked weird since they appeared suddenly out of nowhere.
   2. There is more variety of resource types in each sector biome.
   3. Also the quantity of small resources gets saved: if you enter the same sector twice, you'll see that the quantity of resources stays just as you left it.
2. Added a new action to see the resources of the terrain while you explore.
   1. This resources will be used to increase the population of the different bases in the planet.
   2. To increase the population you will need to build structures on top of these resources to gather them.
   3. Each base will have different resource requirements to increase its population.
3. Added the ability to build structures to extract resources from the sector.
   1. These resources will be used to increase the population of each base.
   2. Each base will have its own requirements to increase its population, so these buildings will be used to meet those requirements.
   3. This does not work very well yet, it has some bugs and it's not completely implemented.
4. When you hover over a base you can see its available resources inside a tooltip.
   1. Build structures to increase the quantity of resources.

This week:

1. I worked on polishing the events system:
   1. Now you will be able to see branching narrative:
      1. Each action will open a different story branch, one branch if you fail, and another branch if you succeed.
   2. Each time you select an action you get:
      1. A section that tells you if you succeeded or failed the action.
      2. The effects of the actions.
2. I started working on the employee management screen, when I finish it:
   1. You will be able to see available candidates for hire.
   2. Compare between actual employees, candidates, and between each other.
      1. You will be able to compare inventories/stats, name, face, and payment.
   3. Hire and fire employees.

I will not upload a new version this time since there is no actual new things to play with.