Hey! :)
Today we're going to talk to you about what is already done and what we intend to do in the future for SpaceVille (tent. title)! Please note that all assets you'll see in screenshots are currently prototypes, and definitely not part of the final game. Now that that's done, let's talk about the interesting things...
You're In The Spotlight
Our current intention is to have a character creation screen at the start of the game, right after a quick introduction. We already have some form of a prototype, but that still needs some work. So far, we have a character that is able to move around the village. The character model is a prototype, and although it is animated, it currently has no face due to some import problems. We're still fixing some details on his movement, to make it as smooth as possible. We have been giving much attention to this, since perfect character movement is imperative for this game to be enjoyable. As the character walks and runs, it lifts up dust particles from the ground. It's both cute, and adds a little bit of detail to the game. Like in Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon we plan for the character to be able to use various tools to interact with the world and other characters, such as a shovel, bug net, etc. You'll be able to do things like plant trees to maintain oxygen and food levels of the village. But more on that later.
As Is Your Village
In this game, your world is the village. This is where most of the gameplay will take place, and it is your job to develop your village to your and your villagers' taste. It is divided by blocks where we randomly generate the geography, vegetation and buildings. The main buildings and the rivers are fix for now. But we intend to generate the village procedurally, so that every village fells unique to every player. We are using a curved screen shader to simulate the horizon bending. It allows us to show more of the world, while maintaining a good amount of zoom to you character. This is crucial for small screen mobile devices, which is what we are targeting.
Home Sweet Home
You can take items and furniture in and out of your inventory and place it on the house. Since you'll have limited space in your inventory, this is very important. You're able to move the furniture around your house. Unlike in the village where you have a fixed camera, you're able to rotate and zoom the camera around the room, to get a really nice view of your decor. There's also planed to be a screenshot system, so that you can share your house with friends via messaging and social networks. In the future we want to make house upgrades so the player would have more room place objects.
This is your room. It's a little empty right now, but you'll be able to customize it the way you want.
It's All About The Weather
One of the very cool features we're planning on adding is a dynamic weather system based on your current location. We are using the player's GPS coordinates and download weather information based on it's location. This way, the weather in game will be same as where you are in real life, and believe us when we say that it's really cool once you get your hands on it! There's also a day/night cycle based on you're time zone (which may or may not be locked; we're still deciding on that, let us know what you think :) ).
Yes, there are also 4 seasons in your village.
That's Cool, But Am I Alone?
Short answer, no! Long answer, right now yes... The villagers' movement is currently worse than a mindless robot. We had a dialogue and quest system but unfortunately it needs to be redone, due to bad programming design. But this is all part of the process, and soon enough we'll be living and sharing our lives with real villagers and not some mindless robotic "terminators". :)
So, What's Next?
In the future, we would like to:
- Make our player able to fish in the river;
- Add collectable objects such as fossils, bugs, etc.;
- Make our player to be able to draw and then gift its drawings to its neighbours and friends;
- Make the player to able to create its own patterns to use on its house, for example.
Let us know what you think. We know that this isn't much to go by for an entire game, but we're planning on making other Dev Blog entries detailing some more important gameplay aspects.
So, what do you think? ;)
The FAXIME Team
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