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Flatlands

Harvest resources, craft items, build your home and fight your way through the surface and the depths of The Flatlands! · By Fusyon

Some tips for development :)

A topic by Walber created 6 days ago Views: 27 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 2

Hey... it's me again...

I've been playing your game, and I'm really a fan of this work. I just want to help a little with the game's development, so I’ll give you some tips that I think are useful for the game and for the players (which I recommend putting on the homepage):

For the players:

I was testing the game on another PC and noticed that it opened normally... but when trying to open or create a game, it got stuck on a black screen... and didn’t progress at all. However, while looking for possible issues to solve it, I noticed that Visual C++ needed to be installed, and now it runs perfectly for me. This seems simple to me, but for those who don’t know how to program or are just starting to play, it can be tedious if your game doesn’t open. That’s why I recommend including this information on your page as a possible solution to that error.

For the game:

At this point, I must admit that I’m satisfied with the new improvements and the expansion of the game... I really like it a lot. I only recommend adding more building materials... perhaps they could be found in caves. I find them very empty and boring compared to the surface... other than that, everything is perfect 👌

I will continue updating this topic as ideas come to me... if that's not a bother 😅

Developer

Hey, it's not a bother, I really appreciate comments! Thanks for testing the game and engaging with the development, it means a lot to me.

About the black screen issue, that's very weird, but upon research it does seem that Unity has some sort of problem with lighting in the version that I'm currently using, which, as you discovered, could cause errors when you don't have an up to date version of C++ installed. That's a nice catch by you, and I will promptly put up this information on the land page.

As for the caves, I agree. Truth is that even Alpha 1.1 didn't touch much on content or the gameplay loop per se. The reason being that, for now, the game is kind of steered in the wrong direction. My goal was never to make some sort of straight-up top-down Minecraft/Terraria-like game. I'm a big fan of immersion, narrative and big complex simulations (like CoQ, Kenshi, DF, TDoT, PZ), which those games arguably have none of, and sadly neither my game has at this moment. Flatlands is my first solo game, so I always just wanted to get a simple version published ASAP and do all the heavy lifting afterwards, because for me it's way easier to slowly change something that already exists, than to start big from the get-go. As of right now, I'm in the midst of a substantial rewrite of various core systems, so I can design much more complex behaviors for objects and creatures of the world in the future. In sum, my focus for future updates will probably be increasing the world in size, adding civilizations and NPCs you can interact with, and working on a more emergent, survival-focused gameplay. Many of the features that exist (even those I just added) will most likely be removed or completely overhauled with time.

Please, feel free to update this topic with more suggestions :)

Bua... if by DF you mean Dwarf Fortress and by PZ you mean Project Zomboid... they are game that I actively play, and I really think they are very good. If your idea is to follow that style or take inspiration from those games, I wish you the best...

Developer

Yep, those are the games! Hopefully I can bring Flatlands to be more like them in the very distant future. Thanks again.