Game Maker Progress 48: Added Structures, Upgrades and Event Notification System

Hello everyone,

After a few considerations - I decided to delay the Village to Town system for later on - most likely October. The reason for this decision was that implementing the up-scaled graphics, together with a few other related features; much of the game's code has to be modified to ensure it functions with the larger tile size. For this choice - I decided before moving onto another major feature that would require essentially braking down the game's functionality again until implemented - I would like to have another play-test to ensure that most of the game's systems remain functional; and no hidden bugs crop up.

That being said - with the end of the month nearing - I decided to focus on adding more content to the game itself. Based on the feedback from the first play-test - there was a high request for more approaches to deal with issues in-game, be they resources or structures. Whilst the game is early on - and content is a relatively low in importance compared to getting the game's functionality down - with around a week left in this development cycle, I decided it would be worth dedicating some more time to adding this content to begin trying it out and testing it. 

Balancing will definitely be a continuous process - as will be changing around structures until they both fit in a logical manner - and fit with the still-evolving game's functionality. It is - needless to say - imperative to maintain a type of general approach to various game systems, to allow room for changes in the way the game works. Such as making sure that if down the road - structures do need to be placed adjacent to one another - the code to build structures is easily modified to allow for this restriction. 

Another system being added is an Event Notification system. Players during the play-test of the Pre-Alpha 0.1 Build expressed their wishes to be notified of certain events; and this feature had already been planned to be implemented - and it has found it's way into this build. At this stage - the system is very much a place-holder in terms of it's graphical and also in terms of it's ability to convey information. Players receive a weekly report of Growths, Immigration, Decline in the Population, and also the change in season. Aside from this - players are also notified if a Residential District is running low on food - and they also can move the camera to the related district by simply clicking on the notification. For the moment - a small icon falls from the top right of the screen - and the player can hover over the icon to display the related information. It is, needless to say, planned to ensure each icon is distinguishable for various events - and also allow for a cleaner and quicker way to relay the information within the tool-tip.

Until next time,

Dylan