The time has come! Ducktopia is ready for launch. We could not be more excited about being able to share with you what we have been working on! In this first release version, we have some of the features we wanted, but there is more to come! As we continue to build and expand upon the game, we will need your help so we can make the game even better. We would love to get your help with new ideas for features, bug fixes, and balance changes. We hope you enjoy the game and let us know if you have any ideas or feedback to make the game even better! We are already working on new features and changes to the game. We plan to create a "develop" branch so you can check out the new and exciting things we are working on, and we are excited to show it off and get your feedback and your thoughts. Some of the things we have our eye on developing further are:

• Change the way we display total production.
• Create new buildings and needs such as prisons and hospitals.
• Create biomes so different parts of the world handle production differently.
• Add more resources so there will be more to gather before being able to get everything.
• A creative mode where you can build to your heart's content.
• Modding support is also something we are looking into, so the community can bring their creativity to the game.

There are a few bugs we already know of and are working hard on trying to fix, they are as follows:

• There are a very large amount of resolution options, this is caused by the different refresh rate options. We are implementing a separate option for this in the future so it won't be as cluttered.
• If you save/load in the middle of researching something, your research will get cancelled and you will not get any research points back.
• After loading a save: When a building begins burning and you have a firestation, it often incorrectly states that no duck is available to fight this fire.

It is crazy to think that we have gotten this far and created a game you will hopefully enjoy. One of the things we recently did was look back on some of the first playable version of the game and seeing the progress and changes we have made. One of the things that we have iterated over a lot is UI, as you will be able to see in the following screenshots.
In this first image, which you can see above, is one of the first playable versions of Ducktopia (then called DuckCity). As you can see the UI was very crude, with awful sprites and little information. Besides that, there were only a few buildings to choose between and therefore not much gameplay.
In this second iteration, we took inspiration from games like "Cities: Skylines" and SimCity. In this iteration, there was more information in the UI, however, the bars in the right corner were never implemented to do anything but look pretty. At this time, more buildings also started to be added to the game, giving it more variation. You can also see we started to label the game build dates, so in this instance, the build is from 12/13/2019.
In this third iteration, the UI started to look a lot cleaner and satisfying. However, we were still not completely happy with it. We also started playing around with the lighting.
Soon after, the UI started looking more like how it is currently. In the 4th iteration, the UI still looked a little chunky. We felt like the UI was too big, and still lacking a lot of information. Also, the colors were dull and boring.
And here we are on the 5th and so far the final iteration. We are quite happy with this design and is the current design you will be using when playing the game. To make the UI even better, we added the option to choose between different color schemes so you can match the color that fits you the most! At this point, the building models have been updated with more details. Furthermore, more buildings have been added to give you even more variety! Remember to check out our Discord, where you are welcome to come and hang out and talk about the game. Also, check out our Twitter. So stay tuned for more updates and more quackery! Quack quack Llama Softworks!

[ 2020-09-21 15:51:55 CET ] [ Original post ]