African Adventure

vintar

Hey all, so I`m making an African safari tycoon type game in my spare time. Was wondering if any artists / modelers are keen to colab on the project. Not sure where it will go but at the very least will be a great portfolio piece.
All artwork is placeholder / free assets at the moment. Below are a few images and info on what is done so far:

TITLE SCREEN (placeholder)


CLEAR AREAS TO PLACE SHOPS AND ANIMALS. TILE PLACEMENT / REMOVING / ROTATING IS COMPLETE


CONSTRUCTION MENU. ALL SELECTABLE ITEMS HAVE WORKING PURCHASE OPTIONS.


MINING GAME. NOT SURE WHY BUT I WANTED TO MAKE ONE. PERHAPS WHEN CLEARING AN AREA IT OPENS WITH A CHANCE TO UNEARTH SOMETHING.


ANIMAL PURCHASE MENU. ALL ANIMALS CAN BE PLACED AND THEY PATHFIND IN OPEN AREAS.


WORKING INVENTORY SYSTEM.


SALE AND MANUFACTURE OF GOODS COMPLETE


Saving and loading tiles and progress is working.
Progress system is partly complete, and I still would like to add poachers so you would have to beef up security etc.
My email is in my profile, give me a shout if interested. Open to any feedback as well :)

Wolfbeard

I've made some African - Bushveld type music loops a while back that you could use in the game if you're keen. Drop me a message if you'd like me to send them!

vintar

That would be awesome, thanks!

vintar

If anyone wants to download and play the demo, you can do so here : https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwv2zd147flfbsj/PCBuild.rar?dl=0

Move using the arrow keys. Page up / down for zoom. Mouse click for the rest.
All feedback welcome but bare in mind this is a super early build with complete placeholder art.

critic

I can't get past the loading screen, tried twice and waited for 5 minutes, it's a nice loading screen though.

vintar

Really weird. There should be a start button....

vintar

@critic, are you playing on a mac by some chance?

critic

No, Windows 10, windowed mode, 720p.

vintar

Ok thanks, it seems like a resolution issue, I`m working on it.

SleepingSafari

Hey @Vintar,

Played your game a bit :)

I'm also having issues with buttons going off-screen (see attached screenshot). Tried it in windowed mode and buttons went further off screen. I don't think your UI is resizing with various ratios.

I could see "START" and enter game at least : )

Not too sure what I'm supposed to do though. I could only clear land and don't know what to do next lol... not sure if relevant buttons are off-screen?
Game also super laggy on my PC (Windows 7, 8GB ram, 2GB GPU, 1600x900 ratio). Especially when fully zoomed out.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

vintar

Yeah buttons are off-screen. Checking it.

vintar

@critic @SleepingSafari , please try this build : https://www.dropbox.com/s/4aecgnp4wa9tv6v/PCBuild.rar?dl=0

UI seems to be behaving.

critic

Hi, sorry to say but the game is unplayable for me, some thoughts are below.

[-]You need an intro of some sort, stating the goal and setting.
[-]Only things I'm able to do is clear the trees and lay roads, everything else requires some gold or something, there is no hint of how to get it.
[-]The two top left buttons don't work.
[-]Clearing tress gives no resources.
[-]Manufacturing button doesn't work.
[-]The purchase items cards have broken aspect ratios, the buttons are cut-off and none of the buttons on the the cards work (picture attached).
[-]If a button is pressable and disabled you still need to show the player that it is in fact a button, buttons need a 'pressed' or 'hover' animation even if disabled to let the player know it is a button that can be pressed and not an image.
[-]Some sort of guidance would be wonderful, like a mini tutorial.
[-]Controls are weird for this type of game, you need to utilize the mouse, for instance, [RMB+Drag] for scrolling, [LMB] for selecting, [LMB+RMB] for camera pitch and rotation, [Scrollwheel] for zoom... It's pretty standard for the genre and is expected.

You need to sort out these 'technical' issues, I like these types of games and there might be good gameplay at the core, but it's very hard to get to it with the current state of the UX.

vintar

@critic thanks for the feedback. Man but the UI is just not playing ball! Totally agree that there needs to be more instructions and that's what I will be concentrating on for the next while. If you clear a few more areas you will see that your progress level will increase to 1 and you are able to buy animals and shops etc. Should've pointed that out, appologit's. Thanks for the in depth feedback. I'll make sure all of the issues are addressed before posting another update. UI works perfectly on 16:9 for those wanting to try.

critic

Another thing, the build menus take up a lot of space, can I suggest something like this.

It saves a lot of space and it shows all the information that you are showing, the blue section would open up with different build categories when the shop button is clicked, once you select the appropriate section, the building items would appear where the current shops are. When you hover over a building a brief description with cost and requirements is shown.

vintar

I actually had something a lot smaller originally but found it quite hard to read, especially on mobile, hence the great big options. But yes, they are a bit much.

roguecode

I've been playing RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic on phone and the menu system works surprisingly well, even on a small screen