Dev Log Update: Game Juicing

We've been continuing work on relics and the tour guide system, but we've also taken some time out to juice the game a bit to make it more satisfying to play.

For example, we've implemented a highlight system which highlights the object your mouse is over. If you hover over a relic, the highlight will also change colour to indicate its rarity.

We've also added one of the final, but most crucial, parts to the auction system. Now, the actual relic model will show when bidding. This is much more helpful and easier to recognise than just a name. It also looks pretty cool!

On a smaller scale, we've added a placeholder padlock icon to objects that you haven't unlocked through research yet (shown above).

In the fakes department, we've been working on the Fountain of Youth and the Missing Link:

Next Week:

• More Relics & Fakes
• More Juicing
• More Fix List
• More Tour Guide System

Fake Showcase: Fake Missing Link

Roughly 6 Month's Development!

Museum Tycoon has been in development for roughly 6 months now! The top screenshot was taken exactly 6 months ago.

Dev Log Update: Tour Guide System & Small Assets

The tour guide system is slowly getting more and more advanced. When placing the tour route, players can now click anywhere in the museum and the tour with path-find to that location. This means players can now create a whole tour in a couple of clicks.

Creating the Tour Guide Path

We've also been working on the podiums you can place along the tour. Guides now stop by the podiums and talk to the guests (the talking animations haven't been made yet!).

Placing Podiums

Guides Stopping at Podiums (Animations Will Come Later!)

In addition to the tour system we've also been working on a few small assets for the next build. For example, all of the food items are now properly modelled, instead of just white food-shaped cubes.

Next Week:

• Continuing work on History Before History relics & fakes
• Continuing work on the tour guide system
• Additional changes to UI 

In Other News:

Quill 18 played a quick preview of the game! Link Here!

Fake System

This post is mainly to go into more detail about how fakes work in the game and their purpose. It also shows some of the fakes that will be available in the next alpha build.

Fakes in General:

Fakes provide many advantages to the player. Firstly, they are a way for players to buy objects that give off 'awe' to impress guests to donate. In addition, fakes not only generate awe but they also multiply the awe of surrounding real relics (a kind of thorn between two roses theory: if you see a a run down, cardboard looking relic, it only makes the genuine relics next to it look even better). Not only this, but certain fakes also provide a set ability, such as sucking money from guests pockets or 'suggesting' them to donate money.

Standard Fakes:

As mentioned, standard fakes are fakes which do not have a set ability. However, they are still useful in boosting the surrounding awe of real relics and giving off awe on their own tile.

A Standard Fake: Big Foot Picture

Ability Fakes:

Ability fakes are the fakes that present tough decisions to players in the late game. Even if your museum is running successfully, do you really want to get rid of that fake that's stealing money on the side for you? Ability fakes can provide unique and interesting bonuses such as gaining extra money or getting guests to buy more products in your museum. 

An Ability Fake: Boney Phoney (Sucks Money From Guests)

UI Implementation & More Relics

This week we've been implementing new the UI and creating a few relics along the way! The new UI is still not completely there yet, but things are already looking better than they did.

The clock is fully functional and shows the date, year and time of the month.

The buttons have been condensed to a small book at the bottom corner of the screen. We want players to be able to access all the tools and information of the game from the small book. Right now, players can buy land, hire staff and place paths and buildings from the corner, but eventually we will add 'bookmarks' that open up statistics such as annual finance sheets and relic catalogues.

We've also had some time to build a few more relics so we've bolstered the number of dinosaur bones found in the History Before History category! As you can see, we've also been playing around with colour correction and depth of field.

Next Week:

• Implementation of new gameplay system
• More History Before History Relics

Dev Log Update: UI and Bug Fixes

This week we’ve continued work on the Alpha 2 feedback and started to make improvements to the UI.

The UI will look a lot different by the time the next alpha rolls along. We’ve taken feedback on board and we’re trying to streamline the UI while also giving players more tools to get a deeper understanding of their museum.

As an example, the bar at the top of the screen will be replaced with a pocket watch that tells the month and year, as well as being able to pause, play and speed up time.

We’ve also overhauled all of the buttons and icons (making sure to add a proper close button this time around) and so far we’re happy with the results. However, it’s important to note that the UI will always be an evolving process throughout the development of Museum Tycoon.

We’re still working through our alpha bug list and have fixed a lot of issues including how guests react to donation stands and food stands, making paths more satisfying to build, how thieves steal relics, bugs with the research and explorer den and more. The crash bug that occurred at the start of the tutorial has now also been fixed.

In addition to all of this, we’ve been working on a new game mechanic that will hopefully be at a good stage to show next week, it’s something that you guys have been asking for and we think it’s going to improve game significantly.

Next Week:

• Continuing work on the UI
• Continuing work on the Fix List
• Finishing the relics for History Before History Theme

In Other News: 

YouTuber "Our Alex" has made a really informative let’s play of the game which gets down into the nitty gritty of how the game works, it’s a good watch if you haven’t had a chance to play the game yet.

Dev Log Update: Alpha Feedback and Art Pipleline

Hey guys,

Sorry for a late update this week, we were swamped with launching Alpha Build 2 last Friday! We got some really great feedback and bug reports, and we've complied it all into a fix list that we're going to be working through over the coming month.

A few people have been asking for more details on the game development side and how we create certain parts of the game, so this update will focus on the 3D art pipeline of Museum Tycoon and how relics are made.

Firstly, we work in Blender (it's free!) to model and UV map the asset. Most of the asset's parts just have a basic light-map pack unless they require specific or detailed texturing.

Then, we give the whole model an ambient occlusion pass and begin texturing. If parts of the model do not need detailed texturing, they are vertex coloured in blender above the ambient occlusion. This saves us time and gives a unique look to our assets. If it needs a detailed pattern (such as the serpent's scales) we take it into Photoshop and paint a texture.

Once we're happy with the texture, we make the final scale and rotation adjustments in Blender and prepare to export it to Unity.

Once in Unity, we give it all the required asset prefabs such as giving off awe and checking where it can and cannot be placed.

Once all that's done, it's ready to be discovered by players and placed in the museum!

And that's the current art pipeline in Museum Tycoon!

In addition to the serpent, we tried to get as many assets in as possible last week ready for the alpha:

Next Week:

• Continuing work on the fix list
• Continuing work on more assets