Hello, Magnates!
Another day, another devblog. We have finally settled into our usual rhythm of development and are charging through with adding more features and fixing bugs.
First off, we know there are a few people that want to buy the game so they can play the Alpha. We are still planning ways for our new fans to get ahold of the game, and we will hopefully have it available soon!
Doors, Windows & Furniture
Remember the demo… well, the doors and windows weren’t exactly aesthetically appealing, so we fixed them! More correctly, we are well on the way to fixing them. We have added a new door and window placement system, plus we’ll be adding even more door and window models in the future with the ability to change colours and materials of different components. We are also beginning work on a system where players will be able to change the colour/material of furniture pieces to create even more variety for all of you.
We have added a way for players to paint entire walls and floors with a shortcut/hotkey instead of individually painting each segment. This comes with the new ability to snap furniture along walls instead of having to fidget around with matching the furnitures angle to the wall. Convenience!
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
Like all games, there are a lot of bugs that we have been dealing with. Bugs can take just as much time to squash as it does to develop new features. We have fixed many of the issues with saving & loading that people have noticed in our pre-alpha demo, as well as more fixes to wall & stair placement.
Guest AI
We are hard at work on improving our Guest AI; making sure they can make decisions, have priorities and even ignore some of their own needs. We are also adding more interaction points so guests can interact with more and more items and furniture within your hotel. Our first iteration of the guest AI system will be somewhat simple compared to our final implementation as we want to begin proper testing of how the guest will act/behave within a hotel, along with being able to test peripheral game systems and gameplay loops.
Staff AI
Ah, the backbone of the hotel — or the broken bone… whatever it is, we are hard at work making new AI systems so the staff can work and interact with items and guests and even complete tasks. We also want to ensure that each staff member will vary and be independent from one another to create gameplay variety.
Vertical Placement
We have also started implementing vertical placement so you can place small items onto tables and other objects. For example, placing a plant pot onto a coffee table. This system will additionally be used for things like meals being placed onto tables by staff at a restaurant. Time to get creative and decorative!
Thanks for checking out the update! Drop your thoughts below or hop onto Discord to chat with everyone.
Until next time!