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[Starver]

If they're 'ahead of their time', I don't see a problem with "Late Era (n)" heralding some "Era (n+1)" architecture sprouting up - though it would be more funny to see them as Era (n) started. In 'fixing' it, you could observe some granularity.

(Or never herald, but "Early Era (n)" only proportionally implements Era (n) and otherwise retains Era (n-1) ones that only deplete gradually, the first 'accurate' ones are the heralds in an otherwise holdover anachronism. That's on top of 'deliberate' pre-Era historical remnants, that you say you'll keep. Good touch.)

That said, this needs more work than many 'era-smart' games tend to try to implement, so don't consider this advice needing to be followed, merely musing for my own enjoyment.

[geoffroypir]

Starver, your suggestions can be applied without a huge amountof work, and I am seriously considering adding granularity on architeture given some specific conditions. That would visually hint the player of some characteristics of the city.

I have made a new update, here is the transcription from the kickstarter page :

I have drawn this, I might use this as a banner for the next kickstarter campaign


I think I have already mentionned this earlier, but I am currently thinking of a new name of the game. I think the current name does not reflect very well the scope of my game. This isn't a bad time to change it either.

I am curious if any of you have suggestions ? (not necessarly a full name). If you don't have a kickstarter account you can send suggestions on my discord   https://discord.gg/2v42fgS

More flora
I have added more growable things (trees) to the game. It actually take some work to make each phases of growth (some plants have up to 20 phases)







https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geopi/war-industry-a-sandbox-city-builder-with-physics/posts/2889024

[Mephansteras]

Oooh, that's a good image!

[nenjin]

Something with "Metro" in the name.

Like,

Metropola.

Metropolaris.

Metrodyne.

Or maybe some reference to time since the game is really about cities evolving over time.

So like,

Chronicity.

Chronopolis.

I'd caution you against that banner, maybe. It's beautiful, and uses the in-game art style which is great, but to my eye it's not representative of what the actual game looks like. That picture implies a depth of field, while the actual game is on a flat 2d plane with no depth of that sort. So while banners don't need to be 100% reflective of gameplay, because the art style in the banner is so close to the game, there might be some cause for.....I dunno, confusion, disappointment? I guess my point is, that banner image looks cooler and more dynamic than the actual display of the game itself. You don't want your banner to put your actual design to shame. If I knew nothing about your game but that banner and it piqued my interest and I went to investigate the game and saw the two don't match....I might feel, at best, somewhat disappointed and at worst, somewhat misled.

Just my two cents.

[geoffroypir]

Something with "Metro" in the name.

Like,

Metropola.

Metropolaris.

Metrodyne.

Or maybe some reference to time since the game is really about cities evolving over time.

So like,

Chronicity.

Chronopolis.

I'd caution you against that banner, maybe. It's beautiful, and uses the in-game art style which is great, but to my eye it's not representative of what the actual game looks like. That picture implies a depth of field, while the actual game is on a flat 2d plane with no depth of that sort. So while banners don't need to be 100% reflective of gameplay, because the art style in the banner is so close to the game, there might be some cause for.....I dunno, confusion, disappointment? I guess my point is, that banner image looks cooler and more dynamic than the actual display of the game itself. You don't want your banner to put your actual design to shame. If I knew nothing about your game but that banner and it piqued my interest and I went to investigate the game and saw the two don't match....I might feel, at best, somewhat disappointed and at worst, somewhat misled.

Just my two cents.

I have thought about your name suggestions, (along with others) with a couple friends the last day and finally decided on "Antimatter" for reasons I expose on my last update https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geopi/war-industry-a-sandbox-city-builder-with-physics/posts/2899353 thank you btw ( though I immediatly ruled out anything with "metro" because we are currently flooded with metroidvania games).

Regarding the banner, I get your point it is maybe too close to the art style used in the game blurring the conception on how it would look like. I could either used a completely differnet art style for the banner, but I didn't simply because my skill is very limited for the moment.
The other main reason is this banner isn't that far from the visual ingame (which overlap the "against" argument but anyway..), I even used in-game design in the drawing and buildings are basically the same. For the 2D depth I have developped some weeks ago the parallax manager so there is currently 2 layers of environnement backgrounds. With the progression of development, the banner will look very close to ingame gameplay, but most of my last screenshots have parallax desactivated to show very specific things and you have maybe missed parallax.
However I won't be able to counter all your arguments, and surely I need to make some disambiguity, I will solve this by making the exact same scene shown in the banner, in the game , and show it as the first screenshot. This can be a curious thing to see as well.
Finally, a banner is always a lure, what is important at this stage is to make someone click this is the only place where misleading is actually an end, where you compete with deceitful banners. My game uses a new engine, hasn't much arts assets yet and  no concept arts, I provide a lot of description and make regular update in my devlog, I feel morally OK if I mislead some users that will waste a few seconds on the internet as long I don't deceive the one who have shown deeper interest in my project.

There is so much to do on the visual side of my game, it represents no more than 1/10th of my current workload, your observation is relevant and I am confident to make the in-game graphics as close to the ones shown in the banner, this should be my goal.

[geoffroypir]

Also, I am currently open to any suggestions to visually enhance the game (for the galaxy view and the planet surface view)
The best suggestions are the ones that can be implemented without much effort while providing a significant improvement. I am not really an aesthetic person  : I find aurora (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php) visually appealing.

[Asgarus]

Hmm, more detailed textures underground maybe.
I think usability is more important than graphics, though.

Will resources be modable as well? (as in, can you create new types of resources and/or change the existing ones?)

[Mephansteras]

Biggest thing, graphics wise, for a game like this is contrast and visibility. Making sure that the players can easily glance around the map and see what things are and differentiate them from one another.

[EuchreJack]

Spacebox?

[Trolldefender99]

I recommend trying to get youtubers/livestreamers to play a (very early?) version of the game for your next kickstarter campaign. It have to be let known it was really early in life. Or/and maybe let gaming sites know about it. Even if its small sites or small streamers/youtubers, could make a difference. Because without actual advertising, needs more than just a forum thread to succeed in kickstarter. Very hard to succeed without people knowing about it, and forums aren't really the best place to get noticed enough.

Unless you already had that in mind

[EuchreJack]

Well, I think this forum qualifies as small (ultra-small?) gaming site, based upon what I've been seeing in last 5 years or so.  It ebbs and flows.

My theories!

Kickstarter -> Money to make the game

Patron -> Money to fund development of a working copy of the game

Steam Early Access -> Money to fund beta testing of the game, build up to release

Steam release/end of early access -> Money to fund DLCs/sequel (at least that seems to be the trend I'm seeing lately)

I don't think people are generally looking for a working copy for a Kickstarter, as that is basically the Fund my Dream event.  Its the later projects that more-or-less need some working copy.

A second Kickstarter is basically a revision of the dream.

Unrelated and somewhat offensive:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And youtubers/livestreamers/influencers/knowitalls can just go

[Trolldefender99]

Yeah this forum can qualify I suppose. I should have qualified a bit better, is forums are okay (though most don't allow it) but it needs more widespread exposure.

The thing is, he wants 10,000 USD (I believe that is what was asked the first time) to develop it and there isn't enough people here that would add up to 10k unless he got really lucky with someone rich. Plus most other forums almost always have rules against advertising, actually personally only know of bay12 that allows it. I'm sure there are some others, but not from what I've personally seen. Most forums don't even like one posting youtube videos (I've tried posting my own videos various forums back when I did youtube and got warnings about it) since they consider it advertising.

Another idea is maybe reddit would give it a boost as well. Since they tend to allow that stuff as long as it isn't spammed everywhere and within the subreddit rules, but would require "strategizing" one or two, maybe three good subreddits to show the game.

[geoffroypir]

Will resources be modable as well? (as in, can you create new types of resources and/or change the existing ones?)

Sure, immaterial ressources (such as services) as well. Along with the crafting recipes.

Biggest thing, graphics wise, for a game like this is contrast and visibility. Making sure that the players can easily glance around the map and see what things are and differentiate them from one another.

Any specific observations on the screenshots so far ?

I recommend trying to get youtubers/livestreamers to play a (very early?) version of the game for your next kickstarter campaign. It have to be let known it was really early in life. Or/and maybe let gaming sites know about it. Even if its small sites or small streamers/youtubers, could make a difference. Because without actual advertising, needs more than just a forum thread to succeed in kickstarter. Very hard to succeed without people knowing about it, and forums aren't really the best place to get noticed enough.

Unless you already had that in mind

Sure, I have already have that in mind, youtubers and main influencers won't be my focus at all though, I know how they work, what they expect, I have been in touch with quite a bunch of them with another project of mine (that became fortuitously a bit commercial one given its unexpeccted popularity) I am not fond of them, it is business and a lot of butt licking and usually superficial relationships . Sometimes the best influencers are the core peoples that gravitate around a project, the ones that said "count me in" when I annouced another go for the kickstarter for exemple or the ones in forums. That is why I don t neglect at all the forums, while the gross traffic is slim, it is a very "qualified" one. I have to keep in mind that the main sources of backer was this topic, another one on a minor forum, and a single reddit post. My markting plan involve self promotion obviously and a lot of action that will be considered spammy, I will surely be banned in some forums, but I won't feel bad. The places where you cando some self-promotion  without being considered like self promoting twat are rare.

Well, I think this forum qualifies as small (ultra-small?) gaming site, based upon what I've been seeing in last 5 years or so.  It ebbs and flows.

My theories!

Kickstarter -> Money to make the game

Patron -> Money to fund development of a working copy of the game

Steam Early Access -> Money to fund beta testing of the game, build up to release

Steam release/end of early access -> Money to fund DLCs/sequel (at least that seems to be the trend I'm seeing lately)

I don't think people are generally looking for a working copy for a Kickstarter, as that is basically the Fund my Dream event.  Its the later projects that more-or-less need some working copy.

A second Kickstarter is basically a revision of the dream.

Unrelated and somewhat offensive:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And youtubers/livestreamers/influencers/knowitalls can just go

Yes agree to all of that. The problem with kickstarter is the backlog of scams, and incompetent developpers that never managed a business,  so now most people prefer to back shiny projects from established company that don't need that money to advance but a way to cash in safely and early. It isn"t anymore a way to help someone or a group of people to realise their dream but another asset in a business model. Capitalism is often late to the party but always expected.

Yeah this forum can qualify I suppose. I should have qualified a bit better, is forums are okay (though most don't allow it) but it needs more widespread exposure.

The thing is, he wants 10,000 USD (I believe that is what was asked the first time) to develop it and there isn't enough people here that would add up to 10k unless he got really lucky with someone rich. Plus most other forums almost always have rules against advertising, actually personally only know of bay12 that allows it. I'm sure there are some others, but not from what I've personally seen. Most forums don't even like one posting youtube videos (I've tried posting my own videos various forums back when I did youtube and got warnings about it) since they consider it advertising.

Another idea is maybe reddit would give it a boost as well. Since they tend to allow that stuff as long as it isn't spammed everywhere and within the subreddit rules, but would require "strategizing" one or two, maybe three good subreddits to show the game.

I can make the game with 0€. I do not follow a traditional business model with a developpement cycle where I have a specific fund burnrate. I work alone making something I love, not really caring for a commercial success (while it would be great and probablein such a niche market) I have nothing to lose with this. It means every penny can be spent on something that will add up to the game. If I ask 2500€,  the game will end up with an additional 2500€(-taxes) worth of music and arts assets. And I will obviously not ask for 10k€ next time

And yes, reddit is in my priority.

[Mephansteras]

Biggest thing, graphics wise, for a game like this is contrast and visibility. Making sure that the players can easily glance around the map and see what things are and differentiate them from one another.

Any specific observations on the screenshots so far ?

So far it's pretty good, but it can be hard to tell from a screenshot how much stuff 'pops' visually when the game is actually running.

[RoseHeart]

How about a youtube video? You can make it unlisted so only people from here see it.

Otherwise, beautiful art!