We are happy to celebrate this New Year with you. That was an interesting yet hard path for the game and the whole world, but we are standing here right now, woohoo!
As for the Masterplan Tycoon - we've made a lot of positive changes and progress through the game development.
Upgraded the game demo
Participated in lots of exciting festivals
Met a lot of marvelous people from the gaming industry
We are happy to celebrate this New Year with you. That was an interesting yet hard path for the game and the whole world, but we are standing here right now, woohoo!
As for the Masterplan Tycoon - we've made a lot of positive changes and progress through the game development.
Upgraded the game demo
Participated in lots of exciting festivals
Met a lot of marvelous people from the gaming industry
One of the most anticipated gaming events is almost here. PC Gaming Show: 2023 Preview will take part on November 17. We've prepared a brand-new gameplay trailer with our team. Can't wait for you to see it!
We are so excited to see all those marvelous games next Thursday. And even more excited to be a part of this gaming feast. 🥳
📅Let's make clear the date and time: November 17th at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern, 6 PM GMT)
📺You will be able to watch the moment of glory for Masterplan Tycoon ➡️ twitch.tv/pcgamer ➡️ youtube.com/pcgamer
Meanwhile, check our Demo and stay tuned for further info ;)
And if you are new here, it's better for you to start from the beginning of our story https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/6075941675634992026 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/3290467015407379121
When we last met, it was the autumn of 2021. A huge video game developer conference was about to take place, and I wanted to show my game there and see what happens. The redesign was complete, so I sent the demo to the festival's competition program.
It was an online event, so the event organizers provided a platform for communication and networking. I took advantage of one of its features, something like a message feed where I made a post about Masterplan Tycoon. I was fortunate: this feed was seldom used, but the visibility of posts was extremely good. It wasn't long before I got contacted by a game scout from Ravenage named Daniel. We talked about the game and plans and agreed to keep in touch. We talked about the game and my plans and agreed to keep in touch. The game did not win any awards in the competition program but was featured in The Rough Gems category. With the required minimum achieved, I could add this badge to the Steam game page 😎
The event was a turning point for me. I realized that what I was doing had a meaning to the industry people, not just my wife and my cat But I was still employed in a company. Burnout was setting in and I had to choose between looking for a new job or becoming a full-time indie developer to see Masterplan Tycoon all the way to a proper release. The choice was made easier by the fact I paid off my mortgage 😀
So I came up with a plan. I would continue polishing the demo and visit a couple of events closer to spring to find a publisher. At the same time, I worked on a pitch document - a presentation that a publisher would use to see if the project is suitable for them or not. I didn't send this document out to everyone at once like other developers often do. Talking to publishers in turns let me improve my pitch document over several iterations. Everything went according to plan until February. A military conflict began and all game events were canceled. The industry had urgent issues to deal with and publishing a small game from a solo developer was not their top priority. I quickly realized that my chances of finding a publisher were next to zero and that the safest solution would be to put the project on hold and get a job, but I still had some savings and decided to push through, aiming for an Early Access release in September. Then I would run out of money.
There are no good and proven solutions in situations like this. All conventional paths were gone. Even if you asked the best expert in the gaming industry for advice, he could not give you an answer. I decided to redouble my efforts. This path seemed less destructive and helped me cope with anxiety and panic from what was happening in the world.
I rebuilt the in-game UI from scratch to make it more organic. To me, working on the interface is a meditative experience. Most developers do not enjoy this kind of work, but this is something I really like doing.
I did a lot of technical refactoring. For example, the links were now updating at the right time so you could understand whether whether they crossed something or not. This might look like a minor change, but due to the way Unity works, some things do not happen in the frame you expect them to.
And then Sound Text Things appeared (that’s what I call them). It is a textual representation of sound like you see in comics. There is even a name for this, onomatopoeia. Of course, GIF does not contain an audio track, but imagine that there are sounds of clinking stone and running water when you look at the picture 😀
April came and brought good news. Daniel from Ravenage contacted me to see how I was doing. The guys were still interested in Masterplan Tycoon, and my pitch document was more sober and realistic. And so the contract was signed, after a lot of hard work and a consultation with hired lawyers! It was an exciting moment that made it possible for the game to be released once it is ready and not when I would run out of money.
The fate of Masterplan Tycoon made a second sharp turn in half a year, and so did my life. But the release is still some distance ahead, though we are approaching it at full speed, laying the tracks ahead of our train as we go!
And if you are new here, it's better for you to start from the beginning of our story https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/6075941675634992026 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1644500/view/3290467015407379121
When we last met, it was the autumn of 2021. A huge video game developer conference was about to take place, and I wanted to show my game there and see what happens. The redesign was complete, so I sent the demo to the festival's competition program.
It was an online event, so the event organizers provided a platform for communication and networking. I took advantage of one of its features, something like a message feed where I made a post about Masterplan Tycoon. I was fortunate: this feed was seldom used, but the visibility of posts was extremely good. It wasn't long before I got contacted by a game scout from Ravenage named Daniel. We talked about the game and plans and agreed to keep in touch. We talked about the game and my plans and agreed to keep in touch. The game did not win any awards in the competition program but was featured in The Rough Gems category. With the required minimum achieved, I could add this badge to the Steam game page 😎
The event was a turning point for me. I realized that what I was doing had a meaning to the industry people, not just my wife and my cat But I was still employed in a company. Burnout was setting in and I had to choose between looking for a new job or becoming a full-time indie developer to see Masterplan Tycoon all the way to a proper release. The choice was made easier by the fact I paid off my mortgage 😀
So I came up with a plan. I would continue polishing the demo and visit a couple of events closer to spring to find a publisher. At the same time, I worked on a pitch document - a presentation that a publisher would use to see if the project is suitable for them or not. I didn't send this document out to everyone at once like other developers often do. Talking to publishers in turns let me improve my pitch document over several iterations. Everything went according to plan until February. A military conflict began and all game events were canceled. The industry had urgent issues to deal with and publishing a small game from a solo developer was not their top priority. I quickly realized that my chances of finding a publisher were next to zero and that the safest solution would be to put the project on hold and get a job, but I still had some savings and decided to push through, aiming for an Early Access release in September. Then I would run out of money.
There are no good and proven solutions in situations like this. All conventional paths were gone. Even if you asked the best expert in the gaming industry for advice, he could not give you an answer. I decided to redouble my efforts. This path seemed less destructive and helped me cope with anxiety and panic from what was happening in the world.
I rebuilt the in-game UI from scratch to make it more organic. To me, working on the interface is a meditative experience. Most developers do not enjoy this kind of work, but this is something I really like doing.
I did a lot of technical refactoring. For example, the links were now updating at the right time so you could understand whether whether they crossed something or not. This might look like a minor change, but due to the way Unity works, some things do not happen in the frame you expect them to.
And then Sound Text Things appeared (that’s what I call them). It is a textual representation of sound like you see in comics. There is even a name for this, onomatopoeia. Of course, GIF does not contain an audio track, but imagine that there are sounds of clinking stone and running water when you look at the picture 😀
April came and brought good news. Daniel from Ravenage contacted me to see how I was doing. The guys were still interested in Masterplan Tycoon, and my pitch document was more sober and realistic. And so the contract was signed, after a lot of hard work and a consultation with hired lawyers! It was an exciting moment that made it possible for the game to be released once it is ready and not when I would run out of money.
The fate of Masterplan Tycoon made a second sharp turn in half a year, and so did my life. But the release is still some distance ahead, though we are approaching it at full speed, laying the tracks ahead of our train as we go!
The history of gaming as we know it started when the first tabletop game appeared. It's a great honor to join the rows of games we all know and love. There is no doubt a lot of game developers were inspired by tabletop games once. That's a really huge way and a part of gaming history - so let's participate in it all together at Steam Tabletop Festival!
🗓️Steam Tabletop Festival will take part from 03.11 till 10.11 - tune in!
And here is a special quest for you: try to find games, similar to Masterplan Tycoon. What do you think of them?
I’m developing my ideas in a special way. When I come up with a concept for a new super-innovative technological masterpiece, I’m in no hurry to create another Unity project. Every developer has a cemetery like this. I shelf the idea to see if it survives. At first, the idea hunts birds and animals and makes a fire with sticks and stones. Then, it builds a shelter against the winter storm. Sometimes it meets other ideas, or what is left of them, some of the older ones that grew feral and lost the power of speech. And, if the idea overcomes these hardships, at last, the ship “Deliberation about the upcoming project” will take it away from that desert island.
I’ve been a game developer for almost 10 years. There are plenty of tools in our industry, and not all of them have to do something with the coding. There is a bunch of visual instruments now I'd like to show you what a node editor looks like:
Node editors allow to create algorithms without getting into the syntax of programming languages. Sometimes it works like a bridge between a programmer and an artist or a game designer. If you saw such things but had no idea what they are used for, here is your answer ;)
Also, I’m a huge fan of tycoons or games where you can build a settlement. I have been playing them since childhood, and it is always a pleasure to see how a few small houses appear at first, then grow into a small village, then a town, and finally a bustling metropolis. To progress in such games you have to create a chain of buildings that would improve the existing system and push the player forward.
Truth be told, I cannot remember the exact time this idea occurred to me. It must have been an uneventful day since it completely slipped my mind :) The idea was to merge the node mechanics and the building chain progression from tycoon games. And after this concept survived the so-called “desert island”, I tried to make it into reality.
I completed the prototype in the autumn of 2018 during the hackathon. It’s an event where you need to create something solid in a short time. I had one day and that single idea…
Since there was practically no time, less was more. There were no resource zones, no quests. The algorithm that drew the curves was so bad that it looked bearable only when the nodes were arranged in a certain position. And yet I achieved everything that I wanted to do in a 24-hour period.
One of the most important development rules is "Never use anything that was put in the prototype". Most of the time it is easier to throw the mess away and restart from scratch than to fix it, so that's what I did! It took me a couple of weeks to recreate the functionality of nodes, curves, and resource delivery. Then I added resource areas because water and wood have to come from somewhere, after all.
The visual style became more distinct. I used blueprints as a base, so the game was filled with blue and its shades :) At that stage, I was free to experiment. For example, the animation of gathering stones:
As you can see, in this version resource zones look “spotty”. They kept behaving like naughty children!
The real problems began when I tried to implement the “enlargement” or “reduction” of the zones- it wasn’t immediately clear how this mechanic was supposed to work, which in turn made it difficult to program. This is why I decided to abandon that idea in favor of tiles.
We will talk about this more in the upcoming chapter of “Making of”.
