Summer Islands
2 years of Early Access and planning for the future
I am very happy to write you this announcement on this day. Today is the 2 year anniversary of Summer Islands Early Access on Steam.
I didn't think that Summer Islands would be so popular. At the beginning we didn't think that Summer Islands would create a worldwide hype. With the number of daily new games I find it rather surprising that there are already some who have bought the game and have written us feedback and wishes.
I think that's really great and I can't thank you enough for that.
As you know I develop Summer Islands only in my spare time and with your support/feedback/wishes you carry the game 1000%. There were many who thanked me for a childhood memory and there are also some, as I read in the forum/reviews who would rather have a polygon 3D game :D. Yes, that's life. You can't please everyone. But i try the best and who knows what will come in the future.
We were able to implement, improve and fix a lot of things in the last years with your help. Our update cycles we could always keep to a large extent. So there are no fixed times. But in the period of 2-6 weeks we should be able to create something new. We also learned a lot about the general release of a game and marketing. Whereby the marketing always comes too short, with most Indiegames, I would claim. Most of the time we don't have the time and experience for it.
I think our engine is great, especially in agile development, where you want to quickly develop at least small parts of the software. But looking at the big picture, I've invested a lot of time in problem cases like MacOS, Linux or the problem that laptops with external GPU tend to run the game with the CPU instead of the GPU. These are problems that I think you could work around with an engine like Unity or Unreal Engine. But you also need a longer learning curve for that. It all has advantages and disadvantages.
For future planning, we always look at our todo board. There are some bigger items there, e.g. special buildings, auctions, sabotages. But also such things as improved bridges, reputation or other gamemodes, with which one could change the game principle somewhat. The next step is a new edition of the UI/UX.
As you can see there is still some work to do. But the biggest part is already integrated (at least as basic). I now assume that we will be 1 more year or shorter in Early Access, so as a snapshot / rough planning. Maybe there are still some good new ideas or one or the other feature does not fit with the gameplay anymore.
I am always happy about ideas/wishes/criticism (with reasons) to exchange and to increase the fun for you.
In this sense I thank you very much.
Without you this would not have been possible.
Best regards
Matt
DEMO Available
Welcome 🏝⛵☀
and thank you for your interest in Summer Islands.
I am pleased to present you the demo of Summer Islands.
In the demo you have the following options to test Summer Islands:
- You can play the manager certificate (tutorial). (3 attempts)
- You can start a normal match. (3 attempts)
The limitations of the demo are the following:
- Each match starts in 1990 and each day lasts 1 second. You can play each match until 1995 (~30min),
- No map editor,
- No multiplayer,
- no savegames loading
If you like Summer Islands, we recommend you to purchase Summer Islands to experience all the fun.
If you have any problems, questions or requests write us an email or contact us on Twitter:
Email: Mail@SummerIslands.de,
Twitter: @SummerIslandsQA
Have Fun!
🏝✈Summer Islands⛵🏝
🏝Website: www.SummerIslands.de 🚗🏖🏝
🏝Twitter: www.twitter.de/SummerIslandsQA 🏖🚲🏝
🏝Trello: https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands 🚤🏝
June 1.Update 2021 [v0.6.7] with Steamcloud & Demo
Hello together,
attached the new features:
NEW FEATURES
- Added DEMO (3xTutorial + 3x Normal game till 1995 (~30min),
- Added Water Movement,
- Added building copy function (mousewheel click),
- Added STEAM CLOUD
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- FIX deleted extra Flatmode button,
- FIX no Music was played sometimes,
- FIX Editor Position at event could not be selected
- FIX Error when no battery can be detected in the computer
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
May 1.Update 2021 [v0.6.6] with Quests
Hello together,
attached the new features:
NEW FEATURES
- Added Quest Menu refinement,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition Tourists per Category,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition RealEstate per Category,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition Consultants over time,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition No Advertising over time,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition High Insurance over time,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition No Credits over time,
- Added new Questtypes: Condition No Sabotage over time,
- Added new Changelog Window,
- Added new iconbar to MainMenu,
- Added mousewheel Scrolling for all Scrollcontainer in MainMenu
-
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- FIX some Quests never finished,
- FIX some ports does not show the construction fields,
- FIX You could not do terraforming with bridges torn off
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
April 2.Update 2021 [v0.6.5] with Coop mode and Bug fixes
Hello together,
attached the new features:
NEW FEATURES
- Added 2 Player Coop-Mode
- Added Lobby Communication revised
- Added Move the map with mousewheel pressmove
- Added Dust sprite replaced with animation
- Added Building menu with only one column
- Added game startup recreated
- Added Reputation Boost for Quests
- Added Moneyreport expands for sabotage spending
- Added Extended TouristnumberHistory and RealEstateHistory per category for Quests
- Added Map png's is rebuilt during game startup
- Added Quest Menu recreated
- Added new Questtypes: Condition money in time
- Added new Questtypes: Condition tourists in time
- Added new Questtypes: Condition real estate in time
- Added Random Quests
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Tourists per Category
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition RealEstate per Category
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Tourists per Category
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Consultants over time
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Advertising over time
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Insurance over time
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Credits over time
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Condition Sabotage over time
- Added preparation for Questtypes: Impact Sabotage over time
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- FIX global ScrollContainer inserted
- FIX Months shortened to 3 letters
- FIX In the Editor the reputation button was missing
- FIX Tutorial text was missing
- FIX Menu ignoreGlobalPause Pause Tween
- FIX Savegames playeranzahl to Online Connector
- FIX map preview pngs array reinitialized
- FIX clientnumber initialized
- FIX Editor Events ScrollContainer to small
- FIX OpenURL is using browser
- FIX Tornados stopped moving and stayed there
- FIX ONLINE Connector was sending multiple values
- Internal ERRORs from Community
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
April 1.Update 2021 [v0.6.4] with Bug Fixes
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- FIX: Airplanes at the airport shows errors
- FIX: Ready for Match Button caused wrong data on Online Game Connector
- FIX: Match without catastrophes has no catastrophes.
- FIX: Graphic changes were not saved
- FIX: Graphic default value was "Very low". Now it is "High"
March 3.Update 2021 [v0.6.3] with Asteroids & more
in this update I have integrated a new natural disaster for you: Asteroids
Also we have extended the level of difficulty to the cost
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
NEW FEATURES
- Added Asteroid catastrophe
- Added Asteroid to Mapeditor
- Added difficulty level has an impact of the costs
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- Added special Particlelayer for Car particles
- Fix Loading Error with mapsize 2000
- Internal ERROR CODEs via e-mail from Community
March 2.Update 2021 [v0.6.2] with Particle effects & more
Hello together,
here are the new features:
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
NEW FEATURES
- Added particle for car, moped, plane, ship
- Added Graphic options ultra low, low, middle, high
- Added difficulty level has an impact on the number of disasters
before mapsize/100 = (1-20) / 10 Years
now mapsize/100 - difficulty level = (1-200) / 10 Years
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- Internal ERROR CODEs via e-mail from Community
March 1.Update 2021 [v0.6.1] with new Buildings & Music
in this update, we have 10 new Buildings an 3 new Songs for you:
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
NEW FEATURES
- Added new Hotel, Swimware shop, Kart, Horse Riding, Parks, Sushi Restaurant, Pizza Restaurant, Snack Restaurant, Museum, Modep
- Added 3 new Songs
- Added Savegame compatibility
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- Internal ERROR CODEs via e-mail from Community
February Update 2021 [v0.6.0] with Online Server and more
Hello together,
here are the new features:
Online Server
First of all, some information about the single player and LAN functionality:
For the online server I had to integrate a connector. This switches to a different information forwarding as soon as one is connected to the online server.
In case the server does not run anymore or you want to start your own server, we have already prepared something.
The IP of the online server and the port is integrated in the settings.json and can be changed at any time.
I make the online server available to everyone. It is accessible under the following Gitlab project:
https://gitlab.com/Matt_MRZ/summer-islands-online-server
Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands
NEW FEATURES
- Added ONLINE Multiplayer
- Added Great Names for Bots
- Added other 16x9 resolutions
- Added Online Server IP in SummerIslands/Data/Settings.json
- Improvements Bot Building Cluster
- Improvements Ready Match Status
USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
- Fix Linux loading Error
- Fix Autosave every 600 days
- Internal ERROR CODEs via e-mail from Community