Games [Early Access] Atmocity

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CorrectureGames
Website: http://www.correcturegames.com

You can buy the game now!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/779380/Atmocity/​

Original post:
Since Brink of Extinction and Twinstack are both released soon (Nov 30th and Dec 20th respectively), I have started up some new projects. One is CubelinsTD which already has a thread.
However, this will be my primary project!



Project is still very early in development, but more will follow soon.

 

Ok, picture time!
Cereal farm:

You will need to produce food for your inhabitants, cereal, legumes and fruit.

High school building:


The education variable is divided into three tiers, low, middle and high. Lower education is fine for running machinery and the likes, while the higher tiers are necessary for labs and some commercial buildings. But you will need to house a sizable population of each tier to have a functioning city.

Commercial, residential and industrial buildings and a par:


I've decided to color code buildings to make them recognizable. Red is for residential, blue for commercial and yellow for industrial.

And this last image shows off the wacky building mechanic, allowing you to build your city in whatever direction you wish within a given atmosphere size (smaller for campaign levels and larger for the free roam mode).

 

A new building added, mid tier commercial building. (not completely finished, but good enough for now)

 

Some images of yesterday's and today's progress:
Commercial building polished a bit more (beveled edges etc):


And a low density middle class dwelling:

 

Very early image of a low density commercial zone. More or less untextured atm.

 

My posts thus far have been quite image heavy, but the game does have a substantial amount of code behind it already. Most of the code for building wants/needs, building construction/destruction and yields over time is more or less finished. For the early alpha release, I have a lot of testing left to do, and of course UI code and a sort of short scenario to be played. The early alpha will feature 3 densities for middle class residences and commerce, a wind turbine, two types of farms and a factory. The image above shows the untextured (more or less) version of the lowest density middle class commercial zone. Here it is finished (for now ) in the kind of setting that is to be expected in the early alpha:

 

Hello!

I figured I'd add some background story as to why I am making this game... I've always enjoyed city building games. One of my favorite games on the SNES was the version of Sim City released for it. Prior to that I had played the original Sim City on the Amiga, but always felt it was a bit too difficult (mind you, I was a small kid back then ). The SNES got everything right in my opinion. From a diverse set of maps, lots of fun special buildings to the possibility and flexibility of constructing, albeit not realistic looking, but very NICE looking cities. I then moved onto playing Sim City 2k, Sim City 3k and Sim City 4 - in my opinion, all brilliant games.

Over time I also grew to enjoy games such as Settlers and RTS:s like Dune and Command & Conquer. But perhaps the most enjoyable game I've played was Anno 2070. It is simply the perfect combination of Sim City's city planning and building, the resource management of Settlers and the battle and resource management of Dune and Command & Conquer. It, too, got everything right.

This combo of constructing cities and managing resources is one of the core mechanics of Atmocity. Currently I've planned food types like legume, cereal and fruit, building materials like wood, glass and concrete and a base type of goods among a couple of other resources. But extending out from games such as Anno, is that the economic side of things will be more extensive in Atmocity in that you have to manage demand in such a way as to not degrade the value of goods produces by overproducing them. There will be a basic type of economic cycle with expansion and recession on top of the economic decisions you make, meaning you will have to plan forward for worse times to come. This will challenge players to not only expand their cities as fast as possible, instead having to weigh the risk of economic down turn.

Another important mechanic is that the population itself will serve as labour. In many city building games, the goal is to build massive expansive cities with no regard as to what type of population it will hold. In Atmocity, cities will house lower class, lower mid, middle class, upper mid, and upper class people. These will all serve as labour for different types of structures. This means that you will need to construct areas that house the specific classes, instead of just trying to maximize density and wealth. Although the idea behind the game is not to be reflective of real cities, the idea is to add a bit of complexity that somehow relates to how real cities function.

In terms of realism, Atmocity makes no attempt at being realistic. Instead, one of the main mechanics is that cities can be built with no regard for gravity. The way the player will block out the landscape on which to build the city is a nod towards Minecraft. My main idea behind this, is that it will allow players to build strange but creative cities.





What I'm hoping to achieve with Atmocity is a quirky and playful city builder that let's players be creative while at the same time being a challenging resource management game. The residential zones having red as their theme color, btw, is a hint at the old SNES Sim City.

Feel free to follow the game here and on Twitter, and absolutely DO comment and leave suggestions and feedback.

/ Dispersing Minds

 

Pretty much finished with the middle class residential density progression for the alpha. The alpha will feature 1-3 (out of likely 4, perhaps 5). Only building left to make for the early alpha is a wind power plant. Beyond that, adding sounds, a bit of music, a task to perform in the level and a basic UI.

 

All buildings are done for the early alpha. Up next is an early iteration of the UI.

 

Some video footage from the game:

 

Anyone got opinions on UI layout? Perhaps something completely different? Comment!

 

Really depends what they do, but at least aesthetically I like the bottom right the most.

Btw, great job so far, the art looks fantastic!

 

The build options will shift out when no location is selected, so that one won't show most of the time. The other one will probably have a tab so you can hide it, but will show city stats like population, pollution levels and cash flow.
I like D also, but Twitter seems to prefer A and B

Thanks for your kind words Means a lot.

 

I think A would be the least intrusive as it is more out of view for the player. C would be my next choice, though I think it's less common for information to be on the right hand side of the screen (no idea why!) so that may be something to think about.

The art does look really nice, very professional. It reminds me a lot of cities skylines!

 

^^ Thanks I think I'm going with A. Most people seem to like it and it has a familiarity to it also. Should it turn out to be the wrong decision it's not really a big deal to switch things around. So it will do for now.

Here's the current state of it:

 

hi loving the art and the fly by of the city looks brilliant.have you got anyone too do the in game music or intrested in giving us the chance to create some music for your game?
ive currently got a track on itunes/spotify...etc if you have the time please check it out im sure some of our music would really suit your game.
all the best
https://artist.landr.com/music/800739315846

 

Thanks for the comment. I will keep this offer in mind, but I am currently not looking to hire anyone for music.

 

Current state of the UI. If anyone has any opinion, suggestions or just general feedback, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

I like it!

 

Personally I'm not a fan of the 3D UI style, I think it might look more modern if it were flat. The blurred background looks cool, but might need to be coloured too in order to increase the contrast between the UI and the game itself.

 

I made a quick test without 3D (left some of the shading near the border for now, and didn't change the buttons yet):


I also tried removing the small windows, instead going for one big window. Think that works better?

 

I think that looks better, it's definitely cleaner to my eyes!

 

Cool. I'm a bit undecided, but will keep it like this for now at least. Will make the buttons and try to improve on the stat window a bit more next before actually adding function to it as well. Thanks for the feedback!

 

This is beautiful! I could see myself playing this for hours!

 

Thanks ^_^ I hope you will

 

Made a simple night time test (day/night cycle won't be in the alpha, but couldn't resist ). Will look sweet with some lighting from buildings.

 

i appreciate youll keep us in mind
the game is looking awesome really liking the night time test image .
if you ever want to chat about ideas concerning music/sound fx get in touch.
all the best

 

I like the look of the UI in post #18 and 20.

The build option font (post #11) almost looks like a different language or symbols at first glance because of it's orientation and lack of ears, spurs, tails and terminals.
https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-anatomy/anatomy

At first glance my brain saw 8CHTO OPTHOZS.

 

Ohh, that was just for the poll Couldn't be arsed to pick a good font for that purpose.
I will hopefully have a finished UI by tomorrow (function and all). Updated pics then.

 

And here it is! The UI in function and form:

There's some minor stuff to fix, like displaying only integer values etc. But this is probably what I am going for in the alpha version. Feedback is welcome though! Until then, onto adding sounds and music.

 

Had a few busy days so progress has been slow. But got around to testing the game a bit today.

 

Looks really good and very unique!

 

Thanks.

Today I've mostly done work under the hood. Squashing some bugs and fixed some minor issues. But mainly I managed to get the basic building growth stuff working, so now buildings will shift from low density to higher density over time. Now I need to work out a good way to add conditions to this also.
Credit yield and population growth is implemented now also. As seen here:

 

Atmocity is planned to have two mass transit systems, Atmoports and Vactrains. The Atmoport will transport people and goods, and Vactrains will transport only people. Here's an early model of the Vactrain tube:

 

Mostly been working on systems stuff recently, improving code and ironing out some minor bugs. Also got around to implementing a very basic version of LOD to improve FPS. When I say very basic I mean it's not perfect looking, but works for alpha.
But every once in a while I get around to chillin' with some building. Here's an odd build I made.

 

It's been a while since I updated the thread, because I've been busy with my day job. On top of that I'm working on an update for Brink of Extinction as well, one that has turned out more substantial than I had expected from the beginning. So those two things have taken up quite a bit of time.

Atmocity hasn't stagnated though! I've been working on a lot of code related things, like camera movement, growth formula for buildings and just overall optimization and function.

But it IS also quite fun to build stuff in the game, so there are some pictures also First image does show though, that having only 3 residential zones instead of the planned 20-25 does make things a bit repetitive.

 

Been working mostly on refinement this week. Made a proper demolish sequence, which can be seen here:
https://twitter.com/CorrectureGames/status/967107496266608642

Testing the game, it now seems fairly stable and I'm quite confident the early alpha version will be done before mid March. I have a few remaining things to finish up - music, sfx and some ui stuff - but all in all I think the game is shaping up nicely.

Here's a chain type city I made.

 

Steam store page is coming up this week, hopefully. Here's the material that went into it.

In game related news, I am just about finished with the pre alpha version of the game. This version will go out to a few select testers so I can gather some feedback before I move onto adding more buildings and expanding the systems in the game. Hopefully this version will be sent out during this week. While waiting the game will progress only slowly, since I am in the process of working on the next update for Brink of Extinction, which will be released next weekend or the weekend after. (busy times!)

 

Just read through this whole thread. Must say that the design and videos look really great! I love the futuristic and minimalist style. Awesome.

 

Thanks

 

The thread has been slow for a while, mostly because of a busy work schedule and all the work I've put into the Brink of Extinction update. But now I'm back to business with Atmocity again.

Quite a few things have happened since last time. For one, the game has been featured on Youtube:

It's very early on in the game's development, but shows off a bit of the feel of the game etc.

I've now started moving on with adding more buildings and adding in some of the systems. First off I will add the local economy system. This system depends on conglomerates, which are randomly generated companies that will be added as your city grows. These own the residential, commercial and industrial buildings that you add zones for. The conglomerates have CEOs with will have personalities that control which policies they will push. They will also remember if you've been demolishing a lot of their buildings.
Conglomerates will have economies that follow a sort of local business cycle, so at times things will be booming and they will request that you expand more zones for residences, commercial and industry and build schools and park to help make their businesses more profitable. At other times, the local economy goes bust, and their demands will be lower, but so will their tax payments as well.
The conglomerates will also be key in helping you import goods when you are short, so being on good terms with one or a few might help cut you a good deal when things get tough.

The local economy system will complement a larger scale but less intricate global economy system.

Here's an announcement of a conglomerate establishing itself in the city:


As mentioned I've also started working on new buildings. I will be finishing a solar power plant tomorrow, and then move onto making more commercial and residential buildings.
I've also started implementing the day/night cycle, which can be seen here:

https://twitter.com/CorrectureGames/status/980097378895192066

Other than that, no news atm, but more to come shortly.

 

And here's the full implementation of the day/night cycle:
https://twitter.com/CorrectureGames/status/980382176029106176

 

And here she is, the solar power plant!

 

More residential buildings added. The high rise in the back moved from middle class density 3, to lower middle class density 3. Which means the lower middle class series now has densities 1 through 3. Upper middle class has 1 and 2. It's a pretty slow process, but I'm hoping to finish the lower middle class series this weekend and move on to finishing the middle class series next week.



On the code side of things, I've implemented the consumer system fully. So now buildings both produce and consume goods. Now it just needs to be fleshed out with all goods that will be in the game and balanced to work well. ("just")

 

Wow, it looks awesome! And the idea of having a city floating is so innovative, in what engine are you working on?

I’ll be waiting for the launch

 

I'm using Unity 2017.3

Make sure to wish list it on Steam and follow me on Twitter!

 

Density 4 out of 5 of the lower middle class residential finished:

 

ello!
I've been sharing my time between graphics and code this week.
On the code side of things I've been adding more consumable goods, legume and water for example. I've also made some minor adjustments to the system to make it more flexible and robust.
I've also started optimizing some of the code, trying to cut down on the size of some classes. I particular the building manager has gotten a few needed optimizations so that the game will better support large quantities of buildings.

Graphically I've mostly worked on buildings. Making some adjustments to existing ones and finishing new ones:
Residences, lower middle class density 1-4, and middle class 1-3:


I've also finished the water absorbent building:


This building gathers water from the atmosphere for consumption by the citizens.

Other than that I've mostly focused on overall testing and eliminating some minor issues. For the weekend I expect to finish a school building and the last lower middle class density.

Some more stuff:

 

Added a density check so that zones with very few surrounding residential, commercial or industrial zones won't grow into high densities. On the one hand, this means that getting zones to grow into high density buildings require a bit of planning. But it also means that players will be able to control what their neighborhoods end up looking like. Sparsely placed zones will generate more suburban looking neighborhoods. Densely packed zones will generate skyscrapers. Assuming all other conditions are met of course.

Results:

 

Lower middle class tier finished and tweaked. Hopefully I can finish the middle class tier this week, two buildings to go.