Finally! We are able to reveal the new look we’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. Here is the full list of changes the game went through. Are you ready?

Here we go!

First of all, every building has been redrawn completely. The reason behind this decision is because every in-game assets we’ve been using (not the UI) came from Kenney’s website (https://kenney.nl/). They were super useful during our prototype phase as it enabled us to quickly come up with a concept without the need to produce tons of assets. As we entered in the production phase, our main goal was to get the core features working before shifting our focus to the visuals. To give you a general idea of the work we went through , here is a picture of some buildings you can see in the video:

We’ve also redrawn the map assets as they came too from Kenney and didn’t fit the new direction we picked. We took this opportunity to also implement a concept of forest for grass tiles instead of just spreading trees here and there. These dense areas full of vegetation dynamically shift their shape when you build something on top of it. With this concept, it feels more like an actual forest, especially when a road is built.

We tackled another issue which was the placement of buildings made to be put on any type of tile, like the apartments or storage units. We’ve decided to add a hexagon shaped concrete plate under them which makes more sense. You don’t build a whole apartment complex on shifting sand.

The last thing is the animation upgrade. The neighborhoods felt very static, as if time has been stopped. We’ve added very simple animations like flashing lights from the assembly lines or apartments window flickering from time to time. When multiple instances of these animated buildings are built next to each other, you can feel the town is alive.

(GIF)

If you are wondering, the user interface (UI) is still the same as it was. It was custom made by Fallonna at the beginning of our production phase and fits perfectly in our new artistic direction.

I hope you like what you’re seeing and if you have comments (either good or bad) don’t hesitate to leave us a comment or send us a message. It will be a pleasure to hear from you!

The Craft City team