G'day!
It's been a while since 0.7 has been released, and work is well underway for Gym Tycoon 0.8. I waited a bit longer this time before giving you guys a progress update. To make up for that, this time I can include some work-in-progress images! ːsteamhappyː
Small change of plans
So the goal of last 0.7 update was to improve the game's average play time by adding more furniture & equipment content to the game. While this kind of worked, I wasn't totally satisfied with the result. I had a chat with my brother (he has been pulling me through hard times, I really appreciate him for all the times he is helping me) and took a good critical look at the game to find out what needs most attention.
In the original plan for 0.8 I wanted to get started on adding employees to the game, but we both agreed that the current "progression system" is flawed by design and needed improvements. When you start a new game, 80% of the furniture is already unlocked and unlocking the remaining 20% either felt arbitrary or simply weird. This had to be fixed first!
Research
The biggest problem I want to tackle, is to come up with a better system for unlocking new furniture and features. I looked at existing games for inspiration and concluded that a research tree is the best way to go. Its highly flexible, allowing the player to prioritize what they want to research. Simultaneously, it also gives me, the game developer, a lot of design flexibility like the ability to add new research items later!
Here's a WIP image of how it looks like now. If you're wondering what the new stars mean, keep on reading to find out!
I hope you guys are as excited about this new system as I am, it feels like a much better way to unlock new things for your gym.
Gym Rating becomes Gym Score
Now that items get unlocked via research, Gym Rating lost its most important feature which (in its current form) made it a bit meaningless. I took this opportunity to transform Gym Rating into a better system: Instead of 5 star levels, your gym now gets a score. This score is calculated by the number of gym members and how happy they are, plus any bonus score earned from winning contests. This is all shown in a simple overview:
More content!
I changed my plans about introducing new furniture to the game as well. My initial plan was to not introduce new furniture and equipment until I am fully done modelling them. However, I think this will take too long, so instead I will introduce placeholder versions in the next game, these are simple recoloured versions of existing models:
Over time I will create new models for these placeholders, which will automatically replace them over time. Let me know what you think!
That's all the big changes coming up.
I hope you're excited for the next update!
Cheers,
Jasper