Hi everyone, my name is Denis. I'm from Curious Foxes. The studio behind Zooconomy. This is the first in a series of monthly devlogs. In this one I'm gonna briefly introduce you to Zooconomy and then tell you about one of the main elements in the game - the map and it's evolution. So sit back, relax and enjoy.
You can watch video version of this devlog:
Zooconomy
Have you ever wondered how zoos and aquariums get their animals? To be honest it never crossed my mind, until one day I heard an episode of NPR's podcast Planet Money about this topic. And it was quite interesting: you can’t sell or buy animals. It’s unethical and illegal to put a price tag on an elephant’s head. Of course in the 19th century, zoos would just ‘order’ some animals from expeditions, but now that’s mostly impossible. So, how do zoos get new animals? Simple. By exchanging.
They have a so-called ‘network’ where they can state what they need. For example, Zoo A wants a male wombat. And if Zoo B has a ‘spare’ wombat, it can contact this zoo and offer them their wombat in exchange for another animal. Here’s the most interesting part: Zoo B with a wombat may want a specific animal too. If Zoo A doesn’t have this animal they must find this other animal somewhere else, such as exchanging animals with another and so on. This chain of exchanges might be very long, involving several zoos.
Sometimes exchanges may involve several animals since animals like Elephants will be exchanged for someone ‘equal’ and if we offer two red foxes, which are widespread all over the world, we’d likely be turned down.
If you want you can listen to the whole episode, it’s just 17 minutes long: podcast episode
This whole episode and idea behind it kicked off an idea for a puzzle game, where players find these exchange links and help zoos in the exchange process. During prototypes, playtesting and thinking this idea evolved a little bit. Now to the main task of exchanging animals and finding exchange chains, some zoo management and historical context were added to make gameplay ‘deeper’. So to summarize:
“Zooconomy is a strategy-puzzle game where you exchange animals. Complete historic based story missions or play in sandbox. Get animals, breed them, attract visitors, sponsor rare expeditions for unique animals, upgrade your zoo, and much more.”
In the future we’ll talk about zoo management, breeding, upgrading and exchanging, but today we’ll focus on the map.
Map
One of the main elements in the game is the Map, it is a place where you can see all zoos available in current play session and where you are able to interact with them. You can also see planes transporting exchanged animals and random ships that are moving from ports transporting goods. Ships for the time being, are purely to bring life to the map.
The Map was inspired by Plague Inc and at first looked very similar (ships also came from it). Map appeared in the first prototype version as it was essential and entry point for interactions with zoos.
During the development map evolved several times, bringing new features and visuals. Here is the first prototype version dated back to January 2019:
As you can see it was pretty boring, flat, and everything behind was white. In the next big update it was designed to have a “real” feel. The ocean was added, texture applied and the map became green. Additionally we added some clouds to fly over the map. Second iteration of map during Devgamm Minsk in November 2019:
Now it looked better, but still was pretty flat and for a player, who will spend a lot of time on this screen it should be more interesting (Also note how UI was changing from map to map). All this led to our current map version. Latest iteration from October 2020:
Firstly we added some relief to the map then marked mountains with different shades. Secondly we drew several variants of the map for different “seasons.” We thought adding these styles would make a more interesting map and show the passing of time. I can’t say for now if we will draw more variations in the future. But if a player doesn’t like the changing map, or prefers a specific look it can be set in the settings menu. Above you can see the summer version of the map. Map styles will change based on ingame months during the play. The transition from one style to another will happen gradually and to demonstrate it we recorder a small timelapse below:
But I would like to note that transition animation might be changed in the future. Here you can see different styles:
Spring:
Autumn:
And finally winter:
To answer the main question: why do we draw map seasons like this and not like in real life, because the climate and weather in northern and southern hemispheres are different? I can only say we found it visually boring. We tried to do it realistically, but encountered several problems. Firstly there are not so many satellite images to use as a reference for drawing. Secondly only some parts will change, mostly far north and far south while the middle stays the same. In the end we felt it didn’t look as good. That's why we decided to draw seasons like that. Let’s say that is an artistic choice :) Anyway if someone has good satellite images or ideas on how to draw styles properly don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss it.
Next time we will talk about the exchanging process. That’s it for today, thank you for reading and see you next time.
You can follow our progress in twitter, you can join our discord, add Zooconomy to your wishlist on steam or play free demo on Itch.