Hi everyone! Since it's been a few months I wanted to write a small update on my progress. The exciting news is that I've started working on the game again in my spare time. There isn't a ton I feel comfortable sharing just yet but there are some overall larger ideas that I have decided on.
Core Game Design
Galactic Getaway started as a very different game when we started making it. And with fear of losing out on the work that we already put in, I tried to incorporate every "phase" of the game even as it evolved. After taking my game design class I realized that this was probably one of our biggest mistakes! So I started this re-design process with thinking about what our core game mechanic should be. How could I make this mechanic deep, meaningful, and of course fun?
Encounters
One of the interesting ideas we implemented was a creature collector turn based like friending system. While this was fun, we didn't really take the time to flesh it out and it quickly became repetitive. We really fell into the trap of "wide vs narrow" on this one. We added it as a way to make the game "deeper" but because of how limited encounters were it became more of a chore. This is why I've decided to completely scrap encounters in favor of deepening (in my opinion) the more interesting discovery mechanic: habitats.
Habitats
In the current version of the game you already discover pets through habitats. However because we tried to develop both habitats and encounters at the same time, we ended up with shallow versions of both. When looking at which direction I wanted to head in I thought about why we decided on these mechanics in the first place. Habitat building was always about delighting and rewarding the player for decorating. Something I really loved and found fun in our original inspiration: Animal Crossing. So I decided to go all in on this idea as the core of the re-design.
Progress
I've spent the last few months rethinking the game mostly in this direction. What should I drop vs what should I keep? How do I redesign the game so everything revolves around this core idea? Well first things first, creating habitats have to be interesting! I used to think terraforming would be something we would add way later on. And if I'm being honest, that was only because Animal Crossing has it as a late game mechanic. But something I noticed when trying to create more habitats was that GG is so limited in options for what could be considered in a habitat. Sure I added changing the planet color but the environment itself is really static.
So this is the first thing I'm tackling! I've been working on making a completely new environment system. This enables habitats to be much more varied and complex. Including but not limited to; the type of terrain, plants, water, and furniture that make up a habitat. I really want to focus on optimizing this so it runs fast and free of bugs. Something I learned in my class it to make sure to polish each step of the way and not leave that all until the end.
Conclusion
No promises on when the first test for the new version of the game will be out but I hope to get something in alpha tester's hands within the next few months. My goal is to have a basic tutorial set up to teach you everything you need to know to get going and really test the environment system. As always I appreciate your patience and hope I can deliver something worth your time!
Much love,
Daniel