Hi everyone!
We are thrilled to announce that Worldwide Rush will be released on August 20th this year. This date was in the world map the whole next fest, so some of you might know it already.
I hope everyone enjoyed the AI addition, even if it is still early. Now we can evaluate the feedback much better as all the core mechanics are in the game. Next, we need to improve what we have and work on QoL. We will talk a little bit about our next development goals in this blog post.
Like everyone, we enjoyed and played some demos. There are many good demos this fest. There were some demos we loved, like Escape Simulator 2, some that inspired me as a developer, for example BitCraft and how it is made.
AI
AI definitely changed the biggest concern of it being too easy to unfair. At this point, I believe that AI is still not smart enough, but it already poses a challenge to many. I have seen players concerned that it is impossible to beat and later the same day destroying it. It is the matter of understanding how it plays and how to counter it, like with any strategy game. The problem here is that there are too many variables moving that need multiple clicks to find. We will need to add more tools to compete and know what is happening.
Also, demo does not help with having a small map and small vehicles. It just leaves with AI spamming tier 1 vehicles, connecting everything it can connect. At some point, the game stops feeling satisfying, and we do not want that.
New Meta
First, we want to change how the game is played. The problem is passengers and how many of them there are. Because of the sheer quantity, players are forced to connect everything at one point or another. This leads to vehicle chaos that prevents us from making some on the map visuals, like routes. What we want to do is change the meta from connecting everything, to moving travelers to a bigger hub where bigger vehicles will transfer them to another bigger hub and from there they will disperse as needed. Basically, like in real life, it does not make sense financially buy double-deckers to all surrounding cities and villages and repeat that in every city and village.
We already reduced passengers count per destination and max destination level. We still want travelers to travel in many different directions. Adding a cap to that leaves many cities wanting to travel to some big cities, but their count is not significant enough to have direct routes. With this already, you will find yourself hoarding travelers at a single point so that a bigger and more profitable vehicle can take them in one go. You will still be able to connect everything, but that will reduce how much money you can generate.
Hub Manager
To help with chaos and expansion, you will have hub managers to help you. They will act independently with their own budget. That budget will come from vehicles that are in the hub. Hub managers will act as mini AI managing vehicles, making sure there is profit and buying new routes if you tell them so. All unused money minus hub manager salary will be transferred to you. They will provide a helping hand once there is too much to manage, allowing you to focus on where you want to play.
Some Trains
Graphics are also worked on daily. Probably the biggest workload left is to complete vehicles. Here are some trains that we currently have in the game. Now I am mostly working on EU vehicles, but there are still two more continents. Once we have more, it will be very interesting to balance them between continents.
Until the next week!