It feels like an eternity already but it was a little less than 3 weeks ago when we released SimAirport publicly into Early Access. It's been an absolutely wild ride ride so far but we're honored to have so many of you playing and having fun with the game already -- even at this early stage of the game's life! We have been having a blast working with you in the forum and via email, getting bugs tracked down, and getting fixes & patches out to you as quickly as we can.
We really want to thank those of you who have jumped on board early with us -- you've been great so far and we're really excited about what the future holds as we continue to work together to craft SimAirport into the best tycoon-style management game out there.
There's still a lot of work to be done, and it's certainly not going to happen overnight, but we're incredibly excited for what the future holds for SimAirport over the long-term. Just as we have been over these quick first three weeks, we'll continue to be here day-in and day-out -- listening and engaging directly with the community, working on fixes, updates, content, and above all, actually shipping patches -- for the long haul.
Our community has tons of ideas, and we have many ideas as well; we wanted to prepare a roadmap of sorts, and that's what we are delivering to you today. Game development is definitely a fluid process, and things are subject to change, but below you will find a rough outline of how we foresee the development process evolving over the next few months and we've called out some specifics that we know we'd like to get addressed, or implemented, sooner than later.
Keep in mind that the roadmap below is not written in stone, and is not all-inclusive; especially given that we like to stay directly engaged with the community, so if something comes up, or the community has a great idea, or there's anything important to the game that comes along unexpectedly -- we won't hesitate to deviate priorities temporarily and get it addressed or implemented.
The one thing that won't be changing? Our dedication to SimAirport, and to the community that has formed around the game so far. We'll be here working on this game not only until it is considered 'finished', but for a long time after that too -- together with your participation, we intend to explore the boundaries of tycoon-style management games in SimAirport.
Roadmap Notes:
- In an effort to stay nimble and ship patches fast, and the fluid nature of game development in general, we aren't putting specific timeframes on these 'stages' of development. Rather our goal is moreso to convey and share our perspective and the overarching stages we foresee in the shorter term future of SimAirport's development cycle.
- Coinciding with the release of this roadmap, we will soon be doing some basic structuring & reorganization of the Steam discussion forums in an effort to better cater to the ongoing development lifecycle, to make things easier to find for you and to make it easier for us to see what's important to you.
Bug Bash -- Everything working, flawlessly
- Zones; zone editing, movement, assignment handled properly in all cases
- Cafes / Retail; working perfectly
- Destruction of in-use or planned-to-use objects always handled correctly
- Incremental performance improvements
- Nothing stuck. Ever!
- Passenger AI Improvements
- Task switching, reconsideration
- Distribution weighting improved
- Memory footprint reduced (performance)
- Queue timings adjusted to function as intended
- First class passengers given meaning
- Minor requested additions, as time permits
- Flight Scheduling UI & Concept Updated [done]
- Janitors, Workers help with loading, unloading trucks [partially complete]
- Storage zone, Supply Piles being returned to Storage
- Additional minor object additions / options (decor, chair types, etc)
- UI enhancements, UI screen additions, planning mode, etc
Performance -- Construction & Ops are smooth, at reasonably large pax counts
- Crowd pathfinding fully merged; replace alternates for long-traversal paths
- Construction; remaining synchronous invalidations handled asynchronously
- Textures; support lower-end GPUs via size reductions or shipping multiple sizes
- Misc; track down game exit CTDs, begin tracking down problem memory leaks
Content & Gameplay -- The FUN begins!
We have a LOT planned, and it’s just a matter of time before we get there. We’ll be adding some things in sooner than later, in some cases even within other update cycles that aren’t dedicated to content addition. In other cases, we’ll be waiting until we’re really within a full ‘content mode’ update cycle.
Please Note: This list is NOT all inclusive of our plans. It is just meant to be a representation of some of the things that we’re confident we want to get implemented sooner than later. We will be getting to a lot more over time. There are also no guarantees; items from this list could be removed, re-prioritized or even skipped entirely.
We listen to and engage with our (fantastic) community quite often; we’re always willing to listen and learn from our players, and there’s even a fantastic thread that we follow quite closely in our forum. As a result priorities may shift, ideas may change, or new things may become more important -- please consider the following list only to be a rough guideline, there are a LOT more things we want to do beyond just these things, and we’ll be shipping many content updates & patches over time!
- Passenger Transportation
- Dropoff & Pickup via Light Rail Train
- Parking Structures
- More objects to satisfy, entertain, and profit off of your Passengers
- Bars, Restaurants, Take Out/Fast Food, Delis, etc
- Duty Free shops, newsstands, clothing stores, etc
- Systems depth; more for-sale items, inventory control, custom pricing
- Misc. entertainment options; arcade games, news stands, TVs, etc
- New Systems & Existing System Improvements
- Weather system improved; impacts operations
- Staff assignments; assign staff to desks or areas
- Information System; increase impact, additional objects
- Research Additions
- Game Progression Re-Balance
- Airlines that require services, offices, lounges
- Refuel systems; fuel truck, fuel pipelines re-implemented
- Reporting; data, charts, historic insights
- Misc.
- Steam Workshop integration with save sharing & mod support
- Game localization & language translations