Indoorlands News

Hey,

Today it's time for the next Indoorlands status update.


We've been in closed pre-ea beta for a week now and the feedback is great so far. We have already been able to make many improvements and bug fixes. At this point, thanks to all the testers!


[h3]UI improvements[/h3]
In the last post we showed some debug UIs. We have now implemented nicer interfaces for all these features. The needs overview should now give you a quick overview of weak spots in the park:


We have also improved the overview of selected buildings:


[h3]Balancing[/h3]
We were able to gain feedback on the balancing of the game during the beta. The game was adjusted accordingly. Previously the parks got dirty very quickly, which we were able to improve with some changes. There are now more cleaning staff and they choose their targets more sensibly. Indoorlands was also a bit too difficult in terms of its economic balance - here we have made the game a bit more accessible.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]
The game was able to improve significantly in terms of stability from the fixed bugs that were reported. For example, we were able to improve load times, but also identified a major bug where the player had to pay a huge non-viewable electricity bill (a remnant of old systems) ːsteammockingː



As always - this list is incomplete ːsteamhappyː

• Visitor logic will be further improved, so that visitors also want "park beauty" while walking through the park, for example (so you have to optimize walking paths accordingly)
  
• Improve the understandability of decoration points
  
• First statistics about the economy (income, expenses, profit / loss)
  
• Adding information to the tutorial regarding the core loop
  
• General stabilization of the game
  

Finally, here are a few hall templates from our beta testers:


As always, feel free to give us feedback or ask questions in the discussion area or on our Discord server!

- Your Pixelsplit Team

Hey,

Today we would like to provide you with a new status update on the ongoing development of Indoorlands. But first, before we start with the update, one more important thing.


We are getting closer to the Early Access release and would like to collect feedback, bug reports and suggestions one last time. Therefore we will start a short closed beta soon. If you are interested, you are welcome to apply. Click here for the application

The number of participants is limited, so please don't be upset if it doesn't work out this time.


As announced in the last status update, we have fundamentally revised our need system. Previously, visitors only had rough need types, such as restaurant need and ride visit need. With an increasing need level, the number of these needs has increased.



That said, the system could get boring relatively quickly, as different stores hardly differed from each other, and the various rides also had little meaning. The new system is now more sophisticated, realistic and exciting:

The new system now distinguishes between the individual types of stores, restaurants and rides. These now have different stats, each with higher or lower values. The individual needs of the visitors are more or less satisfied, depending on these values. For example, while the ambience of restaurants is important to one park visitor, the "fun" of rides is paramount to another. This means that the player has to keep an eye on the demands of his visitors and design and expand his park accordingly - while keeping an eye on the budget, of course. Below is a glimpse from the Debug UI:


In order to get to know the visitors better as well as to better understand the game mechanics, the player can now select each individual park visitor to see which of his needs have already been fulfilled and which have not yet been fulfilled. In addition, other interesting info is displayed, such as which goal he currently has. Here is an excerpt from the Debug UI:


The new system also opens up a wide range of new possibilities for expansion and use of future features.


Previously, it was the case that a french fry stand resembled the french fry stand a hundred meters down the road. We wanted to make the building's placement and lifetime more relevant. First, we added counters that record the turnover of stores and the number of visitors handled over the lifetime of the building ( which can also be viewed by the player). We took the opportunity to use these new statistics to include a leveling system for buildings. Now, buildings level up the more visitors they have handled. A building can level up in up to three stages and thus also improves its properties.




We think that players should be able to start the game without much frustration. For this, it is important that you know what to do or what you can do at all. This problem is usually solved by a tutorial. After several concepts and meetings we decided that there will be only a minimal intro for the Early Access (welcome message and hint how to find the most important menus). However, we have already designed some characters that will explain the minimal intro and later the final tutorial.


We also found in the internal discussions that some of the questions a player might have can be answered using tooltips. Accordingly, some important elements in the game have now been given descriptive texts so that the player can discover Indoorlands independently.



We will certainly build a proper tutorial for the full release. For this we also rely on your feedback during the Early Access phase.

• We have finished cutting off decorative objects that protrude into the wall, as announced in the last status update.
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  
• We have started to rework our sound system again, as the amount of sounds and their mixing was a bit overwhelming. For this we decided to switch to a completely new sound engine.
  
• An option has been added so that the park can also be displayed completely covered. However, we would like to further improve the visual variety here.
  
• In preparation for the upcoming beta and early access, we have integrated a submission form into the game that allows you to send bug reports from within the game. A screenshot will be taken automatically and the relevant logs will be sent, so that we can process requests efficiently.
  
• Some bug fixes, small optimizations and much more
  

Remember to tell your friends about Indoorlands and if you haven't already, add Indoorlands to your wishlist and follow us.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1378890/Indoorlands/

Feedback and questions in the discussion area or on our Discord-Server are very welcome!

- Your team Pixelsplit

Hey,

[h2]How's the development going?[/h2]
We are working intensively on Indoorlands. We want to give you the opportunity to play Indoorlands in the first Early Access version as soon as possible. Originally, we wanted to have already released in Early Access, however, some topics turned out to be even more important than initially thought (and the pandemy doesn't make things easier ːsteamsadː).

The version of Indoorlands that we will release - like every Early Access title - won't be completely finalized. However, we have certain minimum requirements: The game should run stable, the balancing should be fun and important core features are supposed to work.
To keep you up to date with what this means in detail, we want to give you a few insights into the development:

[h2]What we have been working on lately:[/h2]
[h3]The Blueprint System[/h3]
We want to give our players the possibility to save their hall designs in order to re-use them in different parks or quickly setup new halls which are already decorated a bit. In addition, we want to allow our community to share their blueprints with each other. Right now this is possible via sharing .blueprint files e.g. on our Discord server. We also consider adding STEAM workshop support in the Early Access phase, but only if it is of high value to the community.



[h3]Park Cleaning System[/h3]
Keeping your park clean should be an important task in Indoorlands. We are now in the third iteration of such a system. In the last iteration it was more a number game so each hall had a dirt value and you could build surrounding cleaning halls which lowered the dirt value a bit. It worked but in the end it was not fun. We scrapped all that and went for a more realistic and visually understandable system.

Now visitors have a dirt emission probability (which increases after visiting shops or restaurants) and sometimes they throw their waste on the ground based on that probability. Every visitor walking past this mess now has the opportunity to be disgusted by it.

If this happens too often, then your visitors will become unhappy and this can lead to the general interest in your park decreasing and you getting fewer visitors.



To get rid of the dirt, you can - especially at the beginning of the game - use the cleaning tool. However, you'll quickly want to automate this activity. That's why we've now included cleaning rooms. In them, there are cleaners who regularly swarm out to get rid of the dirt around the building.



This feature is almost done but still needs a bit balancing.

[h3]Making rides safer[/h3]
We have several different rides which can be placed in the halls. Some parts of the rides even move across the hall (especially swinging rides). This has led to the gondolas sometimes colliding with placed decorations. So we built a small system that prohibits placement in the relevant area and gives visual feedback to the player.



[h3]More rides[/h3]
We want to expand with content during Early Access but we also want to have a good basis at the release. So here is a screenshot of one of the rides we lately worked on:




[h2]What we want to accomplish prior Early Access release:[/h2]

[h3]Cutting decorations[/h3]
Previously, decorative parts could not be partially pushed outside the hall, otherwise they would have stood out from the walls. Thus, the objects always had to maintain a small distance from the wall and this very much limited the creative freedom. To turn your halls into really beautiful ones, it should be possible to place objects at / in the edge of the hall. To do that, they have to be "cut". We investigated a lot of possibilities here and finally have a properly working solution



[h3]Re-iteration of the demand system[/h3]
Currently, the core loop of the game is to have as happy park visitors as possible, thereby generating more revenue, using the funds to expand the park, and so on. This works well, but we would like to revise the system, which determines the wishes and needs of the visitors. The new iteration should have more game depth and be more comprehensible for the players. We will go into more detail on this topic in another post when the time comes.

[h3]Expand the park[/h3]
To increase the size of your indoor park, you need to unlock more land. We have already finished the functionality, but it still needs to be balanced cost-wise.

[h2]Is that all?[/h2]
Obviously, the examples shown do not cover all open tasks, but should give you a representative insight into the development. One thing you can be sure of: We want to share the game with you as soon as possible and are looking forward to your feedback.

If you liked this post please make sure to wishlist the game and follow it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1378890/Indoorlands

Let us know any feedback or questions you might have in the discussion section or on our Discord server! Also let us know if you are interested in more such update posts.

- Your Pixelsplit team