Summer Islands News

In this update, we have taken a closer look at the calculation of reputation and better integrated it into the gameplay.
We have integrated 2 new settings for you.



On the one hand you can do more for the environment and social issues to increase your reputation. This costs money of course.
On the other hand you can set your quality in all buildings high or low. The tourists like to see a higher quality and so your reputation increases. Unfortunately, this also increases your fixed costs in the buildings. The opposite is when you decrease the quality.
As soon as you have hired the PR manager, you will generally get a reputation boost and you will also be shown the progress of the last months. Additionally you will see the composition.
Here you can see which factors go into your reputation:



In the course of this we have also taken a closer look at the popularity calculation of the buildings. We have corrected some calculations and strengthened or weakened other factors. The goal is to give the player the possibility of a rent adjustment.
Here you can see which factors flow into your popularity:



Therefore, possibly your vacation paradise will yield different profits after this update.
E.g. the decrease of the building condition was also too low. We have doubled this.

Also included in this update were some bug fixes and an upgrade to the frontend engine. We will continue to upgrade the engine to the latest version. I hope for a future support for WebGPU, which would again include a large performance increase.

Have fun https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

[h2]FEATURES[/h2]

• Added Reputation: Quality vs Fixed Costs Option
  
• Added Reputation: Environment vs Money Option
  
• Added Icons at the financial tabs
  
• Renamed: Resort to Cluster (Road network)
  
• Upgrade PIXI JS v7.0.4 to v7.2.0
  

[h2]USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]

• CHANGED to smaller Textures
  
• CHANGED Popularity Calculation
  
• CHANGED Reputation Calculation
  
• CHANGED Building condition drops faster
  
• CHANGED Buildings are not selectable in build mode
  
• CHANGED Free demolition of buildings that have just been built with pause
  
• FIX Savegame inputfield does not disappear
  
• FIX Server Terraforming Calculation was still with Trashfields
  

here is a rough plan for the upcoming features:




What do you think.
I am very curious to hear your constructive ideas

Have fun https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

The time has come. From today you can discover your island paradise in a whole new comfortable way. With the gamepad support you can expect a much more intense gameplay and a relaxed experience of the atmosphere from your couch or armchair.

It was a challenge to break down a complex control system to the limited number of buttons on a gamepad. The focus was constantly on the efficiency of the player, "How many buttons do I have to press until menu X", "Is the control consistent", "Which button sequences are already known to the player and should be repeated".



We went through several rounds of feedback, which meant that the modifications ate up at least 1 week of our time. There you had already integrated a control concept and then comes a much better idea for implementation. The time of the development consists also with me to a largest part of thinking how it can be converted.



The result of the gamepad control is perhaps not so simple at first sight. But believe me, once you have built one or the other little paradise, you will get along with it very well. Of course you have the possibility to assign each button individually. We have designed the whole thing for the XBOX controller series. With the multitude of different gamepads that exist, there are certainly other better button assignments for each gamepad type.



The integration of the gamepad support had of course the disadvantage that almost every menu had to be adapted. For each game situation you had to think about a sensible control. But this was also an advantage, because you could change some structures that are now less error-prone, such as all scroll windows. These have received a fundamentally new architecture and should therefore run more stable.Unfortunately, there is no Steamdeck on my desk at the moment, but that could still change. Until then, I'll try to implement any feedback from you to make it 100% playable

I am very unsure of how far the Steamdeck supports the browser gamepad API. Therefore, I do not want to give a green light for the Steamdeck for now. You may have to make settings on the Steamdeck to recognize the buttons in the browser gamepad API. Steamdeck owners should possibly know this, I do not.
What I do know is that from Valve it has been confirmed that Summer Islands is playable on the Steamdeck with Proton support.

Other new features include the advisor information overview for each level AND the half speed button, as well as other bug fixes:



Have fun https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

[h2]FEATURES[/h2]

• Added Mainmenu Gamepad Support
  
• Added Ingame Gamepad Support
  
• Added Half-Speed-Button
  
• Added Consulting Info Tooltip
  

[h2]USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]

• FIX Bot Counter in New Game Menu
  
• FIX Starmenu Scrolling
  
• FIX Storyvideo adjusted to total volume
  
• FIX Victory Scrollmenu
  
• FIX Resort Scrollmenu
  
• FIX Mouseover Building Menu Position
  
• FIX Terraforming also shows terrain at red fields
  

So, it's unbelievable. You think there's already enough overtime in the day job. But somehow there is not less work since 2023.
Enough with the excuses.
Too much time has passed since the last update. I already thought about uploading my progress to Steam. But it always grabs me the ambition that I could still do something more. Because so far the gamepad support keeps me quite busy.

Therefore I try to publish a new aspect of the update here every few days. So I try to show you what's coming and you know that it's going on.

Gamepad support:
It took me a few weeks to integrate the basic architecture/principles. Then I started with the main menu and slowly but steadily went through each menu.
I also integrated a small controller, so you can see when and which button I press on the gamepad.

[h2]02.03-04.03 - New concept & Finance menu[/h2]
After some brainstorming later on, there are some changes to the controls to make it easier and more intuitive to get to all the menus.
With the gamepad key X you can open the following menus one after the other: Finances|News|Minimap|Tasks
The gamepad keys LT and RT are used to switch between the following menus:
Buildings|Street|Demolition|Terrain|Sabotage
With the gamepad cross you move fast over the maps.
Of course all key assignments are changeable.
With the axes you can move the selected field. This starts from the movement slowly and becomes faster and faster.
Have a look at the video with the pressed gamepad keys.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]28.02 - Minimap, tasks and building details[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]26.02 - Building dependencies[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]25.02 - Construction menu[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]24.02 - Terraforming[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]23.02 - Navigation in the game[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]22.02 - Option menu Gamepad Setup[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]21.02 - Main menu Navigation[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Have fun https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

The year 2022 is over and we can look forward to the new year 2023.
I would like to write this year again a small review of the year 2022, what big changes there were and what we can expect in 2023.

But first of all I want to thank you for your support!!! For your feedback, for your found bugs, for your wishes, for your fun with Summer Islands.
I have the impression that since the release of the demo a little more quietness has flowed into many expectations and thus more time could be spent in completing it. I always notice people who immediately like news, tweets or toots and comment positively. There is constant feedback and with steamsales especially. I get a list of trackable bugs and requests that I always like to add to my todo list and integrate.
[h3]I thank you for this nice communication![/h3]

From my point of view, the biggest new features in 2022 were the following:

• Frontend Engine Migration
  
• Consultant level rework
  
• weatherfrog/weather map
  
• Harbors in light water
  
• New ways
  
• New sound effects
  
• Map editor rework
  
• Double speed
  

I sorted them by the fun factor ;)
The biggest plus point is the new frontend engine Pixi JS. Especially because it is still under development. There are many new possibilities that I could implement to increase the performance. But there is still a lot of potential in the engine. Since there is some feedback about low FPS after some game time. I am constantly analyzing, but a comprehensive analysis with a solution is still outstanding.

Just in the last update the new consultant levels came. These are much clearer and so far I have not received any negative feedback.
Along with this came the weather map and the weatherfrog. For the player there is thus the possibility to control the disasters better and react. Especially the number of disasters has decreased.

A change in the game principle was also the possibility of building a harbor in light water. This required some path calculation. But it was worth it. The deep water was only intended for this purpose at the beginning. But I think it's a good principle, so you can't connect all streets.

You can hear the new sound effects all the time when you want to build a new building and you also don't want to miss the double speed.

The map editor is a nice feature for people who only want to play in the sandbox. Full freedom, no money problems and if you want you can still play the map in normal mode.


[h2]Prediction for 2023[/h2]
Although already delayed several times, there is a plan to release Summer Islands from Early Access in 2023.
[h3]>>Drop microphone<
[h3]>>Pick up microphone<Yes this has been planned many times. But I'm positive and there must be some time to start with Summer Islands 2 in 3D ;D

But back to the remaining features for Summer Islands. There are some small things to be done here. The fine tuning in some places. The change of the code so that less problems occur in the menu navigation. But also e.g. to integrate the reputation better into the game.
The larger changes will probably be:

[h3]Gamepad support[/h3]
I would like to create a game feeling, so that one can control the whole game on the couch with a controller. This requires some adjustments. E.g. a constantly selected field on the map. You open the menu bar first by pressing a button and then the building menu.
The controller functions can be switched on and off.
Especially for the steam deck is often requested.

[h3]Auctions/Special buildings[/h3]
Many would be happy to see auctions again, which auctions special buildings. So that the player with the highest bid can build the building as the only owner. This would of course be a pleasant homage to the past.
However, I am not so sure if this fits into the gameplay.
The alternative would be the following: There are special buildings randomly distributed on the map at the start of the game. Around the special buildings you can build your buildings, which then get a boost. The radius can differ depending on the building, as well as the boost and the type of building. So every player has the incentive to build a special building.
Possibly one could also take over the special building.
I think this would be a nice idea.

[h3]Expansion Disasters, Sabotages, Plants, Animals[/h3]
These are not major changes, but rather the expansion of the content. There should be some more catastrophes (fires, ...), more sabotages (takeover, ...), the plants should grow/dynamically spread and in some places there should be some more animals.

These are my wishes and thoughts for our new year 2023.
Feel free to write your wishes in the comments here or via Twitter, via Mastodon or mail.
I would be very happy.

Last but not least, here is the link to the gameplay tutorial video. As a beginner there is the tutorial explained and as a professional you never stop learning:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Then here again a very HUGE THANK YOU to YOU and your support to Summer Islands.
You are the heroes and a Happy New Year 2023 to each of you.[/h2]

Best Regards
Matt

https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands