Town Building: Giving the player a choice

[Nichmann]

I'm currently working on a game where part of it revolves around the player repairing a town. The town has many blank plots but I'm wondering what would make it more interesting, letting the player decide exactly what type of building gets built in a plot (ie. Inn, Shop or House) or having it where each plot can only build a specific building.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Kenen]

This reminds me so much of Township from Breath of Fire II for SNES from when I was a kid. Essentially, you were able to build your own town within a limited scope. Great idea... Keep rolling with it!

 

[Nebuerys]

Poor and random city planning, not just in RPGs or games in general, has always been my pet peeve and with an "anything goes anywhere layout", players might end up with a town layout that doesn't make sense. I'd rather see the town be divided into sections(ie. residential district, noble's district, market/public district, etc.) as determined by the game's designer and the player will only get to place certain buildings anywhere in their designated sections.

 

[fmoliveira]

Poor and random city planning, not just in RPGs or games in general, has always been my pet peeve and with an "anything goes anywhere layout", players might end up with a town layout that doesn't make sense. I'd rather see the town be divided into sections(ie. residential district, noble's district, market/public district, etc.) as determined by the game's designer and the player will only get to place certain buildings anywhere in their designated sections.

I like Nebueryes' suggestion about dividing the town into sections.

Plus, I also think you should restrict the maximum number of each building. For instance, the player would be limited to build up to 1 inn, 2 shops and 5 houses. In that way, you make sure the player will have different ways to build all the required buildings.

 

[The Infamous Bon Bon]

Personally I wouldn't give the player the option to decide where things are going to be, repairing the town and seeing it come back to life should be a fulfilling enough experience.  Allowing the player to make the choice on where things go, is going to make it take longer for you to make the game because you have to factor in a bunch of possibilities.  You might also have to sacrifice the little touches that make certain buildings charming and unique to your world and/ or characters as well.

 

[fmoliveira]

The Infamous Bon Bon is right about the "repairing the town" feeling.

Repairing a town in ruins and finding out more about it is completely different than building a new town. It's up to you what feeling you want your players to have.

If the plot is about repairing the town, you should of course stick to it. Just make it challenging enough to make it fun, like: collecting materials, talking to townspeople and/or travelers, hiring people to help it, etc. But if anytime you need to build a new town in this game or another, my previous opinion remains.

 

[Wavelength]

I think it will be much more interesting to allow the player to design the town in the fashion they want to.  This is going to force you to add a lot more code or eventing in, but I do think it will be a cool feature if it's worth your time as the designer.

 

[Ariaka]

I think it depends on more factors.

1. If the city is in an alien world (not our known earth) then it is reasonable to allow the player to build things where they see fit. However if you are using a world with a known civilization (Greeks for example) then you should limit the building types per plot to what would have logically made sense for that culture/civilization. If the civilization/culture of your game has been fleshed out by you, then the same rule would apply. It simply makes more sense that way.

2. Rebuilding and new town does need to be considered. Often, but not always, the same building is built over the ruins of the old. If you are rebuilding, but allowing different types to be placed on the plot you have to ask yourself, "Why?"

3. How extensive is this town? Is coding an 'anywhere' town going to be more trouble for you then it would be worth? (I've an idea that is what you are trying to determine.) Is it actually a hamlet? A village? And so forth. (In Europe, the difference between a hamlet and a village is the presence of a chapel/church. Difference between a village and a town is the presence of a market.)

My preference depends on how it is presented to me. In 'Harvest Moon, A New Beginning' I was a bit annoyed at the 'place buildings anywhere' method because of how cumbersome the edit mode was. But that doesn't mean I am personally against the concept of it.

 

[Valkyriet]

This can be quite complicated if you decide to leave it all up to the players (even though I voted for the first option). It just means that if building something in a specific plot has a direct effect on the profits the player can rake in, then it would be interesting to see what choice the player would make. For example, building a restaurant next to a cinema would be more profitable than building, say, a pet shop. It would make gameplay a bit more realistic but it would also make it quite difficult for you to implement something so intricate.

 

[InBlast]

I prefer specific building on a plot. First, i think it's easier to make, and if the mapping is good, it will be a nice town.

I have a question : how do you plan to make it ? I plan to allow the player to build a little camp in my game (something like DAO, but with more personnalization), but i don't see how to do it. I can use even for each square, but i think it can be doing easily. 

 

[Wavelength]

I have a question : how do you plan to make it ? I plan to allow the player to build a little camp in my game (something like DAO, but with more personnalization), but i don't see how to do it. I can use even for each square, but i think it can be doing easily.

As a quick primer, you can use Event Pages (with Page Conditions like Self Switches or Variables) to pull this off. The first page would be a blank graphic or a picture of an empty plot. Once the player "builds" the building, the Self Switch, Variable, etc. is changed so the page is changed. The second page would be the building you built there. It doesn't have to be a 1x1 picture - it could be a big 20x20 building if you want. You can still put it in a single event graphic.

Hopefully this helps - if you need more info, though, you should post your own thread in the appropriate Maker's "Support" subforum, since implementation of Events is a far cry from the topic of this thread.