Finally, after recording and editing and then re-recording and re-editing because it turns out I sounded like death the first time round, we have a new devlog! Hopefully the next one won’t take quite as long 
(PeerTube version for the un-Googlers out there)
So after sorting out a general vibe for the game in the last update, along with some basic models for the first few buildings, just one thing remained that was completely out of my comfort zone.
CITIZENS!
And so I decided to tackle this next, knowing that if I could do that I could probably do anything 
I had to ask around for help on Mastodon to even get started, but they pointed me in the right direction and from then on it was smooth sailing.
(j/k it was an absolute nightmare)
There were scale issues.
There were weird piers.
There were a LOT of wrong path connections.
And just for good measure there were scaling issues in the opposite direction too.
BUT eventually I had them all in there and gliding cutely if a bit drunkenly around the paths.
Next up I implemented a day / night cycle, which I’m pretty sure will be entirely scrapped and redone at some point but it works ok for now. And even added headlamps! Which everyone seems to think are adorable so they might have to become a real thing rather than just a temporary health and safety measure until the city lights are in…
Lastly for this update, I implemented birds just to add a bit of something to the scene. Unfortunately, among other issues, there ended up being way too many birds!
Now they’re all fixed up but I can never look at birds irl the same way ever again. We have become mortal enemies. These are the risks of gamedev that they just don’t tell you about!
Unfortunately this was the point in the project where I came down with Covid, so progress naturally slowed for a while. But we’ll talk more about that next time as I take you through the absolute shambles that was my attempt at a save / load system! Yay!
In the meantime you can wishlist Solaria on Steam, or maybe come say hi on Mastodon where the updates are a bit more frequent but equally depressing.
