October Devlog!

Last month I ended our devlog by saying that the current build of Rolling Hills felt like a playground. What I meant was that the experience is fun, but it feels loose. If you read my post The Gameplay History of Rolling Hills, you know that in addition to the aesthetic, story, and cozy vibes, James and I obsess over finding every ounce of fun in Rolling Hills. Our growing suspicion is that the fun is not in one particular system, but in how those systems interact. This should be obvious to fans of games like Stardew Valley. Farming wouldn't be as much fun on its own, but combine it with selling, crafting, and cooking with those same ingredients you just farmed, and things start looking better.

So here are a few features we added or refined in October as we work toward that magic moment when enough systems interact with one another that the game is so fun we lose all sense of imposter syndrome and get rich overnight.

... wait, why are you laughing?

Keep Rolling

An advantage of conveyor belt sushi? The sushi (and restaurant) keeps moving even when you're not there! We decided that the best way to make sure our town and restaurant gameplay complement one another was to allow the player to leave and return to the restaurant as they please. It's fun to load up the belt with tasty dishes, then run outside to purchase, garden, or fish for more ingredients, interact with other characters, and beautify the town all while receiving updates on what's happening in the restaurant. You can see an example of those notifications in the screenshot above.

There are still plenty of reasons to spend time inside the restaurant. Cleaning dishes, emptying the tip jar, interacting with customers to learn their preferences, and rearranging furniture all come to mind.

Shopping

I love that we're finally working on the shopping gameplay for three reasons. 1. I think it's a great way to surprise players since the store's inventory changes often. 2. Depending on what's available the player has to make creative decisions about what to serve their customers. 3. The prices fluctuate both randomly and based upon what you buy, which not only gives the shop another element of surprise and strategy, but also has the opportunity to demonstrate how overfishing can be avoided by using a variety of ingredients, especially more sustainable fishes and vegetables.

Town Redesign

One thing you'll note in a lot of life-sims, whether it's Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, is that things are far from perfect at the start of the game. Stardew gives you a really messy farm to clean up, and Animal Crossing starts you in a tent. The reason is because it instantly gives the player a goal to work toward: "I'm going to make this pretty!"

So with that in mind we've been simplifying Rolling Hills so that things don't look uglier, just more natural. We want the player to feel like they've been given a canvas worth painting on. If you enjoyed the sidewalk, streetlights, and perfectly green grass in previous screenshots, don't worry! All that can be achieved with a little hard work. Plus the more you improve town, the more customers will flock to your sushi shop!

PS: Abby

You may have already seen her on Twitter, but we introduced another character from Rolling Hills! Her name is Abby, she's very loosely based on a good friend of mine, and she's adorable. This gif was recorded before we reworked the town, so just imagine it's from a few hours into Rolling Hills after some upgrades have been made 😅

On The Next Episode...

Really!? You still want to read these even after you've seen how unreliable they are? Okay, okay. I'm just going to make it my personal wishlist from now on.

• Fishing: It's a sushi game. You should be able to fish!
• Customer reviews: I posted once before about how customer preferences and moods work, and although a bunch of that stuff has evolved since then, the basics are still intact. I think it'd be helpful to wrap all that information up into a tidy review at the end of the day to let you know how you're doing and what can be improved.
• Town stuff: in our current demo you can pick up trash and place it in the recycling bin (see the first gif in this post). Doing so improves the town's score and grants a little experience to the player. I'd like to add more systems like that. The first one that comes to my mind is watering flowers, which I think is fun and relaxing.