rollinghills

Pausing the Patreon

Hey everyone! I wanted to take a moment to let you know I'm pausing our Patreon for the foreseeable future.

I have such enormous appreciation for everyone who supports Rolling Hills, and as a result I don't want any of you paying for sporadic content. To be blunt, when a devlog is lacking or I don't write enough Patreon-only posts in a month, I feel bad!

With that in mind, as we ramp up to our "real" production cycle and things get even busier, I want to take some time to see where the Patreon fits into our routine and how much cool stuff I can offer you folks. If it's significant, I'll start contributing again. If it looks like the new stuff would fit better on Twitter, Instagram, Discord, or even saved up for a big reveal/trailer, then I'll do that instead!

I can't thank you enough for being a patron. Your love and and support for Rolling Hills has gotten us through some of the hardest moments of development and proven to us that this game deserves our absolute best effort, which is what we're going to give it!

I'll be pausing the billing cycle every month to ensure no one gets charged during this hiatus. If you want to be extra sure and cancel your pledge, that's fine too!

Please continue to follow our development on the previously mentioned socials and if you haven't already, wishlist the game on Steam. If you ever have a question for me personally, you can email matthew (at) catchandrelea.se (I'd love to hear from you!)

Keep rolling! <3

Matthew

June Devlog!

With big progress on the life-sim and town side of Rolling Hills in May, June was spent implementing the core restaurant gameplay. That means adding depth to recipes, customers, ingredients, and more. Let's dive in!

Sushi Points and Recipe Stats

I should start by explaining two fundamental additions to our sushi-based gameplay. First, recipes are no longer pre-made, instead you'll create them yourself with our new design interface. You can make whatever you want, and it'll be added to your recipe list so you can craft it later. The catch is that more complex and powerful recipes require Sushi Points to design. This is now our third currency in addition to Gold and Joy. We're still figuring out all the best ways to earn Sushi Points, but I'll explain one method later in this post.

The second addition is recipe stats. Not all sushi is created equal, so whether you're designing a new recipe or deciding on ingredients, you'll want to consider their Taste, Appeal, and Price.

❤️ Taste is represented with red hearts. The more hearts, the more powerful the dish. These hearts affect the customer's satisfaction level.

⭐ Appeal is represented with yellow stars. This determines whether the customer will eat the dish at all. We wanted to represent that—especially in the sushi world—some dishes are more visually appealing than others.

💰 Price determines how much the customer will pay for the sushi. Each customer has a budget and once it's depleted or they've run out of patience, they'll leave the restaurant.

Those of you who have followed our development since the beginning know that we've experimented with custom recipes in the past, but we could never get it quite right. These easy-to-understand stats and the addition of Sushi Points have finally clicked things into place.

Having these stats means that not only are recipes and ingredients more unique, but so are the customers!

Customers

The first thing you'll see when a customer enters your restaurant (even if you're not there to greet them!) is a little notification.

As you can see, each customer has their own standards for Taste (hearts) and Appeal (stars). You'll also notice they have a loved and hated ingredient—I really like how this ties into appeal. If you've ever been unsure about trying new sushi, only to realize it includes one of your favorite ingredients (spicy mayo, anyone?) then you know that a familiar face can make all the difference.

In addition, customers will leave a review as they exit. My hope is for these to feel like a quick online review that helps summarize the customer's experience. Again, you'll see these recaps even if you're not inside the restaurant!

Yes! Customers can also level up. Each time that happens, their budget will increase along with their taste and appeal. Bigger challenges mean bigger rewards!

Sushi Bot

We spent some time refining Sushi Bot's abilities this month, but one thing is never in doubt: Sushi Bot is a huge part of Rolling Hills!

🔋 Sushi Bot now runs on a battery that will eventually deplete and need to be recharged via Sleep Mode. It's an obvious metaphor for a robot, plus it helps iron out some gameplay problems... not to mention it's very cute when the lil guy falls asleep.

🍳 In Chef Mode, Sushi Bot will automatically create sushi. Right now we're experimenting with the idea that Sushi Bot doesn't even require ingredients to make sushi, only a sufficient battery charge.

🌐 SP Mining Mode. As promised, this is one way to earn Sushi Points for creating recipes. In this mode, Sushi Bot will slowly generate Sushi Points, as seen in the first image of this post.

Time of Day

Although GIF compression is a force to be reckoned with, this is still a great opportunity to not only showcase our cool lighting changes, but also the gorgeous visual effects we've added. Depth of field in particular gives the game a dollhouse-look that I'm in love with! If you look closely, you'll notice a slight fog/mist in the background of morning and night.

Gathering

A little cherry (or blueberry) on top to finish this month's devlog! Gathering ingredients is an easy (and free!) way to snag some ingredients for your restaurant. Yum!

Thank you

I hope you enjoyed this month's devlog! I couldn't be more excited for the direction Rolling Hills is heading in. Our desire has always been to make a fun, creative cooking and life-simulation game, and this month saw us get much closer to that goal. Thanks for believing in us! <3

May Devlog!

Howdy, everyone! I hope you're staying strong and finding time for yourself. We've had a very busy month, so I'm happy to have this chance to reflect on it.

🗺️ Can You Do Me A Favor?

Nothing makes me feel more like a real game developer than writing QUESTS! These tasks refresh daily and are often written from the perspective of your neighbors, which I think is a nice way to use a common trope in a charming way. Here are some examples of what I think would be fun quests and quest-types:

HELP WANTED

"I've noticed there are a few too many anchovies in our waters. In order to maintain a healthy ecosystem, we should consider removing some. They're yours to keep, of course!" -Kip

• OBJECTIVE: Catch 5 Anchovies
• REWARD: 10 JOY
• WHEN: No rush

WILL BUY

"I need 10 blueberries yesterday! Willing to pay extra if you can get them quickly." -Winston

• OBJECTIVE: Deliver 5 blueberries to Winston
• REWARD: 100 GOLD
• WHEN: 6 hours remaining

TO-GO

"I don't wanna move and lose this perfect picnic spot, but I forgot to bring any food! (I had a friend post this for me, don't worry!)" -Ruby

• OBJECTIVE: Deliver 3 Veggie Rolls to Ruby
• REWARD: 200 GOLD
• WHEN: 3 hours remaining

Some quests will be randomly generated to keep things fresh, and others will be more story-focused. As you can see, the examples above are more on the random side.

Do you have some cool quest ideas or examples from other games? Let me know in the comments!

🌠 Make A Wish

I'm addicted to cool metaphors. These clever devices are everywhere in good game design, because they help us easily understand potentially complex ideas. Take Animal Crossing: New Horizon's airport for example. It isn't just cute, it serves as a perfect metaphor for traveling to another player's island. Theoretically, this could've just been another menu option on your NookPhone, but it isn't. For a reason.

For Rolling Hills, we needed a centralized place where the player could purchase upgrades. There are many ways to tackle this, but personally I'm a fan of games like Forager, where it's easy to see the upgrade options available to you and make an informed decision about what to spend your experience on.

As many of you know, Rolling Hills doesn't have traditional experience points. Instead we have JOY--an imaginary currency collected by performing good deeds. So what's a logical place to "spend" all that goodwill?

At the highest elevation in Rolling Hills rests a mysterious shrine. The weathered wood and tattered shingles protect a curious, frog-like figure. Here you'll be able to offer the JOY you've collected in exchange for helpful rewards and upgrades. These upgrades are incredibly varied, but you can imagine gaining the ability to fish, better communicate with your customers, or even learn a new recipe.

🌳 Fluffy Trees

Ever since we returned from PAX East back in February, Rolling Hills has undergone a ton of visual improvements. For instance, check out these fluffy trees gently swaying in the wind 😌

📺 Wholesome Direct

I wanted to mention that I recently got the chance to produce an E3-style showcase of wholesome games called "Wholesome Direct". I knew we had a great community that would be excited about this event, but I had no idea it would garner as much interest as it did. To speak only of how it affects Rolling Hills, I think it's very helpful to know that there is a big audience for these unique, heartfelt, compassionate kinds of games. If you want to see all 50+ games featured in the Direct, it's available here: https://youtu.be/AwCNzOPR8Ck 

❤️ Thank you

For the past few months I've ended each devlog with a thank you, and although the pattern remains the same, what that "thank you" means to me changes a little every month. This month I'm thinking about how profoundly lucky I am to be busy at a time when so many are out of work or otherwise struggling. So whether you're a patron or just stopping by to read an update on our game, thank you sincerely. James and I are so lucky.

April Devlog!

Look, I don’t need to tell you that it’s been a busy month. The fact that I’m posting April’s devlog in May should tell you all you need to know about that 😅

The good news is that there are really exciting things happening behind-the-scenes on Rolling Hills. The project is growing and evolving every day, and April continued that trend.

🛍️ Thrift Store

Another gorgeous model from Aender based on a concept created by Brittany. I love the colorful bricks and the two-story design. Currently this is the tallest building in Rolling Hills, and in general it adds wonderful variety and character to our little town.

Although you can collect furniture and aprons in a number of ways, the Thrift Store will offer a steady supply of each. As you make improvements to Rolling Hills, the number of items available at the Thrift Store will also increase!

Expect a lot more cute aprons to choose from!

🦥 Just Hangin’ Out

To me, the most challenging (and exciting) part of making a life-sim is defining your relationship with other characters. We use a lot of organic verbs like “hang out” and “befriend”, but what do those actually mean? Let’s talk about three important character behaviors and the games that do them best.

“Random” dialogue / Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing villagers feel alive because they’ve always got something new to say. This stands in stark contrast to the many RPGs and life-sims where characters will eventually stop talking to you or begin repeating their most recent dialogue.

To achieve this effect, Animal Crossing splits dialogue into a few different categories like greetings, questions, advice, gossip about other villagers, and many more. This gives the game plenty of options to choose from each time you interact with a villager, but ultimately it all circles back to the quality and quantity of writing.

Hang outs / Persona

I’ll be honest, I played Persona 4 and 5 on the easiest setting. I just wanted to blast through those dungeons and battles so I could hang out with my friends! As your bond deepens with each character, you’re given opportunities to spend meaningful time with them. These scenes are more scripted so they can advance the story and have more depth than the day-to-day stuff. The bottom line is that this is when characters bare their soul with you, ask questions, and react strongly to what you say and do.

Routines / Stardew Valley

Because it seeks to emulate classic Harvest Moon titles, Stardew’s dialogue and relationship mechanics are generally very straightforward, but that’s not a bad thing at all. Take routines for example: instead of the game determining and then randomizing a character's movements like in Animal Crossing, Stardew’s characters operate on routines that are not only easier to program, but help us better understand the character. If a character loves to read, it only makes sense we see her head to the library every day at noon, right? This sort of “show, don’t tell” storytelling helps each character come to life in ways that dialogue alone cannot.

🍣 Recipe effects

One of the most important design tasks I have is making sure that each recipe is unique in meaningful ways. Obviously each recipe requires different ingredients, appeals to different customers, and possesses a variety of stats (like the sell price), but I’m talking about the big differences, differences that will excite you and cause you to spend a few extra minutes deciding which recipe to learn next.

That brings me to recipe effects! Now each recipe comes with a powerful effect. These effects are activated and strengthened by playing a—Oops, I almost said too much!

What I can say are some example effects:

Plentiful Chance to produce multiple rolls

Flavorful Chance to add an additional, random flavor

Youthful Can restore a small amount of stamina

In my perfect world, I’d like to experiment with these tags being (somewhat) randomly applied to recipes, meaning that my California Roll might have the Plentiful effect, but my friend could have the same recipe with a different effect. Perhaps I could even merge two recipes to combine the effect from one with the ingredients of another. There’s a lot to consider, but I think these basics are exciting!

🕵️ Imitation Crab

What's that? You want an explanation for the crab-in-glasses? Well, if you insist!

Imitation crab (also known more bluntly as 'Crab Stick') is a common ingredient in sushi. In reality it's just miscellaneous white fish repackaged to resemble crab, but in Rolling Hills, it's a little more fantastical! Don't be shocked when you see one of these fellas on the end of your fishing rod, thanks to Ryan's 3D skillz.

❤️ Thank you for supporting us!

A sincere thank you to everyone who supports Rolling Hills. In case you missed it, we have a Steam page now where you can wishlist the game. Wishlists are surprisingly meaningful to developers and publishers, so please give it a click if you don’t mind.

It’s not lost on me that money is tight for a lot of people right now, so to the patrons specifically, thank you so much. We'll keep working hard to make Rolling Hills a great game for you all!

March Devlog!

I doubt you need any reminders about what a crazy month it’s been, so I’ll just say I hope you're taking care of yourself <3 Let’s get started!

🎮 PAX East

I wrote a much more extensive recap of our PAX East experience in this post, but since that was patron-only, I thought I’d mention it here as well. I also have some new pictures courtesy of Indie MEGABOOTH!

As an indie developer who spends most of their time in a home office (literally) without windows, I can’t overstate how invigorating PAX East was. At first I was intimidated by the sheer scale of the event, but by the end of the first day James and I had settled in. Seeing new players enjoy Rolling Hills and meeting supportive, endlessly talented developers was an experience I’ll cherish forever. I sincerely hope we can go to more PAX events in the future.

🏠 Home Sweet Home

A cozy place to call home is an essential part of any life-sim, and that includes Rolling Hills. Although our focus is on customizing the restaurant and growing your business, it’s also important that the player can make a home of their own. For the sake of versatility, any piece of furniture that can be placed in the restaurant can also be placed in the home, so perhaps an item will get retired from the sushi shop and make its way to your bedroom and vice versa. The bottom line is that it’ll be up to you to decorate both to your heart's content!

🤖 Robots...

It wouldn’t be a proper devlog without mentioning Sushi Bot! I’d like to use the bot as a vehicle to talk about the careful balance between simplicity and depth in Rolling Hills.

As I’ve mentioned before, Rolling Hills is the first time we’ve developed a game publicly. That means a lot of things, but the most obvious is that we get a constant stream of feedback. Demoing the game at PAX East was particularly insightful since it was the first time players were able to interact with Sushi Bot. 

It made me happy to see that these interactions were intuitive and fun for players, and because this iteration of Sushi Bot was still on the basic side, a few players even pitched ideas for how they would expand its gameplay. These are really fun conversations to have. We toss ideas back and forth and our excitement for the game grows. Watching a player’s face when you talk about a feature that genuinely excites them is pure magic.

It’s important to remember, though, that everyone comes to your game with a slightly different mindset.  For instance, “hardcore” (for lack of a better term) players would pitch complex, in depth mechanics for Sushi Bot. They asked me to consider adding lots of control, like the ability to program detailed routines. These are features that are exciting to consider, but make more casual players (like me) feel intimidated. Creating mechanics with enough depth to be entertaining for 30+ hours without becoming overly complicated is a challenge, but it’s also just part of being a designer. Without these problems, my job would be pointless! (So, um... thank you, problems!)

🎣 ...and fishes...

Just because I consider myself a more casual player doesn’t mean my instincts are always right for Rolling Hills. Let’s use fishing as an example for another balancing act: relaxing vs. exciting. If we developed in a vacuum, based solely on our own preferences, our fishing would closely resemble Stardew Valley. In my opinion, it’s perfect: it’s challenging but rewarding, and the mechanics mimic the tension and excitement of reeling in a fish… but then we polled our community! Absolutely no one preferred Stardew Valley’s fishing mechanics over games like Animal Crossing and Minecraft. Many said that they preferred games where fishing was a zen-like experience and Stardew was simply too action-focused and difficult to achieve that sensation.

I’m not ready to spoil all of our plans for Sushi Bot or fishing yet, but I hope you find it as interesting as I do to hear what players think. As I already alluded to, coming up with creative solutions to mend these gaps is one of my favorite parts of being a game designer. Perhaps even as you read this you’ll come up with some solutions of your own!

👨‍👩‍👦 ...and humans, too!

Lastly, I want to talk about some additions to the cast of Rolling Hills. Many of you know that as you perform good deeds, you’ll accumulate a currency called JOY. You can do many things with JOY, and that includes unlocking collectable customers (or VIPs, as we call them). These customers are all unique and each one brings a distinct advantage to Rolling Hills. For instance, having the Angler in your town will make fish easier to catch. For a while now, these unlockable characters have been the only non-animal residents in Rolling Hills. That’s about to change!

We’re in the process of creating new human characters who live and work in Rolling Hills, right from the start. These characters will perform a variety of tasks needed for our gameplay (running shops, constructing public works, etc), which will give our animals even more freedom to roam and help establish a world where humans and animals live in harmony. Please look forward to these characters as they are likely to play a big ‘roll’ in the game!

❤️ Thank you for supporting us!

I can never say it enough, but thank you sincerely to everyone who supports Rolling Hills! In case you missed it, we have a Steam page now where you can wishlist the game. Wishlists are surprisingly meaningful to developers and publishers, so please give it a click if you don’t mind.

It’s not lost on me that money is tight for a lot of people right now, so to the patrons specifically, thank you so much!

February Devlog!

Normally I post these devlogs closer to the end of the month, but since we'll be out of the office then, I figured I'd go ahead and update you now. Hmm? Where will we be? Oh, that's right. We're going to...

🎉 PAX East

That's right, the big secret I've been alluding to in my recent posts is that Rolling Hills was accepted to be part of the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX East 2020! 

As I said on Twitter, the opportunity to introduce Rolling Hills to new players is great, but to also become part of the supportive and talented IMB community is a really big deal for us, especially as developers living in a rural area where game devs are rare. Needless to say, we are very thankful to everyone involved! 

We'll be in the MINIBOOTH section on Thursday and Friday. Please stop by!

We're bringing some cute buttons as well as Rolling Hills travel brochures, which I hope are both informative and a cute collectors item. Are there Rolling Hills collectors? Probably not, but that's what will make these items so rare years from now!

✨ More Glow Ups

As you might've guessed, we worked extra hard this month to make sure Rolling Hills is nice and shiny for the PAX audience. Here's a little rundown with before-and-after gifs!

My personal favorite! The Fresh Market received some huge improvements courtesy of Ryan, who was adjusting great models made by Aender, as well as improving the lighting and tossing in some boxes. If there's a theme between all of these changes, it's that Ryan loves boxes. See if you can spot them all!

We wanted this demo to represent an early section of the game when the player is still getting settled into their new life in Rolling Hills. Coincidentally, that forced us to reexamine our lighting and details since an empty restaurant can look pretty bland. Luckily Ryan came through again. My favorite part here is the way the light trickles through the windows. 

And the boxes, of course.

Seeing these images back-to-back, it almost looks like the difference between fall and summer. Maybe we'll revisit those yellow shades when Rolling Hills is ready to change seasons. 

The boxes strike again. At this point I see them even when I close my eyes.

🤖 Sushi Bot Is Ready To Roll

I saved the best for last! For a while now we've known that Sushi Bot would play a major role in the game going forward, so it makes me so excited that we were able to squeeze it in for the PAX demo! Brittany did the concept art and Aender modeled and textured the lil guy.

Sushi Bot's claim to fame is their ability to learn recipes and prepare sushi even after you leave the restaurant. This means you'll have plenty of time to explore while Sushi Bot keeps rolling. What else can Sushi Bot do? Stay tuned as we reveal more!

❤️ Thank you for supporting us!

As always, I want to end with a sincere thank you to everyone supporting our development. I apologize that I haven't been able to post more patron-exclusive stuff this month as we've been really busy with PAX prep. I look forward to sharing more frequent updates when we return. If you'll be at PAX East, let me know in the comments and please swing by the Indie MEGABOOTH's MINIBOOTH section on Thursday and Friday. See you soon!

January Devlog!

Welcome! I hope 2020 has been good to you so far. We've done our best to hit the ground running this month. We've got an excuse to work extra hard right now as we continue to prepare Rolling Hills for a big, still-unannounced opportunity. It's a really weird and nerve wracking feeling to know that the stars are aligning and all you have to do us uh... make sure you've made a good game.

So yeah, let's get this post finished so I can get back to work!

🏡 My Kind of Town

If you follow us on Twitter then you know we've been steadily improving the town. This month things progressed much faster thanks to help from environmental artist Ryan Pocock. In the past we had only worked with contractors on an item-by-item basis, and then it would fall on us to assemble everything in the scene. Ryan's work represents the first time we've actually handed the Unity project to someone else and let them dig around.

New:

Old:

Woah, those are two very different towns! Please keep in mind that many elements are still a work-in-progress.

Overall, we wanted the town to feel less developed. If you enjoyed some of the more urban elements of the old version like the paved pathway and street lights, don't fret! You'll have the ability to customize and upgrade your town as you progress through the game.

Hopefully you're as eager to shape this beautiful natural landscape as we are!

💬 Opening the Vault!

Discord is the only part of our social media presence that I'm not in charge of. James has been using message boards since our family got a computer in 1995, so it doesn't surprise me that Discord has become his new stomping grounds.

A few days ago he revamped our server to make things more active and inviting. That includes adding micro updates on our development to "The Vault", a channel just for our Patreon backers. If you haven't already, we hope these updates will encourage you to join the Rolling Hills server!

Some character emotes. So far this is my biggest contribution to the server 😅

🎙️ Wholesome Games

As you might guess, James and I are very passionate about the emerging trend of "wholesome games". We decided to make Rolling Hills because we're fans of so many games in the genre, and in order to help others find those great games, we started Wholesome Games. I handle the Twitter account while James and his pal Jacob started the Discord.

All this backstory is just so I can tell you that James will be part of a panel on Wholesome Games at PAX East. If you're attending then I hope you'll stop by to support him! I'm super proud to see his name among all these other amazing people and I'm sure the panel will be very fun and informative.

🛒 A Fresher Fresh Market

As we improve the town itself, we're also redesigning the buildings. I spoke about this with regards to the cafe and shared some images of its evolution here. Next up is the fresh market! 

Our mission with the cafe was simply to make things cuter, smaller, and more detailed. Those same principles fueled the fresh market redesign, though we were also eager to change the old sign/logo (a red apple) to something more easily identifiable as a market. We think Aender did a wonderful job, especially with that basket of fresh ingredients!

As a sushi chef, you can expect to make a lot of trips here to stock up on ingredients and even to learn some new recipes. You'll want to check in often to see if anything is on sale!

Finally, it makes me happy to see it in front of our new water. Maybe one day you'll see a boat dock to bring in the fresh catch!

❤️ Thank you for supporting us!

From our perspective it seems like momentum is building and more people are finding out about Rolling Hills. We sincerely hope that we're smart and talented enough to make the most of the opportunities we've been given, and that includes your time and money. Whether you're a patron, following us on social media, or just came across this post because Rolling Hills seems like your kind of game, we are thankful for you!

December Devlog!

Hello again! We're almost on the other side of the holidays, so I hope you've been enjoying time off relaxing with your friends and family. We got some very exciting news shortly before Christmas and although it made us so excited to get back to work on Rolling Hills, we still made an effort to take time off and recharge. So with all that in mind, it's time to hit the ground running in 2020!

Note: I'm going to use a lot of concept art today since we're still in the middle of implementing a lot of these ideas into Rolling Hills! They're in there, but they're not pretty enough to share just yet.

🤖 Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto

Remember in our November devlog when I wrote about how employees were at the top of our wish list? Say hello to Sushi Bot!

We've been racking our brains trying to come up with the perfect solution for employees in Rolling Hills. Robots offer a really clear metaphor for upgrades and they can work continuously. At first, this was because we wanted the player to be able to leave the restaurant and still have sushi being served to customers, but now we're even thinking that the robots could generate income once you've turned the game off.

So how does that work? Over the course of the game you'll unlock recipes that you can load into the robot. You start with just one recipe slot, but you can purchase more with your earnings. Eventually the recipe list will look almost like a playlist. As long as you have the necessary ingredients, the robot will make dishes in that order. We've found that it's really fun to watch the robot at work, and it allows the player to take on a more managerial role.

☕ La Café

In these posts I often talk about finding a balance between working the restaurant and exploring the rest of Rolling Hills, but we've been a little quiet about what the town has to offer. So let's change that and talk about the cafe!

This little shop has so much to offer! As you can see, it's also a book store and it has a stage for live performances! This offers us so many opportunities for unique gameplay, but I'm particularly excited to see who will take the stage. You can expect weekly trivia and game nights, plus live comedy and music. The animals of Rolling Hills can't wait to share their talents with you!

🐶 We Have A Winner!

James and I were having trouble coming up with a name for the Rolling Hills resident you see above, so we decided to let the community suggest some and let patrons vote on the winner. Without further ado, say hello to Kip! That suggestion came from one of our lovely friends on Twitter. I love it because it sounds like yip which in turn reminds me of a bark. Subtle but cute! Thanks to everyone who participated.

 ❤️ Thank you!

As we wrap up 2019, James and I have so much to be thankful for. We were hesitant to start sharing Rolling Hills while it's still early in development, but I'm so glad we overcame our nerves because players, patrons, event organizers, developers, and even a few publishers have been so kind to us. I hope you're as excited to see things grow in 2020 as we are! Happy New Year!

November Devlog!

Happy Holidays! This devlog is going to be a little different than usual. Instead of our normal bullet points and features, I want to give you an honest look at the current state of Rolling Hills. Rest assured that everything is going according to plan... especially since we started planning!

The theme of this article is twofold: for one, we're more focused than ever thanks to interest from publishers and game conventions. Nothing kicks you into gear like the fear of squandering a great opportunity. Secondly, I want to address how the game has changed thanks to feedback from players. So as we approach the end of 2019, let's review the current state of Rolling Hills!

How we got here.

Pictured above: all the smart feedback catching up to us.

Although James and I have shipped two games before Rolling Hills, both were made practically in secret and then released. That means there was no feedback except from our friends and family. When we began working on Rolling Hills we were inspired by Rebecca and Ben from Ooblets to be more transparent and share development directly with would-be players. 

There's been a lot of writing about how this concept of marketing-by-developing is good business and perhaps even essential to being a successful indie, but for James and I it was all about getting feedback directly from the players who will (hopefully) buy our game. We've learned that getting feedback is great, but getting feedback from your target audience is really great. As you can imagine, critiques from a Stardew Valley player are more valuable to Rolling Hills than from a Super Smash Bros. player (though I should be clear that all feedback has value if you know what to listen for).

In another first for us, we started Rolling Hills with more of an established vibe and art direction. We knew we wanted to make a life-sim for consoles and PC. We knew we wanted to make a wholesome game. We knew we wanted characters we could fall in love with. 

So naturally the first thing we asked players who responded to the style of Rolling Hills was "what do you want to do in this game?" By this point we already had some cooking and serving mechanics, and we also had footage of exploring town. As you might expect, many players said a combination of cooking, exploration, and collection were their top priorities. What surprised us more was that almost everyone mentioned management gameplay. For some that meant customizing the restaurant with new decorations and seating, but for most it meant hiring and managing employees. 

We were already planning on restaurant customization, but managing employees took me by surprise. For one, it was surprising that practically 100% of players brought it up, and also surprising because it wasn't the most wholesome feature. We expected to have a chill game with meditative puzzle mechanics about figuring out what the customer wanted and then serving it.

But here were our players telling us they wanted something a little more. A little different. And although it wasn't in our plans, it did sound fun. So over the course of the next few months, the game changed.

The game we're making

These tidy notifications are an example of how our management gameplay keeps working even when you leave the restaurant.

Let's start with management since its inclusion is entirely the result of feedback. Figuring out the type of gameplay we wanted here came down to a process of elimination. We knew we didn't want a traditional sim where you were removed from the action and spent most of the game optimizing numbers. We also knew we needed employees that could be steadily upgraded and work around the clock, even when you're out of the restaurant gathering ingredients. So how did we combine the satisfaction and steady progression of a business sim while staying approachable and wholesome? Stay tuned to our Patreon for the big reveal!

Making new friends, growing fresh veggies, and fishing to your heart's content. These life-sim features were among the first ideas we had for Rolling Hills, so we feel they're important to the soul of the game. There's a really satisfying loop of gathering and purchasing ingredients, using them in the restaurant to generate currency, and then using that currency to purchase things in town that will grant you new opportunities to hang out with your friends and progress the story. 

Finally, Rolling Hills is about sushi. That means unlocking new recipes and ingredients is essential. While we're on the topic of collection, you can expect new customers and furniture, both of which will have a direct effect on gameplay.

When we'll get there.

Don't worry, I'll keep shaking it every month,

Although I can't give an accurate answer just yet, I can say that James and I are breathing much more easily now that we've whittled down the feature list to something we think is fantastic and still accomplishable for our small studio.

Every project is unique, but this process of brainstorming and play-testing followed by buckling down and making tough decisions about exactly what the game will be is something we're familiar with because of our previous projects. As much as we're enjoying the development process, James and I pride ourselves on being able to finish projects. Thanks to your support and encouragement, we couldn't be more excited to get Rolling Hills in your hands.

One lesson that I really love from this whole experience is how creative feedback can be. When presented with a game that reminds them of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, our players didn't just say "Yeah, yeah. Give us more of what we already like," they thoughtfully considered what ideas excited them most and gave us as game designers a wonderful challenge to marry all those ideas together. The games I love most are the ones that activate my imagination, so I can't think of more pure way to develop a game than collectively asking ourselves and our players "what do you imagine?"

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.

September Devlog!

Another month, another devlog! September was extremely productive as we worked long hours to prepare a version of the game to submit to a popular convention. Though these sprints are tiring and it's important to take care of yourself throughout the process, they are admittedly very helpful in forcing you to cut out all the fat in your designs and get down to what matters. Here we go!

New Sushi Interface

Again!? Unlike the last changes to the sushi interface, this redesign was much more about organization and ease of use. The list view allows us to keep things neat even as the number of ingredients and condiments grows, though as a writer I'm mostly just excited to have room to describe things!

Chatty Customers

Whether a customer adores or despises a dish, it's important to know why. These simple messages are helpful to the player and I look forward to seeing how much personality we can squeeze in them.

Better Character Editor

James made the character editor a lot prettier, and I was able to successfully lobby for the shoes and apron options as well. The randomize button occupies most of my play-test time. it's just so fun to me! When the randomizer picks matching shoes, apron, and hair... It's gonna be a good day.

The Story of Rolling Hills

For (what feels like) a long time James and I have been pitching ideas to one another about what makes the town of Rolling Hills special, and what exactly those cute animals are doing there. We needed a story that would be uplifting, justify the animals' existence, and combine it all in the context of a sushi restaurant.

Here's where we are: the animals are unseen mountain spirits known as muses that grant people the courage to follow their dreams. Your restaurant happens to be in the exact location where their shrine was a thousand years ago, so they mistake the first dish you serve as an offering to them.

The reward for your "offering" is that the muses will imbue your sushi with magic, so whoever eats it will become a little braver. Once a customer has eaten enough, you can trigger a small scene to help them overcome what's been holding them back from pursuing their dream.

I like this story a lot because it gives us a way to make each animal and customer extra special. Seeing customers drop hints about their dream and then watching it finally come to fruition alongside a cute costume change is (hopefully) a satisfying, emotional moment.

On The Next Episode...

If you've been following along closely, you'll notice these "Next Time..." sections are increasingly unreliable. As you might imagine, things move quickly in game development and sometimes our priorities shift. In the interest of being transparent I'm going to continue writing them. Feel free to place bets on which ones will be finished first! 😜 

Whenever James and I are at a crossroads, we'll write out every feature we think could immediately improve the game and then "draft" each one, taking turns as we decide what's most important. It struck me upon our most recent draft that more than half of the features were things that add more challenge to the game. 

Right now the experience of playing Rolling Hills is a bit like a playground. Outside of picky customers saying "I don't like this ingredient", there are very few restraints on how you play. The wonderful part about that is the lack of stress and room for experimentation and creativity, but to make the gameplay more balanced we're looking to add a "special request" system that allows customers to occasionally ask for more specific things. We'll also be fleshing out the town portion of Rolling Hills, with the goal of further illustrating how the restaurant and town gameplay compliment one another. 

August Devlog!

August was a busy month for us, and as a result I finally get to show off an early version of the town, our fresh market interior, and character customization. Let's get started!

Welcome To Town!

Disclaimer: we've still got a lot of work to do here, but I hope you enjoy seeing a couple of our exteriors in context! We're also pretty proud of the layout. There's plenty of room for characters to roam, hidden items to be found, and other activities we're keeping up our sleeve!

Now Open: The Fresh Market!

Although we've revealed a lot of buildings already, this is only the second interior we've shown publicly. At the Fresh Market you can purchase ingredients and condiments for use in your restaurant. The prices of each fluctuate often, and you'll want to make regular visits to see if the items you want are part of a daily discount!

Character Customization

This was important for us to implement quickly because even for a brief convention demo, customizing your character is an excellent way to make the player feel like a unique and special part of Rolling Hills. We'll look to add many more options to the full game, including...

Aprons!

We got this idea from a player at ECGC and loved it. Throughout the game you'll have opportunities to collect cute aprons that you can add to your wardrobe. We think this is a super cool way to customize your character's outfit while still making sure they remain on theme as a sushi chef.

On the next episode...

We're making fast progress as we prepare our next build to demonstrate the game at conventions and to publishers. Next month I'll go into more detail about some of the extracurricular activities within town as well as how you can collect and rearrange furniture to make the restaurant truly your own!

July Devlog!

Last month I began by musing about how scary big changes can be. This month we're finally seeing the results of those changes, and feeling pretty good about it!

Modular Sushi: It Just Tastes Better!

This is something James has been passionate about for a while now. We worked with our 3D modeler Aender to make each ingredient its own component.  What that means is that as you're scrolling through experimenting with different ingredients in your roll, you can see the individual pieces inside change. Not only that, you'll also see the size of the roll change based upon how many ingredients you're including.

Check, Please!

Like most people, I enjoy seeing numbers with "bonus" next to them, and there's a lot of that here, but I was surprised how fun the details are! Seeing which dishes the customer ate and being rewarded for variety and mood (that is, the mood a customer is in by the time they check out) adds another layer to the experience. In general, receipts are the capstone we've been looking for. It's a great way to check in with each customer just before they check out.

 Building Buildings

I promised last month that we'd start showing off the town of Rolling Hills soon. Although most of that is still under wraps, I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the exteriors. These are modeled by Aender and based off of beautiful concepts by Brittany.

Spinning Plates

I've saved this for last because it's a little tough to explain. Basically, we decided that once you purchase an ingredient for use in your restaurant, you can make as many dishes as you want to with it. You don't have to worry about paying each time. This makes things a lot easier to keep up with in terms of profits, and it doesn't punish experimentation. If you make something no one wants, then all you've wasted is a little time. But how do we prevent players from churning out a million random dishes and simply hoping for the best? We limit the number of plates! 

This is something I've been thinking about for a while because I like the loop: player serves a dish, customer eats it, customer takes their dirty plates to the register (just like a real conveyor belt sushi restaurant!), player cashes them out, then takes the dirty plates to the sink to wash them. As you clean each one you'll see it replenished in your plate total. Imagine how good it would feel to get the opportunity to purchase an extra plate?

On the next episode...

Oh geez, there's so much I want to add. We plan to spend most of August preparing our next convention-ready demo. That means getting a small portion of the town ready to explore and the furniture management system in. Now that our customers have moods and expectations, what furniture you buy and where you place it will have a big effect on the gameplay. Stay tuned!

June Devlog!

To be honest, these were the kind of posts I was afraid of when I launched our Patreon. We made huge changes this month. Changes that will make some of the earlier screenshots and gifs you've seen here totally irrelevant. It's scary to think that some of you may have really liked things as they were, and yet here we go changing them, but from my experience iteration is the name of the game in... games. As someone who loves nothing more than finishing projects, my instinct is "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but this month we had some ideas that I believe will help make Rolling Hills the game that you all deserve.

The Belt Is Back

What felt like a big change a month ago now seems like small potatoes! When I talk to people about Rolling Hills, they normally say what excites them most is the prospect of being creative with their sushi making. I agree, and that's the theme of this month's changes. 

If someone comes in and orders "California Roll", that's not as creative for the player as talking to a customer, learning they love cucumber and hate crab, making a dish with that in mind, and then sending it down the belt. Because the customer will consider every dish as it passes by, the belt becomes a really good delivery method for inexact orders.

For the sake of variety, we'll still have picky customers who come in with special requests, but like a side-quest in an RPG, you can say yes or no depending on whether you want the additional challenge.

Crafting = Cooking

Our sushi creation minigame had some big issues. It was fun in small doses, but we were forcing it every time the player made a dish. Our first idea was to simply limit the number of times you play it. After finishing a dish, you'd be asked if you want to add it to your menu. If it was on the menu, you didn't have to replay the minigame in the future, you could just select it, play a short animation of the sushi being made, and voilà. Simple, right?

But that seemed like a cop out to us. We added that minigame to express the sensation of physically making sushi, but chopping and rolling isn't what makes sushi special. It's all about being creative.

So we rebuilt it. We have some cool new stats that not only make customers more interesting, but also give the player proof that as ingredients are added or taken away, the resulting dish is changing in meaningful ways. It all culminates in a new phase where the player applies condiments that change the dish in a variety of ways. Condiments can get pretty crazy (imagine how gold flakes might affect your roll) and we like that because it's fun to surprise the player.

Oh, and you can still add dishes to the menu to quickly recall them. That part still seemed like a good idea.

Can I See Your ID?

Because most customers no longer shout out their order, it's up to the player to seek out their preferences and make a dish with them in mind. We made a little card that displays when you interact with a customer. It shows their name, some stats that are still subject to change, and their ingredient preferences. The blacked out ones are ingredients they haven't been served yet. It's up to you to experiment and see what they like! I wonder what will happen if you put all their favorites into one roll?

Show and Tell

Finally, we took all these changes to our local game dev meetup on the 30th. I can't stress enough how helpful it is to have an opportunity to show the game to other developers, or anyone you trust for that matter. What I like about other game devs is that they know how tiring the process can be, and as a result it's easy to trust them to understand which portions of the game are in focus and which are still on the backburner. They're awesome!

On the next episode...

We're more confident than ever about our restaurant gameplay, and that feels great heading into July. We'd like to make sure rolls look as unique as our new crafting gameplay implies, and we'd like to start showing the town of Rolling Hills ASAP. It's time to leave the restaurant!

May Devlog!

Prepare for gifs!

Chop, chop!

One of the first changes we experimented with after returning from ECGC was adding action elements to the sushi crafting game. Now after selecting an ability you get a brief, Paper Mario-esque minigame. Succeed and you'll get a small bonus. Neato! We're still undecided about how these minigames will evolve over the course of the game. Like any RPG, most of the complication comes from making decisions about which ability to use and when, not to mention the strategy of simply deciding which dish to make in the first place. Still, these games are a nice way to mix a little action in and give your brain a break.

Who are these animals!?

One the most important distinctions in Rolling Hills is the difference between neighbors (the animals who live within Rolling Hills, running shops and generally living the good life) and tourists (customers with silly personalities and outfits). Because this distinction is important to the gameplay and story, we decided to make the residents of Rolling Hills animals and the tourists humans, that way it's a very clear contrast. The demo we took to ECGC didn't feature animals outside of a brief cut scene, so we decided to put one in the restaurant right away. Meet Bolt! He's a jack of all trades who always wants to impress those around him.

We'll have about 10 animal neighbors in the game all with unique and heartfelt stories to follow and be a part of, plus a bunch of human tourists all in pursuit of tasty sushi. As you can see, every tourist has a unique personality, too. The tagline for Rolling Hill is "Make Sushi, Make Friends" and we intend to make sure you can befriend every character you meet, whether they're your customers or neighbors.

What's Next?

This is an older screenshot but I end up using it often because I love these two characters and their expression. Take a closer look and you'll notice they're sitting in front of a conveyor belt! Yes indeed, an earlier version of Rolling Hills included a conveyor belt sushi mechanic that we loved but could never quite figure out in design terms. Recently we had a breakthrough and we'll be experimenting with bringing the belt back as it could solve a couple big, long term problems for us in addition to just being very cool and mesmerizing.

🍣 FAQ 🍣

• What is Rolling Hills? It's a life-sim inspired by games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley with an emphasis on managing your own sushi restaurant. 
• Release date: Soonish
• Platforms: PC for sure and hopefully some consoles, too!
• How can I help? You can become a Patron, Wishlist on Steam, follow Rolling Hills on Twitter or Instagram, or join us on Discord. Thank you so much!
• Do you have a presskit? Yep! Check it out here.
• How can I contact you? matthew /at/ catchandrelea.se

April Devlog!

Sprint to ECGC

Woah, our first devlog! April began with an emphasis on preparing for a local games conference called ECGC. This was our first time showing our own game at a conference, so we were excited/super nervous. We knew we'd only be showing a small slice of the restaurant gameplay, but even to accomplish that we had a lot of work ahead of us. Primarily we needed to finalize many elements of the user interface.

New UI

We worked with the super talented Shae Humphries to bring the user interface to life. In our past projects, we did all that stuff ourselves, but we figured since Rolling Hills requires more information to be conveyed to the player, it would be best to get an expert on board. Shae was so helpful and I knew he excelled at the style we were looking for, so things progressed quickly. 

Here you can see some of the ingredient/recipe selection UI. The slots on the left side are what the dish require, and the icons on the right are the ingredients in your possession. For most dishes, you can use a variety of ingredients to complete the recipe. For instance, Nigiri is simply rice + any fish, vegetable or fruit. Meanwhile "named" dishes like the California Roll require specific ingredients. 

Looking at this now, I'm already thinking of changes that will probably be made, but we're really happy with the overall design and flow of crafting right now. The buttons in the bottom left let you choose between "add progress", "add love", and "use item". Crafting is a balancing act as you manage your stamina while making the highest quality dish possible. We may consider switching to a real-time system like Fantasy Life instead of the stamina bar, which is a bit confusing. The next time you see this screen that heart could be replaced with a clock! (geez, what a morbid contrast...)

Showtime

By the time ECGC "rolled" around, we had a demo ready that showcased our cute customers, the creative aspects of selecting ingredients, and the strategic sensation of crafting each dish. Not only were the attendees enthusiastic, but also the other developers which was a welcome surprise. Even devs who were making hardcore, violent games still made time to check us out and offer advice. I thought that was so cool! This being our first convention, we weren't sure what to expect, but players mostly said "when can I buy it?" and "why does it say 'prototype' in the corner?". Truthfully, what we showed would get very boring if you played for more than 30 minutes, but their enthusiasm confirmed that we were heading in the right direction.

What's Next?

Based on the feedback we received, we'd like to...

• Experiment with action elements in the crafting game to make it more engaging
• Let players "roll" play more. For instance, let's use the cash register to checkout instead of having the customer pay you directly
• Get more of the animal neighbors involved in the restaurant in a unique way
• Start showing more of the town outside the restaurant ASAP

To piggyback on that last point, the contrast between running the restaurant and exploring the town of Rolling Hills is so important to us. It's how you'll prepare for service, gather ingredients, purchase items, and chat with neighbors at your own pace. Even though we didn't have this ready for ECGC, we still included a brief cut-scene of the player walking through town to get to the restaurant, waving at each animal along the way. This made a huge difference in how players perceived the game. It might be months before we're happy with how the town looks and plays, but it's a critical part of Rolling Hills, and this conference reinforced that.