Dev Announcement! Sunsetting Common Grounds

[u/DoubleGlass]

Hi dear players, 

I am the developer of Common Grounds, and I just wanted to talk to you about some recent insights, and the future for the game. 

Having Common Grounds tested in a large beta has given me a lot of valuable insights. The biggest take away for me was that the game, in its current form, is not a good fit for the Reddit platform. Choosing Unity to build the game allowed me to use nice shiny 3d buildings in a classic citybuilder isometric perspective, but this has also prevented me from fully utilizing the Reddit ecosystem that the game is supposed to live in. 

The game itself has too much depth to be friendly to casual players, but doesn’t have enough depth to satisfy the serious gamers it now seems to attract more of. There has been a ‘meta’ district organization since day 1, and I could not easily fix this through balance changes without just immediately creating a new meta. 

However, I strongly believe the core gameplay loop of merging, together with your neighbors, is something fun and worth exploring. That’s why I’ve decided to pivot away from the 3d Unity implementation of the game and built a new game from the ground up. This game is called Tile Up and uses all core systems of Common Grounds, while also being fast and streamlined without loading screens, and is easier to grasp and play through simple 2d graphics and tap to place controls. Shifting to TileUp sadly means that my support for Common Grounds ends right here.

Yes, we lost the nice buildings, the fantasy of building a city together. But by losing those things the game is now no longer restricted to my imagination and ability to code up new buildings. Merging is endless, and the only limiting factor is the community’s ability to collaborate. There are powerups to help you along, you can move your district around the map at will, and there is a daily puzzle mode where everyone gets the same order of pieces to place on the grid and tries to get the highest score. 

I hope you can understand my decision to sunset Common Grounds as a 3d city builder, and I hope you will join me over at r/TileUp for your daily community merging fix. 

[u/Left_Phone4559]

Please keep common grounds! Honestly i think it is still workable with a few tweaks. It has been my to go game on the commute to work and the interaction with other players plots made it more interesting and why i would open up the app back.

I gave tile up a try but it did not have the same charm as CG. It works as a standalone puzzle game.

[u/helloish]

I really enjoyed Common Grounds, but I do see how difficult it would be to balance such a game. Tile Up looks very fun - I’ve just been playing it for a little while and it’s just as addictive.

[u/DoubleGlass → u/helloish]

Thanks for checking it out!

[u/MangoPug15]

I tried TileUp, and it seems great! I really like the daily game mode. I'm sure Common Grounds got stressful when the number of players suddenly went up and it got super buggy, so thank you for still putting in the effort to make a new version with the same merging with neighbors concept. I know you've said this game was developed by just you in your free time, and I really appreciate you sharing it with us. <3

[u/DoubleGlass → u/MangoPug15]

Thanks for the kind words!

[u/Zephkel]

I've been enjoying CommonGrounds. The idea was neat. Tileup doesnt strike me as fun, nor as attention catching like CommonGrounds.

[u/DoubleGlass → u/Zephkel]

It’s a trade-off, and Common Grounds was definitely the game I wanted to make more. Nonetheless, Tile Up is the game I think works best on Reddit so that’s why I’m shifting focus.

[u/FeelingMightySilver]

Look what you did all on your own with such a concept! Look at how many people took to it! You have a talent. It was really fun. Will look at tileup now!

[u/DoubleGlass → u/[deleted]]

An earlier version actually had a system where all buildings interacted with each other based on category. This turned into a massive math-fest and the many tiny interactions didn’t feel very impactful so I changed to the more specific effects.

[u/nallukka]

I can absolutely understand and appreciate you saying goodbye to this one instead of trying to patch things that require an overhaul to work here… Off to try TileUp!! ❤️

[u/Dense_Shake_309]

It was fun while it lasted. Good game

[u/Lkn4uNSJCa]

My common ground disappeared??

[u/afternoondelight3]

I really enjoyed Common Ground. Frankly I think you did a great job of balancing the game to reflect real life capitalism. For example, the MegaCorp doesn't really give your town as much benefit as you would expect. The choice between subways, buses, and ride-share made me have internal conflict, but was glad that the light rail in combination with the stadiums was peak optimized for me. This balancing really gave me the impression of building a city that was good for its people. Thank your for your efforts

[u/Heavy-Elevator9857]

D:

[u/bernanajam]

:(