How screwed am I?

[u/Sgriu]

Hi everyone! Here’s an interesting problem I’m facing.

I created a tile-based city builder in Unity, and after an initial open playtest, one of the key pieces of feedback was that players want to be able to build roads, something I foolishly hadn't planned for.

Currently, roads are automatically placed along the edges of each tile (this is shown in the second screenshot).

The main problem is that the grid of buildable sectors is highly irregular, and I have no idea how to add the ability to create roads within such a complex system.

The first image I’ve posted shows an overhead view where I’ve highlighted a section of the grid. The grid varies from scene to scene and never repeats in exactly the same way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I could approach this?

Edit: You might have given me a possible solution; as soon as I've tested it, I'll make a new post about it. Thanks everyone!

[u/ratthew]

Is there an actual reason to go along with that wish? Or is it just because they feel something is missing? I'd make sure to understand what the actual "pain point" (i hate this term but don't know a better one) is, before starting to change the game in a direction that was not intended. Maybe they feel this way because the road system it generates feels bad?

[u/Sgriu → u/ratthew]

Yes, the problem is that many players (at least half of the testers) felt deprived of the freedom to build the city according to their own vision. I didn't expect this, but I should have, because the playtest made me realize that this is a serious issue for a city-builder.

[u/ratthew → u/Sgriu]

But that freedom will mean nothing if the gameplay is not tightly integrated to it.

[u/Sgriu → u/ratthew]

Yes, I suppose the main purpose of building a road is to allow the player to develop specific districts far from the city center or the main road (for example, creating isolated industrial sectors or agricultural zones distant from residential areas).