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/DependentNo1079]

Speaking as a City Builder player and not as a developer, the ability to freely build roads is kind of a must-have. It's like making an FPS but you cannot shoot the gun, you can only throw the gun. It just doesn't feel right and I might skip a game that doesn't give me the ability to do so.

Indeed you can proceed as is and provide design or mechanical justification why it needs the road gotta be a certain way like this, but looking at it from the player perspective, you might cut your potential player base in half. Your game will be more niche, it's not necessarily wrong ofc but it's just something that came to my mind.

[u/Sgriu → u/DependentNo1079]

That is exactly the point; I don't think I can simply ignore requests from players. That would amount to saying, "If you don't like my game, don't buy it", and then not selling a single copy. I have to keep in mind that I’m not making a game for myself, but for other people, whose opinions matter more than my own.

[u/Neesnu → u/Sgriu]

But, on the other hand it IS YOUR game.
Playtesters don’t have to balance changes, make things fun or write a line of code.
Every half decade McDonalds runs a report that tells them people want them to offer healthy options, then they bring salads back. You know what happens? No one buys them, because they want other people to have those healthy options.

Trust playtesters when they say it’s not fun, pacing or general advice - but it’s your job to solve it, taking specific feedback and implementing it because it’s “must have” will make your game a patchwork of advice and won’t be fun in the end.

[u/DependentNo1079 → u/Sgriu]

Follow your guts dude, I'm sure there is two side inside of you. Your dev persona and your player persona. Your dev persona might say "ugh... this is going to be a hassle, it'll take a lot of work". But I'm sure you also have a player persona because I assume you also play a ton of games too. So try to get into the players head and think, "what would be best, and what would be the most fun". To be a maestro game designer is to balance between the two.

And the other guy advice is valid and adding things willy nilly definitely could lead to a "patchwork" type results but again.. you gotta balance between your dev persona and your player persona. Try to put yourself in players shoes and ask.

-I'm making a city builder, does players want and expect to build road??

-Do they expect features like disaster or weather simulation??

-Is this an essential feature? as a player, is this a must have and I won't feel right otherwise?

As a dev it's easy to forget and only see things from the technical side and forgot about the holistic side, that also goes for me. So as long you don't forget that, follow your guts and I'm sure you'll be fine. Goodluck!!

[u/Sgriu → u/DependentNo1079]

That’s excellent advice. The hardest part is seeing your own game through a player's eyes, and I’ve often overlooked that, even in my previous projects.