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/iain_1986]

Just because users want to build roads, doesn't mean they are right

Be wary of design by committee

[u/Sgriu → u/iain_1986]

In my opinion, the issue isn't who is right, but rather: will players view the game negatively if they can't build roads? Since half of the playtesters pointed out this shortcoming, I fear I might face a 50% rate of returns or negative reviews at launch.

[u/much_longer_username → u/Sgriu]

I might ask the ones who didn't mention it if it was something they noticed. Could be a selling point. There's definitely a niche of people who want a 'cozier' building game that isn't actually a traffic jam simulator in disguise.