Hey Arsonists!

A small, teeny tiny update. It was pointed out that the game scene looked a bit different from the menu in terms of the look of the terrain.

This update adjusts the lighting properties a little to try to emphasise the uneven nature of the terrain tiles.

Let me know what you think. This makes shadows cast further, slightly changes colours throughout, but doesn't affect the gameplay at all.

Look forward to more updates coming soon. Currently messing with placing some roads in the generated villages, AND larger game boards :)

Whoa! Another update? Thats right, and this time we've added a cool tractor to the items that can be generated on the maps.

The last update brought a Silo with a wide explosion pattern, and definitely made for an interesting change. Based on a recommendation from D-Dubb (one of our most loyal players) we now have a new Tractor object, and a new directional burn pattern when it explodes.

When it catches fire, the tractor burns in a forward pattern in the direction its facing, posing a new challenge, and potential new opportunities for greater burns on your map!

Checkout the new tractor burn pattern below:

We hope you enjoy this update!

Hello Arsonists!

A quick weekend update has been released thats added a new tile object for generated maps. The Silo has been added in this release!

The silo adds an interesting mechanic similar to the dynamite, but is generated on the map, and is not place-able by the player. The burn pattern is also unique.

Above you can see the dynamite burn pattern. When ignited, dynamite sets ablaze every adjacent tile. This is a great way to get maximum burn in tricky areas on the map, and you're equipped with two of these when you begin a game.

The silo can be randomly generated on maps you play, and features a different burn pattern. The grain silo explodes at the top, and its a tall structure. As such, the resulting fire exploding outward has a greater reach.

As you can see, this is a bit different, and can make a big impact on the burn possibility of your map.

I hope you enjoy the addition, and a huge thanks to mccanlessjc for the suggestion for this addition!

A new release of ArsonVille was released yesterday, pushing out a few improvements and updates with Steam integration, the beginnings of what could be iPhone/Android support, and some minor graphics tweaks.

I've been thinking about the best way to grow a community around ArsonVille. The players that we have that play regularly would benefit from a way to compare their burns to others. So the ground work for a weekly burn seed and leaderboards has been shipped, and look forward to seeing this feature arive over the next couple of weeks.

Happy burning!

Today we’ve released ArsonVille 1.0.4c. While a little late, its the first step in our planned production releases for ArsonVille, and while it doesn’t represent all the changes wanted in this release, its a step forward, and for that we’re happy!

Recently our main build PC had a CPU failure, and due to the expense of this particular CPU (Intel i7-6950x) a replacement was not feasible, so the process of a warranty replacement is currently underway. This is a lengthy process, and we had to adapt to using a slow Surface Pro 3 for editing and building combined. While the update is late, we’re happy its out, and we hope its a move in the right direction for our playerbase!

This releases changes brings the following:

• Options to control sound FX volume
  
• Updates graphics / tile models
  
• Improved launching UI
  
• Memory and speed improvements
  
• Initial implementation of campaign loading/saving (campaign levels coming in future release)

Whats next? A lot. There is so much more to do. Each of the campaign levels need to be properly designed to see players through the correct progression. This is trickier than it first seemed.

We hope you enjoy the update, and we’re looking forward to the next update in a couple of weeks.

Its been a rough couple of months. I've seen ArsonVille sales trickle along slowly, but with no updates from my, I'm surprised its selling at all. Lots of things have been going on, and I'm taking a look at where I am and what I need to do for the loyal players we have.

Here's whats happened on my side:
I took a good look at where ArsonVille was sitting. Basically the game was developed over a 48 hour period for Ludum Dare, and while this pushed me to create a game that was complete and playable, it meant that a lot of compromises were made within the code itself as part of its creation.

If I had more time, I would have done things differently. (Lets come back this this point later). And I felt that the ability to improve and move forward with the game and changes requested by players and the community in general, were not easily achievable with the code base in its current state.

Back to that previous point: "If I had more time, I would have done things differently". Yes, this is very true. However over the last couple of months I have come to realise that while I would have approached it with a cleaner design and better overall construction, the single most important thing that stands out about ArsonVille is this: Its complete, and its released.

Thats a far more important point than the cleanliness of the codebase. I've been looking at the product as a whole, and not taking a very iterative approach to the release of updates and improvements.

During January I began a complete rewrite of the game, which was looking promising. It currently has support for moddable tiles, tile types, and tile objects. This would allow me to open up the game to the steam workshop and allow people to create things other than trees and houses to be generated on top of tiles, or to create new tiles themselves (perhaps sand, or gravel??).

I did this complete rewrite using a new technique that i heard about at Unity's Unite conference. While its touted as a successful and good approach, it worked for up until a point where things became almost too loosely coupled in the game, and I was unable to move forward.

Here are some screenshots of what is capable in the current rewrite build, noting that the gameplay side of things is a shambles, so while it can look pretty, its essentially unplayable.

New terrain look and feel
This removed the gaps between blocks, and the simple cubes for terrain were replaced with a very simple model that gave the impression of some uneven ground. The effect looked quite nice, and this is something I want to get into the upcoming builds of ArsonVille.

Moddable
The rewrite is completely moddable. You can replace, and create new Tiles (ground), objects, fire, trees, birds. They would ideally be managed and subscribed through the steam workshop.
This is an example of a simple tile replacement to change some of them from cubes to cylinders. No code required.

Massive maps
Watching the world burn is pretty fun. I enhanced the world generation to allow massive maps. This was later extended for endless maps (scrolling and map generation). While this was pretty, the mechanics of how this would work, and how to reliably see whats going on when your fire spreads to multiple fronts on a large map, are unsolved problems at the moment.

Level Editor
This just needs to happen. With an effort to engage friends while still remaining a singleplayer game, I had the idea to support weekly challenges for certain map seeds, and then extend that to user-created maps through an ingame level editor. The level editor is in early stages, but its where the rewrite started, and how all the moddable functionality got included.
This is a sample of the scene and UI for the level editor:

Campaigns
Another one that just needs to happen, so that the single player nature of ArsonVille can feel a bit more rounded out. I began work on the campaign maps and menu adjustments to support the campaign selection. This introduced multiple player profiles, and difficulty levels which in turn caused the creation of the flexible burn algorithm component to the moddability of the game. This burn algoritm customisation may or may not be kept.

What next:
Phew. I'm glad i've been able to at least provide a glimpse into what has been going on behind the scenes with ArsonVille.

I need to chop all this stuff down into achievable pieces that can be attacked in some sort of priority order. I am but one man, with a full time job, and I need to maintain the velocity that will keep players happy, and the regularity that keeps then engaged. I also need to be sure not to overcommit. Overcommitting to features or work on a game like this being developed in the public can lead to a few nasty things: Burnout (loss of interest) or just plain failure and inability to deliver updates. Neither of those are desirable.

My goal henceforth is to keep a light pace and rhythm that keeps things moving, but also affords me the time I want and need to work on other interesting projects being published under the Slavitica name.

Promises:

• A website, for webby bloggy things. Nothing fancy.
  
• Development blog every 2 weeks
  
• Release every 2 weeks
  
• Keep momentum by engaging the community and switching up release and post weeks to keep myself engaged and refreshed

Fallbacks:

• Sometimes releases can't happen, lets be honest. In such cases, a release could be filled with an additional post, explaining why. This acts as a good retrospective for myself as well as ensuring the community is kept up to date

Finally, requests:

• I need to be held accountable.
  
• I have a full time job, and this game development is in my free time, but:
  
• If I miss a target or if anyone feels that I need to provide more or other information then please, let me know.

Schedule:

• Next release: Wednesday 8th March
  
• Next blog: Wednesday 15th March

Thanks to all ArsonVille players out there, for sticking with me, and for supporting Indie Game Dev. I love you all.

I've just made the `beta` branch available for anyone to opt in. If you want to test some of the latest changes, set your branch to "beta". This is an experimental (usual daily) build that will have problems, but it contains the latest change to the game.

I've just pushed the 1.0.3b beta release. What you can expect currently is the following:

* Faster load times
* Cleaner sounds for fire
* Tuned grass:dirt ratio value
* Options menu (sound settings work)
* New Achievements code, to be activated upon stable release
* A secret cheat - Can you guess what it is?
* Better performance when birds spawn

Thanks for everyone's great suggestions in the comments, reviews and discussions, there is a lot more coming, and this is just the beginning!

If you have feedback on the BETA release, please leave feedback in the BETA discussion here on steam.

Thanks!

Ahead of schedule? Sure, I like to be different, but this is just CRAZY.The final build has been done, and is uploaded on steam. The release is happening on November 24 at 2PM PST. On my birthday, so my gift to everyone is the official release of ArsonVille!

Achievements have been added in, and some improvements to the timing and feel of the map start process. We're also tracking extensive stats so we can add more achievements later, and backdate achievements as we add them, which is a nice feature to have.

Trading cards will be coming soon, so you can collect, trade and unlock various cards while you play.

Thanks to everyone for your support! ArsonVille could not have been approved and released without the immense support and assistance from the community!

UPDATE: The schedule has changed, and we're releasing a day earlier, on November 24 at 2PM PST.

ArsonVille has had an amazing ride since the last Ludum Dare to become polished enough to gain the support of the community and officially GreenLit on Steam!

Ready for its first release at the end of the month, additional features have been added, to make the game more pleasing to watch, as well as improvements in performance and visuals throughout.

What has been done in the last few weeks is primarily around preparation for the Steam Store by way of graphics, marketing material, the trailer, and adding achievements and steam API integration, ensuring a consistent experience on Steam.

That said, there are some awesome features planned for upcoming releases:

• Preset maps and progression
  
• Highscores / leaderboards
  
• Achievements
  
• Multiple language support
  
• Multiplayer arsonist / firefighter gameplay
  
• Port to iOS and Android

This list is not exhaustive, but represents some of the more commonly asked for items during the greenlight period, and from the alpha/beta playtesters. As always, any requests for fixes / changes / additions are welcome, and will be considered!

I hope you enjoy ArsonVille!