I’ve been working non-stop to put together a build ready for EGX Rezzed this week. It’s great seeing this game start to come together! In terms of the whole project, I’ve still got a lot of content to add, but the core elements are now in-place after going back and refining a load of them thanks to your feedback.

As well as the gameplay changes I’ve made in previous weeks, I’ve updated the UI this week also with ideas from you guys:

There are now (animated) arrows that hover over point collecting buildings when they will be affected by what you’re about to place. This is a *great* addition, and you have backer Joel Finch to thank for the idea. It not only makes things clearer but I think it actually helps make the game easier to grasp for new players.

Next up, I’ve also made the tile brightness change in accordance to it’s score. This mainly effects empty tiles- again, it’s a visual hint that helps increase awareness.

One final change this week, which is one of those things which I should of implemented right from the start- I should of even put it in MegaCity. It’s essentially a finish line. In addition to the endless mode found in the Preview version and MegaCity, there is now also a non-endless mode which is actually winnable. Now finally solo mode is not just an endless survival type mode!

It’s really simple, if you clear columns up until the designated line then you win the level, if not then you loose. The game has needed more objective game modes for a while now I think. Endless mode will still feature of course, but the addition of this will allow me to have proper levels and make some proper challenges in the story mode also.

I’ve also started implementing some requested keyboard control with cursor key and wasd scrolling. I want there to be a lot of different control options in the final game, including controllers.

This week I also finished the first iteration of the verses mode AI. There’s going to be a huge amount of refining and tweaking it, but it’s great to actually get a semi-competent AI in the game to play against for now. I don’t think it’s ever going to be able to compete with human players once they’ve started learning the game’s more intricate mechanics- there’s just too many crafty combos a human player could put together to outfox the AI. It has managed to beat me once as of last night though, and it’s come close several times, even though I’ve not had long to test it! For some reason the AI currently really loves farmhouses.

But wait there’s more! There’s finally some finished character details to share with you. I figured I’d introduce each playable character as their skill tree is completed. As of this update, the first playable character -Laney, is ready and in-game.

Karl, my character artist has completed all the pieces for the 8 characters and I couldn’t be happier with them!

Laney Thompson is the city’s Architect. As a result her skill tree focuses around this, and features lots of perks to buff buildings.

The other focus of her skill tree is culture. Laney gets access to buildings such as an Arthouse Cinema, a Ballet School and ulitmately the Opera House. The cultural buildings & skills are based around deck control. They have effects such as increasing your playslots from 2 to 3 and removing unwanted cards from your deck.

Being one of the starting characters, I wanted her skill tree to be simple, straight forward and easy-to-play. She should be able to hold her own in versus mode too.

That’s all for this week- I hope to see you at Rezzed, where Concrete Jungle will be part of the Bafta Inside Games Arcade!