Feb 6, 2022

(late) January Update 2022 [v0.7.6] with new opportunities for harbors

Summer Islands - Matt

Hello everyone,

attached the new features:

Finally the update is here. I must admit it was very stressful days. That had to do with unexpected problems. I had last weekend already almost everything ready and was relaxed with the tests the week busy. But at the end of the week, with compiling for Steam, problems with the NWjs version came up: ~"Multithreading is not compatible with this old version". So I tried in all ways to integrate a workaround. Unfortunately without success. In the end I tried different versions. Hoping to find a version with the same efficiency. But only an update to the newest NWjs version helped. Here I had to adjust the code in some places the last days. Unfortunately there are still some minor mouse interactions where the FPS dropped and also when moving the map. I try for the next update with the highest priority to make Summer Islands efficient again!

The next update will also integrate the many missing FX sounds!

Have fun with the new update.
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

FEATURES

Added Harbors can build in light water
Added Harbors need a connection to deep water
Added Multithreading Pathfinder for ships/planes
Update to NWjs 0.60 because of Multithreading
ATTENTION: possible lags in some mouse interactions. Fix is coming!

USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

FIX Snow animation with Resolutions
New Waves Calculation
FIX Previewbuilding Position from Harbor
FIX Margins spacing by some Islandtypes
FIX Planes land at airports with double runways
FIX Tutorial with new Harborpositions

Dec 30, 2021

Blog post: 2021 Summary and forecast 2022

Summer Islands - Matt

Hello everyone,

and again we are at the end and soon at the beginning of a year.

I have unfortunately not managed in December to create another update (due to too many requests in the day job, things that still had to be done this year in private, etc.), I'm really sorry. But I would like to write you still a small entry at the end of the year, to look back at 2021 and look into the future 2022.

Let's look at the year 2021. In the first half, the following features were the biggest new features:

Online Multiplayer
New GUI
New buildings
Particle effects
2-player mode
Asteroid
Tasks

I especially like the online multiplayer. Not that I did a perfect job there. I think it is something else to program the whole server communication and to change the interfaces in the game. I spent a bit more time there than expected. It was basically realized with a nodejs server and a little bit of thinking. The difficulty was the question, how the local servers/clients communicate with this server. In the 1st step a lobby is created with the information who is the game maker and who are the players. In the 2nd step, when the game starts, only the information is sent back and forth between the game maker and the players. The server is basically only a middleman.
I have booked a server for about 70€ a year and if approximately every two months someone buys Summer Islands it is worth it.

Another innovation was the new design of the GUI. It was about time to replace the old graphics and to come up with a new concept in some places. Many concepts had to be rethought/renewed. The new more pixel graphic design of the GUI is really nice and fits well in my opinion.

Many of the new features still need some fine tuning. E.g. the tasks are good to have for now. But some tasks are just too hard at the beginning or should look at other details. Also the particle effects need a performance check. Because there is always something to optimize.

Some other topics:

DEMO

Another step we made in 2021 was the creation of the DEMO. Basically unnecessary because you have a 2 hour right of return on Steam. Now you can say that the 2 hours may not be enough to test a game. I think that should always be used. But most gamers don't use that and rather give a negative review. Exactly for this reason I created the DEMO. Since then, the new reviews are also kept within limits. Negative as well as positive :D
I am very satisfied when the reviews are greater or equal 70% positive. This is my private goal ;)
I am happy when players write their dissatisfied wishes to me directly or in the Steam forum. I read each mail carefully and note the points. I have not ignored any feedback.I think many players do not assume that their feedback will be heeded and that is a big problem with AAA titles I guess. Of course a big company can't fulfill every wish. Even I have received wishes that I probably could not (yet) inserted. But a lot of things just need time to think about how it fits into the gameplay. With big companies you get something thrown over the fence and either it's good or it's not.
I like the Early Access option very much! Of course, this also requires a community of players who want to help and give feedback. So it's optimal to integrate such a feedback function directly and easily into the game right at the beginning of development.

Game convention

Another big event we participated in this year was the biggest game convention in Germany, right here in Cologne in August (if you don't know which one I mean just use google, because the name is legally protected and the lawyers love warning letters). We joined it for the first time. It took place, like last year, completely online. Because if I think about building a real booth in a convention and then taking care of it for several days, I think that's a lot of work for an indie developer. That's why I found the online option attractive.
There was an indie offer for 500€. But that is only the entrance fee. With that you only got a small booth in the Online Arena Booth. So an area to which you can only get with many clicks. On top of that, there was also no search function over all games.
All indie games were supposed to send in their trailers and promotional materials, then the reporters could see all the documents and the best footage were shown in the shows. The alternative was to buy commercial time for a lot of money.
As you might hear, it wasn't really worth it. I think it's like playing the lottery. You have a small possibility that your videos will be shown (depending on the reporters, who of course also just follow the trend). Overall, very few people will even come into contact with your game.
This is reflected in the sales numbers as well. I think a steamsale generated more attention than this game convention.
Therefore I can't really recommend it. The games that were already in the trends were also awarded and got even more attention. You really have to be there at the right time with the right game.
Ok, enough about the game convention.

Sales numbers

I also wanted to write about the sales numbers. We have sold about 2000 times Summer Islands since the early access release in June 2019. Most of the sales have been during the steamsales of course.
Only 79 of them are Mac and 39 Linux. Which I'm not sure how Steam counts that exactly. Because you can still change the operating system later.
I just want to say that other operating systems are not really worth it. There are so many things that you have to consider with mac or linux and then also test. Unfortunately, the performance is not so good. So please do not misunderstand. Your hardware is not the problem. Rather the engine and the compilation.

2022

Let's come to the last point of this novel. What will the year 2022 bring for Summer Islands. I'm still planning to release Summer Islands in the middle of 2022, but that depends a lot on the time I have in my spare time. As you probably know, there is always something unexpected or extra work in the day job or or or. It is not really possible to plan that. I only know that I try to use every opportunity I get as efficiently as possible. When you have invested so much time in something, then I have the motivation to get Summer Islands to a very good condition.
There are still a few things on the todo list that need to be worked on. Always with the question how to integrate them to enhance the game experience.
My dream would also be to develop Summer Islands with another engine, to see which pros/cons there are. Because I also notice that many problems that were reported to me are due to the engine. Such things could be avoided from the beginning. Such engines like Unity or Unreal simply bring a lot with them that you don't have to worry about anymore. On the other hand, they are also very complex and you need some time to understand all aspects.
What I've learned from the last few years is that you just have to be there at the right time with the right game and with a little luck your game will end up in the trends. I don't think Summer Islands will end up in the trends, why would it?! I think the majority of players are due to Holiday Island and nowadays the majority want to enjoy the graphics. Who can blame them. That's why I had the idea to program a 3D experience again. Let's see.

Ok, so far so good.
I hope you had some relaxing and nice christmas days.
Then a good start into the year 2022. Stay healthy!
Thanks to all of you who bought Summer Islands, supported it with feedback or just played it!
You are the heroes.

p.s. don't forget to activate the snow option, especially now in winter time :)

Aug 27, 2021

Summer Islands Sale for the Gamescom and Q&A

Summer Islands - Matt

Hello together,

as you have probably already noticed, the Gamescom Sale is currently running.

Summer Islands is part of the #gamescom2021 in the #IndiearenaBooth
http://online.indiearenabooth.de
In the Arcade Village > Level 7 Strategy.

And in the following there are some Q&A from the Gamescom.

1. First of all, let's talk about the inspiration for the game. You mentioned on your blog that you were inspired by the game Holiday Island and you wanted to create a game to expand on their ideas and pay homage to that game. However, what is specifically that draws you towards this type of simulation game? Why the holiday resort niche?

The pure holiday niche is just a genre that hasn't really made it into the gaming world in the last few decades and yet many players have missed it. Let's face it, who doesn't like to take a vacation. I'm not talking about holiday games that have integrated other aspects such as politics. Unlike many big games that are designed after market research, we put a lot of emphasis on details and take the necessary time. We want to fill the niche with an equal successor to our childhood favorite. Therefore Summer Islands will be built from the ground up as a multiplayer game to have fun together.

2. You mentioned that you're a team of three who works on your game when you're not working. Tell us a little bit more about your team dynamic. Who does what, and how long has the development process taken so far?

We have been working on Summer Islands since about 2016. At first I was busy with it alone and took care of a powerful engine with multiplayer capability. That took a lot of time and led to some dead ends. Over time it turned out that there was so much to create. So one person created textures and the other created the BOTs and i myself then brought everything together, the architecture, functionality, the GUI and so on.

3. You also mentioned that you decided to use https://createjs.com/ to build your game. You decided to use createjs over Unity. What were the main features that inspired you to use createjs that you either couldn't find, or found lacking in Unity for the needs of your game?

I had tried many engines at the beginning. But at that time there weren't any real tutorials with all the methods that also produced powerful results. Not to mention the multiplayer module. When I started with createjs on the client side and Nodejs as a server the engine was always at about 50-60fps even on an old Surface pro 2. That was quite impressive. So we were able to create a powerful game with simple fast ressources.
Because we developed client and server separately, you could also develop a standalone server that runs somewhere else than the game. It gets even better. Because you could also develop another client in Unity that is really realized in 3D. For the people who think it's 2021 everything has to be in Ploygon 3D graphics. They could even play together with the others in 2D. So to speak crossfunctional Unity and createjs on one Server.

4. What were the biggest developmental challenges using createjs as your game's engine?

Even if it doesn't look that way. But Summer Islands is only a 2D game. This results in some difficulties with the implementation. You have to build an architecture with several layers to present a 3D world to the viewer. In addition there are some tricks and limitations you have to do in some places. For example the textures of the cars must be smaller than the street textures. Just to keep it in 3D view.
Therefore some players think the game is only retro graphics and runs on every computer. But this is unfortunately not so. Many calculations are done in the background and more will be added in the future. Because Summer Islands will become more and more complex.

5. How did you learn how to program video games? Do you attend a game development school, or are you and your team members self taught?

Two of us learned programming with JAVA at the university. During this time, i have been realizing small projects from time to time and started Summer Islands at some point. We studied Embedded Systems, Architecture and Industrial Engineering. So not really something to start a game developer career. We just have fun realizing a project till the end. We are currently programming Summer Islands only in our spare time next to our day job. That will remain so in the future. Mass production is not the case with us. But yes to your question. We taught ourselves Javascript and other programming languages.

6. How are you planning to market Summer Island? Will you be keeping the video game marketing aspects of the game in-house, or will you outsource the promotion of the game?

The eternal dilemma with indiegame and marketing. I have to admit we could do even more in this direction. But I think, it would be too risky to put this in other hands. Because, in order to promote a product, you also have to understand the vision and what the product is supposed to become. I think there are also people who would like to implement Summer Islands as a mobile game with ingame purchases, etc. With that you can make fast money and you could also market it well. But it's not really what we see in Summer Islands. We would like to have Summer Islands as a game for steam or other markets. Later on we can think about a mobile game or other parts.

7. What are your plans for after Summer Island has been completed? Do you already have other games slated for production?

Yeah, it's crazy. But we constantly have new ideas that could be implemented. Shooters, or another construction games. We really have a lot on our minds. Also in the direction of VR. But Summer Islands really has the highest priority. Our todo list is still long. So you can't tell yet what comes next.

Have Fun!
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

Aug 21, 2021

Big Summer Update 2021 [v0.7.0]

Summer Islands - Matt

Hello together,

we have worked hard in the last months and are very excited about the new update.
We have integrated an incredible amount of new features, changed a lot of things and made some places ready for next updates.

Even if it doesn't look like it here in the changelog, the game has been completely reworked from the user interface. Therefore, almost everywhere the code was revised. This has many advantages and especially we can now focus on some exciting new features.

The biggest innovation besides the UserInterface is the BlurEffect at the edge. We have added the option to turn it off under Options>Graphics. But there is also under ..\Steam\steamapps\common\Summer Islands\Data\settings.json the option to set the blur strength individually:

NOT_BLUR_AREA: "radial-gradient(ellipse 91% 92% at 50% 50%, black 30%, transparent 80%)"
BLUR_FILTER: "blur(3px)"

we include this in the game using these lines:

$("#Canvas1").css("-webkit-mask-image", SETTINGS.NOT_BLUR_AREA);
$("#Canvas0").css("filter", SETTINGS.BLUR_FILTER);

Anyone who wants can feel free to mess around with the CSS attributes and customize them.

Have fun with the new update.

FEATURES

Complete revision of the UI/UX
Added new menu textures
Added new icons/font
Added new terraforming tool
Added new Tooltips on Mouse
Added new minimap interaction
Added new Blur-effect
Added InfoBubble on Mouse
MapEditor temporarily disabled
load local map or from Workshop temporarily disabled

USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

FIX After clicking on the ESC Menu the arrow keys didn't work anymore
FIX Tutorial with new GUI
FIX Menu Scaling
FIX Movement with mouse
FIX Scrollspeed with mousewheel

Trelloboard:
https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands