Last week was spent focusing on how players build things in their city. We have a simple system whereby you switch to build mode, tap a build site, select a building and click ‘PLACE’. However in future we want to have more buildings and other choices for city improvements so it’s going to have to cope with more. I want players to be able to plan bigger changes and try things out, before committing their stars.

In this short video you can see what we have now. First the player earns some stars, then we switch to building. A player can still place a building as before but there’s an extra step to confirm they are happy before proceeding.

No stars are spent before this occurs. It gives space for a change of mind and also to see how things look in the city before going ahead. It’s not that useful at the moment but when a player has more options about what to build and how to spend their budget it’s going to be crucial.

You may also notice that the “OK” button in the build mode has the cost of the current plan overlaid on its top right corner. This was a real pain to get right in the layout code! It’s still not centred correctly.

Next week I’ll be taking a look at how roads are built so our cities can expand.