iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Looks cozy. Is the 7-day limit a run you replay from scratch, or a season where what you planted carries over to the next one?

100

Ha. Do the NPCs decide to join a party from their own schedule, or does the party pull in anyone who walks past? The second would explain the chaos.

Do the trails only fade each frame, or do you also blur them so they spread out? Curious how much that diffusion changes the paths the ants settle on.

Nice base. For the player trails, are you planning to write them into a texture that slowly fills back in, or keep them for the whole session?

000

Carcasses that rot over time, so the scavenger window closes and the T-rex loses interest? Does the bait work on every dino, or only on the meat eaters?

100

How is the custom content described: data files read at load time, or code modules? We're moving all our game text into structured JSON files right now, so I'm curious where you draw the line.

111

Do the villagers ask for specific things, or do you choose what to build and then see how each of them reacts?

Does the wind change direction during a level, or is it fixed per map? If it shifts, going back to re-aim the ballista sounds like a nice little decision.

000

Does each shop keep its own stock, so the grocery store can run dry after a few visits, or do they all restock on the same timer?

000

Thank you, and thanks for the heads up! It loads for me this morning, so it may have been down for a while last night. If it still fails for you, what do you get: an error page, or nothing at all?

On the hex map, does the party move one hex at a time, or can you plan a whole route before confirming?

100

Are those recipes found while exploring the dungeon, or is the whole list visible from the start?

Do the swords decide on their own when to block and when to strike, or does it depend on where the player is standing?

With blocks you can see exactly which piece the wave took, and that's easy to read. Does the water remove whole blocks, or wear them down bit by bit? If it wears them down, smooth probably fits better.

Does the supply boat have to make the full trip home before those resources count, or are they usable the moment they're loaded? Curious how much the distance between islands slows a build order down.

100

The Vault Bank at 10 pm in BlockRise: tier 3 of the bank, dome lit, portico across two plots. The yellow band along the pavement isn't a street light, it's the ownership outline: this one is yours. Barcelona, in game. blockrisegame.com

In-game screenshot at night, seen from above at a three-quarter angle: a pale stone bank with a columned portico, a BANK sign under a red-tiled pediment, tall arched windows lit white on the ground floor, warm lit windows upstairs and a small red dome with lit openings on the roof. A yellow glowing band runs along the pavement in front. A dark truck is parked at the right corner, a brick building stands to the left, and rows of lit houses and a dark hill fill the background under a last strip of orange sky.

120

That answers it, thanks: the shadow is the marker. I was asking whether you could still tell where a flyer is once it's over a crowded fight.

Moving clouds make it read as a place rather than a painting. Will the lightning light up the ships during a mission, or does the planet stay pure backdrop?

Booth days are the fastest playtest there is. What did people get stuck on first when they picked it up with no explanation?

Under 10 minutes is a tight budget for the setup screen too. Which options did you decide to leave out so the screen stays quick to get through?

100

A town that is the customer is a clear loop. As the village grows, does the share it keeps grow too, so that feeding it well eats into what goes out on the carts?

100

Watching streams is where that kind of thing shows up. Our version of it: the shop upgrade button existed and nobody found it. For the cat, are you leaning toward showing his line of sight, or having him visibly look around when the dot is out of view?

100

Tier 2 of the jewelry house in BlockRise. Tier 1 is a single storey with awnings and four display windows; tier 2 adds an upper floor with balconies. Shot at noon, after the daytime fix that lets you see inside the windows instead of flat white rectangles. In game, Barcelona.

In-game screenshot at noon: a dark green two-storey jewelry shop on a street, with a white JEWELRY sign, green awnings over large display windows showing jewelry stands inside, and small balconies on the upper floor. Pedestrians walk along the pavement; a hill and other buildings are in the background.

062

Three planets and no enemies is a calm way in. What tells the player that a planet can be lost, if nothing threatens them in this mission: does the next one introduce it, or is there a hint here already?

Gear that shows on the character is the version of an upgrade players actually notice. Does every slot change the sprite, or only the big ones like armour and weapon? We had a shop whose tier 2 looked identical to tier 1 in an early pass, so the upgrade only existed in a panel.

Nice that it came from players asking. At 2x, do the houses show detail that wasn't visible before, or is it the same art drawn bigger? We keep a rule that a shop upgrade has to read from the street, so I'm curious what the closer view adds.

100

How do the griffins read once they're over a melee? In our RTS two groups of spearmen used to merge into one pale clump until whole tunics went to team colour. Do flyers get their own marker, or is the height enough to pick them out?

Ours this month was shop windows. At noon every display window came out as a flat white rectangle, you couldn't see a single ring. Switching the interior glow off by day brought the display stands back. Not a delay, but about as small.

000

Fair question, and I don't have a tested answer yet. The player owns the shops rather than driving, so what matters is what customers on foot do while the street is shut. In the scene we showed, the closure is short and the street reopens once the fire is out.

000

The jewelry house in BlockRise at tier 3, the Gem Atelier: a glazed workshop on the roof. Its first noon captures were rejected, every display window was a flat white rectangle. By day the interior glow is switched off and the glass is less mirror-like. Noon and 10 pm, in game.

In-game screenshot at noon: a dark green three-level jewelry shop on a street, a white JEWELRY sign above four arched awnings and display windows showing jewelry stands, a row of balconied windows upstairs and a glass-walled workshop on the roof. Pedestrians walk along the pavement; a blue mosaic dome and green hills are in the background.

The same jewelry shop at 10 pm under a starry sky: the ground-floor display windows glow bright white, the upstairs windows are lit, the rooftop workshop glows behind its glass, and street lamps light the pavement where a few pedestrians walk past.

000

The Barcelona cathedral in BlockRise, from the side: 45.8 x 35 m on the ground, towers at 33 m, 37.5 m to the cross on the spire, and a cloister joined by a gallery. Around 72,000 triangles, plus two lighter versions. In game, 4 pm.

In-game screenshot from BlockRise at 4 pm, seen from above at a three-quarter angle: a sandstone Gothic cathedral with two towers, an openwork spire, a rose window and a pointed portal, and a low cloister with red tile roofs at its side. A tree-lined avenue with one car and one pedestrian runs in front, apartment blocks stand to the right, green hills rise behind under a grey sky.

020

A scrollbar that's fun to drag is a good sign. Does the journal fill itself in as things happen, or does the player choose what gets written down?

120

Terrain as a reward is a nice twist on walls. When the mountain goes up, do enemies already on that route turn around on the spot, or only the waves that spawn after it?

We set one rule for our shop tiers: every upgrade has to read from the street, because an early pass made tier 2 look just like tier 1. Across your five stages, does the outline change every time, or do some stages only add detail?

000

Scorch that still reads zoomed out is a good fix. On the closed street: in our fire scene the truck drives the real street network and the street reopens once the fire is out. Does your collapse ever clear, or is that route gone for the rest of the level?

100

A tank that survives the fall but lands off the road sounds like a good moment. Does it fight from where the trailer died, or does it need a moment before it can move again?

100

Counting menu opens is nicely simple. Does opening a menu and closing it straight away count as seen, or does the player have to actually use something in it before the tutorial lets go?

Does the transport change the risk as well as the cost? A loaded transporter caught on the road sounds like it would lose everything it carries, which makes escorting it a decision of its own.

100

We had the same thing with shop upgrades: the button existed and nobody found it. What helped was a list that flags a shop the moment its next tier is affordable. Would a hint shown the first time someone edits the slow way fit 8-bitBot?

A hidden norm per machine is a bold choice. How does the player find out they have pushed a machine past it: patrons walking away from that one machine, or does the whole pier's mood drop?

100

Once the map shows a block is in a heat hazard, what can the player do about that block in particular: trees and water nearby, or is it mostly a matter of where the industry sits?

000

Timing does a lot for that. Is the van on a fixed clock that happens to match the morning rush, or does it react to the crowd, so a slow day gets a later delivery?

No real turning circle here either. The engine follows the street axis and corners are rounded into arcs; at a roundabout it takes the ring 10 m from the centre, in the direction of traffic. That made the run about 7% longer, 193 m to 206 m.

000

Thanks! One material, and one tint shared by every monument on the map, so the lighting does the rest. That is what bit us at noon: the west front sits in shade and read grey-brown, about 92,86,62, against 162,148,103 in the sun. Hence 4 pm.

100

The bank in BlockRise sits on two plots instead of one: 25.5 x 13.6 m, enough for a portico with columns. Tier 1 is one storey, tier 2 adds a floor, and tier 3, the Vault Bank, gets a dome on the roof. Barcelona, in game.

Three in-game views side by side of the same bank on a street in Barcelona, seen from above. Left: a one-storey cream building with columns, a pediment and a BANK sign. Middle: the same with a second floor and a balustrade. Right: the same with a small pink dome on the roof. Pedestrians on the pavement, trees, a yellow line along the kerb.

Does the player get a hint before entering a ruin whether its event leans good or bad, or is the gamble the point?

39,940 is a number that makes me wince. Is each one a separate object the player can click, or is most of Manhattan a merged backdrop until you start work on a plot?

000

Real street networks are hard on vehicles. Our fire engine drives the actual streets of our city, and its route around one block is the part we had to redo. How do you handle OSM junctions too tight for a convoy: clean the data, or let the convoy cope?

210

Ours was shop doors. They never moved, and a busy shop with a shut door made the whole street look switched off. Now they swing open about 80 degrees when a customer walks in. Cheap to do, and the street reads as alive from far away.