Dev Log # 6

Howdy Folks!

Hope everyone is doing well out there! It’s another week and I’ve got another dev log for you. I’ve made some further changes to the upgrade system that I wanted to share.

Upgrade System

As discussed in a previous dev log, the original plan was for you to purchase upgrades to improve various attributes, such as washing speed, washing area, and movement speed. These upgrades were to be unlocked using the remaining resources acquired in each level. You may notice I’m using the past tense there—that’s because I’ve made some changes to address a couple of problems with that plan.

Problem 1: Repairing Soft Lock

If players can spend their resources at any time, they could potentially spend the materials needed to finish repairs in a given level, which would block their progress. Because the new system allows resources to be saved from level to level, you could technically go to the next level to gather more and then reload the previous level to complete it. This is awkward and unintuitive.

Problem 2: Cost Complexity and Game Balance

In order to better understand resources and potential upgrade costs, I built an editor utility to store data about all recyclable and repairable objects for each level. This allowed me to see how much of each resource was available for upgrades within individual levels, as well as across the entire game. After building this system and reviewing the resulting data, I discovered a second problem.

Due to how resources are distributed, players ended up with significantly more of some resources than others. With four different resource types and wildly varying acquisition rates, determining balanced upgrade costs became very tricky.

The Solution

The solution, as it turned out, was quite simple. I’ve added a separate 'Upgrade Scrap' item that is used exclusively for purchasing upgrades. At the end of each level, all of your remaining resources are converted into Upgrade Scrap.

Because the conversion happens at the end of the level, players can unlock upgrades at any time using Upgrade Scrap without the fear of running out of repair resources. This also means that determining upgrade costs is greatly simplified.

UI Changes

While working on the in-game menu for progress and upgrades, I made several tweaks to the look of the user interface across the entire game, including font and style changes. This should make things pop a bit more and ensure everything is easier to read.

Support

Thanks everyone for the amazing support and feedback so far. Keep it up and let me know what you like, what you don't and what you want to see next. If you want to help support me and PACK development then I would greatly appreciate it if you Buy Me A Coffee or subscribe on Patreon. Thanks and keep it clean out there!

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