Implementing Viewer Suggestions in my City-Builder

[@daylen577]

I wish more games implemented an easy way to make a road bend the other way after you've dragged. Something as simple as hitting R (or whatever other key is Rotate in the game) to make it snap in the other direction can make it a lot less annoying to build roads.

[@txe1nd]

City skylines did you forgot

[@couch_enthusiast8915]

factorio does this really well

[@ThylineTheGay]

like factorio

[@martinb1111]

The only good way would be to draw the roads the way they are designed in the real world: draw tangents and place the curve in the angle between tho tangents.

[@Jova]

For the delete tool, you should add confirmations, as well as delete filters, like delete all, roads, buildings, any other specific type that you might want to delete, and i'd say just highlight everything with a red tint, rather than that red outline thing.

[@caleb_2299]

Switching modes like in city skylines seems like a better option here. Important things could use a confirmation. But a confirmation for everything could get annoying

[@odemthelemon]

These are really nice suggestions.

[@cameron6464]

You're absurdly normal, I couldn't imagine a life as healthy and happy as yours. I'm envious of your passion for life itself.

[@JamesPetts]

It is very interesting to follow this. I notice that quite a lot of your recent videos are about the graphics or UI and there hasn't been a huge amount about the simulation engine and economics. Two really big challenges with games like this are scaleability and balance. Scaleability is a problem because the computational intensity of network operations (e.g. pathfinding) increases exponentially with the number of nodes, so the more pathfinding that you make the computer do, the harder that it will be to scale (this is why SimCity (2013) failed - the developers made everything into a network object, so each individual packet of electricity would have to do pathfinding, meaning that they had to restrict the playable area to something very small to get the game working within reasonable performance on contemporary hardware). Balance is a real challenge because of the number of factors involved, and the fact that it is very difficult to stop the game from being either too easy, too difficult or incentivising players to do things that are totally different from what real people in the situation being simulated (e.g., real town planners) would do in the situation. A lot of games work around this by erring on the side of being too easy and then adding artificial difficulty with arbitrary unlocking mechanisms. It would be very interesting to see you talk about balancing the in-game economy, performance testing, multi-threading (this can be a good way of speeding up pathfinding, but is challenging to implement, especially if you might ever want multi-player) and calibrating difficulty levels and keeping gameplay interesting.

[@DudeBronkster]

I wish constructive criticism like this that points in the right direction would receive more attention. Almost all the top comments are suggestions for minor improvements in polish.

[@Mar_Ten]

Additionally, this looks like a neat demo, but I don't see a game yet

[@miauw8762]

@@DudeBronkster great comment

[@troooooper100]

simcity 4 does it best, it simulates 'automata' but they don't really have full paths figured out, just based on road usage number of ppl/cars increase unless you inspect something.

[@Simon-ik1kb]

I think now hes focusing purely on game engine, graphical part. Because hes working from zero, making his own engine. So I guess I can understand starting your game from this part and later working on actual gameplay....

[@log.moon_]

I cannot express my joy when a new thin matrix devlog is uploaded, great progress as usual, the game is looking fantastic!

[@bmmtstb]

The mixture of programming, in depth and pretty broad mixed with fancy cooking just feels so awesome. Keep it up. For the delete tool: if another button is pressed e.g. shift, only delete the tile you first klicked on. Anno uses it pretty well, makes deletion of streets w.o. deleting housing very nice.

[@Blackthornprod]

Awesome devlog Karl! :)

[@charliesimon8399]

Your videos honestly make me so happy, every aspect. Love how it's not just all about the content of the game and selling the game. But everything that's going on around the game. Such an awsome perspective and a really relaxing way to film a vlog style of video. Keep up the amazing work and don't stop the grind, the game is coming along so well.

[@gamesbygrigg7447]

Your transitions from your screen view to zooming out with your actual camera are so cool! Enjoy your holidays :) I'm always feeling inspired after watching your videos

[@dasblatt8628]

One thing that most city planners are focusing on too much is cars. It's feels very very american. I would love a city planner where you can have a more sustainable approach by focusing on public transport, dofferent types of bike infrstructure and maybe even more types of houses (solar roof, green roof etc). I suggest looking at the Yotube channel NotJustBikes to get an inspiration. He covers the dutch infrastructure in an easy to understand way. By watching those videos you will see the superiority of European/Dutch infrastructure over the American one

[@BtHacha]

I love how your videos are not only about programming but daily life stuff, like walking around the city and cooking. Really interesting to watch, and gives amazing chill vibes

[@learnercoder]

The building destruction should feel more impactful, I don't like them turning into thin air.

[@lubu682]

yeah like adding dust and it sinking into the ground

[@klaxoncow]

Yeah, it probably should - logically enough - do the creation animation backwards. That is, the objects float up into the air and fade out as they do so. As if they're being sucked up and dematerialised in a UFO's tractor beam. And, like, with the road placement, the road tiles fall down in sequence, so the same thing in reverse that if you mark an area for destruction, the roads and houses then all float up and fade out in a "wave" pattern, not all at once. This would both make sense - to just be the creation animation but in reverse, so these things are going back to wherever they came from - and it should be easy to implement too, as it's the same code for same effects as creation, just played backwards. I agree with you, though, that it'd be good if the game strived to not have any "thin air" stuff at all, but always some kind of animation (even if it's only opacity and fading in and out). It just makes a game feel more "alive" and fun, and removes that jolting disconnect when things just suddenly disappear or appear.

[@caleb_2299]

I feel like this is just a detail that might get sorted out later. But it's a good suggestion.

[@windar2390]

perhaps a fire animation? lol

[@overloader7900]

Make tiny ghosts ascending hehe

[@xhenryx14]

That thing when you go from on screen to off screen in the same shot is amazing, really nice detail 👌🏼

[@mendalosindiedevrpg8084]

your videos always motivated me to work on my own game. thank you for that. keep it up

[@justred2337]

These kinds of videos are honestly such entertaining! I'm glad to see that you're well and enjoying stuff. Also on a side note: I would really love to see some buses and bus stops around the city :)

[@paularvozm]

I think it would be cool if you could maybe place the bus stops yourself to choose where the buses stop. Would be a great feature.

[@justred2337]

@@paularvozm that is a really good idea!

[@nkusters]

Karl is the godfather of DevLogs for a reason 😊He inspired many, MANY game developers with his way of documenting this stuff. Just look at DevDuck for instance; he found major inspiration (as do many others) from the way Karl did his Equillinox devlogs and tried to give it his own little spin, but if you watch his videos, you can clearly see where he got the inspiration from😊 I'm happy to see Karl back doing videos after years of health issues; looking forward to see this came progres.

[@relucri]

What I find quite impressive is how easily you implement new features and still have a lot of free time to enjoy your day.

[@eric-jt4ij]

You have been posting a lot of videos over the last year compared to the previous year, so happy to see progress is being done!

[@Duckamoly]

Yo I thought you were first but then realized Eric watched this first.

[@nichegames9590]

The man who started it all! You started a whole new genre of KZbin channels. I don't know if I would have started a channel if I hadn't watched your videos from Socuwan to Equinox. Game looks good man.

[@PianoMan333]

Ahh I remember the early days of Socuwan. Now that I think about it I must have been following ThinMatrix for years. I also watch some other devlog videos but none have the same "vibe" as Karl's videos.

[@nichegames9590]

@@PianoMan333 The fact that TM kept trying after Socuwan shows he's tougher than most of us. I'm a fan.

[@gaogamesh]

Hey! You could've made "farofa" with the cassava flour, its a brazilian dish where you fry one diced onion on 100g of butter, some bacon and 2 cloves of garlic. Then you add the cassava flour and mix on medium heat so the flour don't burn, make sure to never forget to mix. When the flour turns a golden colours, it's ready! You can season it with salt, black pepper, paprika. Farofa it's great to serve with stew like foods.

[@ptkstefano]

Farofa is very hard to explain to foreigners because it looks a lot like sand that you can put on top of anything, but it's delicious!

[@dylan8463]

Just wanted to let you know that your videos are super inspiring! Always love seeing a new video upload from you!

[@stakk4]

We're all so glad that you're posting videos again and are in such infectiously good spirits! Have a happy holiday season and I look forward to your next video.

[@wtsiamruk]

This videos is exactly what i need right now with everything happening around the world, please don't stop creating your own little peaceful world

[@k0rib4te90]

I just have to thank you. You are inspiring me to become a game developer myself.

[@Skeffles]

Brilliant to see you taking on feedback! I like the new road placement at every grid the mouse touches. Have a great new year!

[@Steveplays28]

That was a really good devlog, Thinmatrix! Thanks for the happy wishes, merry Christmas to you too.

[@fuseinabowl]

I've been doing tile placements recently too. I was running into issues where there would be gaps in my drawing when I had high mouse speed and low FPS, so I started drawing a line of tiles between the last frame and the current frame's mouse positions, I used Bresenham's for this. It added a lot of polish and was quite interesting to implement. I'd recommend it if you run into the same issues.

[@RileyReilly]

You must have great problem solving skills. You just make everything look so simple and it's clean and not buggy. Well done so far and good luck for next year

[@Hexful]

Been really stressed out making my game, taking some time to watch your videos always helps calm me down

[@gratisanstarbuck1078]

Really love how you balance between develop and enjoying things around you

[@darrinpearce9780]

Another great video and some good changes. Recipes look really tasty, need to post in the show notes!!. All the best for Christmas and the new year.

[@skiesquiggles7319]

Your devlogs are always so inspiring to see!

[@Artbyzig]

Great stuff man, Always love watching your videos!

[@randomstuff6633]

I wanted to make a city builder so I watched your first video on it so it's good to see that your still working on it 2 years later

[@martinlarsson6621]

Great work, and great content, that pasta dish looked delivious! I'd personally love to see an undo/redo feature, as well as more experimentation with traffic and roads, as in: highways, one-way roads, roundabouts and just in general different sizes of roads to control traffic speed and flow etc ... Looking forward to the next video!

[@codehawkfalcon]

I really like the new draw to place implementation. Nice job!

[@liuping999]

SLICK Transition at 6:30. keep it up! These videos are a blast to watch

[@christopherbray2792]

I'm really enjoying this series. It's a treat whenever I see a new video pop up.

[@cazino4]

Really enjoyed watching this devlog. You appear to have your work/life balance just right too!

[@KamranWali]

Really liking the progress. The road placement feature have come a long way. Keep it up! :)

[@worzell5169]

This is seriously inspirational content, you do a great job on these videos

[@zippywings]

Two suggestions: 1. I can't think of any city builder that does this, and they all probably should: when mass deleting or even selectively deleting tiles, there should be two options: "delete all" and "delete by object(s)." With "delete all," you'd reset the tile to its basic grass (or dirt even), as demonstrated in the video. But with "delete by object(s)," a pop-window would allow you to check whichever items or objects it detects in the deletion range and remove only what you want. So, for example, if you group roads, houses, and trees, but you just want the houses gone, then selecting "houses" would remove just the houses. If you wanted to maintain some kind of "town planning theme," however, then "delete by object(s)" could be renamed to "reconstruct zone," or something of that nature. A feature like this could also work to change zone types on the fly, should zoning ever become part of the game. But either way, I think that would be more useful than deleting in small chunks or rebuilding the objects you never wanted to delete. Certainly good for the user experience. 2. Regarding side-by-side roads, there may be reasons to create switchbacks, and some players may want the ability to construct 180 turns for whatever reason. I think if you allow the directional road drawing to account for 180 turns (without making weird intersections), road construction and management will be more flexible and less frustrating. But I also see the concern that allowing for 180 road turns will inevitably lead to ugly road design (something you probably want to reduce), so it might be worth it to allow 180 turns, but turn the tile "yellow" as a way to prompt the player to determine if he or she really wants the road tile placed there and in that direction, and then ask to "confirm" the design if the player agrees that it's what they want. It wouldn't have to complicate gameplay or design, but rather hint at the player that, while technically possible, using this road might prove inconvenient for the town's residents, especially for the unfortunate one whose driveway sits adjacent to that awkward 180 turn. Regardless what you choose to do, though, the game's looking good. Nice work.

[@Jeff_Okayabashi]

this is a super chill devlog, loved it

[@MarisaClardy]

For the click+drag of the delete tool, it might be useful if you click on a road tile first (or maybe shift click), and drag, it will only delete roads in the area. Likewise with buildings.

[@lengors1674]

This devlogs are always amazing. Wouldnt mind having a new one on a weekly basis even if not much would be done

[@caleb_2299]

I agree. Just watching him cook and do chores is so entertaining and calming

[@lengors1674]

@@caleb_2299 yup

[@voxelrifts]

Agreed

[@lengors1674]

@@voxelrifts I think I've seen you somewhere else

[@voxelrifts]

@@lengors1674 gwg twitch?

[@danielpapukchiev3754]

It looks great, I am learning a lot from this! For the delete grid you can shade the internal squares without borders and the external with the outside border line only. Another cool feature might be a confirmation prompt if you try to delete too much.

[@Lucy_chan]

Once I saw this pc setup and its location next to table with that view, I got insta envy ;c

[@ross2905]

Still so in love with your OST! One of my favourites of any game, Jamal did an amazing job

[@DevelopAnEngine]

You're welcome for the array trick;) great video as always!

[@Joern290]

Love your videos! Have a happy holiday season yourself! Can’t wait to see what you will come up with in 2022!

[@Niter88]

[THE ROAD PROBLEM IS CALLED TEXTURE BLEEDING] "Texture bleeding is the effect of color values of adjacent pixels in the UV-map/texture "bleed over" in your polygon" -some person on stackexchange. When you zoom out it's common to get that kind of inaccuracy. The engine don't know how exactly to place the texture, especially in diagonal and/or far away. So the texture just leaks a few pixels. That's why if you browse an old game files, the textures always have a blurred area around edges matching its color. It's good to use 3-5 pixels margin at least cause it's very easy for the texture to "bleed" outside the intended area. Big fan of yours

[@dragonminz602]

When deleating tiles, it would be cool if there would be a mode where it only deleats the type of tile you started on with draging. That way you could delete all the roads from an area without deleating the houses and so on. Great progress though :D

[@txe1nd]

Yep

[@txe1nd]

But doesn’t it city skylines do it

[@MartinSparkes-BadDragon]

@@txe1nd Vanilla cities doesn't - you need moveit mod to do selective extermination

[@pseudofred_]

Great features added. Also very interesting to see how small features get added to games because I always get so overwhelmed on my own personal projects when it comes to features :) great work!!!!

[@augustogouveia7040]

If you still have the cassava flour, try frying some onion slices on two spoons of butter and then mix it with the flour. It's called farofa de manteiga and it's very popular on the region I live here in Brazil

[@JosephHenryDrawing]

I love the way you are showing programming and all the life things you do aside like cooking and enjoying a trip outside! Such a great lifestyle ;)

[@Destroyer19941995]

This is so good man. Really love how you enjoy this gives me inspiration.

[@mehceunisen]

I came for programming but mostly enjoying the "food making" parts, they look delicious!

[@megame_24]

Hi, I was surprised when I saw you made fufu/eba lol. I'm from Nigeria and it's native to Nigeria. The one made with cassava flakes (garri) is called eba, and the easiest way to make it is to: - Boil a pot of water, boil enough to take out some - Add the flakes to the level of the water - Add a bit more boiling water - Then mix, until it's smooth - You might need to add a bit more boiling water if it's too thick. I hope that helps :)

[@chadzulu4328]

You do magical stuff man. Enjoy the holidays!

[@TheRealDusty]

Oh wow I LOVE your setup!

[@LifeOfMohammed]

This is awesome. Merry Christmas and Hope you have an awesome new year can't wait to see you!

[@rollinmarbles2908]

I can't afford to miss these videos!

[@lj004]

you're very good at being a productive human

[@achillesa5894]

If you have an area delete tool, you could add filters to it. I like how Factorio does it, you can use the Deconstruction Planner without any filters to delete everything in an area, you can add a filter for things that won't be deleted, or you can toggle it to a whitelist mode where it only deletes items in the filter and leaves everything else alone. This way you can do something like delete all trees or delete everything but roads.

[@nicolasblume1046]

I think it would be great to be able to play the game in a less car-centric way! public transport and bike infrastructure are incredibly important for a great city.

[@keithtalbot9504]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

[@jorool1988]

Awesome, man! Videos are getting better every time. Happy Holidays!

[@PlayingWithNightmare]

I think when the road is stuck, either by an object or by an impossible placement, there should be a red marking or sound signaling that there is an impossibility there. I would be really confused by that if there were no queues. Great dev logs!

[@bruno.myrrha]

Hey a little bit lttp but being Brazilian, more specifically from Minas Gerais, cassava flour is one of our main ingredients for a lot of dishes. They’re quite heavy for dinner but my favourite one is called: Feijão tropeiro (the tilda is quite pesky to write in uk keyboards). It’s basically a Brit breakfast lunch version. You don’t need to cook it too much. Another cool dish that you can try (again, awesome with rice and beans) is to make a Farofa de Ovo. Basically you fry some bacon, some eggs and mix all together. If you’re vegetarian you can skip the bacon and add butter.. Unfortunately I don’t know any vegan recipe if it’s the case. Just look for “farinha de mandioca, Minas Gerais” (some ptBr) and you will find tons of recipes using this. About the game, this is probably the most well thought street placement that I’ve sawn on a city building game. Kudos to the attention to details.

[@EnriquePage91]

Merry Christmas to my man the legend ThinMatrix and all of you!

[@paularvozm]

That was some progress in one single day. Im glad you are sticking to the minimalistic low-poly style. A city building game in this art style is definitely something unique and probably also better for low-end device players. Besides that, i absolutely love the look of the game.

[@timplays3454]

The fufu you should allow the water to boil before putting in the cassava. then use a turning stick to turn it evenly on all ends of the pot. it is one of the hardest dishes to make from where I come from

[@Brodaty]

I was looking at "This city must grow" on steam and this poped up on my Facebook as suggestion... And here I am :p

[@paulreynolds8110]

Nice. That whole road placement feature felt like the type of thing that means the project will take 5 times as long as it needs to. But I guess that's the difference between a commercial and self funded project. No deadlines or investors to answer too. Still, time is important and sometimes these things keep the focus on the end result. Much love

Nice progress! When you draw the new road tiles, you can make the bushes and trees disappear, which are in the way. If you cancel the draw, they appear and stay as they were.

[@totallynuts7595]

Minor side comment: cooking, animals and the occasional form of fitness are some of the best ways of keeping yourself sane and healthy as a programmer =))) Let's be honest, most of us aren't exactly the most social people out there.

[@MaiconSlavieiro]

About cassava flour, here in brazil is very common and differents dishes, but usually is more use like a additional ingredient to a recipe and not the mainly/only ingredient. The most popular use to cassava flour here is to made "Farofa", is like a "side dish" that is eaten with "Feijoada", meat and/or rice and beans. Other popular use of cassava flour (not sure if this that you bought is the same) is to made "Tapioca", I think that you will like this one, google it.

[@SimonLUCAS_CG]

As always, excellent video! Few words on the problem related to the texture atlas, in the previous video you said that the problem came from the texture coordinates. In fact, I think that's not quite right. The problem comes mainly from the texture filtering. When you call the "texture" function, OpenGL calculate the derivatives of the texture coordinates to do the MIMAPPING (to access the right level of detail of the texture) and that is where the problem is. Because you use the "mod" on the coordinates, you are actually getting the wrong derivatives at the borders between the tiles. Wrong derivatives lead to wrong level of detail leading to a wrong color. The textures coordinates are good, the derivatives are not. If you really want to use a texture atlas, to avoid the pixelated line between the tiles, you have to calculate the derivatives ( dFdx(uv) and dFdy(uv) ) before the "mod" and then use the function "textureGrad(texture,uv,dFdx,dFdy)" instead of "texture(texture,uv)". I hope it was useful for someone ++

[@lubu682]

now this... does put a smile on my face

[@quintongordon6024]

A depth of field effect I think would fit nicely with the aesthetic. It'd be as if you had a bunch of little minifigures on a table irl.

[@KapteinKul]

You're an inspiration, well done so far, mate. :-)

[@tommytaylortrades]

I love watching and coding along to these videos, Its a really enjoyable experience! I just wish for them to be longer... aha.

[@NeoChromer]

Really like the transitions from onscreen to real life hah, super cool idea :D

[@TNothingFree]

Game is very visually appealing, Looks promising :)

[@tobihendrix1324]

Thanks also for pointing out the texture array method - I have a similar issue which i can resolve using this technique :)

[@jsbarretto]

I'd really love to see trains & other public transport in this game. Nice work!

[@DARKarknar]

just a heads up. The fufu (texture wise) is supposed to be more bouncy (spongy) and less mashed potato like. you should be able to grab and make a ball out of it.

[@frostleis1586]

Hi! Are you ever planning on updating equillinox? I loved to play it, and was hoping for the updates you promised!

[@george-jc]

Ahh yes, I also watered my dog & walked my plants in the morning. AMA

[@Chris-55]

Happy new year to everyone! Hope you have an amazing 2022!!!

[@Fizmox]

I like the transitions from the recording desktop to real life camera =]

[@rose_x86]

With the free draw road mode, if you have a self intersection (or it just goes other another road) that priece should play the original bounce animation (where it starts from the ground) to keep the flow

[@djTokie]

Delete idea: If you start the deletion at a house, then delete only houses, if you start on a street then only streets. You do not always want to delete everything

[@miko007]

i am pretty amazed by your mindset. being a professional software engineer myself, i can not grasp how you can do things like cooking a laborious meal or go for a bike ride while being that deep into a project, especially a personal one. for me, every second i am not able to work on the project is pure torture. sleeping, eating, basically everything thats not coding or thinking about the code feels like a burden to me in that situation. i am in the industry for over 15 years now, and i have never been able to be that calm and uninvested in a personal project. this is amazing for you, i guess, but i have no idea how you do it.

[@lennarth.6214]

I love this series!

[@Crowborn]

You bought cassava flour! You have to try farofa, it's my favourite food ever. Fry it with a little oil and onions, spices, wurst (if you eat meat) and maybe even some cashew nuts... tastes smoky and salty, absolutely amazing even by itself, but usually served to complement other dishes like Brazilian style rice and beans. Cassava flour shines in plates like this, prepared dry then receiving all of its moisture from being mixed with other foods on the serving plate :) it doesn't taste like much when you cook it otherwise, in my opinion at least.

[@David-hl1wo]

I never thought I'd see you make fufu, reminds me of my mother's cooking

[@vitorhugoferreira9559]

See you brother! Glad to see you good!

[@JenoDevo]

Hahah it's cool that you made fufu! I personally don't know how to make it. I'd have to ask my mom, but it's supposed to be more solid. You need to be able to pinch pieces off and dip it into your soup (it's a finger food)

[@manasnagelia]

The bulding destruction should also have a "Are you sure" panel to pop up.

[@cameron7howell]

Im so curious what the road placement would look like if you had that animation happen per pixel so that the road kinda curves and smoothly gets placed