The Possible Futures of Townscaper

[PonSquared]

I am a little nervous for the future of Townscaper. There seems to be a pretty large disconnect between the features people want and the vision the designer has for the project. There are some pretty amazing ideas being posted on the forum. Many of which would really add to what is already there. The problem is that the designer seems to say that the game is near its final, 1.0 build.

This project has so – much – potential. What we have now should only be a beginning to what Townscaper could become, not an ending. I think we can all mostly agree that no one wants Townscaper to become a game. We are happy with this being a city-designer/art project/creativity tool. If we want a game, we can play City Skylines or SimCity.

No, keep it, at its core, what it is. But please, please expand upon it. Let this be the start of something much larger. Possibility, Townscaper has so much possibility.

Perhaps the overwhelmingly positive rating, the fantastic sales (I count at least $5k based on ratings numbers alone,) and the many wonderful ideas being offered on the forum will give the designer some pause on moving forward with more content.

My family loves this little city building art project. We hope there is a lot more of it to come!

PS: My 10 year old son thinks this is more fun than City Skylines. It scratches his city building & artistic itch.

[LetTheBodyFall]

Agreed. I'm a dungeon master and this, even in this early form, has helped me a lot with town planning and developing visuals for my players. Would be amazing if things got added eventually to add to the town/city builder aspect.

[KDHD]

In reply to your P.S: Check out ISLANDERS on steam for your son, I bet he'd like it.

[Sheikor]

The way I see it, since it's early access, we're here to give our opinions and ideas, and the dev can test the waters and see what people want, and cherrypick the features that seem most compatible with the game (because sometimes people think they want something when they don't. Me included, at times).

I'd personally agree, keeping it a pure city builder would be very nice. I'd love more customization options, but I also have a feel this software is intended to be "simple" and easy to apprehend, so an overflow of options may make some people dizzy... So, we'll see where it goes.

(PS: I'm also recommending ISLANDERS)

[人活着就是为了樱岛麻衣]

Children may love it

[SourMouthwash]

Townscraper is incredible and it could be so much more than it is right now. Maybe the creator could raise the price to make it worthwhile? I'd have paid triple what I did for the current game (had I known how much fun it was) and more for an expanded and improved version.

[Manic]

I'll add my voice to the Islanders suggestion, very fun game.

The dev refers to this game as a "toy." I don't think he has in mind to make some complex game, and the price tag reflects that.

For myself, some different types of grids would be nice and not an unreasonable addition, as well as a drag feature to speed up filling spaces. Adding on the many suggestions people have offered would mean necessarily increasing the cost, and hence the price.

Maybe the dev will add some dlc expansion functionality later on, but I think it's unrealistic to expect much more than what we have.

[air]

The big things I would love to see out of the project would be varying terrain types, such as a grassland where the paths around buildings are maybe dirt/stone and it opens to giant fields or stone/mountainous areas where you could place 'mountains/rocks' instead of buildings as well as buildings. The addition of generic or empty interiors that you could maybe view by hiding upper layers would be amazing as well. Just a lot of customization to make a really unique city/mapping tool.

[☃Thelonelysnowman ☃]

I do think the game currently has enough content that it could leave early access right now and still be worth the price, but I would definitely like to see the idea of this game expanded upon in the future

[Adondriel]

I plan to use this to help design map layouts for my Minecraft server, which will then get translated into actual maps. I would love to see more detailed building options, but this game does NOT need any sort of gameplay.

[Velvet]

Given different styles for what the city would look like (E.G. more modern, medieval, etc.) seem to be a frequent suggestion modding tools might be a good fit for the game. Given the store page outright calls it an experimental passion project entire new sets of models might be more work than the dev is actually prepared to put in, so letting people do their own work for it instead would be the next best thing.

[tcassat]

I hope people will not be disappointed or feel cheated if the developer does not add anything other than making the final adjustments to the software.

Either way, it would be great if modders could expand the scope after the final version was released.

[Vncent]

just 2 things, two small things could be added to largely expand the experience and thecnical usability of this awesome town modeler

1- being able to roam your own creations in 1st person mode (i don't even need to explain why)

2- being able to export your creations in meshes/textures files format (that would also turn this peaceful game experience into a proto-gamedev software without having to change the mechanics even at the slightest. because they are already perfect)

[Dr. Fnord]

Townscaper is the sort of thing that I would have loved to have when building fictional worlds - it feels as though there's a lot of scope in it for mapping out medieval towns and cities. If there's one thing that I'd like to see, it's the ability to add landscape features like rivers, cliffs, and (probably via skinning) civic or military buildings.

But really, for mapping out small urban neighbourhoods or just playing with architectural ideas, it's already a top-notch toy. Nice work.

[Fozzles]

Like the OP I also am a bit wary about the disconnect. It seems like the developer wanted the building results to be somewhat random and non-uniform and this is part of the charm, but a lot of people want a straight grid system and complete control over what each piece of building resolves to. I would prefer it to not lose it's randomness & non-uniformness, because for me that's the appeal. If I just wanted to build cities I'd go play Sim City.

You have the people that want to use it to export 3d models, those that want to use it as a D&D mapping tool with medieval theme, those that want to gameify it more and add achievements., and those that want to remove the build limit and create giant sprawling cities and want multiple new building and terrain types.

I like a lot of the ideas, but I'd be worried about it just becoming one of these things to the detriment of the others.

I know the dev said he wants to implement 3d model export and is interested in potential mod support (so people can make their own themes) so that's some people's wants addressed. But I think the amount of things we've all asked for already exceeds more than one person can get done?

I guess we just keep making suggestions and see what gets implemented, but I worry some people may be disappointed. Now having said this, I'm going to make a post about stuff I want to see...

[Franzisdrak]

Originally posted by LetTheBodyFall:

Agreed. I'm a dungeon master and this, even in this early form, has helped me a lot with town planning and developing visuals for my players. Would be amazing if things got added eventually to add to the town/city builder aspect.

This would be so great for DMs. As myself. It was the first thing that came to my mind. Image custom shaders like in minecraft!