Rebalancing Major Construction Projects
Special projects now have long builds that are worth waiting for, with a single speed-up per build. And a lesson from the very first construction – the crystal discovery must come before anything that skips the wait.
Large events should feel significant.
Longer Development Cycles
Testing suggested that some project chains finished too quickly. Major milestones such as seasonal events and international competitions deserve more build-up.
Project expansions are now real construction projects. The World Cup's expansions take 6 and 18 hours; Winterfest's take 6, 18 and 48 hours. Those are idle-game hours: you start the build, go to bed or to work, and come back to a finished stage. Regions still have shorter builds; projects are meant to be the long arcs.
One speed-up per build
In regions, a construction can be shortened by watching a video as often as the cooldown allows. For project builds that would turn 48 hours into an evening of watching ads. So a project build can be sped up by video once. After that, the button says it has been used, and only crystals can finish the build early – at a price that reflects how much time is left.
More Anticipation
By extending project durations and improving previews, players have more time to anticipate upcoming content. Each project now has its own teaser card before it can be started: the World Cup with a sponsor showing interest, Winterfest with the first preparations in the village. During the long builds the project tab shows its progress, and its investment card arrives while the player is waiting for the next stage.
The first construction, revisited
Today's fix came from replaying the very beginning. When I sped up the first expansion with a video, the crystal discovery never appeared – the build was finished before its card had a chance to show. And shortly afterwards, the first random bonus event arrived anyway, bringing crystals without any introduction.
The rule is now explicit: the crystal discovery comes before the first construction can be shortened in any way. During that first build, the card shows only the progress bar. A few seconds after the build starts, the workers find the crystals, the crystal introduction follows, and only then do the speed-up options appear. The player sees the crystal button for the first time right after learning what crystals are.
The ad boost follows the same idea now: it only appears after the crystal moment, and its first tap opens a short explanation of what boosters do, with "Got it" and "Try it", instead of jumping straight into a video.
Small polish
In dark mode, the tutorial hints now show the business icons on the same light tile as the real business cards. Otherwise the hint looked like a different game from the card it points at.
Building a Living Resort
Every construction phase should feel like an important step in the growth of a world-class ski destination.
Starting this devlog
This is also the day this devlog started. Most entries before this one were written afterwards, from my notes, the project history and the conversations I had while building the game. From now on I plan to write entries closer to the work itself.