ISLANDERS - All you need to know. (Devlog)

hey this is Jonas I'm one of the developers of islanders and here's everything you need to know about our game condensed into a hopefully very short and interesting video Islanders is a minimalist strategy game about building cities on beautiful islands what we wanted to create as a builder game that can be enjoyed and played by almost anybody the game will cost five bucks on launch and it will come out April 4th depending on when you watch this video might already be out Islanders is a high-score game where you gain points by placing buildings and when you place a building you see a big number on top of it showing you how many points you'll get for placing it here the amount of points you get for placing a building depends on its surroundings a lumber check for example earns one point for every tree in range but loses six points for every other lumberjack in range and when placing a building the small numbers show you exactly where your points are coming from the only resource and Islanders are the buildings in your inventory you lose the game when you run out of buildings or put differently when your inventory is empty your building inventory gets a refill every time you reach a certain score it's very simple and the amount of points you need to collect in order to

get a new set of buildings is displayed in the bottom left corner every time you get a set of new buildings you can choose between two options and whenever you decide for one option the pec will still contain a couple of the buildings you chose earlier so it's basically like deck building but with buildings there are 30 different types of buildings and Islanders every building has a different range and different structures it wants to be close to Islanders is a very casual game but it also offers quite a bit of depth for those who are looking for a greater challenge also islands are procedurally generated so you'll never see the same island twice you can also win a round by reaching a certain score they reward for winning around us that you can no longer lose and that you'll get another shot on the next island you can travel to the next island as soon as the button in the bottom right corner is completely filled up and you simply fill it up by gaining points please note that once you leave an island you're no longer able to go back to the previous one the first couple of islands are quite easy to beat but the further you go the harder it will get you can quit the game at any time as it saves your

progress automatically loading times are not very long and are mostly used to generate the islands you can basically leave and come back whenever you want we are a small team consisting of three people Friedman Paul and me Jonas the game was made within four months as a part of our game design studies at htw Berlin and that's also where we met each other during our studies we received a ton of useful feedback from our fellow students and professors without their help the game wouldn't be what it is now a couple of fun facts instead of Islanders we almost made a game about rafting now that I look at the sister looks kind of fun and when we got started working on Islanders we wanted it to be a 2-d game also we made a research trip to the English garden I'm not sure how big the impact of that was but I think I can see a bit of Islanders in here the game engine we use both for prototyping as well as for making in the final game is unity3d and for creating the models we used blender one thing we've been asked quite a bit already is whether we'll bring this game to other platforms than PC the

answers we'd love to bring the game to other platforms like the switch or to mobile but unfortunately we're a small team and we do not know if we'll have the resources to make it happen there are a couple more interesting things about the gameplay as well you can hover over a building in your inventory to see which other buildings it benefits from every building gets a score bonus from having the monument within its range and there's one monument on every island some buildings also have a base value the field for example grants you a couple of points even if there's absolutely nothing within its range and negative based values are possible as well the temple gives minus 75 points by default for example but placing it close to your city buildings quickly brings that into the positives also not every building can be placed on every surface sand pits need to be placed on Zent Mason's on stone fields need to be built on grass and the Fisher can only be placed on water you're not able to build fields on winter islands and what I think is cool as well is that Islanders can be played at any pace you want your

play session can take minutes or hours you decide it is possible to play the game without touching the keyboard but Islanders also supports keyboard hotkeys and it is also possible to rebuy one thing that's also kind of funny is that people playing Islanders for the first time usually drag buildings across the entire map multiple times to see where they get the most points that is very normal but after a while you'll try fewer and fewer positions you know what works and what doesn't and to maximize your points you also have to think about the buildings you're gonna place in the future it is not enough to just think about what gives you the most points now if you order you place your buildings and can make quite a big difference as well the tower for example gives you one point for every building in range so the later you place it the more points you'll usually get some islands contain a gold patch the gold mine and the jewelry should be placed next to that s that gives them a big bonus another one of my favorite buildings is the Shaymin it gets points for nearby flowers so yes all of these little flowers you see here basically have a gameplay purpose as

well and a certain late game buildings that allow you to expand the space available to you wooden platforms that can be placed on walls and massive stone structures you can belong sometimes you're even required to build your entire city on water another question I got from my YouTube community is how did I manage to work on two games at once the answer is I didn't we made Islanders first and only after that did I get serious about making will you snail and you remember that's about the time when I started my daily live streams so no I did not make two games at once and will we add more content to Islanders in the future the answer is maybe we definitely want to but we'd rather not promise anything if you don't like the game the way it is now then please don't buy it if you think you might enjoy Islanders and it's worth five packs you can check it out on Steam the link for that is in the description thank you very much for watching and see you on the next one you [Music]