work on big city

this is just a small announcement on my work on the big city. 

a small cafe on the corner of an intersection. it has windows with shutters! the windows are deep, so you can place things on the sills. you can get a small peak at the plan i have for the design of the roads too.

today i thought a lot about my plan for the big city, what i want to include, and how to format the city to make that vision work best. i was given the idea of having a power plant. since the atmosphere of the big city is supposed to be disgustingly industrial, i thought it fit well. i remembered that i had an idea for a subway too, and that both of these ideas wouldn't fit well into the current plan of the city. so now i am rethinking the layout!

i have an idea of how i could include the power plant. maybe the power shuts off at the player's apartment, and you have to go turn it on. however, the player needs to have a reason to leave the city to begin the rest of the game, so i thought that the player could make a choice when they get to the power plant. the player could either turn on the power plant, meaning the player has no reason to leave the city,  or destroying the power plant. this isn't really a logical choice, but i like it because of the symbolism it has. this seems like a cute idea, but i'm having trouble coming up with ways to make this decision affect the rest of the game. the way it stands, it doesn't matter what the player chooses, and one of the choices even leaves no reason for the player to leave their home to play the rest of the game. 

adding in the power plant gives me an excuse to use the subway. i could block away the western subway entrance (talking about the format i already have, detailed in this devlog), and make it so the eastern entrance, unlocked using the bolt-cutters, would take you west underground. i thought the subway could transition into a sewer to vary the environment (straight line subway would be boring) and the sewer would take you right under the power plant. 

if i'm going to add the power plant, i want it to be the last thing the player does in the city, so i would need to bar the player from obtaining the park key until the power plant decision is finished. i could reintroduce the idea of the fire truck blocking the way into the fire department and require the power to be turned on to perhaps refuel the fire truck at a gas station. if the player chose to destroy the power plant, the perhaps a piece of rubble landed on the gas station (close in proximity to the power plant), making a convenient fountain of gasoline. then the player can move it, enter the fire station, get the park key, and gain access to the park. in this scenario, the power plant would take the place of the train station in the northwest section of the city, which i think is okay because i was iffy about adding in that train here anyways. i can add that in another place later!

but now the list of things to do in the city is getting long, and i don't want things to get too crazy, so i'm asking for your input. i am going to show my current idea, based on the content i've talked about in this devlog, in the form of a diagram. please tell me if you think it is too much!

i would need to make minimal changes to the current layout. the only two issues are:

• justifying leaving if the player chooses to repair power plant
• making the decision affect the rest of the game somehow (is this even really an issue?)
• worrying if this is all too much. i don't want it to be like a chore run i mean!

i imagined while brainstorming for the power plant that depending on the choice the player made, the walk from the power plant to the gas station would change. if the player chose to destroy the power plant, the walk back would be filled with trees and plants and birds and such, of course all overlaying the decaying city beneath it. but if the player chose to turn on the power plant, the walk back would be difficult. the player would have to walk over crashed cars, navigate past fallen power lines (possibly now powered?), destroyed buildings, and general rubble to an excessive amount, almost to a nonsensical level, to add emotion to the scene. this walk back would be filled with reflection of all of the things that happened in the big city, as well as hopefully all the symbolism that it held. this reflection would be underlined with the type of walk that the player ended up with because of their choice.

but that's all for now. please tell me your thoughts!

thank you!