The big news this time is that I completely upgraded the map. Red Planet Tycoon has always depended on the map feeling worth exploring, and this pass makes Mars feel much closer to the kind of place I want players to build on.
Dried-up rivers and craters
The first new idea is dried-up rivers and craters. These are low areas with crater floor texture on the bottom, surrounded by raised crater rims. It gives the map more structure than just scattered terrain types, and it creates natural-looking paths across the hex grid.
The implementation is very MVP, but it works. I ended up creating two similar crater rim images: one straight piece and one angled piece. By rotating those images, I can make them connect into longer crater banks and dried-up river shapes.
It looks okay for now, but not ideal. The main issue is the shading. Rotating a tile makes the geometry connect, but the lighting direction starts to feel wrong in places. I am fine with that for the MVP because the feature is readable and useful, but I will spend more time later generating better-looking tiles specifically for these cases.
Resource distribution is getting smarter
The other big map change is resource distribution. I added a web tool that lets me inspect stats for how resources are being placed across the map. That made it much easier to tune some special rules instead of guessing from a few random playtests.
The current idea is simple: the farther you go from the center, the more resources you find. The starting area should be understandable and not too overwhelming, while deeper exploration should feel more rewarding. It is still not perfect, but it is looking pretty good for the MVP, and the new tooling means I can keep tweaking the numbers later without turning it into a mystery hunt.
Ancient artifacts now matter
I also changed how ancient artifacts work. This is one of the more exciting lore pieces in the game: players are finding proof that there was a mysterious civilization on Mars.
I have a lot of ideas for where this can go after the MVP. For now, discovering an ancient artifact gives the player a large amount of gold. If they build a base nearby, the artifact also generates passive gold income. It gives the map another kind of prize to find, and it starts hinting at a larger story without needing a huge narrative system yet.
Getting closer to the soft launch
Finally, I added a few new tutorial screens. The game needs to explain itself quickly, especially if I am going to invite new players who have never seen it before.
I am getting ready to do a soft MVP launch through some of my favorite subreddits. That is exciting and a little scary in the best way. The map is more interesting, resources are more balanced, ancient artifacts are more meaningful, and the tutorial is getting closer to being ready for real first-time players.