Making Mayor On The Run: Part II

I like experimenting with new things for game jams, and so for Mayor On The Run, I decided to go for a system where the village undergoes a significant transformation, with new buildings and decor appearing as time goes on.* This took some planning and keeping track of where the buildings had to go - in general, I find it easier to draw out the "final" map first (with all the fancy stuff), then copy that and remove items and add rubble and such to make the "original" map.

Another feature I wanted to implement was a furniture placement system. Since the player has to make the villagers happy by buying furniture for them, I thought players might want to place the furniture too and decorate the home. So I spent several days writing the code for this (which you can see in action above) - you could buy different furniture, and place it wherever you wanted as long as it was within the boundaries of the room, and not overlapping with or obstructing other objects.

But when I playtested it, placing furniture felt very tedious, especially if one had to do it multiple times! And since it was the TYPE of furniture that mattered for the villagers' happiness, not its location, the whole thing did not feel necessary. So I ditched it for the most part (in the current version of the game, the only furniture the player gets to place is the bed), and spent a couple days streamlining things.

Which led to the screen below, where there are 5 categories of furniture, and each villager likes certain types of furniture, so their happiness increases more if you buy them what they want. (Needless to say, some villagers are extraordinarily picky and only want the expensive stuff!) The furniture is placed instantly in the villagers' homes, and new furniture is unlocked as you spend money.

If I do expand on this game (not sure yet if I will, since I'm working on something else at the moment), I might give the player more furniture or decor to add to the player's room, with the freedom to place it.

*If you use RPG Maker and are interested in the nitty-gritty details, some of these changes were through event changes, and some of them were done with Shaz's Tile Changer plugin, which I adapted for MZ.