Hi, I'm Patrick, a solo game developer from Germany and now I'm working on my first commercial game Townframe.
It's a small town maker puzzle game where you recreate town's from peoples memories.

How the game works:
In the game you got a lot of different windows of different towns and from each town is a person from (the picture below is an example).
These people gives you the request to recreate a town how they are describe it. These requests are formed as riddles you have to solve.
You have different tools you can use to solve these puzzle. At the start of the game you just have a town generator tool and your mouse which you use to change the buidlings. If you solve a riddle you get a coin which you can use to get new tools which allow you to discover even more hidden things in these towns.

Other tools in the game will be for example a wind tool which allows you to change the direction of the clouds and speed of other things.
(I don't want to go too deep into the tools because they are part of the puzzles)

But all your tools are working in every townframe. So you can even explore hidden things in towns where the riddles are already solved.
I just want to make a puzzle game where the puzzle places are not thrown away after you solve them. So these places gives you some more deep insign after you got more tools. It's kinda like a metroidvania.

(early concept art)

The current state of the game:
At the moment the basic gameplay of the game is working.
That means:

•  you can generate a town at once
•  you can click on each building and create a new one randomly (maybe you will have later an option to create the buildings in order)
•  you can solve a basic puzzle, get a coin and buy a new tool
•  you can make screenshots (yup, that's probably one of the tools)
•  you can close the game & change some settings like fullscreen on/off

What the final game will have:
I want to "finish" the game in the next 2 -3 months. So I want to keep it small but very polished. Polishing time could also be a few extra weeks.
At the end you will probably have at least 10 - 15 different frame puzzles you can solve.
Some of them will be harder than others and some of them will be easy.
I want to design the game in a way that you can complete the "main" game and still have the option to make one of the harder puzzles too.
The language of the game will be in english. Maybe german too, because that's my mother tongue. Other languages would be nice but at the moment I don't have the resources for more translations. Could also be something that can happen in the future.

Where will the game be available:
The game will be comming to itch.io and steam.
At the moment I don't intend to release it on consoles. But who knows what comes in the future.
I also have a steam page. If you want to support the project you can wishlist it there:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1927150/Townframe/?utm_source=itchdevlog
Every wishlist helps.

And that's it for now.
I will continue this devlog in the next few weeks. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to put them down here.
:)

Here are some other mockups for the game. I'm currently working on the implementation of the worlds, characters, UI elements and of course the puzzles.
All of the visuals could change if I see a need for it. At the moment I just want to have all of the concepts in the game to test them and then I decite if I want to change something or not.

And yes, these are the same screenshots as on the steam page. I update all of this later when the game visuals are finalized.

Update - Wind Maker Tool

The windmaker tool is one of the big tools which is now full implemented. It makes a lot of fun just to play around with this thing.
And I'm also a bit proud of myself because I wrote for the trees and grass my own animation system that just takes images and set them visible at specific times.
Anyway, during the whole process of making this tool I had a lot of cool puzzle ideas which I can now try out. 
I will  work on some of them now and then I will probably continue to work on the other townframe puzzle tools.
There are still 3 left to implement.

Update - Description, Mouse & Wind Slider

I've added a little description text for each UI Button, including for the tools. I hope that this makes the game more accessible and you understand what you can do in the game just by watching it, even if you "do" nothing in the game. I hope that makes sense. :)

Update - Photograph Tool

That's the photograph tool.
You can now make resizable screenshots of your towns which will become also part of the puzzles. The screenshsots will be saved to the file where the game is inside.

I'm also thinking about to create a kind of ingame photo album with all your shooted town pictures. But I won't try to implement this now. I will probably do this later when I'm far enough with all the other important things.

Update - Thoughts about the release date

I thought very deep this morning about how big the game should be.
I'm still working on the mechanical parts of the game and haven't put that much content in the form of puzzles into the game yet.
So I put a restriction on myself.

One month!

What I have after a month, I will polish as best as I can. And that's how big the "main game" will be.
And if there are some cool puzzles left and I have the time, I'll add them to the game as well.

I think this will also help me find a release date that is still in my budget.

Update - Inspector Tool

I have finished the work on the inspector tool.
It's basically a giant magnifying glass that allows you to discover hidden things in the towns if certain conditions are met.
These conditions depending on the puzzles the people will give you. Some hidden things are part of your puzzle solution and some will be completly optional.



I'm also started to update a little bit the steampage. There is still no gameplay trailer but I will maybe make some to the end of this month.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1927150/Townframe/?utm_source=itchdevlog

Thinking - about World Map

I'm thinking of adding a map to the game. At the moment you can switch between townframes by using the arrows left and right near the frame. But It gives you not so much context about how do you get to the frames and why you can switch to them. So I think a map would gives you a much deeper connection to the way you get to the townframes.
"You are a townframer and you travel through the world and solve town riddles by people" <- sounds cool and gives also a touch of exploration because you unlock new lands to travel by solving puzzles.

Update - World Map

I worked on the world map this week. The transition to the next city is still a bit unspectacular, but I can improve that next week.

Update - World Map (part 2)

I improved a bit the transition when you choosing the townframes.

I'm also thinking about adding walk lines on the map between the towns. Would be cool to see where you started and in which order you solved the puzzles.
But it could also be an unnecessary feature. So I add this idea to my "If I have time left I will do this"-list.

General Update

Hey everyone. :)
I'm back to continue the development of Townframe.
I had taken a month off for traveling and other things.
So let me inform you how the progress of the game is so far.

The game is in a very advanced state so there are some things that are also finished now, like: 

- 60% of the puzzles
- the shopsystem - all tools (they were very time consuming ... uff)
- the worldmap - the most of the sounds - the feedback (juiciness)
- all puzzle ideas

Things wich are still in work are:

- 40% of the puzzles in coding and art
- some character designs
- the tutorial (I have a functional one that is still not perfect)
- the startscreen - the options menu
- the help/about menu
- some sounds
- and saving (very important)

In this month I want to get done with all the puzzles in the game, towndesigns and characters.
I think that's realistically achievable.

And here is the game's steam page
-> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1927150/Townframe/?utm_source=itchdevlog
(the game will be on itch later too)

Update -  Background Themes

I tested today  some gentle background themes for Townframe.
The current blank background seems a bit boring to me. Maybe it's just because I've been looking at it for months ...

I also noticed from the gif that an animated background would also be something nice.
Maybe there should also be an option to turn it off.

But for now I'm saving these possible backgrounds for later, because I have to finish the remaining puzzles at first! :D

Update - Puzzles

A new week, a new thing.

I made a few more puzzles this week, like this one called "The Rainforest". It has a little frog that you can find with the inspector tool.

And I didn't reached my goal of completing all the levels by the end of the month, BUT that's not so bad, because now there are only 3 left that I want to complete in the next week(s)

Exhibition of Townframe  (Caggtus 2023)

Hi everyone, this month I exhibited Townframe on the Caggtus in Leipzig (Germany). It was also the first time that it was played in public,
so that was very cool and I learned alot how people want to play the game and what I need to improve.
I made a little video about the whole experience. Have fun and enjoy my poor english. :)