rollinghills

Pausing the Patreon

Hey everyone! I wanted to take a moment to let you know I'm pausing our Patreon for the foreseeable future.

I have such enormous appreciation for everyone who supports Rolling Hills, and as a result I don't want any of you paying for sporadic content. To be blunt, when a devlog is lacking or I don't write enough Patreon-only posts in a month, I feel bad!

With that in mind, as we ramp up to our "real" production cycle and things get even busier, I want to take some time to see where the Patreon fits into our routine and how much c...

June Devlog!

With big progress on the life-sim and town side of Rolling Hills in May, June was spent implementing the core restaurant gameplay. That means adding depth to recipes, customers, ingredients, and more. Let's dive in!

Sushi Points and Recipe Stats

I should start by explaining two fundamental additions to our sushi-based gameplay. First, recipes are no longer pre-made, instead you'll create them yourself with o...

May Devlog!

Howdy, everyone! I hope you're staying strong and finding time for yourself. We've had a very busy month, so I'm happy to have this chance to reflect on it.

🗺️ Can You Do Me A Favor?

Nothing makes me feel more like a real game developer than writing QUESTS! These tasks refresh daily and are often written from the perspective of your neighbors, which I think is a nice way to use a common trope in a charming way....

April Devlog!

Look, I don’t need to tell you that it’s been a busy month. The fact that I’m posting April’s devlog in May should tell you all you need to know about that 😅

The good news is that there are really exciting things happening behind-the-scenes on Rolling Hills. The project is growing and evolving every day, and April continued that trend.

🛍️ Thrift Store

Another gorgeous model from 2020-05-01 20:15:43 +0000 UTC View Post

March Devlog!

I doubt you need any reminders about what a crazy month it’s been, so I’ll just say I hope you're taking care of yourself <3 Let’s get started!

🎮 PAX East

I wrote a much more extensive recap of our PAX East experience in this post, but since that was patron-only, I thought I’d mention it here as well. I a...

February Devlog!

Normally I post these devlogs closer to the end of the month, but since we'll be out of the office then, I figured I'd go ahead and update you now. Hmm? Where will we be? Oh, that's right. We're going to...

🎉 PAX East

That's right, the big secret I've been alluding to in my recent posts is that Rolling Hills was accepted to be part of the 2020-02-25 20:44:28 +0000 UTC View Post

January Devlog!

Welcome! I hope 2020 has been good to you so far. We've done our best to hit the ground running this month. We've got an excuse to work extra hard right now as we continue to prepare Rolling Hills for a big, still-unannounced opportunity. It's a really weird and nerve wracking feeling to know that the stars are aligning and all you have to do us uh... make sure you've made a good game.

So yeah, let's get this post finished so I can get back to work!

🏡 My Kind of Town

2020-01-31 14:00:17 +0000 UTC View Post

December Devlog!

Hello again! We're almost on the other side of the holidays, so I hope you've been enjoying time off relaxing with your friends and family. We got some very exciting news shortly before Christmas and although it made us so excited to get back to work on Rolling Hills, we still made an effort to take time off and recharge. So with all that in mind, it's time to hit the ground running in 2020!

Note: I'm going to use a lot of concept art today since we're still in the middle of implementing a lot of these ideas into Rolling Hills! They're...

November Devlog!

Happy Holidays! This devlog is going to be a little different than usual. Instead of our normal bullet points and features, I want to give you an honest look at the current state of Rolling Hills. Rest assured that everything is going according to plan... especially since we started planning!

The theme of this article is twofold: for one, we're more focused than ever thanks to interest from publishers and game conventions. Nothing kicks you into gear like the fear of squandering a great opportunity. Secondly, I want to address how the ...

October Devlog!

Last month I ended our devlog by saying that the current build of Rolling Hills felt like a playground. What I meant was that the experience is fun, but it feels loose. If you read my post The Gameplay History of Rolling Hills, you know that in addition to the aesthetic, story, and cozy vibes, James and I obsess over finding every ounce of fun in Rolling Hills. Our growing suspicion is that the fun is not in one particular system, but in ...

September Devlog!

Another month, another devlog! September was extremely productive as we worked long hours to prepare a version of the game to submit to a popular convention. Though these sprints are tiring and it's important to take care of yourself throughout the process, they are admittedly very helpful in forcing you to cut out all the fat in your designs and get down to what matters. Here we go!

New Sushi Interface

Again!? Unlik...

August Devlog!

August was a busy month for us, and as a result I finally get to show off an early version of the town, our fresh market interior, and character customization. Let's get started!

Welcome To Town!

Disclaimer: we've still got a lot of work to do here, but I hope you enjoy seeing a couple of our exteriors in context! We're also pretty proud of the layout. There's plenty of room for characters to roam, hi...

July Devlog!

Last month I began by musing about how scary big changes can be. This month we're finally seeing the results of those changes, and feeling pretty good about it!

Modular Sushi: It Just Tastes Better!

This is something James has been passionate about for a while now. We worked with our 3D modeler Aender to make each ingredient its own compone...

June Devlog!

To be honest, these were the kind of posts I was afraid of when I launched our Patreon. We made huge changes this month. Changes that will make some of the earlier screenshots and gifs you've seen here totally irrelevant. It's scary to think that some of you may have really liked things as they were, and yet here we go changing them, but from my experience iteration is the name of the game in... games. As someone who loves nothing more than finishing projects, my instinct is "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but this month we had some ideas ...

May Devlog!

Prepare for gifs!

Chop, chop!

One of the first changes we experimented with after returning from ECGC was adding action elements to the sushi crafting game. Now after selecting an ability you get a brief, Paper Mario-esque minigame. Succeed and you'll get a small bonus. Neato! We're still undecided about how these minigames will evolve over the ...

🍣 FAQ 🍣

• What is Rolling Hills? It's a life-sim inspired by games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley with an emphasis on managing your own sushi restaurant. 
• Release date: Soonish
• Platforms: PC for sure and hopefully some consoles, too!
• How can I help? You can become a Patron, Wishlist on 2019-06-07 18:19:04 +0000 UTC View Post

April Devlog!

Sprint to ECGC

Woah, our first devlog! April began with an emphasis on preparing for a local games conference called ECGC. This was our first time showing our own game at a conference, so we were excited/super nervous. We knew we'd only be showing a small slice of the restaurant gameplay, but even to accomplish that we had a lot of work ahead of us. Primarily we needed to finalize many elements of the user interface.

New UI

We worked with the super talented 2019-06-07 17:46:17 +0000 UTC View Post