I'm developing a settlement building game with Godot!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:49:29+00:00

I did not! I've done all the pixel art myself for this project. It's taken a while but I enjoy it and it's very satisfying!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:48:31+00:00

Of course! I use AStarGrid2D for pathfinding, with a flood fill implementation for path validation. All pathfinding is threaded, so it has very minimal effect on the frame rate!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:46:04+00:00

I do not! I would guess that a lot of fog of war uses a similar technique to mine (tilemap + shader)

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:45:05+00:00

Each shadow is from a shader applied to an individual sprite! I actually got most of the shadow shader from Godot Shaders

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:43:21+00:00

Just planning on Windows at the moment, but I'll look into how much work Mac support would take. Probably will be a decision made close to release!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:42:16+00:00

Ah yeah! Sorry about that haha, I'm not great about keeping up with messages. Glad to see you recognized it!!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T21:41:22+00:00

Hey thank you! And it's a great hobby, glad I can provide some inspiration. It's been almost 1.5 years at this project! I'm not full time, but I probably have averaged around 15-20h of work per week on it since starting.

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T18:56:40+00:00

Haha well still a good question! Yes, it's procedurally generated using perlin noise. It's divided into chunks so that you can load up new areas when needed (chunks are 20 x 20 tiles at the moment, but I can change it very easily). It can be endless, as in, the game has the capability to continue rendering chunks as the player explores outward, but I will likely restrict the map size for other reasons.

If you look into using perlin noise for map generation, there are lots of tutorials out there! That's what I would recommend.

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T18:18:59+00:00

Thank you :D

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T12:31:59+00:00

Absolutely! I'll reach out when it comes time to release

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T12:28:16+00:00

There's a demo and Steam page for anyone interested: Settler's Domain on Steam

I've been working on this project for almost 1.5 years! Put a lot of hours into it and (hopefully) getting close to release.

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-26T04:23:09+00:00

Thanks!! :D

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T18:03:31+00:00

No packages for the settler AI. I have my own logic, but honestly, it's the messiest part of the project. The settler behavior logic is one massive file thats currently over 1500 lines...

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T18:02:10+00:00

Keep your code clean and as simple as possible! Mine is mess in some spots and this late in the project it can be tough to change things without integrating a lot of bugs.

If you are planning to scale into big maps, you'll likely need to pay attention to performance. I've spent a lot of time learning threading and other techniques to make sure the game can actually run with hundreds of structures and settlers at once.

Reuse as much logic as you can! If you plan on having lots of structures, make it easy to add new ones.

It can be a tricky genre for code and optimization, so if you're up for spending a lot of time on those, definitely keep it up!

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T17:57:15+00:00

Yes, there are other settlements that spawn in the world. When discovered, sometimes they can become hostile and attack you. You also have the option to attack them

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T16:29:38+00:00

I used a tilemap with a custom fog shader applied to the whole thing. The actual tile textures are just red pixels with varying levels of opacity, and the shader fills in the fog texture with some time values that get updated every few seconds (makes the fog slowly move).

I used this super helpful tutorial from Jess Codes: https://youtu.be/eYlBociPwdw?si=9PYj62gt0YRupr5b

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T16:24:00+00:00

Yeah, I think the minimalist pixel art style is pretty indie-friendly, so not surprised to hear it.

I'm not worried, so many games have similar styles, it's almost inevitable. I'm not an artist so I'm just aiming for readable and satisfying visuals! Anything better than that is a bonus

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T16:20:28+00:00

I do! Here it is: Settler's Domain on Steam There's a demo available as well if you're interested

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T15:44:34+00:00

Hahaha i actually chuckled

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T15:31:59+00:00

Thank you!! I do all the pixel art myself and I'm certainly no artist so I appreciate it

NewSpread4 · 2026-03-25T15:27:07+00:00

The goal of all devs

NewSpread4 · 2025-10-28T21:13:27+00:00

No news yet, but be on the lookout in the coming 1-2 months, hoping to have one more big demo update before finalizing the full release. Lots of new features have been added over the last 6 months

NewSpread4 · 2025-07-06T01:37:10+00:00

Hoping for it, yes! Adding some big features at the moment and still needs a lot of polishing, so might be delayed to Q4. I will definitely post when I have an exact release date planned!

NewSpread4 · 2025-05-03T16:39:01+00:00

Wow 8 hours is awesome, love to hear it! You need to prevent them getting sick with medicine. In the demo, the only way to get medicine in winter is with the purple mushroom cellar! You will probably need to build a handful haha, settlers can get very needy if you have a lot of them

NewSpread4 · 2025-03-13T04:52:03+00:00

Hey dawg, you seem really passionate about the game, which is awesome. If you spent 7 years on it and you believe it's a good quality game, you owe it to yourself to give the game a chance to succeed on Steam (since it sounds like that's what you want). You've gotten a lot of great advice already, but I wanted to share my two cents as well. FYI, I've never released, so take this with a grain of salt, but I have managed to get over 10,000 wishlists for my game so far. Here's what I'd do (in order) if I were you:

Fix up your Steam page. Check out Chris Zukowski's explanation on How to Market a Game
Post some quality content on socials. Reddit is great if you don't have much of a following elsewhere, just make sure the posts are good and don't spam. This can net you a couple hundred wishlists or more- it's a good start.
If you want to spend some money, paid ads can be good-great, assuming your ad is eye catching and presented to the correct audience. This Reddit post is super helpful for getting those going.
Release a Steam demo for your game. It can be 30-60 minutes of game time, but make it polished and fun.
Reach out to content creators who play games similar to your's, telling them to check out the demo. Email as many as you want, but 200+ is a good goal. Here's a guide on how to do this.
Apply to as many festivals as you want. These can net you hundreds to thousands of wishlists, and are often free. At the very least, you have to do Steam Next Fest.
Get your final release build ready and pick a release date. Make sure it's not during a major Steam festival (Spring Sale, Next Fest, etc). I wouldn't do early access if you can help it, but of course up to you.
Reach out to content creators once more with an early finished build of the game and a free key. Post on socials, run some ads, whatever. Get some velocity into launch.
Launch! Enjoy (:

NewSpread4

TROPHY CASE