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Kennel Construction

This week I’m showing off the early stages of a feature we have been excited about for a long time, and that’s Kennel Construction! After you finish the introductory portion of the game, where you’ve been playing both in your garage and in a temporary shelter space, you’ll move to the newly finished city shelter! Only… It’s not so finished.

The city ran out of funding before they could totally finish the shelter, so you will need to expand it as you go. The basics are there. A lobby and show kennels to facilitate adoptions, a medical room to treat the dogs, and a utility room for supplies. But there is no where for the dogs to stay long term!

Therefore, the first order of business will usually be to build enough kennels to house all the dogs that you arrived with, as well as enough space to handle the next few new arrivals. But what kind of kennels to build?

Kinds of Kennels

This is where it starts to get interesting. There are 4 kennel layouts available to build and each one has a different capacity, a different footprint, or a different cost. The 1×1 Kennel is the most basic version. It’s the cheapest, but only holds 1 dog. The 2×1 and 1×2 Kennels cost 50% more than the 1×1 Kennel but hold 2 dogs. And finally, the 2×2 Kennel holds 4 dogs and costs twice as much as the 1×1 Kennel.

That may make it seem like bigger is better. But there is a fixed space to build in so, tiling the different kennels together to support all the dogs in your shelter and staying under budget quickly becomes a challenge. In addition, each of your dogs have their own preferences and personalities and may not get along in the same kennel together, not to mention their food preferences should match up.

And all of these factors are why we are so excited about this feature. It emphasizes a core element of the game, the uniqueness and personality of each dog, while providing players options to meet the challenges of caring for them. These factors will also ripple out in some of the hardest decisions in the game. When you’re overcrowded or under funded, space becomes a critical element to consider, and one that players have some measure of control. Maybe they will realize they can reorganize the shelter a bit to make room or that they can sell some extra kennels in a tight spot to make it to tomorrow.

What’s Ahead?

Now that we have the most basic implementation, we can start to improve the mechanic based on what works! The first item on that list is to improve the editor.

There are two aspects of the editor that are priorities for improvement. First is the build window. We need to streamline the process for representing the shelter layout so the player understands where they are building a kennel. The second is utilities to support upgrades to individual kennels. The player will be able to build improved versions of kennels or add special improvements to different parts of the shelter.

Takeaways

This time, I think the takeaway is that the best mechanics are ones that reinforce and build upon the existing mechanics. Part of what we’ve been doing with our refactoring is reconsidering what the core loop of the game is and how we can emphasize the parts of the game that work the best. The main reason that anyone is going to be interested in To The Rescue is likely to the be the dogs.

They are our central mechanic. The player should care about individual dogs, enjoy watching them interact, and want to save them. An adoption isn’t exciting if you aren’t happy for the dog, and the euthanasia doesn’t matter if the player doesn’t fell like the dogs are sympathetic and realistic.

Kennel construction reinforces this in spades and it gives the player more agency, which has been a concern of ours for a while. Development time and resources are limited, so identifying important central and supporting mechanics and boosting them is important.

What kinds of upgrades and options would you like to see in the Kennel Construction mechanic?

-Tanner