City-building strategy game in development - Ostriv

Hey there! My name is Yevheniy and I am developing a city-building game named Ostriv, in which you build and manage cities in late pre-industrial era. The events take place on a fictional island, where the player despite all troubles has to build a prospering state.
The gameplay is somewhat similar to classical city-building games: you plan the buildings placement and fulfill the needs of constantly growing town, make decisions about agriculture, production an trade. Although Ostriv has some unique features to stand out from the genre (sure it has):

– detailed economic simulation and human behavior
There’s a strong emphasis on interaction with your citizens. People in game act like people: they have their own motivation, needs and skills. Citizens will take jobs only if they are satisfied with them (or they are desperate). They can sell goods and services to each other on the local market. Wealthy citizens could start their own business in your town and hire other people. You will need to influence your city by means of setting prices, taxes and various policies. Each decision will certainly lead to some reaction of the society.

- trade
You can conduct negotiations with other cities to conclude the most profitable trade agreement. Explore nearby cities by sending messengers to find more import and export possibilities.

– transport
For more effective resource transportation inside the town or for outer trade you will need vehicles. Wagons, fishing boats and wheelbarrows could be built by a local carpenter or to be bought from outside.
The breeding of draft horses and oxen is also required to move resources as well as for cultivation of fields.

– unrestricted building placement
There’s no any kind of grid or angle restriction for placing buildings. Any building could be placed on any angle. Building on slopes is also available.

– roads modeling

Dirt roads are formed in a natural way at places, where people move the most. You can build paved roads for more comfort and better aesthetics, but they’ll be used only in case of reasonable placement.

– dynamic seasons change

– a unique visual style inspired by Ukrainian architecture and way of life

Would really like to hear your thoughts and/or suggestions about my game!

official website: http://ostrivgame.com

Ostriv is now on Steam Greenlight

If you like my game, give it a like on Facebook and follow it on Twitter. You can also subscribe to my subreddit: /r/OstrivGame/! Thanks!

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A year is coming to the end so I decided to review all the years of the development.
See the full article at: http://ostrivgame.com/three-years-summary/

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I have set this to follow on Steam… hope to see your success, looks quite interesting.

Throwing in my 2 cents - cuz that what i like to do… - do try and find a way to differentiate yourself from Life is Feudal:Forest Village. LiF:FV is looking like a remake of Banished to a greater extent, So if you can showcase your “mayor of the Sims” aspect, and not just imply it against a back drop of the visual game output, then you could do well against what might be one of your competitors for gaming $$$.

But then again, who am i kidding… if both games are half decent I will probably get both.

Good luck and hats off to you sir for this great undertaking, I hope this pays off well for you!

The thing is I’m not trying to make another copy of Banished. It was definitely the source of inspiration, but wasn’t my design document. Which I can’t say about the guys behind Forest Village, who didn’t even care to design their own UI. It wouldn’t be that bad if they could stop constantly denying that fact and stop saying that “Banished was also a copy” pissing off their main target audience.

It may not yet be so obvious from the screenshots and description, but Ostriv offers quite a unique experience, because it reflects my own vision on simulating the city and already at this stage of development has features no any other game have.

So the only competition I have to struggle is for the attention of potential players, which gets harder each year because of constantly growing amount of games competing for it. Even harder when you got no 10M$ budget for marketing:)

p.s. Thanks for your support!

Ostriv development news: Advanced farming and customizable buildings
Talking about some new gameplay decisions and new features added to the game in last couple of weeks

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Dynamically changing seasons video demo

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Hey, guys! I need your support! Ostriv is now on Steam Greenlight

Hey there! As the release of first public alpha is approaching, you can now pre-order Ostriv to support the development and make sure you don’t waste money on anything else before the release:) Also check out the updated gallery:
https://ostrivgame.com/