Update March 2023 [v0.8.5] with Gamepad Support

Hello everyone,

The time has come. From today you can discover your island paradise in a whole new comfortable way. With the gamepad support you can expect a much more intense gameplay and a relaxed experience of the atmosphere from your couch or armchair.

It was a challenge to break down a complex control system to the limited number of buttons on a gamepad. The focus was constantly on the efficiency of the player, “How many buttons do I have to press until menu X”, “Is the control consistent”, “Which button sequences are already known to the player and should be repeated”.

We went through several rounds of feedback, which meant that the modifications ate up at least 1 week of our time. There you had already integrated a control concept and then comes a much better idea for implementation. The time of the development consists also with me to a largest part of thinking how it can be converted.

Gamepad Default Settings Ingame

The result of the gamepad control is perhaps not so simple at first sight. But believe me, once you have built one or the other little paradise, you will get along with it very well. Of course you have the possibility to assign each button individually. We have designed the whole thing for the XBOX controller series. With the multitude of different gamepads that exist, there are certainly other better button assignments for each gamepad type.

Gamepad Default Settings Main Menu

The integration of the gamepad support had of course the disadvantage that almost every menu had to be adapted. For each game situation you had to think about a sensible control. But this was also an advantage, because you could change some structures that are now less error-prone, such as all scroll windows. These have received a fundamentally new architecture and should therefore run more stable.Unfortunately, there is no Steamdeck on my desk at the moment, but that could still change. Until then, I’ll try to implement any feedback from you to make it 100% playable

I am very unsure of how far the Steamdeck supports the browser gamepad API. Therefore, I do not want to give a green light for the Steamdeck for now. You may have to make settings on the Steamdeck to recognize the buttons in the browser gamepad API. Steamdeck owners should possibly know this, I do not.What I do know is that from Valve it has been confirmed that Summer Islands is playable on the Steamdeck with Proton support.

Other new features include the advisor information overview for each level AND the half speed button, as well as other bug fixes:

Have fun

https://trello.com/b/FbC1a19w/devboard-summer-islands

FEATURES

  • Added Mainmenu Gamepad Support
  • Added Ingame Gamepad Support
  • Added Half-Speed-Button
  • Added Consulting Info Tooltip

USABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

  • FIX Bot Counter in New Game Menu#
  • FIX Starmenu Scrolling
  • FIX Storyvideo adjusted to total volume
  • FIX Victory Scrollmenu
  • FIX Resort Scrollmenu
  • FIX Mouseover Building Menu Position
  • FIX Terraforming also shows terrain at red fields