Hello! It's Caleb, developer of Harwell. I decided to write a part two to my last development showcase, Building Modifiers. I've made some improvements and added some polish so this one is going to be much less technical and much more screenshot-ey.
I've reworked and improved how modifiers are displayed in-game. As well as polishing the tooltip when placing buildings, the modifiers now show in the tooltips for construction buttons automatically, and also show in the building tooltips when you hover over a building (showing both the modifier, a description, and its effect).
In terms of modding, the only thing that would need creating in order to support the tooltips is localisation. It automatically adjusts the tooltips based on the JSON files for the modifiers - after all, the work in the base game exactly how they'd work for a mod. Easy. Simple.
Example Tooltip
Example of how it appears when placing buildings
Example of a building tooltip for a building on the map. Design still needs some work for this one!
The latest addition is some slight adjustments to the Wind Turbine modifier so it now receives penalties for being close to other buildings as well as mountains.
In addition to this, I have also added in a new modifier: logistics. The logistics modifier encourages players to place buildings closer to their HQ, and expand outwards from there. The modifier applies -2% output for each tile between a building and the HQ, with the modifier being removed if the game can find a path through buildings (so you can chain buildings to the HQ). This means that rather than being spread out across the map, you have to carefully consider where to place the HQ in relation to map resources and location. You also have to consider placement when expanding outwards, the modifier rewards placing buildings closer to the HQ - placing buildings further away increases the logistical cost of production!
The JSON file for the logistics modifier
I've also added slightly more options in terms of modding - you can now target all buildings except the HQ for modifiers in case you want to apply something similar to the logistics modifier. As the game expands, I hope to increase the amount of potential from modding. When the game is released, I also plan to fully co-operate with modders and implement whatever modding features I can (to the best of my ability) to help you achieve what you're trying to build.
Whilst adjusting the tooltips to fit the new modifiers, I've also applied some fixes and improvements. Previously, at least in the debug version in the engine, moving the cursor across the buttons very quickly would cause a crash due to the game not properly freeing up the tooltips when finished with. Now, the tooltips should cause considerably less crashing and performance issues whilst still grabbing live data when created.
That's all for now, folks! Follow the Steam community page to get notified of these updates as they come out, there'll be more interesting things being implemented soon!
All the best for 2026!
Caleb