Developer posts and news about this game.
It's funny, while working through the Alchemists Journal feature and finding all the ways I want to teach lessons inside the game, many of the nice-to-have features have bubbled to the surface as features worth chasing. Many of these requests have been sitting around for over a y
I have been talking about this feature for literally a year, and today is finally the day to put it in the game. MoteMancer has many unique rules and behavior and systems, and just a lot to learn in general, so naturally one of the things the game needs is a little bit of a guide
When I was at school for computer animation, we had a saying - "Is it enough to fool the bartender?" The thing about graphics in general is you can spend almost an infinite amount of time making something better and at some point you must surrender your art to your audience. Alon
As I've been looking through the toolbox for ways to bring buildings to life, one nagging problem has remained unsolved: particle interactions with portals. MoteMancer's solution to Portals is not super common among games. That brings the benefit of being a novel effect to many p
Thank you for all the suggestions and reports. Many of these improvements came directly from forum posts and in-game F1 feedback. Thank you for helping make MoteMancer better! v0.5.060 Bunch of QoL requests filled Quality of Life Inactive research now sorts lower than research th
When I first implemented underground belts, I made them a fixed length of three underground spaces because it was easier while I was still figuring out conveyor belt code in general. Over time, though, I realized the fixed length had a number of advantages that were worth preserv
Even though Art is the focus, there's still room to slip some quality of life and bug fixes in :) v0.5.044 Quality of Life Blueprints now support horizontal mirroring with H. This is rebind-able but not present in the blueprint window yet, it needs a bit of an overhaul. In-game w
Happy glorious Monday! First, a huge thank you to everyone that's been playing the Attunement Update and sending in bugs and suggestions. Today I wanted to celebrate some of the discoveries from the last few weeks and share some fun bug stories in case you missed them. Nuclear La
Thanks for the bug reports and suggestions! Hotfix v0.5.025 Torrential Streamway structures tick twice as often to solve mixed-streamway-chain compression. This could be a slight perf hit for Torrential-heavy bases, but still probably negligible in the scene as a whole. Ascendant
Greetings MoteMancers! If the last update shook the foundations of the elemental planes, this update is poised to hone and refine your alchemical journey. The Attunement Update brings character customization, major performance improvements, achievements, power system refinements,
I've always been a super math nerd, especially when it comes to color math. I used to say "Math is my paintbrush". While working as an FX artist I used math to shape and sculpt procedural textures like clouds or fire or water to great effect. And so this week while creating the c
When I teach design, I often reference Quantic Foundry's Gamer Motivation Model , because it is one of the most concise images I know of. I play tons of games in just as many genres, but Completion is definitely one of my primary motivators. I want to see everything a game has to
Happy Monday! I'm still knee-deep in tutorialization and performance, but I thought today it would be fun to talk about how MoteMancer fell into using both 2D and 3D pipelines simultaneously, and the opportunities it ended up providing. There are definitely both upsides and downs
Greetings Mancers! Experimental has been pretty stable, so the updates to help performance are being rolled into the live game. There are more coming, but it's a good break point to migrate what's working well into the main build. There's also a fix for old saves having rare odd
Happy Monday! Many players have been asking about MoteMancer's specific plans for performance improvements, I'm happy to say the current Experimental branch is live with the opening salvo. No plan survives contact with practical reality, and MoteMancer has had quite a journey in
The Experimental branch is now live with a series of performance improvements implemented. Many of these came with significant refactors of existing systems. If you'd like to test your game in experimental, the transfer should be safe and backwards compatible, nothing about savin
I spent some time recently just watching players hit the opening of the game and reading feedback about early experiences, and it’s been illuminating. Nothing is fundamentally broken, but players are getting in their own way, and that’s on me. So rather than layering more on top,
Polish and Behavior * Inventory items will now highlight contextually depending on the active structure window. * All structure and research progress bars have new elemental art. * Timers and %'s are shown as well on progress bars. * Collectors now upgrade speed by .25 intervals
There are so many places to add FX and polish, and this week I found myself drawn to the unassuming progress bar. It’s a great warmup before tackling heavier pieces, and it’s always worth adding a bit of delight wherever you can. These bars use a technique I like to call frequenc
Polish & QoL * Tutorial games now only allow Twinseed, World Veins, and Ancient Spindles (this change is to lower complexity for first-time players). * Tutorial ? helpers now only show on the currently active step if available. * Pipette now contextually grabs the correct run