Hello everyone!
Yesterday, we released Alpha 6 for the Steam Next Fest. To celebrate the occasion, we also made a new Trailer!
If you've been following the game lately, you know that for the past 3 months we've been releasing updates every week to playtesters already. InfraSpace has come far during that time, so I wanted to take a moment to summarize some of the biggest changes.
New road models, bridges, left turns, one way roads
At it's core, InfraSpace is about city building and transport management. Back in Alpha 5.0 cars couldn't even do left turns to move into or out of buildings. Now, cars do a much better job finding their way through your city and you can use one way roads to guide traffic how you see fit.
Now that cities can get large enough that traffic actually becomes an issue, we're looking forward to adding more tools for you to get it under control :D
Power System
The first prototype of the power system only took a week to implement and it has turned out to complement the existing gameplay very well! You can choose between 3 different power sources with different pros and cons and need to make sure your city gets the energy it needs.
Upgrades, larger research tree, different city levels
In order to add some more flavor to the gameplay instead of just "unlock the next level", we added a bunch of upgrades, like the recycling plant, the soil enrichment facility, industrial robots, larger mines, and so on. Most of these upgrades come into play mid- to late-game and can be useful to make your city easier to provide for.
UI Overhaul
At first, playtesters had to be brave to even touch InfraSpace - the UI was hard to learn and some might even call it ugly :D
Once we released the new UI, people have adapted to it quickly, and I think it's correct to say that the act of playing it is just more enjoyable now.
Loads of new building models
During all the gameplay improvements, we've also kept upgrading our test-art into a more and more mature look for the game. Each week, some new models are being replaced and the look of InfraSpace is slowly evolving.
Multithreading and performance improvements
We invested some time laying a good foundation for the traffic simulation. Now, simulating thousands or even tens of thousands of vehicles is no problem anymore and simulation performance is more than enough for the cities players build currently. But who knows - maybe we can go even larger...?
All the other stuff
Of course there have been tons of other changes. Hundreds of bugfixes, quality of life changes, and visual improvements are too many to list here, but often it's these small things that are essential for you to be able to enjoy the game and not get annoyed by little issues here and there. Please keep reporting any issues you find and we'll be sure to integrate as many improvements as we can :)
The Future
InfraSpace has grown into an exciting project for us and we have tons of ideas to extend the game before we release it officially. As always, we're not promising any specific feature, but at the moment we're thinking about adding more tools for traffic management and we're also experimenting with the look of large late-game cities.
I'd like to thank everyone who's been with us during the past few months, continually playtesting the game and providing feedback. We're planning to keep up our weekly update cycle, so please, keep the feedback coming!
Happy playing!
