Hey friends!
Been busy working on Snacktorio for the last month of so, and then some family stuff brought things to a halt - but the new demo (the Apéritif!) is very nearly ready!
Tomato Island (Continued)
From the last blog, I had started to work on the Tomato Island levels - I'd say by about mid-September I'd finished them all and had spent some time testing each one.
The overworld design got changed a few times, which helped make me feel like changing to the Tiled system for the overworld wasn't a waste of time after all, as all the tweaks I had to do would of taken far longer in the old system.
The levels themselves were relatively straightforward, as I knew what each level was going to be about and what the challenge was, so it was just a case of deciding a recipe then laying everything out. The more I did the quicker they got to do - I'd say at most they'd take a day for some of the bigger ones.
With all the levels done, I also went and added a small 'Sandbox' level. I wanted to have somewhere where the player could go, unrestrained by resources, and just be able to experiment with different layouts and structures.
This was pretty easy too, as I already had a creative mode (complete with NEI-like spawning menu) that I use during development, so I just added a toggle for it and created a small level with a few basics to get people started.
There's also a new 'eraser' tool that lets you completely remove blocks and liquid, so you can setup nodes however you like for testing purposes.
I also added in 'Second Helpings' which is a level mode where you can come back to a finished level and double all the requirements of ALL orders. This means you then need to massively expand all your existing factories to meet the order.
It's not a mode that's required to beat for every single level, but it's there for people who like that sort of 'expand' challenge - there might be an achievement for doing SOME second helpings, but certainly not ALL.
With that added, I was done with Tomato Island! I had some music and sfx to finish off, a basic controls menu, and a few bugs to get through from general testing, but overall I was feeling happy with the shape of the new demo now - it was time to see what other people made of it!
Playtesting
I put out a call for playtesters mid September, and had probably 50 people submit the form! It took a little while to whittle it down, I wanted a range of people from those who'd never touched factory games to factorio superplayers, vs people who'd never heard of me to apico/mudborne superfans.
I narrowed it down to about 16 people who covered all the main bases and let them loose with the playtest build - and they certainly kept me busy!
It was lovely to finally get some fresh eyes on the game though - the old demo came out in 2023, then Mudborne happened, and then I've just been working in silo on this new version for ages, so you definitely start to second-guess everything.
Overall everyone seemed to have a great time though, and there were some outrageous factories built that were really amazing to see, as it was all stuff I just never would of done!
The playtest carried on for a couple weeks, but it was also the time I had some family stuff happen so I didn't actually get back into things for another few weeks. Around mid-October I took some stock of all the feedback, and bullied all the playtesters into filling out a big form - from there I had some common things suggested that I then added to the new demo.
Feeding Back
Outside of the seemingly endless torrent of bugs, some minor, some major (like resize the window to zoom through the ground and die), there were a few common things that got brought up.
One was that it'd be nice if direction pipes didn't connect with other pipes unless it was that direction - purely a visual thing but definitely helps to make things clearer.
There was also some requests for having the ability to do stuff like copy/paste existing machines, which would then copy them with their settings (i.e. copy a sorter machine and the filter settings are copied too)
I'd recently re-designed the blueprint tool to add in decorative signs, which are small silly signs you can just place down to decorate your factory with. These combined with the display panels should also give enough flexibility for you to visually organise your factories for some of the bigger levels!
While doing so I was thinking maybe it'd be good to have the ability to favourite a machine for quick-access. I ended up taking this, along with a 'recently used' and combined it with the copy paste to make a new design for the blueprint.
By using the copy tool (top left on left side) (or CTRL+C hovering a machine), you can set a copy target, then paste with the paste button (top right on left side).
The bottom left + right on the left are the recently used, and favourite, favourites being able to be set in the menu or by pressing F while hovering a machine.
I also added a new utility machine, called a Switcher, that allows you to toggle on/off wires. This means that for larger factories, you could setup a fabrication area, let it run until you have enough utilities, then turn off that area with a Switcher and save having to make more power than needed (or dismantling existing power for more limited levels)
I also spent a little bit of time redesigning the book chapters to be more like what I did with Mudborne, where each chapter button is now more of a little widget showing more info or a better visual for that chapter. For example the recipe book shows the large detailed dinner icons, the beast book allows you to see the progress of all orders for all beasts.
There was a lot of other small tweaks, too numerous to list them all, but the main thing really was all the playtesters were having fun and there was nothing too annoying stopping them play. With the last tweaks finished up and one final round of testing, I had a finished 1.0.0 demo ready to order!
With this new demo ready to drop, I first wanted to try again in getting some potential publisher interest for the game - I don't want to launch the new demo without more of a fanfare made, so I want to try and find someone to work with first that can then help make a bigger fuss of this new demo, and then help on towards the release next year.
My first choice is Future Friends, who worked with me on Mudborne - but they were busy with a few games (including a small game you probably haven't heard of called CloverPit that recently hit 1mil sales), so I did reach out to a few places.
At the time of writing this I've had a couple responses, but nothing concrete - I also have heard back from FF to have a chat, so fingers crossed! Once I have someone onboard, I'll be dropping the new demo publicly so you can all finally get your mitts on it.
~ Ell