About one month after announcing Energy Collector I though it would be fitting to take a look at what is going on with the development. Also, I would like to show some of the game's systems in more depth. You can expect similarly structured DevLogs about every 1 - 2 months.

The topics for this DevLog are:

• The Currency System

• WIP for the Tutorial System

• Early Access

Let's get into it!

The simplest and yet the most important part of an idler-game is of course the currency you acquire. The main currency in Energy Collector is energy and there are eight different energy types. There are also a few different token types used for buying specific upgrades but more on that another day.

The game is played on fields in a three-by-three grid and in the center of this grid is a field called The Hub. At The Hub you can buy permanent upgrades for energy. You can think of this as your base of operations. The remaining eight fields is where you collect the eight energy types. The way to collect energy is to place the mouse above an energy:

But as you get deeper into the game you will unlock more convenient ways of collecting energy. Each field has its own storage of energy. But eventually you will have to buy upgrades that cost multiple energies:

This means that you will have to transfer energy between the fields. Collecting energy and transferring them to where you need them is one of the main aspects of the game.

I am currently working on the game's tutorial. Everything is work in progress, but this is very much subject to change. In the current iteration there is a button in the top left which shows you what to do next.

The tutorial is essentially a series of quests which slowly introduces you to the game's system. The tutorial quests do not have any rewards. However, the idea is to convert the tutorial into a quest system once the tutorial is completed. From then on, players can complete quests for various rewards.

Part of working on the tutorial has been to make sure that the game is easily understandable and intuitive. To that end, some of the icons have been made clearer and are now more distinguishable in the UI:

If you want, you can compare this to the current trailer :)

Lastly, I would like to talk about the launch model for the game.

The original idea was to launch Energy Collector when it was completely done and plan for eventual large patches post-launch. However, Early Access games are immensely popular on Steam and there has to be a reason for that. Other than me being able to get feedback, I think players enjoy getting in early in a game's development and seeing it grow. However, I do not want to ship something that feels unfinished. If I do Early Access, then I would ship the game almost completely finished and use the feedback to really make it perfect and work on new features that weren't originally planned for the game.

That is why I am thinking of releasing my game for Early Access. With Early Access, it might be easier to extend the scope of the game and flesh it out with many more systems and features. However, if this is to be done properly, I want to plan for many more features post-early access launch. Essentially a detailed road-map of what's to come. I am currently thinking about constructing such a road-map.

Let me know what you think! Is Early Access something you would like for this game?

There is now an official Discord server for the game: https://discord.gg/62FCUKa5G3
Come hangout and discuss the game!

Make sure to Wishlist Energy Collector today:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2017540/Energy_Collector/