Hi everybody! We were not around here for a while so we could develop more technical systems for the game and now we are back with a big update!
Before going deeply over all new stuff let me give you a recap.
THE CAMERA AND CONTROL SCHEMES ARE FINALLY UPDATED!
Now you can select one of 3 control schemes for the camera -one being the old one- depending on which you like best. Since we changed the schemes we also changed the camera from orthographic to perspective, this can lead to more interesting angles and scenes. Also your top-down camera’s angle aligns with your normal camera angle now!
CHILL MODE IS HERE!
You don’t want lots to think about? That’s cool. That’s… chill. Bigger radiuses for all requirement buildings, a dump at the start of the game and less chaotic buildings are all in chill mode waiting for you.
WINTER IS COMING!
You will realize that it snows quite a lot in the main menu. Also there is a new winter themed music! Enjoy.
BUILDING BEHAVIORS ARE (MOSTLY) FIXED!
We know you’ve had at least one time where a building didn’t do what it should. Well, nearly all of the building behavior problems are fixed. For an example now the dump has its isolated effect so you can keep your buildings for the next rounds.
But please keep in mind that we still need to work on more complex building behaviors like balcony or tent.
MORE QoL, FEEL AND CLARITY UPDATES!
It’s not a Pile Up! update without these. Now you have;
- You can choose tondisable building columns now.
- Lot’s of new and reworked sound effects. SO PUMP UP THE VOLUME.
- Changed colors for the day loop to help you see better while playing.
- A “disable interactions” button for the sandbox.
- New visual effects to improve clarity.
- More QoL changes!
A NEW STATE OF THE GAME POST WILL DROP THIS WEEK!
If you want to take a peak for our future plans, just check the state of the game post we’ll release this week.
Also keep an eye out for a special announcement!
Now let’s get into detail for those who are curious!
THE CAMERA:
- Changed the camera rendering from Orthographic to Perspective and edited certain parts of the game to fit this rendering style.
- With the rendering style update, zooming now "zooms in" the camera instead of reducing the orthographic size, which can create more interesting camera angles.
- The camera also has angular bounds now.
- The vertical camera bounds now change with your city's height. So from now on, you need to build higher if you want to see higher.
- Top Down camera now aligns to your camera direction.
2 New Control Schemes
Axis Cam (Classic)
- It is the camera control scheme in the older versions of the game
- Left Click -> Rotate the camera around target on X axis / Move the camera vertically.
- Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera on X/Z plane
- WASD -> Same as left click
Orbital Cam (New)
- It is our first new scheme. It is mostly same other than the fact that you can do 3d orbital rotation with right click
- Left Click -> Rotate the camera around target on X axis / Move the camera vertically.
- Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera on X/Z plane
- Right Click -> Rotate the cam around the center orbitally.
- WASD -> Same as the middle button.
Panned Orbital Cam (2. New)
- The concept is the same but the drag movement is related to the camera direction. So you can move related to the screen instead of the world.
- Left Click -> Rotate the cam around the center orbitally.
- Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera, related to the screen.
- Right Click -> Drag the center of the camera, related to the screen.
- WASD -> Same as the middle button/right click.
Key binding for all of these control schemes will come in future updates.
CHILL MODE:
- You start each game with a dump in your hand.
- Completing each island needs less population.
- You get way less action and special buildings.
- You can pass any action factory or special building selections. If you pass an action factory selection you get a factoling, if you pass a special building selection you get a house factory.
- Requirement buildings’ provide radiuses are 2.5 units bigger and danger radiuses -like explosive or igniting- are 0.6 units smaller in chill mode.
- Chill mode will be available for every island you’ve unlocked.
- Completing an island in normal mode will unlock the next island’s both normal and chill mode but completing an island in chill mode will only unlock the next island’s chill mode. So you need to also complete the normal mode if you want to play the next island’s normal mode.
- Chill mode gives less scraps than normal mode in comparison.
WINTER IS COMING:
A new main menu with winter themes and music is waiting for you to launch the game!
BUILDING BEHAVIOR FIXES:
- Now action and support factory models are different.
- House Factory: Pools are changed.
- Hotel: Gives the right amount of population now.
- Dump: Isolated effect now works. So if you don’t place any buildings next to the last dump you’ve placed, the passed buildings will stay with you.
- Satellite: A little cooldown problem has been fixed.
- Satellite: Now gives Night Club rather than A Platform.
- Terrace: You will be able to place this on top of *any* roof building. But we are still working on it because it’s quite tricky to do. We just wanted to give a heads up.
- Fixed the problem which some buildings give 1 population.
- Coffin: Fixed a behavior issue where Coffin forgives a percantage of all of the deaths rather than forgiving a percantage of deaths that itself has caused.
- Coffin: Now forgives at the end of the countdown rather than each turn bit by bit. Just like how it should.
- Hospital: In-game death and forgive numbers were different than the building text so we fixed the in-game numbers. Now the numbers should be same all across the building description and in-game variables.
- Industry: Is explosive now. This was the intended while designing this building. Please note that we are still experimenting with this building and may change the effect in the future.
- Production Line: Fixed an issue when sometimes the support didn’t make the factories work faster.
- Cinema: Now with each level the count of needed factories drained to give a factoling gets reduced rather than increasing the given factoling count.
- Court: Fixed a bug where the building was giving a lot of jails before stopping giving them. Not it works as it should be.
- Watchmaker: Fixed a cooldown problem.
- Lab: Added missing buildings from its pool. So now you should be able to get watchtower and support parts from it.
- Tent & Plaza: Like Terrace, these buildings are quite tricky so we will need some more time to develop and fix these buildings.
MORE QoL, FEEL AND CLARITY UPDATES!
- Visuals of the night club are updated. More visual updates are on their way!
- Now the activation / deactivation of the Chimneys & Smokes on top of the factories are more accurate.
- Screensaver behavior is updated.
- You can disable the building columns from settings now. No more blocking vision.
- New Sfxs and Vfxs for clarity and feel. If you try to pass the round while having too many buildings you’ll see an animation for an example.
- New clarity and text updates. One especially for the new camera schemes.
- The deep red dawn color has been updated to help you see better.
- Some unnecessary buttons has been disabled.
- Down left menu icons are now more flashy.
- Sandbox has an interaction deactivation now. This was from our last update but we just wanted to write here.
BUG FIXES!
- We fixed so many bugs that we can’t find the exact number, but we can say that there are no game breaking bugs in the game at the moment and we keep fixing each minor bug.
- The bug where a lot of achievements are getting unlocked by themselves while the initial launch of the game is quite a complex problem since we can’t recreate it with Steam and there are no visible problems with the code. So until we fix those we will disable the problematic achievements. We hope that you don’t mind.
- Also starting this update we will give you information every time we fix a bug or get informed of a new one so we can develop our communication with you. You can check the pinned post in discussions to get the latest info about what we are doing or are we informed about a bug you’ve encountered.
FINALLY
This is all for this update. If you want to learn our future plans you can check out our State of The Game post which will be posted this week.
Also please keep an eye out for a special announcement!
See you soon!
-Sj & Fausta and Zyve