Alright, here it is: Alpha 3! Even more parts for you to play with, some new puzzles, and a lot of usability fixes to make building your contraptions a much smoother process. Grab the latest update from Steam, or buy the Early Access to start playing this awesome new build!
New Parts
13 new parts have been added, a big portion of which are lasers and their associated parts.
- Egg: The egg can roll around and be thrown around your contraptions. If it falls too far or gets hit to hard it will break. Try to throw it as far as you can without breaking it.
- Egg Timer: Set a time and then hit the button on the top or bottom. When time is up, the hand will give a poke.
- Lawn Mower Motor: Attach a rope and pull the starter. The mower will run forever.
- Bellows: Hit the bellows with a ball to give a one time gust of wind.
- Steve the Crocodile: Steve just hangs out and eats whatever comes his way. If he can't eat it, he will toss it up in the air.
- Phil the Fish: Phil swims around in his bowl. If you break the bowl, it will attract Waldo.
Lasers
Lasers and associated parts have been added. This is the very first version of lasers, and they do not have final art, but they are functional. - RGB Lasers: Standard lasers come in red, green, and blue. They must be plugged in to turn on.
- RGB Inverse Lasers: Inverse lasers turn on by default. If the sensor on the back is hit by another laser, it will turn off.
- Mirror: Bounce lasers around with mirrors.
- Splitter: This will split one laser into two.
- Laser Outlet: An outlet powered by laser input.
- Mixer: Mix two lasers to make a new color.
- Repeater: Extends the reach of a laser. It can also have a delay applied to how long it takes to turn on and off.
New Puzzles
A smaller update than last time, but there are 10 new official puzzles. These are all categorized as easy. As we have watched many people play the game, they have asked for easier puzzles to help ease them into the game. We will add more hard puzzles eventually, but until then there are plenty of awesome, hard puzzles in the Workshop.
Additional Scenery Pieces
No new scenery sets, but the forest and underwater sets have had more parts added to them. Enjoy playing with new trees, cabins, shipwrecks, and more.
Usability Improvements
A number of usability improvements have made the game easier to use. The biggest change is how ropes and belts are handled. Ropes and belts can now be selected directly instead of having to first select the part they are attached to. Also, when holding a rope or a belt, all possible attach points are shown to make it easier to see what can be attached to.
This is just a small sample of what has been improved and fixed. Check out this FORUM POST for a full list of changes.
SPECIAL NOTE
There were a number of part changes and physics changes that may affect how your current contraptions run. Some are simple, such as the fuse being moved on the cannon.
However, there were some changes made that fixed a number of physics determinism issues. These are needed changes which help make sure contraptions run the same every time on all sorts of different computers. There is a chance that it can affect some contraptions though, so it would be a good idea to run through your current contraptions to update them.