As many of you know, I have been working on v0.8 for quite some time, pushing to expand Incremental Factory into a much larger conceptual world.
After all, one thesis for Incremental Factory is: scale is fun (= the factory must grow).
Once I rolled out v0.8 to our amazing early testers, I realized that while the game was resonating, something was missing:
the iconic graph-based factory screenshots that so many of you shared with the rest of the community stopped.
I found myself missing that. And while v0.8 adds so many other things that are exciting and interesting, it does not deliver that.
I wanted to return to that pure graph-based factory-building experience, but I didn't want to abandon the world we built for v0.8.
Then the answer clicked: game modes.
That idea unlocked everything.
I rebuilt and refactored large parts of the game from the core outward:
a multithreaded simulation, a new rendering layer and generally cleaner architectural foundations, with the ultimate goal of enabling player-created game modes and even modding.
And that is where Incremental Factory: Infinite was born.
Infinite focuses on the essence: building, connecting, optimizing, and scaling one enormous graph-based factory.
No combat. No resource depletion. No unnecessary artificial walls.
Start with a trickle of stone, unlock new resource veins, and push every resource from scarcity all the way to infinity.
v0.9 begins the era of game modes.
Infinite will be my main focus first.
The v0.8 experience continues as „Empire“, playable on the same rebuilt foundation and benefiting from every core improvement.
Infinite is launching on the web alpha and on Steam Beta today.
(switch to the "v09-beta" branch by selecting it in the games options from the steam library)
I would love for you to build something enormous, push the new engine, and tell me how it feels. (There is now a built-in Feedback button in the settings!)
The factory must grow.
P.S.
I just want to emphasize the amount of refactoring, rebuilding, and optimization that went into this, all aimed toward the singular goal of enabling ridiculous scales!
There are some parts that are not properly optimized yet, but most of this is unnoticeable until you hit proper scale. Optimizing the remaining cases is relatively easy thanks to the new foundations.
My ambition is to see a screenshot of a 1,000,000-parcel factory.
P.P.S.
Shoutout to everyone who keeps supporting and being part of this journey.
Thanks to MrBnod for going as far as shipping actual PRs, and to Mikipiton for always pushing factories to the limit.
It means the world to me, and I hope this new update brings another round of joy and fun to all of us in this community. <3