Hello my lovely workers,

It's about high time I started talking more about Keep It Running: Together, the multiplayer/co-op sequel to KiR.

Progress:

The Factory map itself is pretty much finished and I am now working hard to implement all the gameplay elements and necessary features. Getting all the models, textures and materials done was a huge effort, but the results have been more than worth it. Most of the machinery is fully animated too, with special animations for the production machines when they produce a Toy part or Toy, which does great things for immersion and atmosphere.

There's a "lobby" area in the Factory now where players spawn and where various settings for the upcoming shift can be found as well as information on your team. Most menus in the game will be actually in-world i.e. they are diegetic interfaces. Of course it's not actually going to be the green cubes you see in the screenshot, those are just for testing and initial setup during the Alpha testing :)

Co-op play already works as players can move around and interact with the Shovel, Wrench, Lantern and of course the machinery such as the Boiler and Steam Engines.

A basic day-loop is implemented, with a dynamic day/night cycle so that starting and ending your shifts feels more natural. This also makes lighting a more prominent gameplay element as now there's a second Steam Engine besides the main one: the Generator. This means there are two controls now: one for the main engine and one for the Generator.

Production of the first type of Toy (the Dolls) is functional too and players can put these Toys in boxes and carry the filled boxes to the truck, which will then be added to the Quota.

The Possessed Factory and its Creatures:

The Boss returns along with other familiar monsters of the previous game. And yes: he's as angry as ever!

Competitors will play a bigger role this time: rather than killing you, they will instead kidnap you and drag you into the depths of their underground factories. Can you escape before the day is over, or will you perish in the darkness?
This is an entirely new gameplay element and will require some extra work to fully flesh out, so I can't show anything yet... Yet ;)

This time there's 3 types of toys instead of just the Dolls. Which means there's much more machinery to maintain and more mischievous Toys to deal with, should they escape. In the screenshot you can see the 3 production lines with the unique machinery on each line.

Of course the demonic contraptions of steam and metal, the Clockwork Demons, make a return in an upgraded format. I'm still figuring out how they'll affect players and how I can further improve the gameplay elements surrounding the Demons. They'll likely play a bigger role in machinery malfunctions, rather than attacking players.

Closed Alpha and Closed Beta tests:

Since this is a multiplayer game I need to do lots of testing via Steam itself, so a Closed Alpha is currently running. This is currently only for myself and my testers/friends.
However I am thinking of doing a Closed Beta to which I will invite more people so can get the game tested with more PC setups and connection speeds. This will be invite-only, but feel free to message me if you got game-testing skills or are a content creator.
This will be a good chance for content creators to get their hands on an early preview ;)

An announcement for this will be made once the game is ready for this. I also need to make a proper Steam Store page for Together, which I'm hoping to bring online by the end of this month (January).