The playtest has been bringing in so much useful feedback that I've decided to change it to an open beta!
I have made so many improvements to the game since the launch of the beta, so I'll focus on just a few that I think are pretty cool, and these are now part of the beta which you can play.
Steam Inventory Integration
I've made several games and released them on Steam, but this is the first time I've integrated the Steam inventory service. It was really quite difficult for me to figure it out, but now I understand how to and it is cool.
If you are also a developer then I've written this post on the Steamworks Developer group on how to setup the backend integration and I'm surprised no one has done this previously!
When you play the Peacequarium Beta you'll be rewarded with gifts and fish that are added to your Steam inventory based on playtime (which works great for an idle game!). You can consume these in game or trade them on the Steam marketplace! Gift boxes will generate a wholesome buff of lots of cute snails or turtles, or give you three free fish, and fish gifts can be spawned into any aquarium that has capacity. These items are bound to the playtest and the full game will have its own set of items. A maximum of 12 of each type of item can be spawned each day.
I think two gift boxes have already been sold on the marketplace! I don't get anything from item sales, it is purely the seller, buyer and Valve, but it is interesting to see an item from the beta version of the game having some value in the Steam marketplace!
Twitch Integration
I think this is pretty neat and I've added a dialogue to the game that allows a streamer to enter their details and connect the game to their Twitch stream. Viewers can then type in the commands !snail !turtle !sub to spawn a snail, or turtle, or mini auto feeder submarine, and anything they spawn into the streamers game will have that viewers name on top of it!
Better Graphics
There was a lack of harmony between many of the water colour schemes and the colours used for the fish, so I've reworked most of the colour schemes to be pleasant and have a beautiful contrast with the fish. The new reworked Arctic Freeze colour scheme (available in the beta) is one of my favourites, and I find it so soothing. Also transparent water is pretty cool!
Btw, have you followed my Steam developer page. Yes there is actually such a thing on Steam so do follow it!
