Greetings, Creators!
Prepare yourselves for another dose of greatness. A substantial chunk of our time was spent improving and revising a few background systems, with a few still needing a little more polish before we make them live. One such system we’re putting quite a bit of work into is the Nugget pathfinding restructure. The improvements being made will ensure that Nuggets make better navigation decisions and avoid getting stuck in unfortunate situations. Additionally, another area receiving a lot of attention is the Creator Power system, which you’ll likely be very excited about.
However, before we discuss that further, we’re also introducing a brand new system in today’s patch. Nuggets will very soon begin taking notice of your actions in the world. The more or less you interact with the world through your powers and influence will change the amount of Faith they have in you. This is divided into Fear and Love. You can decide what kind of God you’re going to be. Doing evil deeds or harming Nuggets in some way will increase their Fear. Showering them with hugs and rainbows will naturally increase their Love, so long as they don’t hate hugs and rainbows.
Depending on their Fear and Love levels, Faith Towers will rise up in your civilization to indicate your Nuggets’ feelings towards you. We’re planning on adding different Research Perks based on Faith for you to play with in the future, as well as Nuggets acting a little differently based on their perception of you. As usual, this system is still very much in its infancy. We’ll be needing your feedback and patience to improve it in the future.
Now on to the super fun stuff: new Creator Powers! Awww yeah! We’re taking a couple more steps towards making you a proper god. Here’s what you’re getting:
GOD POWERS
Why bank on natural selection? Play the role of a divine matchmaker. Choose two Nuggets, climb inside those odd floating heads of theirs, and make them fall madly in love with each other. This way, they have the illusion of choice and you get to dictate which genetic attributes survive. Everyone wins. Hold down the Ctrl button and select the two Nuggets you wish to match.
This power allows you to selectively breed Nuggets. As you know, we’ve added genetics and traits to the game, which will seriously affect your civilization in the long run. However, this extends to everything like skin color, hair color, and so on. You can mix and match however you please! Although, it’s important to keep in mind that ending a relationship between two Nuggets for selective breeding will make them feel awfully depressed about their sudden and rather confusing breakup.
Is a building or Nugget looking a little under the weather? Give it a day at the “God Spa” to restore it back to its usual self. Well, unless the damage is emotional. There’s not much you can do about that. Hold down Ctrl and the Left Mouse Button to rejuvenate a target. Keep holding until the Nugget or Building becomes less likely to fall apart into tiny pieces.
There is no such thing as a slow day in your civilization, no matter how Nuggets may feel. When their work ethic begins to dim, give them a sharp reminder of who’s really in charge. You can either select this power via the menu and press Ctrl +LMB to use it on a Nugget, or cast it instantaneously by holding Ctrl and double clicking on a Nugget.
There’s no prescription quite like a delightful dose of joy and laughter. Give your Nuggets a little ray of sunshine to brighten their day. They tend to work harder when they’re happy. Once you’ve selected the power, hold down Ctrl and left click on a Nugget to give them a jolt of joy.
Take nature’s fury for a spin! If you are looking to increase your Nugget’s Fear level and also catch a great show while you’re at it, then a tornado is just the thing for you. It’s almost impossible to control, but watching debris and Nuggets flying around can be weirdly satisfying. Hit Ctrl + LMB after selecting the power to start the tornado, or hold Ctrl and spin the mouse in circles for a quick cast (gesture not yet implemented).
Let’s hope someone remembered to buy allergy medication, because it’s about to get awfully dusty around here. It’s not exactly a tornado, but the windforce will certainly cause Nuggets to tie themselves around the nearest tree. This is an excellent way to spread some Fear in your civilization. After selecting it, simply hit Ctrl + LMB to introduce a little wind, or quick cast by rapidly blowing on your screen.
Defy gravity and prove once and for all that you’re the most attractive entity in the galaxy. You can pick up any object on the planet and do with it as you please. Keep in mind, though, that Nuggets are very observant creatures, despite their apparent lack of eyes. Casting powers near to them will likely result in their puny little minds being blown.
In the Future
We will continue to add more powers to the game as we go along, so we would love to hear what kind of powers you’d like to see. The best suggestions could very well make it into the game. At the moment, we have plans to include the following powers:
Earthquake
Lightning Strike
Meteor Strike
Possession
Prioritize
Superheronize
Reincarnate
Plant Trees
Make it Rain
Bite It (attack)
BUILDINGS LIST
We are happy to introduce the Buildings List Panel. Now you can see all of your buildings sorted in one place. You can prioritize them, demolish them, and so on using the list. Later on, we’re planning on adding a building queue, which will allow you to sort which buildings you want to be completed first.
EDUCATION
Instead of running around eating dirt and performing potentially life-threatening activities, Nuggets can now spend their childhoods in schools learning from the collective knowledge passed down through the generations. In certain buildings, like the Refinery and Engineer’s Hut, educated Nuggets will be more productive. Some buildings will eventually require educated Nuggets to run properly, but you can still try and give the controls over to one of the village idiots and see how quickly they can set things on fire. You can get away with allowing students to teach themselves, but it will take far longer for them to understand the more complex stuff. Assigning a teacher to the building will increase education speeds.
PRAYER ENCLAVE
Every god comes across the problem of having to process an enormous amount of prayers. Fortunately, there is a modern solution to this. We are proud to introduce GodMail and the Prayer Enclave. Nuggets will finally have a special little place to ask you for help, send their regards, or possibly just annoy you with a fantastic heap of nonsense. Almost every prayer is going to be a new quest for you to solve or outright refuse. Accepting and successfully completing a quest will alter Faith substantially.
Nuggets will build the Prayer Enclave on their own, which means you do not have explicit control over its placement. In the future, there will likely be even more buildings that Nuggets will construct without your say-so.
We are only implementing a single quest in this patch to test the system, with more to follow soon. Like with everything else, feel free to give us quest suggestions! Here are some examples of what’s to come:
Punish my Neighbor
“Dear Creator,
I come to you with a broken heart. My neighbor, Bobrigo, just married the love of my life! I cannot stand for this. Every time I see his smug little smile, I have to punch a rock painting of a puppy. It’s such an innocent-looking puppy, too. Please help me. If you punish him in some way, you will earn every bit of faith I can muster. You’ll show everyone that justice exists!”
A White & Black Rock
“Dear Creator,
Tragedy has struck! An obnoxious boulder just rolled in out of nowhere and planted itself firmly in the middle of the farm. If it stays there, the village might starve! We haven’t mastered the art of working around problems yet. Some Nuggets are already drawing straws on who we’re going to eat first. The whole situation is worsened by the fact that a batch of Bloody Diarrhea fruit was ruined by that confounded thing. I was looking forward to those. Please help us out!”
PEARL DEERS
Pearl Deers now inhabit on a Mother Planet. You should begin seeing them wandering around, possibly in tight little family units.
PRE-MEDIEVAL ENGINEER'S HUT
The Pre-Medieval Engineer’s Hut will make your Engineer Nuggets more productive. You can use educated Nuggets to improve things quite a bit.
PERSISTENT WORLD
Nuggets can now see and feel your actions. Picking someone up will cause other Nuggets to flee. Such actions will increase Fear and decrease the Happiness of affected Nuggets.
CREATOR POINTS
Creator Powers will now require Creator Points. Creator points are accumulated over time, which can be sped up by increasing Faith. The more you use these powers, the faster Creator Points will be generated. We are still going to balance this system quite a bit more, so please submit your feedback via the forums or Discord.
CREATOR POWER QUICK ACCESS MENU
Hitting the Middle Mouse Button or Tab on the keyboard will open the Creator Power Menu. Every power is activated by holding the Ctrl button down before clicking. Let us know what you think!
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