Hello everyone!
Steam Next Fest is just around the corner, and I’ve been working around the clock to get this massive update ready. I wanted to push this out before the festival begins so you can experience the game in its absolute best, most representative state. Welcome to Realindustry Demo 0.4.0!
This isn't just a regular patch. With over 440 files changed and massive core systems added, this is the biggest leap forward the game has taken so far.
Here is a look at the major new features waiting for you in the demo and full game:
Brand-New Automation System
Automation is here, and it is deep. You can now unlock and install automation directly into your buildings. This isn't just a simple auto-clicker – it's a fully realized system with cycles, batch production, and energy consumption.
Upgrades: scale your production with Speed, Batch Size, and Parallel Slot upgrades.
Deep Tracking: monitor your inputs, outputs, and electricity use with live charts and history snapshots spanning from 10 minutes to 1,000 hours.
Automation Board: a brand-new UI board to manage your entire automated empire.
Total UI & UX Redesign
I’ve completely overhauled the visual language of the game. The new industrial theme features a custom font stack, a rebuilt color palette, and incredibly smooth transition animations.
Pressure Release Transitions: exiting the start screen and navigating menus now features a satisfying, mechanical "pressure release" motion system.
Typewriter Text: dialogue and narrative beats now use a sleek typewriter effect (with a reduced-motion toggle available for accessibility).
Stunning Parallax & Visual Effects
Your factories have never looked this alive. I’ve expanded the WebGL effect pipeline to include per-building profiles.
Depending on the tier and building type, you'll see realistic smoke, sparks, dust, steam, and lasers.
I've also added a brand-new Depth-Map Parallax System, giving buildings an incredible 3D optical effect (glass, fog, moisture) that reacts to your pointer.
Research Tree Rework & Game Balance
The entire tech progression has been rebalanced for a better pacing experience.
Full-game tiers (6–10) and building construction costs have been entirely reworked.
The Research Tree itself got a massive visual upgrade with metallic plates, rivets, and animated ambient tier backgrounds.
Performance: Playing on a weaker device? I’ve added low-FPS detection and an option to toggle off heavy research tree effects to keep your game running smoothly.
Safe & Secure Saving
Losing progress is the worst, so I’ve heavily fortified the save system. The game now features shadow copies, multiple rolling backups, and an Electron mirror for health checks. You can also manually export and import your save archives using the new Save Storage Tools!
Full Patch Notes (v0.4.0)
Highlights
Massive wave of fixes and improvements across UI, gameplay data, effects, audio, and performance.
Fully redesigned UI/UX with a new industrial visual language, new motion system, and reworked screens.
Research tree visual redesign + performance upgrades, with new effects, layout, and usability tools.
Brand‑new automation system with upgrades, stats, and full UI.
Full‑game research + construction cost rebalance and clarity overhaul.
UI/UX & Presentation Overhaul
New industrial theme with custom font stack and a rebuilt global palette.
Purposeful transition system for screen handoffs, menus, modals, and start‑screen exit (industrial “pressure release” feel).
Reworked Main Menu and Game Menu flows: smoother open/close, improved modal behavior, and clearer slot management.
Unified visuals across major screens.
New typewriter text system for dialogue and narrative beats with reduced‑motion support.
Custom scroll behavior (native scrollbars hidden, overlay scroll system) to match the new UI language.
Research Tree: Visuals + Usability + Performance
Major research clarity renaming pass (two waves) across research names and descriptions.
Full rework of research tiers 6–10 and their costs; overall tech progression rebalanced.
New tier background cards with animated ambient effects and tier labels.
Search + highlight tools, pinned research, and “show only available” filtering.
Help mode with contextual annotations (designed to avoid full graph re‑render).
Research node styling refresh: metallic plates, rivets, improved resource lists, and cleaner unlock lists.
Performance controls: optional research‑tree effects, low‑FPS detection prompt, and graphics‑quality gating.
Automation System (New Core Feature)
Automation unlock research + dedicated automation upgrades (speed, batch size, parallel slots).
Automation installations per building, with tier‑scaled install costs.
Per‑recipe automation cycles with batch production, resource checks, and energy consumption.
Blocked state reporting with explicit reasons (resources vs electricity).
Full stats tracking: cycles, iterations, inputs/outputs, electricity use, per‑building stats.
Automation history snapshots and live charts across multiple time ranges (10m to 1000h).
Automation Board UI: cards/graphs view, building vs recipe list, net vs gross flow, energy visibility toggles.
Automation integrated into the core game store tick loop and inventory updates.
Planner board auto‑reacts to completed automation iterations (removes fulfilled items).
Gameplay Balance + Full‑Game Data
Full rework of building construction costs.
Full rework of research costs for late‑game tiers (6–10).
Demo research data aligned to the new clarity/structure pass.
Resource replenishment bar layout stabilized for consistent UI behavior.
Visual Effects + Ambient Systems
Full‑game building effects implemented and expanded.
Parallax depth‑map system added for richer building visuals.
WebGL effect pipeline expanded with per‑building effect profiles (smoke, sparks, dust, steam, lasers, cleanroom, water, flares, etc).
Optical ambient effects (glass, fog, moisture) with depth‑based parallax and pointer response.
Shared WebGL manager with caching, fallback rendering, and stability guards.
Audio & Music
Start‑screen and UI audio system upgraded with unified preload progress and concurrency controls.
New UI sounds (automation, start) and improved research notification handling.
Voice runtime expanded with additional Nexus lines for later‑game milestones.
New / updated music across tiers, plus updated Terminus track handling.
Menu ambient + music handling refined for more polished entry/exit flow.
Saving, Storage, and Reliability
Save system hardening: shadow copies + multiple rolling backups.
Electron mirror for save data (when available) with health checks.
Save archive tools: export all saves and import archives.
New Save Storage Tools surface these controls in UI.
Safer storage access helpers and validation for save payload shape.
Technical & Performance Improvements
Asset loader unified image + audio preloading with accurate progress reporting.
Stronger asset‑counting and preload concurrency safeguards.
New number formatting utilities for game‑scale values.
Live resource amount and affordability helpers for consistent UI feedback.
Scroll helpers for safe, bounded element reveal and smoother UX.
Research tree performance fix for weak devices; additional performance warning fix.
Localization & Content Updates
Large gamedata and UI text refresh across EN/DE/ES/FR/IT/RU/UK/ZH (plus demo locales).
Localization aligned to the research renaming and new systems.
Website updates with new screenshots and refreshed localized strings.
Fixes & Polish
Preloader bugs fixed and simplified into a single unified loading flow.
Transparent background view mode added.
Visual micro‑fixes across menus and buttons (including wishlist button and main menu background).
Numerous small UI and interaction refinements across the entire interface.
Thank you all for playing the demo, sharing your feedback, and supporting the game's development. I can't wait for you to experience all these changes during Next Fest. Let me know what you think of the new automation systems in the comments!