As ever it’s been a busy few months, and I’m happy to report we’ve made a lot of progress on Overcrowd. We are just about on schedule for a (reasonably) imminent launch. More on that later. First, here are the headline features/fixes we've been working on.
Stabilised and balanced procedural campaign
The campaign is now working nicely with a neat new campaign screen. The campaign is entirely procedural - you can enter a new key and play as many as you want, with different terrains, scenarios and goals created each time.
One of the key iterations for campaign is the ability to return to prior levels if you want. The idea here is that you can unlock tech in a later station, then return and upgrade earlier stations further, ideally aiming to get a full 5 stars on every map. I also recently added a difficulty slider in the campaign.
Stabilised sandbox (custom) mode
Sandbox means different things to different people. The campaign in Overcrowd is quite sandboxxy, but it does have restrictions in that you have to unlock the tech tree as you progress and pay for building. In Sandbox (custom) mode you can set how much money you start with and how much tech you can unlock from the start. Alongside this you have full control over the random seed, the terrain generation parameters, goals, victory conditions and map size, amongst other things.
More commuter types
Having rolled out our new sprite animations, we’ve begun to add more commuter types, with more interesting clothing and accessories, to the game. This will continue through early access.
Updated tech tree
We improved the graphics and balanced the rate of the tech tree unlocks across the campaign. Various new tech items have also been added or tweaked.
Staff improvements
Staff now have new hair styles and appearances as well as new tool animations across the board. New staff are randomly generated and will apply throughout a play session. A new staff scheduler means you can tell staff to take breaks automatically at set times, as well as toggle autorest. This works alongside the existing job prioritising features.
GUI
Added new GUI elements to show when trains are ready and how many are on arriving trains. I also updated alert GUI elements to slide in, stack and slide out on the side of the screen. Also polished some other elements.
Audio
Spatial FX added and music is finalised - I’m super excited about what we have lined up. More details to come.
Ground and weather
You will now have the option of toggling the surrounding ground on and off to show a greater sense of digging underground when you build your station. I've also added some weather effects (rain so far) for atmosphere, but which may cause more water pooling near the entrance as we develop that side of the simulation in early access.
Commuter AI tweaks
Improved commuter flow in various ways.
Is it Spring yet?
A few people have kindly pointed out to me that it is Spring 2019 (in the UK) – the stated launch window for Overcrowd. Will we still make it? The signs are pretty good I’d say. For your information, Spring ends June 21st here and a launch before then is still possible, maybe even likely.
If you have any questions on the game, or just fancy a chat, please drop by Discord and check out the snazzy new server structure. You can also post any thoughts or questions in the Steam discussion forum or the comments below.
Finally, be on the look out for a new trailer showing off everything I mentioned, Coming Soon. In the meantime, here are some more escalators. Thanks!
