Hi all,
I have been working to make Overcrowd a little easier to use in some key areas. This update brings some nice quality of life (QoL) updates, as well as some commuter behaviour tweaks, balancing and a bunch of bug fixes, over to the stable branch. Let's take a closer look.
Room editing
Since Early Access launch 16 months ago, I have been working hard to address some of the quality of life requests you have made. This update brings in another big QoL update: room editing. When in a room build mode, you can now right click on room walls to delete the room cells.
Hot keys
Another popular QoL request has been hotkeys. You can now instantly access the build, sell and report menus using hotkeys. By default these are mapped to "ZXCVBNM" and "UIOP". Like any controls you can remap them to anything you want in the options.
Staff action labels
Another QoL update you have requested is staff action labels. This means when staff are doing something - like walking off to pick up a tool, or walking to do a job, they are clearly labelled so you know what they are doing.
Balancing
A fair amount of balancing has taken place too. Rat breeding, commuter response to adverts, tool speed and success rates, lift capacity and lift speed have all been tweaked for a better experience. These aren't major changes, just small adjustments. Check the change log for full details.
Commuter vandal behaviour and breakdowns
Commuter vandals will now attack a variety of targets including ATMs, phoneboxes, air conditioners and vending machines. These targets can now be repaired like other objects.
Commuter queue behaviour has also been refined so as to be more realistic, placing nearby commuters at the front of the queue more effectively.
Thanks for your reviews!
Eight years ago, on a hot sweaty train on the Piccadilly line in London, I had the idea for Overcrowd. I didn't know then I would become so obsessed with the idea that I, a medical writer with no game dev experience and barely any coding skills, would later quit my job and devote my life to making it. And I didn't know I would meet my perfect partner who would help me achieve my dreams by training herself to draw it entirely on her own.
To say these years have had their ups and downs would be selling it short! But I'm super glad we took the plunge, and I know I'm very lucky to have had this opportunity.
I just wanted to thank those of you have helped us along the way. I'm especially thankful if you have left us a positive review on Steam. Like I mentioned in a prior update, we did take a big hit in scores after I was sold some poor translations, especially a bad Chinese translation, but these have since been replaced.
The steam review score is so important for a tiny dev like us to get traction in the Steam algorithm, and a single review can make all the difference because Steam collates the most recent ones. Last update I said I hoped to get the game to 90%. Well, thanks to your help we have actually moved up a point to 87%. Nearly there! If you like the game, do please consider leaving a review :)
Next stop - full release?
So, that all said I think that maybe, just maybe we are finally getting close to our final destination: version 1.0!
I'm really happy with where we are, and we've hit all the goals I had when entering early access 16 months back. I really hope you agree. Let me know in the steam forum, discord or reddit. And keep an eye out for more announcements soon!
Build 390:
-Update all language CSVs
-Cancel ad movement process is corrected
-fix crash the game if you deployed staff to inaccessible areas.
-further improve mouse over hitbox for clock and power icon placement
-Train tracks do not loss condition unless the train breaks down. Prevents XP harvesting.
-Correct clock detection box
-Correct detection of train when hovering over track repair manually
-do no create "no ornate clock" rep loss until available in final zone tech gate.
-fully prevent any menu interactions when still in a lift build
-show lvl 2 turnstiles in power report
-ATM will be repaired autonomously by staff
-hotkeys do not function mid build mode to prevent issues
-cannot save, autosave, cancel or enter menu when mid lift building to prevent hard crash saves
-Campaign max tech gate is correctly reverted to pre-map level if you fail or cancel a level, preventing a falsely high tech level if you then go to an earlier zone station, allowing to unlock and spend all bonds in a lower level station, blocking progression when you return to a higher tech station as you would not be able to unlock all the platforms to complete it.
-fixed typo causing crash on hovering on bookshop ad
-slight increase to check aesthetic time
-fix long standing (pun intended?) bug where commuters would never sit down after using a bench
-update cursor doing bad things when building in rooms,
-prevent track money extend exploit
-toggling hotkeys opens and closes reports
-toggling hotkeys correctly deselects anything you are hovering on
-Editing rooms does not affect other rooms aside from that being edited
-Correctly infer if deleting a cell in a room will result in a situation causing a solid in the room to be deleted and disallow it
-fix rare possible crash on load when a 4 cell shop saves in impossible position for unknown reasons
-fix sell to report toggles
-If can't afford ticket, commuters can leave up stairs
-incremental optimisation on save commuter process
-Do not show repair and break down on benches, lights, shops and machines that don't require it
-Add hotkeys for main ribbon menu! Press "ZXCVBNM," - for blue menu build buttons and "UIOP" for orange sell/reports. Quite nice actually. Like all controls you can remap them in Options.
-Vandals can now attack many more targets: crisps vending machine, drinks vending machine, ATM, phone booth, fan 1, fan 2, aircon 1
-can now repair all of the above, with AI or manually
-correct commuters being given free ticket if not ticket machine
-fixed issue where 5 most recent products (burgers etc) were not added as needs in top zone stations
-fixed issue where red staff need tool text would flash
-optimised commuter needs generation
-fixed grammar in hand sanitizer
-increase distance of fans 1 and 2
-reduce cost and bonds for fans
-increase lift capacity to 24 (from 16)
-lifts are a bit faster
-nerfed some tool specs
-Adverts of one type can be active for a commuter up to 5 times (rather than 1)
-But adverts pay out half (£5) vs usual
-Positive rep action for prestige objects restored to prior frequency checks.
-Negative rep for "no prestige" remains at lower frequency.
-Staff XP earning is now back to earlier test versions (+120% of 'standard' xp rate pre assist-tablet-nerf)
-Fix crash when building rooms, update single room cell purge
-cannot build plants in rooms anymore
-remove objects in impossible places post room edit
-fixed room edit further
-improved room editing cursor notifications
-check for immediate object access when editing rooms
-fix issue when editing rooms around a former door that was removed during room extension
-remove isolated single cell room orphans
-added ability to build 3x2 rooms
-QOL: implemented room editing system. Reduce room size by right clicking on room walls, when in specific build mode for that room, to sell cell by cell.
-pressing f12 to taking a steam screenshot now disables the HUD for the shot.
-QOL: implemented room editing system. Reduce room size by right clicking on room walls, when in specific build mode for that room, to sell cell by cell.
-pressing f12 to taking a steam screenshot now disables the HUD for the shot.
-Fix load commuter bug from 365
-Adjacent rooms of the same type but on different levels will not connect/form same room index. Prevent issue when you cannot sell rooms of same type next to each other on different floors if one is empty but the other is not.
-Cannot build multi-celled objects on staff flags, thereby causing them to freeze.
-Added staff action labels. By default, staff will be labelled with there current action so you know what they are up to.
-Added toggle staff action label to Options > Display so you can turn it off if you don't like that
-Slightly reduced rate of prestige rep checks
-Fix generating networks with no zone 5
-Corrected defib from behind sprite mismatch
-scaled prestige needs so not at start of level
-moderated shop needs moderator in favour of sooner
-scaled rat reproduction rate to difficulty
-scaled scenario length to difficulty, with chance longer scenarios in hard
-Add power stats to new shops
-Smooth scroll on reports
-No prestige penalty - only lose rep if no single instance of item exists.
-Middle justify side alert text.
-Correct lvl 1 air con text.
-Any given commuter can now only be affected by 1 ad type once. Spamming ads may be less effective now.
-removed "Seen ad before" alert as visible everywhere
-Bench nerf scaled by difficulty, scenario rates scaled by difficulty
-Marginal nerf to rat breed rate
-Nerf bench rep and journey complete rep on hard
-Added new assist text
-Need more prestige negative rep
-A commuter will not be affected by an ad if they already saw the same ad within 8 cells, creates seen ad before warning
-rename station button does not activate station behind
-improve queue removal for behaviour triggers to prevent queue time out frequency
-Commuters leave by any door (included entrance only) when can't afford ticket, opening the door (pun intended?) to better one-way set up options
-Update air con 1 to use power correctly
-Use true current distance to sort queue positions when joining a queue, should result in beter queue behaviour with closer people going to the from to queue correctly (commuter walk speed is not included in this calculation)
-remove from queue on fade out in more situations to limit queue timeout issues
-no rep loss if a commuter de-spawns due to lack of floor under foot
-Update clock sprite to hang higher up and not impact bridges
-Update ATM sprite on SW view so correct origin
-Prevent selling wall objects until concourse edit is complete if zoning over walls
-Updated substation icon to match other power generator theme
-Update side alert to be taller
-Add random commuter speed variation to increase mean speed and limit z fighting further
-fixed commuter punch process at double speed (was causing them to freeze at end of punch)
-Update map sprite to be same height as ads
-Update chicken and kiosk walls to match width of station walls for consistency.
-Minor correction on German CSV.
-Heat sim added to amenities
-Empty right click menu removed from amenity
-Update tool tip backgrounds for air con 1,2 and arcade machine
-added price tag to wheelie 3 tip
-Corrected possible issues with punch logic to prevent rare commuter rage freeze
-Wiring for signal relay and automater correctly charged on purchase
-Staff do not freeze if on way to revive cardiac arrest patient who dies en route.
-Changing difficulty on single station sandbox, the reputation will now start at correct level
-Lvl 1 light available at start
-Min width of train passenger GUI is increased
-Staff XP is scaled -10%
-Correct missing prices on Ads and vending
-Increase commerce report field title length
-New German translation!
-Fix bug where optional goals were not correctly recounted following first level compolete and then continuing to play on same station
-Fix sell price of ticket machine 1 on both cells