Update v1.5.36

Megastructure DLC

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug where some UI would remain invisible after viewing the megastructure construction UI
• Fixed a bug where the new megastructure scenario does not benefit from the +5 turns for trophies
• Fixed a bug where a wrong text would appear on the scenario progress tooltip
• Removed some spam in the logs which could slow down the game
• Fixed having to go "back" after destroying a megastructure for the focus to come back
• Fixed wooshing past the megastructure element when transitioning from "freestyle" city slot selection
• Fixed a bug when destroying a megastructure
• Fixed a tooltip overlap when upgrading the megastructure
• Fixed some layout issue in the event popup for small screens
• Some other small UI improvements on menu sprites

[ 2024-11-21 08:13:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

V1.5.32 patch

Megastructure DLC

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed issue with some lines in Korean/Japanese
• Fixed the title of the welcome popup being wrong
• Updated the Manual to include information about the DLC
• Hide trade arrow for space projects when viewing the megastructure
• Fixed a bug where upgrading a megastructure would repair it (this might have slight consequences where the cost of repair of some megastructure might change the resource type for some saves)
• Fixed a bug where megastructure would not trigger tech effects properly

Base game

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed a bug where gamepad shortcuts to swap between cities were not working

Balance changes:

• The Marsolympics event now provides -2 global comfort of living if lost and +2 global comfort of living if won.
• Increased the adjacency support from the Athlete Training Complex from +1 to +2. Increased its costs from 8 to 18 water.
• Lowered the cost of the Large Scale Resource Conservation tech from 15 to 10 science.
• Lowered the cost of the Research campus from 30 to 25 food.

[ 2024-10-25 06:21:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Megastructures DLC is finally OUT NOW!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2779050/Terraformers_Megastructures/ [previewyoutube=olomX8JtaFk;full][/previewyoutube]

Features:

• Develop - Decide which megastructure designs your architects should pursue. There are 10 unique megastructures that can be researched.
• Build - Upgrade your megastructures multiple times, with each new stage offering unique benefits but requiring a larger city population.
• Optimize - Integrate your megastructure into the city and make it synergize with previously constructed buildings.
• Events - Make technical innovations to enhance your construction capabilities with 3 new events.
• Leaders - Reshape your Martian society into a construction-centered one with 3 new leaders.
• Projects - Focus on architectural innovation and resource efficiency with 5 new city buildings and 1 new technology.
• Scenario - Take on the challenge of a new longer scenario.
• Music - Accomplish all of this while listening to a new music track.

PLAY NOW

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38195/Terraformers_Deluxe_Edition/

V1.5.30 - Full Patch Notes

New features and content

• New megastructure scenario.
• New megastructure starting option.
• 10 megastructures to build.
• 3 new leaders.
• 3 new events.
• 6 new projects and an additional 4 tied to new leader skills.
• 1 new music track.

Base game

• Bug fixes and improvements
• Fixed a bug where the negative support tooltip for far away locations was not always displayed.
• Fixed a bug related to a negative event removing a trade route.
• Fixed a bug about relocating mines from special resource locations.
• Fixed a bug for the production of special resource locations.
• Fixed a bug where the titanium production bonus would not be removed when removing the building.
• Fixed a bug where the cost of a building would not be paid on construction in some rare specific conditions.
• Fixed a bug where the technology counter would display a large number.
• Fixed a bug where the planet would spin in the wrong direction after clicking an action button in some cases.
• Improved leader shortcuts for gamepads.
• Improved city ambiences sfx.

Balance changes

• Lowered the food cost of population from 30 to 25.
• Lowered the amount of food that the different starting conditions start with.
• Reduced the amount of food-discovery events in the early game by 1 event.
• Increased the amount of population required for the Refugee crisis event from 20 to 25.
• Lowered the cost of the Athlete Training Complex from 8 to 7 water.
• Reduced the spread duration of Deinococcus from 9 to 8 turns.
• Beatrixs radiation treatment centers now give 2 radiation protection to the city instead of 1. The cost is increased from 1 to 4 science.
• Lowered the cost of Regolith Burner from 13 titanium to 12 titanium.
• The embassy now generates 2 support by default instead of 0. Lowered the support it generates per trade route in that city from 2 to 1.
• Reduced the cost of the luxury workshop from 23 to 22 silicates

Have fun! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2024-10-23 15:03:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, A few months after the launch of our first New Frontiers DLC, we are excited to announce that a second DLC is on its way, ready to land on October 23rd! In this Terraformers' DLC you can build a megastructure in every Martian city. Will you construct a self-sufficient Arcology, a facility to completely control a city's local climate zone, or a space elevator to vastly increase your trading capacity? [previewyoutube=olomX8JtaFk;full][/previewyoutube]

Features:

• Develop - Decide which megastructure designs your architects should pursue. There are 9 unique megastructures that can be researched.
• Build - Upgrade your megastructures multiple times, with each new stage offering unique benefits but requiring a larger city population.
• Optimize - Integrate your megastructure into the city and make it synergize with previously constructed buildings.
• Events - Make technical innovations to enhance your construction capabilities with 3 new events.
• Leaders - Reshape your Martian society into a construction-centered one with 3 new leaders.
• Projects - Focus on architectural innovation and resource efficiency with 5 new city buildings and 1 new technology.
• Scenario - Take on the challenge of a new longer scenario.
• Music - Accomplish all of this while listening to a new music track.

WISHLIST NOW

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2779050/Terraformers_Megastructures/

[ 2024-10-04 14:15:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Martian athletes! It is time to compete in the Marsolympics and show Earth which planet has the most talented and fittest population!

Marsolympics

In this free update weve added a new event in which youll have the option to organize the Marsolympics. If you do so, you must train more athletes than Earth will send in order to keep the majority of the gold medals on the Red Planet. Winning the Marsolympics will result in a global comfort of living increase until the next Marsolympics while losing will result in a global comfort of living decrease until the next Marsolympics. New Marsolympics editions will be held every 8 turns and allow both planets a chance at prolongation or revanche!
New Marsolympics event. This event will trigger in the first 3 games you play and has an increased chance of triggering during the Olympic Games period.

Custom Mode

As many of you requested, weve also added all the scenario goals to the custom mode. You can now freely choose any goal that you want to pursue. The custom goals can also be set higher than the final scenario goals. So you are now free to make any combination of goal, expectation, and environment difficulty you like.
New goals in custom mode.

3 new projects

Weve also added 3 new projects: the Airport, the Blimp station and the Airborne Wind Turbine. While Ill let you discover their exact details for yourself in the game, I will spoil that they all interact with the Atmospheric density of the planet :).

Bug fixes & Balance changes:

Finally, we have fixed some bugs and changed the balance here and there, most notably reducing the costs of regional food-producing buildings and lowering the celestial resource shortage amounts.

Base game

Bug fixes and improvements

• Fixed the Miners Union specialisation which provided too much support
• Fixed a bug when destroying the Electron Beam Printer building
• Fixed an event artwork
• Improved some tooltips to better explain some gameplay features
• Projects which have a bonus related to beeing close to the ocean will be now proposed less often if the players strategy is not focused on raising the ocean (in the same way it is currently done for buildings on oceans).

Balance changes

Buildings

• Reduced the cost of the Outdoor Duck Farm from 15 to 14 water.
• Reduced the cost of the Outdoor Potato Farm from 21 to 20 nitrates.
• Reduced the cost of the Outdoor Sheep Farm from 25 to 23 water.
• Reduced the cost of the Outdoor Wheat Farm from 41 to 38 nitrates.
• Increased the support income gained from the Outdoor Vineyard from 12 to 15.
• Increased the support income gained from the Bee Colony from 10 to 12.
• Reduced the cost of the Outdoor Cattle Ranch from 40 to 35 water.
• Reduced the cost of the Rice Fields from 50 to 40 nitrates.

Moon cities

• Phobos has 1 rock less.
• Deimos now provides a discount of 20% instead of 15% to space projects.

New frontiers DLC

Balance changes:

• Reduced the celestial resource shortages from 50 to 40 for water, nitrates, titanium, tritium & silicates. Reduced the celestial resource shortages from 75 to 60 for food, science & power.
• Reduced the decrease of resource shortages from Harry Leclercs specialization from 20 to 15.

Play now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2024-07-27 16:05:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Terraformers, We are really happy to announce a new bundle as complete the set. Get the Best Sellers from Goblinz with an awesome 40% discount. We often create bundles to reward Goblinz fans <3 https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/41792/Goblinz_Best_Sellers/ Also we are still working on more content & dlcs, we hope to bring more news soon. If you prefer discord, here a link to join us: https://discord.gg/sXRhpWxmqt See you soon on the red planet

[ 2024-05-22 13:28:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Frontiers DLC

Scenarios:

• As we had multiple reports that the New Frontiers scenario was too short and quickly completed, weve increased the amount of celestial bodies youll have to develop to win by 4. Because that would make the existing records and trophies invalid, weve shifted the trophies down by 2 levels (so if you previously had the trophy on mastery level 21, now youll have it on 10). Were sorry that this might feel like youve lost a trophy, but we think that this updated scenario goal matches the extra 5 turns you have to complete this scenario and get the trophy better. Our intention is that this new scenario would be longer, not shorter.
• Weve added 2 lower difficulty entries to the New Frontiers scenario.

Overall Difficulty

Based on player reports, weve reduced the overall difficulty (expectation rise frequency) by a tiny bit. Our intention is to keep the difficulty of the game on a similar level as before the latest balance patch.

Bugs & improvements

• Update the game manual to contain the information about DLC related gameplay
• Added a popup when first launching the game after purchasing the DLC to confirm the purchase and explain how to play with/without the dlc
• Added a tooltip about exporting resource to solve the DLC shortages
• Added the flooding warning popup when about to complete the Europa shortage
• Right click / back action will bring the view back from the the solar system view to the planet
• Fixed a bug where the robotropolis skill could be used on city where not all neighbors where explored yet
• Fixed a situation where the end game button could be locked in some edge cases
• Fixed a bug where the new mars exploration building would prevent the ocean expand action in a city

Base Game

Bugs & improvements

• Fixed that extra starting options could be exploited
• Fixed a bug where two buildings would appear twice in the marsyclopedia
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to delete slums after finishing the refugee crisis
• Fixed a bug from apple where the game would not work in window mode on mac
• Performance improvements to limit vram usage
• Added a haptic vibration setting
• Added some missing sounds for gamepad
• Changed some cursors depending on situation and improved some gapead interactions
• Fixed the name of the zoom out action for gamepad
• Fixed a bug where a tooltip would display an incorrect key

Balance changes:

Starting situations: Expansive: increased starting tritium from 10 to 12.

[ 2024-02-05 17:01:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Terraformers, The time has finally come. Our first DLC, New Frontiers, is now available! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2646850/Terraformers_New_Frontiers/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38195/Terraformers_Deluxe_Edition/

Features

• Expeditions - Decide which celestial bodies should be explored by your astronauts.
• Settle - Establish outposts in up to 8 different locations across the solar system and develop them into large settlements that can send resources and unique technologies back to Mars.
• Trade - Identify system-wide resource shortages and export these for extra benefit.
• Events - Decide the fate of these new locations with 8 new events.
• Leaders - Lead your Martian society in different ways with 3 new leaders.
• Projects - Focus on interplanetary development with 5 new space projects, 2 new city buildings, 3 regional building and a technology.
• Scenario - Take on the challenge of a new longer scenario.
• Music - Accomplish all of this while listening to a new music track.

[previewyoutube=PV8OR-t2OK8;full][/previewyoutube] We hope you will enjoy this DLC! If you do, please consider leaving a positive review as it helps us a lot! If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to join our Discord server. We look forward to seeing you there!

FULL PATCH NOTES - Base Game

[expand type=details]

Bugs & improvements

• Fixed an exploit that allowed duplicating buildings by relocating a building and using the shortcut to switch between cities before placing it.
• Fixed WASD or arrow keys not working to rotate the planet when keyboard navigation is unchecked in the settings. This is useful to play with keyboard and mouse at the same time
• Fixed "end turn" and "revert" shortcut actions prompts not showing when holding ctrl/cmd if keyboard navigation is off
• Allowed confirming the found city popup by pressing return even when keyboard navigation is off
• Fixed a bug in how some cards are rejected with certain game conditions (this resulted in less robots being proposed if the ocean was not high enough)
• Fixed a bug in how cards are tracked to be offered in the background (too many were added, flooding certain decks).
• Fixed a bug where the max hand size could change for 1 turn due to a skill
• Fixed a bug where the repair cost of a damaged regional building would be wrongly displayed in planet view
• Fixed an exploit with the Tourism leader specialization
• Fixed a bug where randomly generated leaders would have a wrong skill
• Improved verification and warnings in case potential lose action
• Added that gamepad can cycle zooms in both directions now (using right stick/left stick clicks)
• Fixed that asteroids should not appear in the tutorial
• Fixed the food Monitoring Office bonus
• Fixed Open Science Database tech bonus (could start in the negative)
• Fixed how the Gene Vault bonus was rounded
• Fixed that adjacency bonus from university was also worked during relocation
• Fixed that Mars Enthusiasm would trigger when relocating a city
• Fixed that the wrong difficulty icon for a challenge would be displayed in game
• Fixed hand ordering
• Fixed a gameplay data loading bug (float parsing)
• Fixed that 2 identical modifiers could appear in the challenge mode
• Fixed a bug where the map generation could fail and still continue with launching the game (apparent in the last 2023 challenge in particular)
• Improved map generation logic so will be faster
• Fixed a bug where resource locations could still appear on city locations in challenges where they shouldnt
• Major performance optimization in many parts of the game
• Fixed multiple tooltip typos
• Fixed multiple small bugs with some bonus displays

Balance changes:

Ocean projects now get proposed earlier if you have progressed towards oceans. Projects:

• Changed cost Local Culture Center from 12 water and 12 power to 11 water and 11 power.
• Let the Smelter and Thermal Updraft Tower be proposed a little later.
• Reduced cost of Urban Planning Center from 12 science to 11 science.
• Reduced cost of Coffeeshop from 9 nitrates to 8 nitrates.
• Reduced the cost of Exhaust Processor from 12 power to 11 power.
• Reduced the cost of Igloos from 30 food and 3 water to 30 food and 2 water.
• Reduced the cost of Botany and Forestry Center from 20 nitrates and 5 water to 15 nitrates and 5 water.
• Reduced the cost of the Mohole from 20 power and 30 titanium to 20 power and 25 titanium.
• Changed the cost of Heliostat Powerplant from 12 silicates and 12 science to 10 silicates and 15 science.
• Reduced the cost of the Agricultural Complex (Rich soil upgrade) from 26 to 24 water.
• Reduced the cost of the Touring Company from 13 power to 10 power.
• Reduced the cost of Courthouse from 10 food and 4 titanium to 10 food and 3 titanium.
• Reduced the cost of Automated Robotic Workforce from 3 science to 2 science.
• Reduced the cost of the Food Monitoring Office from 7 science to 6 science.
• Increased the support per turn from Self-driving Taxis from 16 to 18.
• Reduced the cost of the Shipwright from 5 power and 5 tritium to 4 power and 4 tritium.
• Reduced the cost of Marslink from 9 science and 10 silicates to 9 science and 9 silicates.
• Increased the cost of the Spaceport from 11 power and 15 tritium to 12 power and 15 tritium.
• Increased the cost of the Landing Pad from 3 titanium to 4 titanium.
• Increased the cost of the Orbital Ring from 22 tritium to 23 tritium.

Technologies:

• Increased the effect of advanced city planning: Cities can now have 6 more maximum buildings instead of 3.
• Decreased the effect of Space flight conditions: it now only provides +1 support per turn per new trade route instead of 2. Decreased its cost from 20 science to 10 science.

Lifeforms:

• Increased the oxygen and atmosphere produced by the Boreal Rainforest from 1 to 2. Reduced its prestige from 18 to 12. Reduced its local support provided from 8 to 6.
• Increased spread duration of Cyanophyta from 12 to 14 turns.
• Increased spread duration of Methanogenium from 11 to 13 turns.
• Increased spread duration of Deinococcus from 8 to 9 turns.
• Increased spread duration of Radiodurans from 8 to 9 turns.
• Increased spread duration of Plankton from 13 to 15 turns.
• Reduced local support provided by Tundra forest from 5 to 4.
• Reduced local support provided by Alpine Pine forest from 5 to 4.
• Reduced local support provided by Mediterranean shrubs forest from 5 to 4.
• Reduced local support provided by Temperate forest from 8 to 6.
• Reduced local support provided by Temperate rainforest from 8 to 6. Reduced its prestige from 32 to 30.
• Reduced local support provided by Palm trees from 12 to 10. Reduced its prestige from 32 to 30.
• Increased the spread duration of Arctic Hares from 5 to 6 turns. Increased their local support production from 3 to 4.

Landmark upgrades:

• Reduced the cost of the Viewpoint Tower landmark upgrade from 3 titanium to 2 titanium.
• Reduced the cost of the Spa landmark upgrade from 6 water to 4 water.

Leaders:

• Jan van Dijks Linked Nitrogen Factory now also produces 1 atmosphere per turn (besides the 1 atmosphere per adjacent linked nitrogen factory).
• Jan van Dijks Power Breathing Center now also produces 1 support per turn.
• Yolanda Madibas specialization now provides a 50% discount to landmark upgrades that provide support or comfort of living (instead of 25%).
• Lna Kertsz Local Art Gallery now also provides 2 support per turn per location that the city owns that provides support or comfort of living.
• Lna Kertesz Cultural Festivals skill now costs 5 water and generates 75 support instead of costing 10 water and generating 110 support.
• Hope OMalleys Cultural Festivals skill now costs 10 water and generates 125 support instead of costing 20 water and generating 170 support.
• Henry Carnegies Mine Venting skill now generates -30 support per mined resource instead of -25.
• Aishe Jgers specialization now provides a 50% discount to animal spreaders instead of a 40% discount.
• Tariq Fayeds Police station now provides 3 support per turn instead of 1 comfort of living.
• Pekai Ayads Inter-Class Dialog Center now provides 1 comfort of living and 1 support to adjacent populations instead of a flat 3 support per turn.
• Beatrix Barbiers Radiation Treatment Center now only costs 1 science instead of 2.
• Mustafa Orbays specialization now only requires 10 projects to be trashed instead of 15.
• Jorge Dromedos specialization now gives a 10% discount to regional projects instead of 15%.
• Jorge Dromedos Modular Apartments now provide 5 support if theres at least 1 other Modular Apartments adjacent instead of 3 support.
• Tsvetan Ivanovs Marllywood Studio now provides 1 more support per turn per landmark upgrade that provides comfort of living or support.

Starting situations:

• Growth: Increased nitrates from 22 to 25.
• Expansive: reduced titanium from 20 to 15. Reduced tritium from 12 to 10.
• Utopian: reduced titanium from 15 to 5.
• Terraforming: reduced water from 18 to 17.

Overall difficulty:

• Lowered the expectation rise frequency by a tiny bit to accommodate for the balance changes above.

[/expand] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2646850/Terraformers_New_Frontiers/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/38195/Terraformers_Deluxe_Edition/ -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2024-01-25 18:02:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Terraformers, we wish you a great 2024! And we hope the stars will align just right for you. And if they wont, just visit them from January 25th, when the New Frontiers DLC arrives! In this devlog well shine a light on that new DLC!

Explore and develop the solar system

On set turn intervals, youll receive a space exploration event, in which you can choose from 3 celestial bodies to explore. You can explore more celestial bodies by constructing observatories or by undertaking a space exploration mission with one of the new leaders.
After selecting the location you want to explore, you are taken to the new solar system screen, where you can see all the celestial bodies you have explored so far. You can also access this screen by zooming out from Mars.
To develop a celestial body, you must complete one of the new celestial development space projects and select a celestial body to develop it on. Some of these new projects have specific requirements or bonuses, for example, heating habitats that only work if the celestial body is located further from the sun than Mars is.
After youve completed a celestial development project, you can choose which celestial body you want to develop. Every celestial body has 3 stages, and each stage gives different bonuses back to Mars. These can be resources, passive effects or unique buildings.

Fulfill interplanetary resource shortages

Every settled celestial body has a certain resource that they cant produce themselves. Therefore, when you export a certain amount of this resource more than you import, that celestial body develops by 1 level for free. In the example below, Io has a shortage of water, so if you export 60 more water than you import, it will gain 1 development level and, therefore, develop to its final stage.

New content

Every celestial body has a unique event that might happen once it is settled. Were also adding an early, mid and late game leader, new buildings and space projects, and a new technology which all interact with the new gameplay systems. But were keeping these more of a secret in order not to spoil the in-game discovery! Besides this, were adding a new longer scenario in which you must develop a certain amount of celestial bodies. What is different from the other scenarios is that youll have 5 extra turns to get the trophies. So be prepared for a slightly longer game! We are very excited for this DLC, and we hope we gave you a better idea of what to expect from it! Terraformers Team https://store.steampowered.com/app/2646850/Terraformers_New_Frontiers/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2024-01-03 17:18:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, We have great news for Terraformers!

A DLC IS ON THE WAY!

Terraformers' first DLC is coming soon, on January 25th! In New Frontiers, explore new celestial bodies in the solar system and face new challenges. [previewyoutube=PV8OR-t2OK8;full][/previewyoutube] Features: Explore new celestial bodies. Establish outposts in 8 different locations across the solar system, send resources and technologies back to Mars. Identify system-wide resource shortages, export them for extra benefit. 8 new events. 3 new leaders. 5 new space projects, new city building, regional building and technology. New and longer scenario. New music track.

WISHLIST NOW

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2646850/Terraformers_New_Frontiers/

FREE UPDATE OUT NOW

Major addition:

• Full gamepad support
• Compact UI option (finalised)
• Larger text option (finalised)
• Full keyboard navigation option (finalised)
• Implemented keyboard shortcuts
• Adapted localisation for gamepads where necessary
• Data handling for upcoming DLC integration
• Added traditional chinese localisation
• Added 6 new projects

Bugs & improvements:

• Better event popup option text placement
• Fixed a bug related to picking cards in another "ui state"
• Improved the placement of some popup in the space cities
• Fixed a bug when placing a "dock" where the pathing algorithm would produce wrong results
• Large performance improvements in the map generation
• Performance improvements in the Marsyclopedia
• General performance improvements (a bit everywhere)
• Improved logs
• Fixed a bug where the martian event could happen twice
• Fixed some issues with the reward popup after a victory
• Fixed some overflow issues with the gameplay messages (middle of screen)
• Improved some steam/gog/epic initialization steps
• Improvements to some UI visuals (icons and moon roads)
• Fixed a bug which happened after using the import lifeform skill
• Fixed a bug with switching cities after relocating a city
• Fixed a bug with leader skills in the Marsyclopedia
• Fixed a map generation bug wit some special resources
• Improved sorting of building actions
• Fixed a bug with Urban Planning
• Fixed a bug where sandstorms lasted a turn too long
• Fixed a bug where the mohole project displayed a strange icon
• Fixed an issue where the planet's visual would not load to their actual state straight away and slowly move towards the correct appearance
• Lots of other UI improvements and polish

AUTUMN SALE

Terraformers is participating in the Autumn Sale starting today, along with the entire Goblinz Publishing catalog. Save 35% on Terraformers and up to 80% on the other titles! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2023-11-21 18:04:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, Exciting news! We're part of the Turn-Based Carnival happening from November 14 to 21, where you can enjoy a whole week of turn-based strategy games. Terraformers, as well as other Goblinz games will be participating throughout all week! Join us for the Turn-Based Carnival! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2023-11-14 17:00:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small patch fixing an issue with the weekly challenge of this week.

[ 2023-07-24 08:36:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, We have some exciting news to! Terraformers is part of Simfest, a great Steam festival that celebrates everything related to simulation games. During Simfest, you'll have the chance to discover the latest and most exciting simulation titles. It will take place from today until July 24, 2023 at 10am PDT. Embark on a stellar journey with Terraformers and other great simulation games! Simfest is a Steam festival co-hosted by Auroch Digital and Stray Fawn Studio. This year's event, Simfest 2023, is the second edition after the success of Simfest: Hobby Edition in 2022. Visit Terraformers, Diluvian Winds and many other incredible simulation games at Simfest 2023, we can't wait to see you there! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2023-07-21 13:54:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugs & improvements:

• Fixed the special event lifeform from being proposed through normal means
• Repaired sandstorms (they will normally appear on the planet and not on the moons anymore)
• Fixed an error in the steam save system which could potentially erase a save if steam had trouble connecting
• Fixed a bug where the lifeform dying would cover the whole screen
• Fixed a bug where a small resource icon would always be visible next to the mouse
• Fixed a bug when calculating distance path which could also potentially cause a crash (happened often when removing an expansion hub)
• Fixed a map generation bug where it would be possible to get a location with a single connection.
• Fixed a map generation bug where it would be possible to get connections which cross each others
• Fixed the trade boost leader specialization
• Fixed a bug preventing steam achievements on linux
• Fixed a bug with the supply station not always recalculating its bonus correctly
• Some other small polish
• Auto convert exports to space exports when importing resources to space projects
• Show moon cities when clicking their items on the top right, overview popup or space project list while being constructed

Gamepad

• Added gamepad bindings for prev/next city (right trigger + left/right direction), and changed next turn / revert shortcuts to use the left trigger (easier on the hands)
• Added relocating, destroying and repairing planet locations
• Added controls for the dikes item
• Added controls for the city informations at the top
• Lots of other improvements

[ 2023-06-27 09:45:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugs & improvements:

• Fixed a bug where the close city reminder would be shown all the time during the tutorial.
• Fixed a small error message which could appear for no reason.
• Fixed a bug where a card would very slowly slide down to the player hand when picking multiple cards quickly.
• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to place special buildings like the slum with the gamepad.
• Fixed the line spacing in the breakdown panels.
• Fixed a bug where the new achievement would be unlocked if another achievement was already earned (and vice versa).
• Improved some gamepad vs keyboard detection.
• Added shortcuts to go from one city to the next.
• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to build a city mine with the gamepad.
• Fixed unique space projects being proposed multiple times.
• Fixed a bug where the game proposes enough cards in lengthy games.
• A few other small improvements and fixes.

Balance changes:

• Slightly increased the proposal frequency of robots and planet-expansion projects.

[ 2023-06-13 13:03:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Terraformers, As we already annouced in our latest devlog, our first free update is here and features gamepad and small screen support, 4 new events, balancing, quality of life improvements and bug fixes. We've been working hard on gamepad and small screen support, but are aware there's more work to be done in order to polish them. Therefore, we need your feedback to improve them as much as possible. To do so, please join our Discord server. We hope you will enjoy this update!

READ FULL PATCH NOTES:

[expand type=showmore]In this patch weve added quite some bugfixes, quality of life improvements and some balancing updates. The most notable balance change is that bacteria spreaders and plant spreaders have become a little bit more expensive. Weve done this based on your feedback and our own tests, where we noticed that rushing for bacteria plant spreaders was a considerably stronger strategy than alternatives. With this change, all other strategies (going for industry/resources/space/technologies..) becomes more viable, which should lead to more interesting decisions and more varied games where different strategies can be pursued viably. Weve also lowered the amount of expansions received from the Urban Planning technology from 2 to 1 (and reduced its science cost from 25 to 15), but lowered the cost of 2 other technologies. Hereby we think that technologies will be better balanced and that there will be less of an obvious choice in this regard, allowing for more diverse strategies. As these changes make the game a little more difficult, especially for those making use of these strategies, weve lowered the overall expectation rise frequency by a tiny bit to accommodate and not make the game harder overall. Please let us know what you think!

New stuff:

• Gamepad support Beta
• Small screen support Beta
• Added a card counter to clearly display the current maximum number of cards which can be kept.
• Added previous/next city buttons so you dont have to leave the city view to switch between cities.
• Added 4 new events (2 new projects are linked to these events).
• Added 1 new hidden achievement (linked to a new event).

Improvements:

• Split the population and robots information in the overview popup.
• Allowed buildings that increase the maximum number of buildings to be constructed in a city which is currently at the maximum number of buildings.
• Added warnings for when the player will perform an action that will lose them the game.
• Added warnings icons next to the ocean parameter to indicate that buildings or lifeforms will be destroyed when raising the ocean.
• Increased maximum victory points which can be set in custom mode to 2000.
• Improved how the cards are spread out in the hand and made the hovered card fall over the others for better visibility.
• Improved the lifeform selection detection area.
• Made the event popup collapse or expand from the bottom right for better clarity.
• Scenario difficulty icon is now displayed while playing above the victory conditions bar.
• Terraforming projects will not be proposed when a parameter is at maximum.
• Added an explanation tooltip to the card draw popup.
• Guaranteed certain low-probability events to be proposed after reaching certain mastery levels if the player did not encounter that event yet.
• Improved the settings menu.
• Lots and lots of small improvements and performance optimisation all around.

Bugs:

• Fixed how the mastery level is counted (not-existing entries of scenarios were counted previously).
• Going temporarily below zero support will be correctly counted now.
• When losing a lifeform and thereby a prestige level, you now lose the amount of support that youve gotten from prestige from that lifeform before.
• Fixed multiple bugs and an exploit related to the Expansion Hub.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes there were not enough projects proposed.
• Fixed a bug where the weekly challenge streak was not properly calculated.
• Fixed a bug with the cooperative academy producing too much science.
• Fixed a bug with sandstorms appearing on the moons sometimes.
• Fixed a glitch when switching overview panels.
• Fixed a bug when the almost won music did not trigger.
• Fixed a bug where the technology timer would be set to infinite.
• Fixed a bug with how population buildings were checked before replacing or destroying them.

Balance changes:

BUILDINGS:

• Reduced cost of Brine Electrolyser from 12 to 10 titanium.
• Increased cost of Spaceport from 10 power and 15 tritium to 11 power and 15 tritium.
• Reduced cost of Domed Park from 10 nitrates and 20 silicates to 8 nitrates and 20 silicates.
• Increased support income from Self-driving taxis from 15 to 16.
• Reduced cost of Marslink from 10 science and 10 silicates to 9 science and 10 silicates.
• Reduced cost of Miners Cottage from 7 power and 30 food to 6 power and 30 food.
• Reduced cost of School from 4 science and 10 silicates to 3 science and 10 silicates.
• Reduced cost of Viewpoint Tower from 4 titanium to 3 titanium.
• Reduced cost of Spa from 8 water to 7 water.
• Reduced cost of Regolith Burner from 14 titanium to 13 titanium.
• Increased power production of Water Barrage from 3 to 5. Increased cost from 27 titanium to 40 titanium.
• Reduced cost of Scuba Diving School from 8 science and 8 power to 7 science and 7 power.
• Increased base support produced by Beach resort from 10 to 15. Increased costs from 20 food, 10 nitrates and 10 silicates to 20 food, 15 nitrates and 15 silicates.
• Changed shipwright output from 3 support income to 1 comfort of living.
• Reduced cost of Outdoor Duck Farm from 17 to 16 water.
• Increased output of Outdoor Cattle Ranch from 3 to 4 food. Increased water cost from 36 to 45.
• Increased Outdoor Wheat Farm food output from 4 to 5. Increased nitrates cost from 33 to 42.
• Reduced cost of Bee Colony from 22 to 21 water.
• Removed temperature-0 requirement for the Sheep Farm.
• Increased cost of Martian Festival Grounds from 40 to 45 water. Increased support output from 15 to 20.
• Increased support output from Mountain Huts from 15 to 16.
• Increased cost of Household Robot Dispatch Center from 5 science and 8 power to 6 science and 8 power.
• Increased cost of Urban Planning Office from 10 to 12 science. Increased support output from 4 to 5.
• Reduced proposal frequency of Luxury Workshop, Local Culture Center, Beach Club and Space Hotels in the mid-late game. Increased the proposal frequency of other support buildings, most notably the Entertainment Center.

MOONS:

• Deimos now has an extra titanium deposit.
• Phobos now has an extra water deposit.

LIFEFORMS:

• Increased the cost of Bacteria spreaders from 20 to 25 science.
• Increased the cost of Plant spreaders from 25 to 30 science.
• Reduced spread duration of Cyanophyta, Methanogenium, Deinococcus, Artificial Bacteria and Dark bacteria by 1 turn.
• Increased local support of Tundra Forest from 4 to 5.
• Increased local support of Alpine Pine Forest from 4 to 5.
• Increased local support of Mediterranean Shrubs from 4 to 5.
• Increased local support of Temperate Forest from 6 to 8.
• Increased local support of Boreal Rainforest from 6 to 8.
• Increased local support of Temperate Rainforest from 6 to 8.
• Reduced local support of Arctic Hares from 4 to 3.
• Reduced prestige of Penguins from 12 to 10.
• Reduced prestige of Atlantic Herring from 12 to 11.
• Reduced prestige of Deer from 12 to 10.
• Reduced local support of Birds of Paradise from 15 to 14.

TECHNOLOGIES:

• Lowered expansions gained from Urban Planning from 2 to 1. Lowered its science cost from 25 to 15.
• Reduced cost of Automated Scientific Archive from 15 to 10 science.
• Reduced cost of Megastructures Design from 20 to 15 science.

LEADERS:

• Reduced Mishas specialization bacteria spreader discount from 40 to 33%.
• Reduced Aishes specialization bacteria spreader discount from 50 to 40%.
• Reduced Floras specialization plant spreader discount from 60 to 50%.
• Reduced support required for Lnas specialization from 800 to 700.
• Jan van Dijks Power Breathing Center now also provides 2 support to adjacent populations.
• Beatrixs Pierre Barbier building now produces 2 support per turn per Radiation Treatment Center instead of 1. But it doesnt produce a flat 1 support per turn anymore.
• Buff related to a secret event
• Buff related to a secret event
• Anastasias independence now only gives 1 negative support per trade instead of 2.
• Lifeform prestige increase from Mustafas Genetic modification skill changed from 25% to 50%. Amount of times that it can be done is reduced from 2 to 1.

[/expand]

PLAY NOW:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ Any feedback or suggestion? Join our Discord server. We look forward to seeing you there! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2023-06-12 17:26:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! The release frenzy dust is settling down and we are very happy to see all the crazy strategies you are fomenting. The development of Terraformers continues and so do our devlogs! Today well go over whats up for the future of Terraformers.

DLCs

First of all, we are excited to announce that we will develop DLCs for Terraformers. After lots of brainstorming we have settled down on 3 DLCs and we are starting development on those. Though the design has progressed well, it is still quite early and subject to change. But dont worry, once things settle down more clearly and we have things to show we will do a devlog to give details about each of them. The schedule for the DLC is still approximate and will depend on the progress we make as we develop them. We hope to release the first one this year and the second one next year. We will release a free update in-between each DLC as well.
One of the new events which may happen in your game. What could it be about?

Free updates

Yes, free updates! In between DLC we intend to release updates which will provide a mix of new content, quality of life improvements, general polishing and other features. The first such update will come in June and is what we have been working on since release. More events were requested by the community and we have heard you! The new update will feature 4 new events and we hope youll find them exciting to discover. We dont want to spoil the excitement so I wont divulge too much here. Some will provide challenges or new projects when they appear and one in particular could make you ponder a switch of strategy in your game. One major feature of the update will be the experimental gamepad and small screen support. As you may know we are working on a Switch port and full Steamdeck support. This will be the first iteration of the work we have been doing for it in the past months. We aim to have full controller support as well as a new UI layout better adapted for small screens. This will all be available on any version of the game, so if you have a small PC screen or would like to have bigger fonts, youll be able to test it easily. Finally the update will feature many quality of life improvements as well as exploit- and bug fixes. For example we have added the next city buttons to cycle through them more easily as it was highly requested. We have also added warnings in case an action would cause the player to lose the game. We will provide a full list of the bug fixes and changes with the release of the patch.

Terraformers music

Cant get enough of the Terraformers music? Maybe youd like to listen to it while working or studying? Our composers Anton and Daniel have uploaded the Terraformers OST to Spotify, so you can listen to it now even while youre not in the game! Thanks for following us and good luck on the Red Planet! Asteroid Lab team

[ 2023-05-10 17:00:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear players, Greetings! Our game "TERRAFORMERS" is now included in the NEW & TRENDING MANAGEMENT BUNDLE. Click the link below to purchase the bundle and enjoy an extra 10% discount! For a lower price than usual, you can get six carefully selected independent strategy games all at once! If you love one of them, why not try the others as well? Bundle purchase link: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/31972/_/ Don't miss out on this great opportunity, especially if you're a fan of strategy games!

[ 2023-04-20 14:55:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes and improvements:

• Fixed the button that opens the game manual on mac and linux
• Fixed a some event issues in custom modes with mastery level 0 or under
• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to discard a moon project
• Fixed a bug where volcanoes would modify nearby ocean tiles to rich soil and then bug
• Fixed a bug where Pierre Barbier building would not count its bonus correctly
• Fixed a bug where the wrong support icon would be displayed on some card
• Fixed a bug where a now deleted city would appear in the overview panel
• Fixed a bug where the abandon starting option information was wrong
• Fixed a bug where the city renaming achievement was not counting cities renamed directly when founding
• Fixed a bug where the card decks would not refill in time where drawing large amounts of cards
• Fixed a bug where an event could propose only space projects while all your slots were full, forcing you to delete one of your project

[ 2023-03-27 14:10:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes and improvements:

• Fixed blurry text on the planet
• Fixed lose stinger not triggering
• Made gameplay message less obtrusive
• Quality of life: when choosing a leader, the selection is no longer reset upon closing and reopening the leader selection screen
• For long texts in the leader and event popups, a scrollbar appears instead of making the text smaller to fit the popup
• Made the game manual accessible directly in-game
• Fixed the Dikes and Ocean related achievements
• Fixed a specialization exploit where you could discard the moon space project to get a bonus and add it back for free and infinitely
• Fixed a bug with relocating city-mines which you could not discard and get stuck
• Fixed a flew localisation related issues
• Fixed a bug where you would get a constant reminder to do an explore action
• Stopped the blinking the place HQ/Found city button until you have hired a leader
• Fixed a bug where Pierre Barbier Building wasnt counting its bonus correctly
• Fixed a bug where the game would freeze when trying to load a corrupted save
• Made that playing an explore action building from a far zoom would zoom in towards the planet like leader skill
• Fixed a expectation event issue when setting environment to 0 in Custom mode
• Fixed a bug where the wrong save would be loaded when playing on steam offline
• Other small fixes and polish

Balance changes:

• Lowered the difficulty of all scenarios a little bit. Except for the expectation level 15 in custom game, this one is still the same.
• Lowered the end-game difficulty of lower difficulty scenarios a little.
• Increased the amount of oceans you need to have nearby before ocean projects are proposed.
• Increased Tsvetans specialization to give 20 support income instead of 15.
• Increased volcano spawn rate slightly

[ 2023-03-21 14:55:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Terraformers! Its been one week since the 1.0 release, and we would like to take this moment to thank everybody for playing the game and for taking the time to write feedback and reviews. Even though sometimes its difficult to read the negative ones, the vast majority of positive comments really warm our hearts. I sometimes have to remind myself that people are really enjoying something that weve made!

Live Orchestra recording

If you heard a difference between the Early Access music and the 1.0 music, you are not mistaken! Our partnering composers Anton and Daniel at Airship Studios also have recorded the game music with an actual orchestra! The small details we can hear from the different strings and other instruments really add depth and emotion to the soundtrack. We love it personally. If you wish to get the music as a standalone you can check their bandcamp page or purchase the supporter pack. They also made an amazing making-off video: [previewyoutube=yhy4sVSao3U;full][/previewyoutube] Terraformers music being re-recorded by the Stockholm Studio Orchestra

Manual

For those seeking more depth and wanting to understand the game mechanics and underlying systems better, weve written a manual! For new players, we still suggest learning the game by playing the tutorial, as there the information is presented when it is relevant. So it is really meant to learn exactly how certain mechanics work, and also a look under the hood in things like the project proposal system and the map generation. We will include the document in the gamefiles and add a button on the main menu to access it easily in a future update.

Achievements & Steam Cards

As has been requested, weve also added 62 Steam achievements to the game! They promote different play styles and getting them all will be a good challenge. Weve also added Steam Trading cards for the collectors and completionists amongst you!
62 achievements have been added

Future plans

Terraformers has now officially released but that is not the end of the development of the game! We will continue to add content and improvements in upcoming free updates. And we are also starting work on future DLC. Well shine more light into what these updates and DLC will be about in future devlogs! Thank you again for everything, and we (keep) see(ing) you on Mars! Terraf Team

[ 2023-03-16 16:00:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes and improvements:

• Fixed planet sometimes spinning around a whole turn when focusing on a planet location
• More performance optimization
• Added a tooltip for zooming the planet
• Added that clicking explore will zoom towards the planet if in moon view
• Fixed the placement of catastrophic event UI item at the top right
• Fixed the weekly challenge which was broken today
• Fixed the time of the last save on the load game popup
• Display spaceport comfort of living bonus on map after placing
• Fixed a bug where spaceport would contribute their bonus even if not owned
• Fixed that the language setting was not properly saving after auto-picking a language

Balance changes:

• Increased the amount of Mars points you receive after playing a game, so youll unlock content faster.
• Catastrophic events now cant appear early in the game in the lower mastery level scenarios. The apocalyptic meteor cant occur in mastery level 1 anymore.
• Slightly lowered the chance of a Marsquake.
• Lowered the end-game difficulty of the lower mastery levels, so new players can take more turns to beat the earlier scenarios.

[ 2023-03-13 17:07:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

- fixed an issue where the custom mode would not trigger the start event on some specific settings - fixed an issue where digging aquifer could show a wrong resource

[ 2023-03-11 16:45:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings, Martians! After much anticipation, the day has finally arrived...

TERRAFORMERS IS NOW OFFICIALLY OUT OF EARLY ACCESS!

[previewyoutube=zb-xnoOt6bI;full][/previewyoutube] We are thrilled about this release and incredibly grateful for your continuous support! Now is the time to enjoy all the exciting features that Terraformers has to offer, including the new content listed below!

Full patch notes:

[expand type=details]New stuff:

• Moon cities, they are discovered through an event and then you have to complete the space project to access them.
• An indication of how big the chance of an expectation rise is added above your support.
• Can undo all action in a turn if they did not reveal new information (like exploring or getting new projects proposed).
• When exploring you can hover on another exploration mode and after a short time it will display the alternative cost it would take with that other action.
• Localized map and city-name generation.
• Mineable asteroids (through events).
• Apocalyptic asteroid event.
• Added achievements (62 of them).
• Added Steam trading cards.
• New game flow and multiple save slots.
• Expectation forecasting feature (on the support UI widget).
• New weekly challenge game mode.
• Improved balance of luck and randomness.
• Many new exploration skills for more variety.
• 36 new buildings / space projects / technologies, 5 new events, 2 new leaders.
• Player named characters on the map.
• Removed that cities that own a coastal location have +1 comfort of living.
• Improved camera transition of cities.
• Added building construction animation.
• Fixed a bug with space projects triggering their progress too many times.
• Added city slot highlights for valid construction slots.
• Added a leader retirement counter.
• Added Japanese and Korean translations.
• Removed a not enough resource tooltip sometimes wrongly appearing when founding .a new city.
• Tutorial flow polish and improvements.
• New desktop game icon.
• Made that a terraforming event will take place before the win/loss check to avoid unwanted loss.
• The landmark sidebar will have a clearer indication of which options are available.
• An icon will be displayed on the map when a landmark can be upgraded.
• Added display of spaceport bonus on the map.
• Added animation for some actions which were not clear they had taken place.
• Added victory music when solving a crisis event.
• Added multiple colors for the support change per turn to better indicate the risk associated.
• Added a landmark highlight on the map when selected.
• Added auto-selection of the language based on the language of the current system.
• Removed the excessive warning popup on new games.
• Lots of performance optimization.
• Lots of small polish and improvements.
• Fixed many small bugs.

Difficulty changes:

• Lowered the difficulty in the first few scenarios.
• Increased the expectations level of the Red Path scenario by 1 (so it is the same as in all other scenarios).
• Increased the terraforming requirements of the Blue Path a little.

Content balance changes: Projects:

• Load Balancing station now produces 1 power per 3 mines owned by the city. It costs 9 silicates.
• Changed cost of School from 4 science and 10 food to 4 science and 10 silicates.
• Changed the CO2 imports skill from Henry from 4 heat and 4 atmosphere to 3 heat, 3 atmosphere and 5 support.
• Reduced cost of Orbital Solar panels from 14 silicates and 10 tritium to 14 silicates and 9 tritium.
• Increased cost of Aerogel Manufacturer from 5 silicates and 5 tritium to 7 silicates and 5 tritium.

Technologies:

• Increased science requirement for 1 extra science income of Self-Learning AI from 4 to 5.
• Changed support gain per sold project from Reverse-Engineering technology from 15 to 10. Decreased the science cost to develop the technology from 20 to 15.
• Increased the cost of Urban Planning technology from 20 to 25 science.
• Increased the cost of Lightweight Hull Structures from 15 to 20 science.
• Increased cost of Open Science Database from 10 to 15 science.

Lifeforms:

• Lowered prestige of Temperate rainforest from 13 to 12.
• Lowered prestige of Boreal rainforest from 20 to 18.
• Lowered prestige of Palm trees from 36 to 32.
• Lowered prestige of Temperate rainforest from 36 to 32.

Leaders:

• Changed specialization of Pekai, now it gives 2 support income per new city you found instead of 25 support stock.
• Changed the skill of Dejah, now the space hotels project she creates costs 10 titanium and 0 food instead of 6 titanium and 3 food.

[/expand]

GET IT NOW AT 20% OFF:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/25587/Terraformers_Supporter_Edition/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/22670/Turn_Based_Mega_Pack/ This Martian adventure has just begun... For more news about Terraformers, or if you just want to chat with our community or report bugs, join us on Discord!
Have fun! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2023-03-09 16:03:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! In exactly 1 week the moment is finally here: the 1.0 release! As we started this project 4 years ago, it almost feels surreal! With this devlog we want to inform you of the new things that will be in this update besides the multiple save slots and weekly challenge that were mentioned in the previous devlog.

Moon cities

With this final update, you will be able to found cities on the Martian moons! Over the course of the game, you might get an event that allows you to found a city on one of the 2 moons of Mars (Phobos or Deimos). If you choose to, you will get a special space project that requires 30 food and 10 water to complete. And once completed, you have a city on one of the moons. The Martian moons are very small (Phobos has a diameter of 22 kilometers and Deimos a diameter of 12 kilometers. Thats not much compared to our moon that has a diameter of 3,478 kilometers). Therefore they have less than 15 slots to construct buildings on (Phobos has 12, and Deimos only 9). However, they have other advantages:

• Phobos has a slot that connects to 5 other slots, something not seen in other city layouts. It also has a great natural sight and an aquifer. Finally, once you have a city on Phobos, all your trade routes generate 1 additional support per turn due to the tourism potential.
• Deimos has a titanium deposit and 4 anomalies that let science-producing buildings produce 1 extra science when constructed there. Also, once you have a city on Deimos, all your space projects will cost 15% less of each resource to complete. This is due to it being a great launch hub for other missions into space due to its neglectable gravity.

A city on Phobos.

Expectation rise forecasting

For many players the moment expectation rise events would occur felt random and abrupt. Therefore, weve included an indicator with 4 stages above your stored support. The more filled up the bar is, the higher the chance of an expectation rise in the next turn. The bar is divided into 4 stages:

• Stage 1, green: no chance of an expectation rise.
• Stage 2, yellow: small chance of an expectation rise.
• Stage 3, orange: likely chance of an expectation rise.
• Stage 4, red: high chance of an expectation rise.

Every turn, the bar fills up a little, indicating the increased chance of an expectation rise event. Also if a positive event happens, the bar will fill up depending on how strong the event was. And when a negative or damage event happens, the bar will be partly emptied depending on how bad the event was or how much damage you suffered. Hovering the bar gives you more information about what affected the chance of an expectation rise this turn.
Expectation forecasting bar.

New content

With this new update, were also adding 8 levels of content unlock. It includes 17 new buildings, 1 new space project, 3 new technologies and 3 new leaders.
Some of the new content. There are also 2 new events: asteroids that can be mined as space projects, and a catastrophic event: will you be able to protect Mars from a planet-destroying meteor?
A mineable asteroid.

Other improvements

Weve also worked on many visual- and quality of life improvements. Such as an improved planet visual, improved tutorial and tooltips to help new players, and some animations.
Improvements to the planet visual (old vs new).

How you can help us

The upcoming 1.0 release will be the most important one for us financially, as it will determine if our studio can be sustainable and if we can continue to develop more games. Therefore, if you think we deserve it, we would like to politely ask you to leave a positive review on Steam or GoG. As we are so close to release, a review now will have the biggest impact as it will affect our recent score once the game launches. We would be eternally grateful! We would like to take this moment to thank all of you for your support during this Early Access adventure! Your feedback has helped us tremendously to improve the game in the areas that most needed it, and your stories have warmed our hearts to at least temperature level 3! We hope to see you on Mars on March 9th! Terraf Team

[ 2023-03-02 16:00:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Martians, We are excited to announce that Terraformers 1.0 launch is shaping up to release on March 9th! Get a sneak peek at the upcoming features in our latest trailer: [previewyoutube=ZrSCnqRAWVE;full][/previewyoutube] As previously announced, here's what we have in store for you with the 1.0 release:

• Space cities, they are discovered through an event and then you have to complete the space project to access them
• Player named characters on the map
• Localized map and city-name generation
• Mineable asteroids (through events)
• Apocalyptic asteroid event
• Achievements (62 of them)
• New game flow and multiple saves
• Expectation forecasting feature (on the support UI widget)
• New weekly challenge game mode
• Improved balance of luck and randomness
• Many new exploration skills for more variety
• Lots of small polish and improvements
• 36 new buildings / space projects / technologies, 5 new events, 2 new leaders.

Wishlit now and be notified at launch:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ If you still haven't had the chance to play the game, you should wait for the full release as the game will be discounted... Just saying! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2023-02-08 16:03:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all, As you may know, the year of Rabbit is around the corner! Best regards and wishes to everyone for the new year ahead! Looking back on the past year, we'd like to thank all of our players for supporting Terraformers. We're working hard now on new content hoping to deliver you the experience as best as we can. Stay tuned! Happy New Year everyone!

[ 2023-01-21 02:00:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes a major crash which was happening to some people during the first few turns of the game.

[ 2023-01-20 16:17:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Martians!! Terraformers has officially joined the 'EAST MEETS WEST GAMES FEST' and been selected as 'Strategy Bundle'! The Bundle contains Dyson Sphere Program, For the King, Mutant Year Zero, Autonauts vs Piratebots, Gordian Quest, a total of six high-quality Games, the original price is $121.44, the discount is 10%, and the discounted price is $93.54. The sale will last until January 23rd and hope you guys have a happy brain exercise ; ) https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/30065/_/ In addition, Terraformers is currently having a 20% discount. Players who want to purchase Terraformers alone, don't miss this opportunity!

[ 2023-01-18 02:29:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small patch v0.9.51 Bug fixes and additions

• community translation
• nobr appearing on the key in custom mode
• bug related to destroying flooded dikes
• bug related to relocating expansion hubs
• procedural leader "error building" skill
• fixed some projects not appearing marsyclopedia

[ 2023-01-16 13:13:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear all, as we have wrapped up one year and are preparing for a new one in our little lab located inside a flying asteroid, we have some exciting new features to announce!

Weekly Challenge

After the addition of the final scenario in the most recent update, we are looking into other ways of providing regular unique challenges. For this, we will include a new game mode: The Weekly Challenge! The weekly challenge will be generated at the start of every week. It can be played in 5 different difficulty levels, which will determine the expectations & damage severity. It will pick a random victory condition from one of the victory conditions present in the scenarios. Also, there will be 3 modifiers that might alter your gameplay strategy. The modifiers are randomly picked from a list, and the combination of modifiers will be different every week. Some modifiers are positive, like robots providing 1 support per turn, while others can be negative, like penalties for trading with Earth.
The game will track how many weeks in a row you have beaten the weekly challenge, and on which difficulty.

Multiple save slots

As requested by many players, we are also working on adding multiple save slots! You will now be able to play multiple games at once, and start a new game while still being able to continue the old one. This will also allow you to keep games that you are proud of, and revisit those at later times or keep around to show to others.
These features are planned for the next big update, which will be the 1.0 release! Keep an eye out for our future devlogs to see the other features and content that will also be included in the full release of the game, for example cities on the moons of Mars. We wish you a good new turn around the sun! After landing our asteroid lab on Earth the past week for a small game-dev break and to visit friends and family, were now back in orbit! Terraf team

[ 2023-01-04 16:00:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

- nobr tag fixed on trade panel

[ 2022-12-14 12:20:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug where docks were not correctly proposed
• Fixed a bug where the starting option would not be correctly offered on next game start
• Technologies now have the same discarding values as other projects
• Fixed more nobr related issues
• Fixed a bug where potential projects were not correctly being reseted when re-playing the tutorial
• Change some of the project proposition tables to get more varied projects earlier

[ 2022-12-13 13:06:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.9.47

Bug fixes:

• Fixed the marsyclopedia scroll
• Fixed a bug where the settings were not saving properly
• Fixed that revert sent you back to the planet
• Fixed the reverse engineering tech
• Fixed the procedural skill issue with the error building. Unfortunately this will only work on new games and wont fix ongoing saves.
• Fixed the nobr appearing on the trade panel when the trade routes are in the negative
• Added a toggle to let players scale the UI into the unsafe zone where elements will overlap a bit. This is for very small screens, like a steam deck, where more scaling can help readability.
• Fixed a bug with the Expansion scenario where the number of cities to win was not accounted correctly.
• Fixed a bug where technologies were stopped being proposed in the technology scenario (3 of them were missing).
• Slightly increased the amount of docks and shipwrights proposed
• Fixed some tooltip typos
• Fixed the scaling of tooltips in the main menu

[ 2022-12-09 17:08:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Martians, This is it: our latest update is live and includes major additions like coastal locations, survival and leasure modes, a new scenario and much, much more!

[previewyoutube=A1VPDRqEvq4;full][/previewyoutube]

Check out the complete patch notes below:

[expand type=details]

MAJOR ADDITIONS:

• There are now coastal locations on the planet. A coastal location is a location which neighbors an ocean location.
• City expansion now differentiates between land and ocean locations. population expansion is only possible on land. There are buildings like the expansion hub which only works on land locations and the docks which only works on ocean locations.
• You can continue a game after winning, choosing between survival and leisure mode. In survival mode the expectations will keep rising. In leisure mode the expectations will not rise anymore.
• A new scenario has been added: expansionist, where the goal is to own a certain amount of locations, and found cities in a certain amount of different climate zones.
• A new difficulty level has been added. Difficulty of other scenarios has been lowered a little.
• The overview popup now has a City and Climate Zone tab which shows summarized information about each, such as all buildings, the names, the resources produced, the lifeforms, the terraforming parameters All elements have detailed tooltips and cities can be clicked to zoom to them directly on the planet. Buildings and cities will also have icons to show which ones are damaged or at risk of flooding.
• Two terraforming landmarks have been added. Volcanoes which can be restarted as well as polar CO2 ice caps which can be melted (they will also melt by themselves if the climate zone is warm enough).
• 9 new ocean lifeforms have been added.
• 8 new leaders have been added.
• 48 new projects have been added.
• Added 3 lifeform adaptation events impacting how life spreads.
• Added 2 catastrophic events, a rare occurrence introducing a major crisis in the game which the player can choose to solve or not.
• Added 2 new city slot layouts.

IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES:

• It is now possible to swap locations between cities. Any further locations disconnected from its city will not be controlled anymore, the buildings will not be destroyed but not function and they can be reacquired normally. You will not lose expansion points. Switching city ownership has a timer of 1 turn (like the relocation timer).
• You can now move/delete/replace expansion hubs and similar buildings due to the new changes to city expansion tracking.
• Most of the new content needs to be unlocked first by playing.
• Some of the content will auto-unlock and a popup will appear when starting the update for the first time.
• Added gameplay tips on the loading screen.
• Added a dynamic city name generator which takes into account the current state of the game to propose a city name.
• The lifeform button has been revamped and is now split by lifeform type (bacteria, plant, animal). This gives more space for everything and avoids overlaps.
• Protection from sandstorms by lava tubes, rain and plants is now better communicated in the game.
• Cities have a new widget in line with the rest of the design. The size of the city will be visually displayed on the planet.
• The landmark sidebar visuals have been revamped to follow the rest of the UI design as well.
• Ocean flooding is now instant. A confirmation popup will appear to warn the player if he risks to flood a city, building or a lifeform. The popup will offer to have a look at the overview popup which summarizes all important data.
• Ocean flooding will now make you lose control of your locations and you will have to use a dock (or other ocean expansion building) to acquire it back.
• Ocean visuals now correctly follow the temperature of climate zones for the frozen / liquid aspect. Frozen visuals are now less bright as requested by the players.
• Lots of memory and process optimizations. The game is lighter and faster.
• Buildings had their colors updated to harmonize their intended purpose (food production buildings are green, science production buildings blue).
• All landmarks on the planet now have unique icons.
• The game seed is available in the settings menu on custom mode.
• To be more realistic, there are now more water deposits spawn on the poles, and less on the rest of the planet.
• To be more realistic, crater cities are more likely to spawn in the southern hemisphere, plain cities more likely in the northern hemisphere and lava tubes more likely to spawn near volcanoes.
• Climate zone generation and the name placement has been improved.
• UI scaling now has a slider so people with rarer screen ratios can find the best possible fit.
• The event popup option button will always have the same size now.
• Added buttons directly on the map for building providing an action (like the lifeform spreader buildings).
• Improved and fixed the way the music tracks are triggered in the game.
• Fixed a bug where some life forms were never proposed.
• Fixed a bug with the specialization Varied Development.
• Lots of language related fixes in some tooltips.
• Fixed a bug with how points were counted in the scientific scenario.
• Buildings details popup will not fall outside the screen anymore on the planet view.
• Renaming cities should now correctly display the name on the planet for non-Latin languages (Chinese in particular).
• Starting options now unlock when you reach at least 75 victory points (regardless of what scenario you're playing) instead of at 25% of the winning condition. This will lead to them getting proposed more often when playing more difficult scenarios.
• And more which I forget Im sure :)

CONTENT BALANCE CHANGES:

GENERAL / OTHER

• Lowered the early game expectation rise frequency, increased the late game expectation rise frequency.
• Increased the amount of Mars points you get for winning a scenario by 25%. This will lead to faster content unlocking.
• The damage system has been rebalanced to scale better with the progress in the game.
• Lowered Dike cost from 4 to 3 titanium.
• The game will now more strictly pick a negative event if youve been lucky with events so far or a positive event if youve been unlucky with events so far. Previously there was more flexibility and this was balanced over a longer span of turns.
• Some events and projects will not appear until the player has reached a certain Mars level (to prevent information overflow for new players).
• Ocean projects as well as projects with terraforming requirements will be proposed based on the progress the player has made in each parameter. This is to avoid that the player is spammed with projects which are not relevant to his current strategy.

BUILDINGS

• Changed Massive radio Telescope. It now produces 4 science +1 if placed on a high location. It costs 30 silicates and 15 titanium.
• Changed Particle Collider. It now produces 5 science and costs 30 science and 25 power.
• Lowered cost of Automated Robotic Workforce from 5 to 3 science.
• Increased cost of GMO Lab from 36 to 38 science.
• Increased cost of Danl Lab from 27 to 28 science.
• Increased cost of Food Quality supervision from 6 to 7 science.
• Changed cost of Luxury Workshop from 16 silicates and 8 titanium to 23 silicates.
• Slightly increased amount of tritium deposits on the planet.
• Bio generator now costs 37 nitrates instead of 36
• Increased cost of Outdoor Cattle Ranch from 35 to 36 water.
• Increased cost of CO2 factory from 10 power to 12 power
• Increased cost of Nitrous Gas Factory from 35 nitrates to 40 nitrates
• Changed "Electron Beam printer" project. It does not provide negative support anymore, but its costs went up from 11 to 21 power.
• Reduced cost of road paver depot from 11 to 10 titanium.
• Reduced cost of Rover exploration center from 10 titanium and 5 tritium to 9 titanium and 5 tritium
• Changed cost of bus station from 6 titanium and 6 tritium to 6 power and 6 tritium
• Reduced cost of train station from 14 power and 14 silicates to 13 power and 13 silicates
• Reduced cost of hyperloop from 27 science and 27 power to 26 science and 26 power
• Changed expansion hub costs from 8 power and 8 titanium to 16 power
• Removed Airborne Wind Turbine from the game.

SPACE PROJECTS

• Increased cost of Import Oceans from Europa from 24 to 25 tritium
• Increased cost of Import Oceans from Ceres from 8 tritium to 9 tritium
• Increased cost of Giant Space Mirrors from 21 silicates to 23 silicates
• Reduced food cost of Space Hotels by 1

LIFEFORMS

• Deinococcus now requires 0 temperature instead of -2, has 2 prestige instead of 1 and takes 9 turns to spread.
• Increased spread duration of Methanogenium from 11 to 12 turns, but increased prestige from 1 to 2.
• Cyanophyta now requires -2 temperature instead of 0, increased its spread duration to 13 turns. Increased prestige from 1 to 2.
• Reduced spread duration of Radiodurans from 9 to 8 turns.
• Increased spread duration of Dark bacteria from 7 to 9 turns. Increased its prestige from 1 to 2.
• Increased spread duration of Metallidurans and Artificial Bacteria to 7 turns.
• Increased local support and prestige of Tundra forest from 3 to 4.
• Increased local support from Alpine Pine forest 3 to 4. Increased its prestige from 5 to 6.
• Increased prestige of Mediterranean bushes from 5 to 6. Reduced local support from 6 to 4.
• Increased prestige of Temperate forest from 8 to 13.
• Increased prestige of Cacti from 15 to 16.
• Removed temperature requirement of Boreal Rainforest. Increased its prestige from 14 to 20.
• Reduced spread duration of Temperate Rainforest from 12 to 8 turns. Increased its prestige from 17 to 36. Reduced its local support from 10 to 6.
• Reduced spread duration of Palm Trees from 16 to 12 turns. Increased its prestige from 13 to 36.
• Lowered spread duration of arctic hare from 6 to 5 turns. Lowered prestige from 6 to 4. Lowered local support from 5 to 4.
• Lowered spread duration of Penguins from 10 to 8 turns, lowered prestige from 14 to 1.
• Lowered spread duration of Deer from 10 to 8 turns, lowered prestige from 15 to 12.
• Lowered spread duration of Polar Bears from 10 to 8 turns.
• Lowered spread duration of Birds of Paradise from 10 to 8 turns. Lowered its prestige from 16 to 15.
• Lowered spread duration of Horses from 10 to 8 turns, reduced prestige from 20 to 18.
• Increased prestige of Elephants from 32 to 45.
• Increased prestige of lions from 35 to 40.

TECHNOLOGIES:

• Increased support income gain per trade route of Improved space flight conditions technology from 1 to 2. Increased its cost from 10 to 20 science.
• Reduced science cost of Improved Robotics from 10 to 5.
• Self-Learning AI now requires only 4 science to have its science output increased by 1 instead of 5.
• Increased support income gain per animal spread from the technology Animal Tracking from 3 to 8. Increased its science cost from 20 to 30.
• Reduced support gain from Food & drinks technologies, Consumer goods fabrication and Open science database from 3 to 2.
• Reduced cost of Terraforming Observations from 30 to 25 science.
• Changed House printing from a tier 1 to a tier 2 technology. Increased titanium gain per city building constructed from 1 to 2. Increased its science cost from 20 to 40.
• Applied research technology now provides 5 support income per tech played instead of 4.
• Removed DNA regeneration technology.

LEADERS:

• Maryam Fayeds specialization now produces 1 power per 4 power produced instead of per 6.
• Hong Taos specialization now produces 1 power per 7 expansions you acquire instead of per 10.
• Jagrav Varmans specialization now generates 1 support income per 10 resources you transport to a space project instead of per 20.
• Dejah Robinsons specialization now produces 5 support per landmark upgrade that produces support or comfort of living instead of 2.
• Isabella Torres specialization now produces 1 oxygen per 3 new oxygen produced instead of per 4.
• Arthur Fosters specialization now produces 1 tritium per new 1 new tritium produced instead of per 2 tritium.
• Flora Norouzis specialization now gives a 60% discount on plant spreaders instead of 40%.
• Aishe Jgers ability now gives a 50% discount on animal spreader buildings instead of 40%.
• Anastasia Dromedos specialization now produces 6 support income when founding a city in a new climate zone instead of 3.
• Changed Naily Bolatbek to be a mid-game leader instead of a late-game leader.
• Changed Modular apartment skill from Jorge Dromedo. He now gives 2 copies of that building as a project card for normal costs instead of directly constructing it.
• Removed modular apartments from the research pool. Only Jorge Dromedo can provide them now.
• Changed "Cultural Festivals" skill to cost more water and provide more support.
• Changed "Local Art Gallery" skill to give adjacent support income instead of support income per natural sight.
• Changed "Astral Temple" from 5 support for a high location to 4.
• Changed the cost of Dejah Robinson's space hotel skill from 10 titanium to 3 food and 6 titanium
• Reduced support gain from Anastasia's specialization (support when founding a city in a new climate zone) from 5 to 3.
• Changed specialization requirement of Gustave from 7 to 6 robots.

[/expand]

Save 20% off / Play Now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ If you want to report a bug or just chat with the devs, join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/agXrT6vJmn Have fun, terraformers!

[ 2022-12-07 16:03:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Martians! As part of the Steam Awards, please consider nominating Terraformers in the 'Best Game You Suck At' category! Or feel free to choose another category this will help us a lot anyway! Thank you!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2022-11-25 11:58:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Martians! Lets start with the most important point first: the next update will be released on the 7th of December! And it will be a big one: were merging updates 2 and 3 together into a single large update (and making some changes to the roadmap). Further in this devlog well give insights in some iterations weve made to the way you expand over oceans, shine some light on the new scenario and explain in what way were tweaking the difficulty level.

Roadmap update

So why didnt we release the second update earlier? Well the very simple answer is we encountered more challenges than expected and it took a bit longer to polish than what we had originally planned. Once we were finally ready with the second update we were well on our way to finalize the content of the 3rd update. Our plan was still to release the 2nd and 3rd update separately (though relatively close together) and as for the previous update we wanted to put the game on sale at the same time, but Steam has some limits and conditions on how and when a game can be put on sale. These timers, combined with Steams own events like the halloween and autumn sales made us push the date even further back. As by then the content for the 3rd update was in the polishing phase, we decided to just go for it and give you all a single much larger update. We have also been working on some roadmap tweaks, shifting around some of the elements so that the 2nd update would be focused mostly on new gameplay features and the 3rd update would be focused mostly on new content. But now it will be both at the same time, bringing 57 new projects (buildings, lifeforms, space projects), 8 new leaders, 2 new city slot layouts, 1 new scenario and 9 new events. We are sorry it took so long, but we think it was worth it. We are pretty excited to see everyone get their hands on all these new carefully crafted pieces and to get your feedback on it. Here is the updated roadmap:

Iterations to the ocean expansion

After weve implemented docks that automatically expand towards nearby oceans, as explained in the August Devlog, weve noticed that there was an issue with that mechanic: If you would be on ocean level 1 or 2, and later increase the amount of oceans, the already constructed dock would not give you access to those new ocean locations. After playtesting this, we discovered that this was unintuitive (why would the boats leaving a dock not be able to reach these new locations?). Therefore weve simplified and changed how it works: when you now construct a dock, it has a free unlimited action with which you can expand to oceans. You can do this at any time and expand as far as you want, though the further you expand, the more negative support is generated (just like with city expansion).
The new ocean expansion flow

Difficulty changes

We regularly receive feedback from players who find the game too difficult. A large number of players are currently not able to complete the final difficulty level, especially within 65 turns for the Platinum award. While designing the game, we thought this wouldnt be a problem as everybody can just choose the difficulty that is appropriate for them. However, the way weve designed the scenarios screen can give the impression that you need to complete all difficulty levels to have completed the game. For the completionists among us, this can be frustrating. Therefore we are lowering the difficulty and victory requirements of the scenarios a little bit, to make them more achievable for a larger group of players. Dont worry though, they still are a proper challenge. For the expert players, were adding extra expectation levels to the custom mode. In this way you can make the game as difficult as you want, still providing a good challenge for everybody. Here you can also select higher victory conditions (1500 points opposed to the 1000 points of the final scenario) so you can still play longer games if you wish.
One of Mars frozen CO2 glaciers.

Continuing your game after winning

Weve received multiple requests that players would like to be able to continue a game after achieving the victory condition. Were also adding this option in this update! You will be able to choose how you want to continue: in survival mode or leisure mode. In survival mode, the expectations keep going up, so the challenge will be to survive as long as possible. In Leisure mode, the expectations stop rising, so you can continue without the further stress of running out of support. Were looking forward to screenshots and stories of the awesome planets and cities youll build up to after a well earned victory.
Continuing after a well earned victory. That was it for this devlog, in the next devlog well expand more on the features that were also adding in the upcoming update that were originally planned for later, like the lifeform adaptation events and the catastrophic events. Terraf team

[ 2022-11-15 17:30:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello world (whichever one youre on)! This devlog is the 2nd part about the upcoming ocean & leader themed update. In case youve missed it, the first part can be found on our blog. So put on your wetsuit, and join us as we dive into the Martian oceans!

Marine lifeforms

The first thing we notice is that were not alone in this ocean. In the next update, you will be able to spread a new type of lifeform: marine lifeforms. Ranging from plankton, to coral reef and even whales, were adding 9 marine lifeforms to the game. Marine lifeforms come in the same 3 categories as land-based lifeforms: bacteria, plants and animals. However, where a land-lifeform requires that at least 1 location of the climate zone is land, the marine lifeform requires that at least 1 location in the climate zone is ocean.
Some of the new marine lifeforms.

Coastal cities

As we start running out of oxygen, we leave the wonders of the Martian ocean and make for the surface. Were adding that a city background will update if it is located next to an ocean. The ocean provides new opportunities as well: were adding 12 ocean related projects in the upcoming update. Gather your resources to construct seaweed farms, oceanic laboratories, water barrages and even, after a bit of terraforming, Martian beach clubs!
Work in progress city location location when near an ocean.

New leaders

We go inside a local bar to warm ourselves, and see on the news that elections are taking place. Leaders weve not seen before are running various political campaigns. The plans of seafaring leader Ayokunle Ndiaye directly appeal to us, as he orates about even vaster oceans and a network of connected docks and harbors. Lets hope he will do as well as his 2 predecessors, Beatrix and Jan, who greatly helped Martian healthcare and dike construction move forward.
One of the new upcoming leaders. Our adventure in and around the Martian oceans comes to a close for now (weve got a game to develop!). There is no exact release date yet for the next update, but that should be announced within a few weeks on our Discord server. See you in the Martian oceans! Terraformers Team

[ 2022-09-28 15:00:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Mars enthusiasts! We hope you are doing well. Here in Europe were seeing a warm and dry summer again. If only we could export our CO2 to another planet

EA1 release

On July 18th, we released the first major update for Terraformers. Besides some bugfixes (and a few bug introductions), the main new features were:

• A custom mode where you could define your own difficulty settings and game length (also endless), and share your game-seed with other players, so you could play the exact same map and compare your results.
• The introduction of technologies. Technologies are suggested at specific moments and can be researched with science. They have an everlasting effect on the rest of your game and allow you to specialize more in specific strategies.
• The addition of the Marsyclopedia. This is a digital library accessible from the main menu where you can read about all the projects, leaders and lifeforms youve encountered so far.

Thank you for the feedback on this update, and were happy that most of you seem to be enjoying it.

Sneak peak into upcoming ocean related gameplay

So far, oceans have been mostly inaccessible terrain. But with the next major update (which will still take some time), they can be traversed and used to your advantage.
A city near the ocean, you can see a few coastal locations. You will not be able to simply expand towards the ocean with your current expansion points. Instead, youll construct a sea port on a coastal location (a land location that borders an ocean). This seaport will then expand to nearby ocean locations automatically in a similar way as the expansion hub currently does this over land. A small dock will only expand to adjacent ocean locations, while an industrial harbor expands multiple connections further. Then on the ocean you can build platforms that extend your reach even further.
After building a doc the city was able to further expand to the with an ocean platform. Once expanded over the ocean, youll be able to construct new buildings there. For example a water filtering installation that produces water, a fish farm that produces food, or an oceanic laboratory that produces science. There will also be specific buildings for coastal locations, like a barrage that will generate power, or a beach club that will generate support (more if its also warm there). And of course we are also finally bringing ocean specific lifeforms.
Some of the new marine lifeforms. As development is still in an early stage, well have to postpone screenshots on this until the next devlog, where well also discuss the other main aspect of this new update: new leaders!

Gamescom 2022

In two weeks well also be attending Gamescom in Cologne, something for which we are very excited. Its the first on-site edition in three years. The last on-site edition we were also present, pitching an early prototype of Terraformers to publishers on the business days. This year well only be attending the public days, to demo the game to players!
The indie arena at Gamescom 2019. If youre also attending Gamescom, be sure to meet us at the Indie Arena! Otherwise, see you in the next newsletter (or on Discord/Steam)! Terraformers Team

[ 2022-08-12 14:30:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

This small patch fixes an issue with a city layout providing twice an adjacency effect.

[ 2022-08-12 13:34:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Small patch version 0.8.49:

• fixed some unsafe code which can potentially trigger crashes
• saving the player progression on more regular intervals so that less progress is lost in case of crashes

[ 2022-08-04 11:55:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Additions:

• Added that starting options will unlock after playing endless mode for a while
• Added new expectation rising event texts
• Added a safety to avoid an infinite expansion bug (but did not find the source yet)
• Added arrow key control for the planet camera (so they can be mapped to a stick on the steam deck)

Changes:

• Lowered the expectation rise frequency significantly in the early mastery levels, and a tiny bit in the later mastery levels.

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a memory issue which will hopefully stop some crashes from happening.
• Fixed the bug where only 1 lifeform was proposed
• Fixed a bug where lifeform spreading time would be displayed for hidden regions
• Fixed a bug where expanding to a location with a building would destroy the building
• Fixed a bug where relocating a building would inherit the damage
• Fixed a bug related to displaying information for Mine Venting skill (and other similar ones)
• Fixed a bug where you were not able to use the Mine skill on oceanic locations
• Fixed a bug where an error message with 131 missing would appear
• Fixed that you could destroy an expansion building (like a bus station) even when its expansion points were used
• Fixed the select leader screen would be cropped on small resolutions (like the steam deck)
• Fixed that you could relocate a city mine to a slot with no resources.
• Fixed a bug where the trade route breakdown was not displayed correctly for special mine trade routes.
• Some other small fixes and improvements

[ 2022-07-26 15:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Terraformers, As we previously announced, the Custom Mode (including Endless Mode) is now available to play and comes with lots of new features - Marsyclopedia, Technologies, new scenario and much more! Check out some gameplay in our latest trailer: [previewyoutube=L4cP-35Mvzo;full][/previewyoutube]

- Complete patch notes below -

[expand type=details]

Additions:

• Added new Custom mode (includes Endless mode)
• Added new Marsyclopedia (compendium)
• Added new gameplay mechanic: Technologies
• Added new scenario Planet of Knowledge focused on science and technologies
• Added new difficulty level for scenarios (Mastery level 36)
• Added new procedural leaders for long games
• Added new welcome popup
• Added decorations on project frame to indicate rarity
• Added a new tooltip when displaying lifeforms as well as full region coloring
• Added an abandon mars option in game menu
• Added many new building images
• Added a platinum trophy when winning a scenario in 65 turns (currently gold), giving 5 mastery points. Lowered the requirement for the gold trophy by 5 turns.
• Added that if you win a more difficult scenario, all lower difficulties of that scenario are also completed with the same trophy.
• When spreading a lifeform, the climate zones will now light up in different colors to communicate where the lifeform can be spread and how fast
• Added a table that breaks down the duration of the spreading of the lifeform depending on which climate zone you are hovering

Balance changes:

• Increased weight of the expectation rises a little bit in the underlying event-luck system, to balance it out better with the other (positive) events. As it was reported that getting more positive events resulted in a more difficult game as it also leads to more expectation rises.
• Decreased the expectation rise frequency a little between turn 20-40, increased expectation rise frequency a little after turn 40.
• Increased migration time on the planet by 1 turn.
• Changed the amount of mars points you win for winning a scenario and winning it in fewer turns.
• Increased prestige of palm trees by 1.
• Giant crystal cave, Giant diamond cave and Rich soil now also place small resources on nearby locations (shown as hints when exploring).
• Slightly increased amount of exploration satellites proposed.
• Martian Workers Association now gives 2 support per uniquely produced resource instead of 3.
• Division of labour now gives 1 comfort of living per 2 robots in the city, and is lowered in science cost to 5.
• Reduced the amount of water required and support gained for the "Cultural festivals" skill.
• Increased amount of city locations, lowered amount of empty locations.
• Lowered the starting power supply of the terraforming starting option by 5.
• Added an extra power supply crate near the starting location.
• Slightly increased amount of damage you'll receive.
• Increased the cost of founding a city by 5 water.
• Changed Electron Beam printer's effect to "Titanium mines owned by this city produce +1 titanium and -2 support", changed its power cost from 9 to 11.
• Slightly increased the chance of large/gigantic resource deposits in colder climate zones.
• Increased tritium cost of "Import oceans from Europa", "Import Methane from Titan", "Import Hydrogen from Gas Giant" by 1.
• Reduced spread duration of artificial bacteria by 1 turn.
• Slightly increased amount of research & development centers suggested in the early game.
• Reduced science cost of Robot Ingenuity Center by 1.
• Improvements and changes
• Safe save system handling, the save is now specific to the computer user and the store (steam or gog) specific user. (It should also be more safe from unwanted progress reset.)
• General memory usage improvements.
• Added a safety to avoid building a city mine at the same time as constructing a building.
• City locations are now destroyed when expanding to them.
• Improved the display of numbers on the resources (in case the numbers become very large).
• Improved the display of power costs when using the Mine skill.
• Improved the display of the specialization and other game effect elements.
• Enabled project run in background for the game (so you can continue to listen to the music ;) ).
• Improved the Expectation rise events (new text and artworks).
• Updated the roadmap.

Fixes:

• Fixed refounding power cost when canceling using Thomas mining skill.
• Fixed a bug where you could expand a city to another one.
• Fixed a bug with the last prestige level of lifeforms not working.
• Fixed Happiness Leads to Creativity specialization.
• Fixed an issue with card highlights.
• Fixed a bug where reloading a game would reset specializations.
• Fixed a visual issue in the select leader screen.
• Fixed an issue with the Enthusiasm widget not being visible when the player is about to lose.
• Fixed an issue with ocean locations (they are now fully destroyed).
• Fixed the revert action with the wrong name issue.
• Fixed that the costs of the select project popup were set to zero while in a city which is currently relocating.
• Fixed the trade boost specialization.
• Fixed the applied science center issues.
• Fixed the description overlapping in the scenario screen.
• Fixed and improved the dismiss tutorial logic.
• Fixed the investment game event option 2.
• Fixed some bugs related to flooding and dikes.
• Fixed some issues related to tooltips in the trade panel.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to import more resources than normally possible.
• Fixed a bug where you could play locked difficulty levels.
• Fixed a bug with RESOURCE_NONE when exploring a flooded location.
• Made it not possible to replace the expansion hub to be in line with the fact that you could already not destroy it.
• Fixed that clicking on a web link would trigger twice.
• Fixed a situation where you could be requested to pick more projects than you were proposed.
• End game reward will show neutral color costs.
• Lots of text related fixes and improvements in all languages.

[/expand] We can't wait to read your feedback on our Discord server! And if you don't already own the game, get it now and save 20% off! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ Have fun! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2022-07-18 17:02:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Terraformers, with this devlog were shining a light on the first major Early Access update. Be prepared, as this update will go live on July 18th! Heres an overview of what to expect:

Custom (endless) mode

As was requested by many players, we will add a custom mode in which you can define what type of game you want to play. You will be able to select the pace at which expectations rise (or even fully disable them), choose the frequency of natural disasters and select how long the game should last by selecting an amount of victory points, or even not define any end goal and just continue playing for as long as you want. The game will then calculate a mastery level, to give you an indication of how your created game compares to the scenarios in terms of difficulty. When starting the game, a specific seed will be generated. By sharing the seed, you can challenge someone else to play the exact same game (even with the same map generation and projects/leaders presented). As the endless game can last for a long time now, we have also added randomly generated leaders for the longer games. These leaders will have a shaded portrait and randomly selected skills, but come without specialization. This feature is also active in normal scenarios.
The new custom mode start screen.

Technologies and new Scenario

The aspect that will have a significant impact on gameplay in this update is the introduction of Technologies. At specific turns, you will be able to choose 1 of 3 technologies (though you can speed up this proposal process by constructing Applied Science Centers). Technologies cost science and have global effects that last for the entire game. There are technologies that reduce the costs of robots, reduce the costs of removing rocks, give support per new trade route or reduce the cost of other technologies. Were also adding a new scenario called Planet of Knowledge. This scenario is focused on the scientific reasons we have for going to Mars. To win the scenario, you must have spent a certain amount of the science resource, and have explored a certain amount of locations. Also, double the amount of technologies are proposed in this scenario.
Technological advancements event lets you select a new technology.

Lifeform spreading improvements

Another widely requested improvement has been to have clearer information when spreading lifeform. For this we are adding two improvements:

• When youve selected a lifeform, each climate zone will light up in shades of green and other colors to indicate if the lifeform can be placed there.
• When hovering over a climate zone, you get a tooltip explaining how the recharge duration after spreading the lifeform is calculated for that climate zone.

We hope that this will help new players understand the lifeform spreading flow better, and that it will help experienced players have a quicker overview of where they can spread each lifeform.
Climate zones will display different shades of greens and a detailed tooltip for spreading lifeforms.

Difficulty level and platinum trophy

Were also unlocking the next difficulty level: Mastery level 36. And for all scenarios, the difficulty has been tweaked a little bit: weve reduced the amount of expectation rise events youll receive in the early game, and increased the amount youll receive in the late game. Besides that, weve increased the amount of damage youll receive in the late game by a small amount. Finally, weve added a new trophy: the Platinum Trophy. This will replace the current golden trophy (complete the scenario in 65 turns or less). The golden trophy will now be 70 turns, and silver 80 turns. You will receive 5 mastery points for the Platinum trophy. All trophies will be automatically updated, so you can expect your mastery level to increase upon launch of the next update! Weve also added that if you have completed a more difficult entry in a scenario, you will get the same trophy in all easier entries of that scenario. With these additions, you can jump ahead to more difficult challenges faster. Our goal is not to lock content behind grinding but to provide an increasing challenge as you get better at the game. So if the early levels are too easy, this system allows you to jump ahead to more challenging levels faster.
The new procedural leaders for longer games.

Marsyclopedia

Weve also added the Marsyclopedia, in which you can view all projects, lifeforms and Leaders that youve encountered at least once in a game. You will be able to read and compare all descriptions, and see the rarity of projects, the type of lifeform and if a leader can be presented in the early, mid or late game. Were also happy to say that we have finally completed unique visuals for every single building in the game. We would like to improve the Marsyclopedia in further updates. We would like to add search and sorting functionalities to it as well as add missing content such as landmarks and their options.
Marsyclopedia displaying which projects you have encountered and those still to discover.

Bug & Crash improvements

Weve had reports from players experiencing crashes in the game. As we dont experience those ourselves, it has been challenging to fix those. Weve made some improvements, and hope that they will help. In addition we have also worked on solving many of the reported bugs, added many new building artworks and other small improvements. We hope that you will enjoy this first major Early Access update, and are looking forward to hearing your feedback! Asteroid Lab's Team

[ 2022-07-08 15:00:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Terraformers! Tomorrow, I (Jasper, game designer for Terraformers) will be a guest at the INDIGO showcase. At 17.05 CEST a streamer (TeamWALL) will play Terraformers for about twenty minutes and ask me some questions about the game. If you're interested, you can check it out via this link: https://www.twitch.tv/indigoshowcase . The event will start at at 9:30 and 19 other indie games at different stages of development will also be streamed. You can view the full program here: https://indigoshowcase.nl/discover/.

[ 2022-06-16 08:31:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Martians, we hope you are doing well! Welcome to our first devlog since the release of Terraformers into Early Access! On April 21st, the moment was finally there. At 19:00 CET we pressed the button that we were looking forward to pressing for over 3 years. It was a very exciting moment, as this is the first game we released as a studio. We were overwhelmed with all the responses and constructive feedback weve received, and would like to take a moment to thank you all for that. It will help us to develop this game further into the best version we can make it.

Patches since the launch into Early Access

With all the engaging feedback you gave us on the initial release, we identified some elements where we could quickly make improvements and weve already done 4 patches with bug fixes, difficulty changes and quality of life improvements. To have a good overview of all of the bug fixes and improvements weve done, please have a look at our patch notes on steam. The most significant changes though, were tweaks to the difficulty of the game:

• Weve lowered the frequency of expectation rises of your population, and therefore the difficulty of the game. Weve had reports that the first scenarios of the game were too difficult for new players, and we want to offer everyone the freedom to learn the strategies of the game at their own pace.
• Weve lowered the amount of damage that youll receive in a game, as that also contributed to the high difficulty.
• Even though we lowered the difficulty, we found it important that the game is still challenging for the players who are veterans of the strategy genre. Therefore weve added 4 extra difficulty levels, making sure there is an appropriate challenge for everybody.

Whats coming in the first major Early Access update

We have now shifted our focus towards work on future updates, following our roadmap and specific improvements requested by the players. The features that are planned for the first major Early access update are: Technologies Technologies are the aspect of the update that will have the most impact on the gameplay. They are proposed like projects, but only cost science. A technology provides a global benefit that will allow you to specialize your strategy further. Some examples of benefits that technologies can give:

• Artificial intelligence: New robots provide +1 support income
• Enhanced Photosynthesis: Newly planted trees produce double the oxygen and gas.
• Megastructure Construction: When constructing a building that costs at least 40 resources, gain 5 random resources back.

Example of upcoming technology project. Marsyclopedia We will also add the first iteration of a Marsyclopedia to the main menu. Here, you will find all projects, lifeforms, leaders and locations that youve encountered at least once in the game. You can read up on them here and have a good overview, which can help you get a better understanding of the different potential strategies in the game.
Design conceprt of the Marsyclopedia screen. Custom Mode This might be our most requested feature since the launch, so weve decided to include it in the first major update as well. In custom mode, youll be able to set up the game to exactly how you want it by defining the victory condition, expectation rise frequency and severity of damage youll receive during the game. You can even choose not to select a victory condition and fully remove expectation rises and damage, allowing you to play a stress-free endless sandbox version of the game. Some mechanics might not hold up in very long runs, but it will be part of the Early Access journey to discover and address that together.
Custom mode screen, you can set it to be endless.

More improvements for future EA updates

Weve also listened to your feedback, and two much requested improvements are better information on where you can spread lifeforms, and a way to easily see a summary of all your cities and climate zones in a single place, without needing to go over the planet to view them one by one. They are planned for more distant early access updates, but we can already share our first concepts on them. Lifeform information improvements When having a lifeform selected, the different climate zones will have a green or red color, depending on whether the lifeform can survive there or not. This will allow you to see at a glance where you can spread the lifeform, and prevents you from needing to check each climate zones parameters individually. We will also work on improving other aspects of the lifeform spreading, as not all players understand how it works exactly.
Design concept for improved lifeform spreading UI. Summary screens We are also working on summary screens. Opening this screen will allow you to have a good overview of all your specializations, space projects, technologies, cities and climate zones. In this way you can easily check which climate zones have lifeforms and which do not, or which city is currently suffering from damaged buildings.
Early work in progress design concept for an overview screen. We hope to have given you a good insight into what is coming to Terraformers in the first update, and a little bit beyond that if we dont manage to include everything directly. We would like to thank everybody for playing Terraformers, and we are excited to be on this Early Access journey to Mars with all of you. Terraf Team

[ 2022-05-24 10:27:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here comes a new patch (v0.7.112) bringing bug fixes, better clarity of some gameplay concepts and some difficulty tweaks to the game. We hope you'll like it! Fixes:

• Trade arrows no longer appear on top of other ui elements (project details popup for example).
• Victory screen does not let tooltips from the planet appear anymore.
• UI elements on the planet are hidden when not looking at the planet.
• Fixed the setting popup so that it correctly appears over everything.
• Solved a bug where dikes did not correctly display the wave icon leading to unforeseen flooding.
• Fixed an issue with the orbital ring which didnt account for itself.
• Fixed an issue with the points not adding up in the Per Aspera Ad Astra scenario due to the free space project.
• Fixed the bug with the loot system (spawning 1 science loot too much in some occasions).
• Fixed that not-owned buildings with actions (like spread life) had their actions getting recharged
• Fixed the specialization trade boost which was not working.
• Fixed the specialization climate variety which only gave 1 support instead of 5.
• Fixed bugs related to the special slots where they would not provide their bonus in certain cases.
• Fixed a bug where modular appartements would display the wrong bonus before placing it.
• Fixed a bug where a slot in a city with no rocks would say blocked by rocks.
• Fixed Dejah Robinson alternative space materials skill which could happen in cases where you have almost completed the space project.
• Fixed an out of range bug in the scenario screen.
• Moving a city will now properly destroy all the buildings in the previous location.
• Fixed a bug with relocating of lifeform spreader buildings.
• Fixed a bug where you could zoom out very far from the planet.
• Fixed a bug where trade-routes from mines were not accounted for points.
• Fixed a bug where buildings providing climate zone bonuses would still work on a not-owned location.
• Fixed a bug with missing characters in Polish language.
• Updated a typo in the roadmap.
• Lots of localisation fixes in different languages.
• Other small fixes and polish.

Improvements:

• Better hand card spacing to accommodate for a high number of cards.
• Added a scrollbar to the card draw popup in case of a high number of propositions.
• Added a join discord button in the main menu.
• Added a tip from the leader to better explain the comfort of living.
• Auto-close trade panel when right-clicking or clicking somewhere else.
• Added a clear all trade routes button.
• Changed the rising expectation artwork.
• Made lifeform selection more clear (pulsating and hovering tweaks).
• Removed scaling options which would make the UI not usable in the settings option.
• Made climate zone terraforming parameter icons bigger so they are more readable.
• Improved the dike widget and button to be more prominent.
• Added feedback popup in main menu.
• Made that spreader buildings will show the lifeform icon of the type they can spread.
• Added 2 new difficulty levels and lowered the difficulty in the other scenarios, to accommodate for a smoother learning curve.

Changes:

• HQ can only be replaced by Skyscrapers now.
• Expectation Rise and Mars Quake events will not happen one after the other anymore
• Lowered expectation rise event frequency.
• Lowered how often youll receive damage.
• Increased victory conditions for "Per Aspera Ad Astra"
• Removed the event "The end of Moores law" until it is improved to be less punishing.
• Slightly increased amount of "Research centers" proposal chance.

[ 2022-05-10 08:23:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.7.106 reverts a bug which deleted the player progression in version v0.7.105. We are sorry for all those affected. This recent change make the progression faster so hopefully you'll be back on track in no time!

[ 2022-04-27 17:12:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.7.105: bug fix, new difficulty levels and other polish

• Bugfix: After destroying a project that provided a trade route you could sometimes end your turn with more trade routes assigned than you have. Now the turn cant be ended in that state and an explanatory tooltip has been added.
• Improved loading performance. The game startup time is 60% shorter than before in our tests! Well continue working on improving that.
• Fixed a few errors related to founding of cities.
• Fixed an incorrect selection of a city background layer when a crater location is terraformed and at max population level.
• Corrected the lighting color in terraformed cities.
• Fixed a bug where removing a project that provides a trade route didnt force the player to unassign lost routes.
• Added more difficulty levels for all scenarios
• Added that each scenario trophy provide 1 player rank (ranks will grow faster)
• Added that you do not require to have completed all previous difficulty levels to player the later difficulties (so tied with the faster rank growth it will be faster to access the harder difficulties)
• Hid a tooltips which was showing when relocating a city HQ
• Fixed a lot of language keys not localizing properly
• Fixed that text would not refresh properly when changing language in the settings
• Localized all leader names
• Fixed some bugs related to music where a track would loop indefinitely
• Improved the music system pacing
• Added smoke effect to buildings which didnt have it yet
• Prevented that the HQ can be destroyed in a city
• Made the Supply Station and Expansion Hub not possible to relocate
• Lots of other small polish

[ 2022-04-27 14:29:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey all. A new small patch is live! V0.7.101 - Difficulty lowered (fewer expectation rise events and damage). Difficulty scaling between scenario's increased, so the final ones should still be a challenge! - The Roadmap has been added to the main menu - Returning to the main menu after winning/losing a game will now open up the scenario screen (some players were not aware there was more)

[ 2022-04-23 11:07:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.7.101

• We added the roadmap to the main menu screen to help communicate on upcomming features.
• When finishing a game you will be brought directly to the scenario screen in the main menu.
• Small difficulty balance

[ 2022-04-23 10:47:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, here are the patch notes for V0.7.100 which brings a lot of fixes to your bug reports as well as balancing to lower the difficulty level of the early games.

• Reduced the difficulty of the early levels
• Updated localisation (for last few remaining non localized lines)
• Fixed missing lz4 library for linux
• Added missing lifeform sfx
• Updated to music tracks to newer versions
• Made a fix where a couple leader specialization would not work at all
• Added undo for space project activation
• Fixed a leader skill (speech) which could be done to the same city multiple times
• Fixed the placement of the building popup in cities for users with 4k screens
• Fixed the city dikes button
• Fixed undo after relocating a city
• Temp fix of mines being buildable on ocean tiles
• Fixed the mine venting skill on damaged mines
• Fixed that you could still extend a city after the game end
• Added a subscribe to newsletter button on the main menu
• Fixed a warning with dikes on location sidebar (when there is another building present)
• Fixed a bug where buildings would still produce after migrating

[ 2022-04-22 16:47:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, You have been thousands to get an play the game on launch day. Thank you so much to all, we hope you're having fun! The Early Access launch is just the start, and more is on its way! Here is our Roadmap:

[ 2022-04-22 16:32:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everybody, This is it: Terraformers is now available in Early Access! [previewyoutube=NxIFctKaRsA;full][/previewyoutube]

Explore the Red Planet. Develop new cities. Terraform with ambitious projects.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ Once again, thank you so much for playing the prologue and supporting us! We hope you will like this game as much as we have enjoyed working on it! If you want to follow us in this crazy adventure and share your feedback with us, join our Discord server if you haven't yet! Have fun! -Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2022-04-21 17:11:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everybody. With the release of Early Access coming soon (21st of April), were putting the final touches to the games polish. In this devlog, I (Jasper) will outline what gameplay changes weve made from the Prologue to the release of Early Access, and why.

Trade interface and space projects

As shown in the previous devlog, space projects will make their appearance at the launch of Early Access. Youll need to use your trade routes to export resources to them, and as we will have more total trade routes than in the prologue, the interface design we previously had needed an upgrade. Now you will be able to easily edit your imports and exports however you wish, as long as there are the same amount of available import and export routes at the bottom (currently shown as 0). With this interface, you will also be able to easily export resources to your space projects to reap their benefits.The instant trade button has disappeared as it did not fit the idea of ships traveling between Earth and Mars over time and it just made the interface more cluttered with buttons. As the panel now takes more space, you can collapse it with the new top button at the top, this will only show the arrows so you still have all the needed information on a quick look.
The old and new trade panel. The space projects are on the right in the second image.

Extracting water for oceans

In the prologue you were able to increase the ocean level over time by draining your aquifers. In the main game this option now instantly extracts the water for the ocean in one turn, depleting the aquifer and allowing you to construct a new building on it. This change gives you more accurate control as to when you want to let the ocean rise rather than the slow ocean increase which could lead to unwanted flooding of cities and locations.
The old and new water deposit options.

Founding new cities

We now have unique cities with different slot layouts, and with new special slots providing local bonuses. This introduced more choice and consideration and to avoid an overload of information, we have made the plain city location a specific location which has to be discovered like the crater and lavatube city locations (and thus a lot less frequent). Additionally, to help make a properly informed decision, you must now explore all locations before you can found a city somewhere. In the image below you can see a different slot layout, a fertile ground slot (food producing buildings on it produce +1 food) and a natural sight (provides +2 support to adjacent populations).
An example of a new city layout with special slots.

Spreading life

In the prologue you could directly spread life by paying its costs. This led to a lot of checking at the end of every turn if you have enough resources to spread a lifeform that turn. And as the lifeforms are hidden behind a sub-menu, it is often forgotten. We changed the way you spread life to be based on a recharge timer. Now, you can construct a spreader building, for example a bacteria spreader, on a planet location. Then this spreader building will give you an action to spread life that you can use every couple of turns (duration depending on the lifeform). The building will remind you when it can spread a new lifeform again, so you dont need to check it yourself anymore every turn. Some leaders will now also be able to genetically modify lifeforms, lowering their requirements to be spread.
The new lifeform interaction system.

Main game goal

As mentioned in the previous devlog, the game now has a goal which is different depending on each scenario. There is no limit to the number of turns you can play but you must reach the goal before your total support reaches 0. Winning a game often takes about 60 to 70 turns. With all the new elements to consider this will usually take a few hours. Some examples of goals are: fully terraforming the planet or getting a specific amount of prestige from spreading life or mining a specific amount of resources... And in addition there are multiple difficulty levels per scenario. This makes replaying the game more varied and provide more interesting challenges.
The new goal bar above your current population support. Were very excited that the game will finally release so soon, and would like to thank everybody again for playing the Prologue and supporting us! See you in a week with the games EA release! Terraf Team

[ 2022-04-15 14:00:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear everyone, We have an exciting announcement, we are going to release the game in Early Access, and very soon! In this devlog we will detail why we will release in Early Access, when it will happen and what our development plans are during this period. [previewyoutube=M-8kcB-Qsa0;full][/previewyoutube]

Why Early Access?

We have reached a point in development where all the major components of the game are in place, and were now shifting focus towards adding exciting content. This will be a gradual process and will still take some months. But the core game is already playable and we feel there is no reason to keep the game away while we are adding more to it. In addition, the feedback we received on the demo and then on the prologue has been invaluable in improving the game, balancing it and polishing it. We have some ideas for a few more features and content but we think it would be cool to involve you all in the process.
Science congress artwork by Ludovic Rossier for the scientific golden age event.

Initial Early Access version

Compared to the prologue, there will be multiple new additions when we release in Early Access, most notably:

• New projects, lifeforms and leaders.
• Space projects that you can do outside of Mars.
• New impactful events.
• A new trade interface.
• Scenarios providing unique challenges, and difficulty levels.
• A meta progression system that unlocks more content as you play.
• Quality of life improvements.
• Removal of the turn limit, longer play time!
• And a lot more!

We are doing our best to have the most polished and bug free experience possible for early access, but it is important to remember that early access is not the full game and there will be some missing elements. We will aim to keep saves and compatibility between updates as much as possible, but we cant promise that new features will never break ongoing saves. We also intend to keep the progression between early access and the full game, so all content unlocked would remain unlocked.
More projects and visual variation.

Early Access updates and more

During early access we will release regular updates to the game to add content, improve the balance and polish the experience of the game. And of course we will continue to take your feedback and ideas into consideration. Our goal is to release a total of 4 large updates spread out over 6 months, so an update about every 6 weeks. All updates will contain new projects, new scenarios and balance patches. This is our current plan for the updates, though it might still change as we progress in development:

• Update 1 will introduce technologies, which provide global benefits in various areas and cost science to research.
• Update 2 will be the leader update, where we will add more leaders with unique skills and specializations to the game.
• Update 3 will be the space update. You will be able to found a city on the two Martian moons: Phobos and Deimos. Also we will add more space projects in this update.
• Update 4 (Full release) would be the final update. As this will be the last update before full release, we will focus more on polishing and quality of life improvements.

We will also add more music and sound effects to the game, however it is not planned yet in which update this will be. After full release, we will of course continue to maintain the game and have some ideas for DLCs.
Success is within reach!

Release dates and pricing

We will release the game in Early Access on the 21st of April this year. The game will release for 19.99 euros / dollars on early access and there will be a small discount in the first week. We estimate that we will stay about 6 months in Early Access which currently puts the full release of the game at the end of October 2022. We estimate 6 month is enough for us to integrate the content we still have prepared as well as implement the feedback and ideas that will come up from you. If these are a lot, it might require a few more months. Seeing how involved some of you have been, we cant completely rule this scenario out ;) And of course, the most important thing for us is to release the game in a complete, nicely polished state and if that requires a few more months of work, so be it. The price of the game might go up a little bit on release. And we are also hoping to release it on Nintendo Switch at the same date (as the full release of the game).
Get ready for Early Access launch! And this is it! Were super excited to finally be so close to release after working on this game for years. We cant wait to see the creative strategies you will come up with to win even the hardest difficulties. Get ready! Terraformers Dev Team

[ 2022-03-25 16:41:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everybody. In January we developed and fine tuned the game further, and designed new content. In this devlog Ill show a new feature that will be in the game: Space Projects! Also I will discuss how this new feature might change the trade interface, and explain how the migration of cities and projects due to sea level rises will work.

Space projects

Mars will not just be terraformed using the resources that are present on Mars itself. To turn the Red planet into a Blue and Green one, you will have to look towards the stars. Space projects are similar to normal projects in the way they are proposed, but once chosen they will not be simply playable by spending its required resources. Instead, they will be stored next to your trade panel and you will have to transport the resources towards them using your transport routes.
Work in progress space projects art
Work in progress space projects UI This means that it will take multiple turns to complete it (depending on how fast you can transport the resources there), and that you will have to choose between using your transport route to trade resources with Earth, or to send resources to a space project. Some examples of space projects are:

• Importing Water from Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter.
• Constructing giant space mirrors, heating up the planet.
• Mining asteroids, to acquire more resources.

Trade User Interface changes

The trade panel that is present in the prologue, is difficult to scale when there are lots of transport routes. Also it doesnt work very cleanly in combination with the new space projects. Therefore we are trying out different designs for it. The design in the images above is what we are testing at the moment, and still improving visually. The idea is that your amount of unused transport routes are shown at the bottom, and you can click on the buttons next to the resources to import/export them. At the end of your turn, they always need to be in balance. Using this system, you can also export resources towards space projects.
Work in progress UI for trading

City migration

Rising sea levels is an integral part of terraforming Mars. This will result in some locations that can be submerged into oceans. Which locations will be submerged, and on which ocean rise level this will happen, is indicated by the amount of blue waves next to the location.
Work in progress of city migration Here you can see that New Havana will be submerged if the ocean level rises by 2 steps in the future. To prevent this, we can now migrate the entire city to another city location. This will take time though, time during which the city will not produce anything. The duration is based on the distance towards the new location. The further away, the longer the migration process will take. As you can see we could migrate New Havana to the south, where there is a flat plains city location. The duration will be 6 turns (2 + distance). When migrating to a new location, you will be able to relocate your buildings inside it as well, just as your Headquarters. This will also be an option for individual buildings, for example if you want to place them in a different spot in the same city, or in another city entirely (though that takes longer).
Work in progress of city migration That was it for this month, stay tuned for more exciting news soon and thank you for reading! Terraformers Team

[ 2022-02-08 16:00:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear community, we would like to wish you all a very happy new year 2022 and thank you for your support! We hope your year is starting as successfully as the launch of the James Webb telescope! This year will be an exciting one for us with the upcoming launch of Terraformers!
James Webb telescope takes off from Kourou in French Guyana on december 25th 2020. Photo from NasaHqPhoto.

2021 retrospective

2021 has been a busy year and the game has progressed a lot since last december. Looking back its always fascinating to see all the things we have done and what we thought at the time! Exactly one year ago, we were gearing up for the Steam Festival of February but eventually decided the game was not in a good enough state yet, so we decided to cancel and aim for the June Steam Festival instead. It was definitely the right choice as the feedback on the demo in June was positive and helped us improve and confirm the design for the prologue which we released in October. Your feedback on the prologue has been invaluable to improve the game and its been very motivating to see your high scores and ideas.

Its always fun to see how much we have progressed in the past year.

December progress

To conclude 2021, this December we have implemented a slew of new features. We have improved the map generation logic with new unique landmarks. We added the possibility to have varying city layouts which now also include slots that provide unique bonuses. We also added the possibility of relocating cities and buildings as well as destroying buildings as it was requested a lot. We also added space projects which are major projects that can be done outside of Mars, for example redirecting an asteroid.. On the art side we made new leaders, buildings, and visual & UI polishing. And finally we patched the prologue to be as smooth as possible.
An in progress art piece from Tiago showing the livelihood of people in a Martian city.

A peek into 2022

All the stuff we did in December brings us very close to being feature complete. We are currently working on the overall game progression and implementing multiple starting scenarios as well as content unlocking as the game progresses. And after that, we will focus on implementing the ever growing list of content: buildings, space projects, leaders, leader skills, events and other things which our designer has been creating tirelessly. There is still a lot to do but its exciting to reach this stage where almost everything is in place. Now its about polishing, balancing and implementing all the already designed elements.
The concept for the new scenario selection screen. With 2021 behind us, onward to 2022! Stay tuned for more, Terraformers Team

[ 2022-01-07 17:00:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Terraformers, With the release of the prologue, Its been some time since we wrote our previous devlog. And in this time, the project has moved forward a lot, so lets dive into it together!

Prologue release

On October 23rd, we released the free prologue for Terraformers named Terraformers: First steps on Mars. Here is a link to its Steam page or Gog if you didnt already see it. We are super proud that the reviews have been Very Positive overall, it is very motivating for us and also helps a lot in terms of visibility. So thank you to everyone who left feedback. We are releasing a new prologue update on wednesday 8 of december with some fixes, polish and most importantly we are adding French, Spanish and Russian translations so that more of you can play!
One of the best score weve seen! Congrats Klipp2.

Content suggestions

As were approaching the final stage of development, most features are designed and were shifting our focus towards designing more content. We have a lot of ideas for cool terraforming projects, events, and locations ourselves, but we also want to include the community on this aspect. Therefore weve opened a new channel on our Discord called suggest-content, where you can share your own ideas! Maybe youve read an interesting article on how we can create construction material from the Regolith on Mars, or saw a documentary about how housing can be done efficiently in those hostile environments. Or maybe a Kurzgesagt video on how to kickstart the terraforming process (looking at you: nuke videos..). In any way, come and discuss your idea on our Discord, and who knows, we might implement it in the game.
Nuking the pole could kickstart a global greenhouse warming effect. But at what cost?

Semi-randomness in Terraformers

As weve received some questions about how randomness works in Terraformers, I (Jasper, the game designer) thought it would be nice to write a piece about why we use it and how we use it. The main reason for adding any form of randomness to a game is to make each playthrough really unique, by providing unique challenges every time you start a new game. This has the effect that there is no clear winning strategy in every game, but that you have to adapt to whatever the game gives you. It promotes a flexible playstyle. It also makes sure that each time you play, youre getting better at the game in general, and not just solving a specific puzzle.
Semi random project proposition. However, randomness always brings the risk of letting you feel frustrated, if it doesnt give you the things you need or were hoping for. In Terraformers, this can happen if you dont get the project suggested that would be a good combination with your other projects. The difficult thing is that while this aspect can be frustrating, it also brings fun and excitement when you do get the right projects that work well together. So to some degree, this frustration will always be an inherent aspect of the game and something that we cant completely solve. Having said that, we do have systems and design principles in place to limit this frustration:

• Although the proposed projects might seem fully random, they are not. They are drawn from different decks which are categorized by their output (food, power, terraforming etc.). Each project is picked from a different deck, until all decks have provided 1 project, and then this cycle repeats. In this way, you will not suddenly get 3 food buildings proposed, and it should never take more than 2-3 turns until you get a food building proposed again. Some decks include multiple project types, for example the Population deck includes both human population and robots. So it can happen that you dont get a human population presented in a few rounds if it proposes robots, but at least projects also fulfill the need for expansion. Also, we make a distinction between early and late game projects when determining what projects are available in these decks in order to provide projects which are relevant to the current game stage. We are still balancing the amount of decks and which decks contain what, and might add more limitations to provide a more balanced game experience.
• We use input randomness and try to stay away from output randomness. Output randomness takes place after you do something, usually to determine if it is a success or a failure while input randomness proposes a random set of options, but then you have full knowledge of what the outcomes of these options will be, this usually feels much less frustrating. Some examples of output randomness that we stay away from would be, that if a leader travels far, they have a 20% chance to get injured. Or that when you do a risky terraforming project, there is a 10% chance that it fails. The problem with this type of randomness is that it does not give you much agency and does not (in my opinion) provide an interesting choice. Its more like a risk-analysis and a gamble. Instead, the outcome of actions in Terraformers is usually fully determined (exploration and projects always succeed). Instead, we use input randomness, which is randomness that takes place first, and then gives you the choice how to respond to it. For example the project proposal proposes to you 3 semi-random projects, and then it is up to you to choose the best one of them.
• For events, we have a system in place that balances positive and negative events. If more bad things happen to you (damage, expectation rise), the game will remember this and will provide you with more positive events later. The fact that events early in the game have more impact than later in the game is also taken into consideration when calculating this to provide a balanced experience throughout the game. So if something bad happens, dont lose hope, the game will help you get back on track later!

Finally, randomness can help to keep the complexity of the game low. For example our project proposal system replaces a traditional technology tree, often used on other games. In those games, if you want to play optimally, you often need to define your path through the technology tree long in advance, which can lead to a very complex early game, and also to an optimal strategy that you follow in each different game. Something which 4X games like Civilization suffer from in the long term. By including randomness here, we solve these 2 issues, but increase the potential for frustration. In the end its also a matter of personal preference. In a future devlog well share more about the map generation process (which we are changing), as this also includes procedural randomness. That was all for this month! We wish you the best for this holiday season. Here is a sneak peak into a terraformed city artwork, something weve been working on as well:

[ 2021-12-03 17:00:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone,

As Terraformers is participating in the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest, check out some gameplay on October 25th!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

Features:

Explore the Red Planet Send your leaders to mysterious locations and be the first to discover rich resource depots, giant crystal caves and stunning natural wonders. Develop your cities Found new cities on craters and in lava Tubes. Make them thrive and meet your population's rising demands. Manage your resources Mine the rare metals of Mars, manufacture them into advanced goods and set up an effective transport system between your ever-growing cities. Terraform with ambitious projects Restart a volcano, construct giant space mirrors or crash ice asteroids to geo-engineer the entire planet. Become a gardener of life From spreading adaptive bacteria, to planting full-grown forests with bears. Each life form has specific requirements and provides strategic benefits.

For the occasion, we also released our free prologue, Terraformers: First Steps on Mars!

Lead the first human settlement on Mars! Earth is sending its first expedition to assess the viability of human settlement on Mars, with the long term objective of terraforming the planet and spreading life across its surface. You will have to explore the planet, exploit local resources and develop your colonies into large cities. But make sure to provide a decent living standard for your people to retain their support! Are you ready to lead mankind's first steps on Mars? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557040/Terraformers_First_Steps_on_Mars/ We hope you will have fun and can't wait for your feedback! Our Discord server: https://discord.gg/Xg8NqPTjyB

[ 2021-10-25 15:25:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, This is it! Terraformers: First Steps on Mars is now available! In this free prologue, lead humanity's first attempt at settling the Red Planet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557040/Terraformers_First_Steps_on_Mars/ Join us on Discord to share your scores and feedback with us: https://discord.gg/Xg8NqPTjyB

Terraformers: Supporter Pack

Heres the Supporter Pack, dedicated to all the fans of Terraformers around the solar system! In return for your support, you will get: - Digital Artbook (after game release) - 4K Wallpapers - Game Soundtrack (will be updated as more tracks are created) - A Unique leader clothing style (on game release) Get it now and it's yours forever! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1795320/Terraformers_Supporter_Pack/ Thank you so much for your support and for helping us to make this crazy game idea a reality! Have fun, everyone! Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2021-10-23 16:52:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone,

As Terraformers is participating in the Steam Digital Tabletop Fest, check out some gameplay on October 23rd!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

Features:

Explore the Red Planet Send your leaders to mysterious locations and be the first to discover rich resource depots, giant crystal caves and stunning natural wonders. Develop your cities Found new cities on craters and in lava Tubes. Make them thrive and meet your population's rising demands. Manage your resources Mine the rare metals of Mars, manufacture them into advanced goods and set up an effective transport system between your ever-growing cities. Terraform with ambitious projects Restart a volcano, construct giant space mirrors or crash ice asteroids to geo-engineer the entire planet. Become a gardener of life From spreading adaptive bacteria, to planting full-grown forests with bears. Each life form has specific requirements and provides strategic benefits.

For the occasion, we are also releasing our free prologue, Terraformers: First Steps on Mars today!

Lead the first human settlement on Mars! Earth is sending its first expedition to assess the viability of human settlement on Mars, with the long term objective of terraforming the planet and spreading life across its surface. You will have to explore the planet, exploit local resources and develop your colonies into large cities. But make sure to provide a decent living standard for your people to retain their support! Are you ready to lead mankind's first steps on Mars? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557040/Terraformers_First_Steps_on_Mars/ We hope you will have fun and can't wait for your feedback! Our Discord server: https://discord.gg/Xg8NqPTjyB

[ 2021-10-23 14:50:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear everyone! We are extremely excited to announce that Terrafomers: First steps on mars, the free prologue of our game Terraformers, will be released on Saturday 23rd of October 2021. In just a few days! You can find it here!

A bit about dev

For the past couple of months we have been working intensely at making everything ready and as polished as we could. A lot has progressed since the Steam Festival demo of June with improved visuals, improved gameplay and more content. But most importantly, the prologue includes more terraforming and the spreading of life! Lopez said in The Expanse it would have been nice to see an ocean on Mars. You can now make his dream come true.
An ocean and a forest on Mars in the prologue.

A bit about the lore

The prologue takes place early in the games lore where Earth is sending its first expedition to assess the viability of human settlement on Mars, with the long term objective of terraforming the planet and spreading life across its surface. You will have to explore the planet, exploit local resources and develop your colonies into large cities. But make sure to provide a decent living standard for your people to retain their support! Are you ready to lead mankind's first steps on Mars?
Aerobraking in 3, 2...

Prologue rewards

Finishing the Prologue is one thing, but you can also now strive to get different tiers of achievements, the highest one of which will be challenging to earn. Getting even just one achievement will also unlock a special leader skin in the final game (which we are still working on). And finally, we are releasing a supporter pack dlc with soundtracks, wallpapers and more if you want to show your support with the team.
A quiet night in a crater city. We hope youll enjoy the prologue, come share your score and your feedback on the steam forums or on our discord! Thanks for being a part of our community, Terraf team!

[ 2021-10-20 16:00:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello earthlings, This month has been an exciting one with a new trailer and our participation at the Gamescom Indie Arena. We also started working with a writer who has been churning out new leaders and more!

New leaders

Frank is a writer and world-builder, who will be working the back story of the world, characters and how the colonisation came to be. This month he worked on writing bios and descriptions for four new leaders. Our artists then use these to create the leader's visuals. Ilonka Kertsz is an artist. Born in Hungary shortly before the race to Mars began, she grew up with stories of space exploration on TV. Her father was a science fiction author and followed the developments closely, leading to Ilonkas upbringing featuring a heavy optimism about the Mars expedition. Tariq Fayed, a security expert, grew up in a war-torn region with an uncertain future. After working in the army, and then as a security contractor for civilian organisations, he decided to join the Mars colonization project to help avoid the rise of conflicts through security in the new world.
Tariq and Ilonka portrayed by Tiago da Silva.

New trailer

As you might have seen, weve also worked with our publisher on a new trailer to present at Gamescom. Our previous videos dated from our prototype phase when we didnt have gameplay we were ready to show yet. Now that weve progressed on the game development, both on the gameplay side and on the visual side, we felt it was finally due for a good update! We were able to put a good mix of gameplay footage and animated artworks in it, which we think is a good thing in trailers. The trailer can be seen both on Youtube and on our steam page and we hope it will help grow our community. [previewyoutube=hZZpAcVmcSo;full][/previewyoutube] Terraformers Gamescom 2021s trailer.

Gamescom feedback

During Gamescom, a demo of the game was playable at the Goblinzs Booth in the Indie Arena virtual space. New players got to try the build and were able to give us feedback on our Discord server, which was positive and motivating for us. The Gamescom demo was an updated version of the one we presented at the Steam Festival in June. We added some quality of life features which were highly requested at the time, such as saving your progress or cancelling an action. We also started to add new building visuals and to update the background city visuals. If you played it we hope you had a lot of fun.
Goblinzs booth at Gamescom. That concludes our update for August. More features are in the works and will be detailed a bit in future devlogs so stay tuned! Thanks for following us and until next month, Terraf dev team

[ 2021-09-06 15:30:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We are so glad to finally be able to share the new announcements we made at Gamescom with you all! Here is a recap of them all.

New reveal trailer: Sandwalkers

[previewyoutube=j4K4M8ahmuQ;full][/previewyoutube]

Wishlist now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1639080/Sandwalkers/

New reveal trailer: Oaken

[previewyoutube=JJe5Gq5ntKI;full][/previewyoutube]

Wishlist now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1348690/Oaken/

New gameplay trailer: Diluvian Winds

[previewyoutube=uKywIU7j9Ks;full][/previewyoutube]

Wishlist now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1561040/Diluvian_Winds/

New gameplay trailer: Terraformers

[previewyoutube=hZZpAcVmcSo;full][/previewyoutube]

Wishlist now:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/

[ 2021-08-30 13:10:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We are so happy to be part of the Indie Arena Booth Online this year! Join us on the Goblinz Publishing booth and play our demo and other great ones until August 29th! You can also watch our live stream to know more about the game!

About Terraformers:

• Explore the Red Planet: send your leaders to mysterious locations and be the first to discover rich resource depots, giant crystal caves and stunning natural wonders.
• Develop your cities: found new cities on craters and in lava Tubes. Make them thrive and meet your population's rising demands.
• Manage your resources: mine the rare metals of Mars, manufacture them into advanced goods and set up an effective transport system between your ever-growing cities.
• Terraform with ambitious projects: restart a volcano, construct giant space mirrors or crash ice asteroids to geo-engineer the entire planet.
• Become a gardener of life: from spreading adaptive bacteria, to planting full-grown forests with bears. Each life form has specific requirements and provides strategic benefits.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ Have fun!

[ 2021-08-26 14:53:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow gamers, Here where we are on Earth, the summer has been mostly rainy, which is a bit strange, but its a good opportunity to just develop and play games. At least I dont get this annoying ball of light shining on my screen. And speaking of gaming, as you might be aware, Gamescom will take place at the end of August. We will have an updated version of the demo playable at the indie arena booth. There will be tons of other games worth checking out as well.

Workshop week

This month we had our annual workshop week where we gathered all the team in a house in the French Alps. This is a good opportunity for us to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what we are doing. In addition, we take the opportunity to prototype some new ideas and do short burst development on features we didnt have the time to do before. And of course, it is also a refreshing and bonding moment for the team with board games and outdoor hikes. We played a lot of the Evolution: Climate board game which if you havent tried already we warmly recommend. The way your animals have to adapt to a changing climate and interact together was very fun and a good source of inspiration for us.
A good session of Evolution:Climate

City buildings

During the week, one of the workshops we did was on improving building visuals. We want the lighting to be adapted to the different city locations as they should look good in a dark lavatube as well as in a bright crater. Our devs and designers did wonders on this, prototyping a process to quickly create and adapt buildings to a variety of lighting conditions and perspective angles. After setting up a process, our artist started exploring more unique buildings so that their purpose can be guessed from their visuals and they can be uniquely recognizable. Here is a sneak peek of what is to come.
New drafts for industry related buildings

Forest visuals

Another aspect we worked on during this week has been general planet visuals change due to terraforming and in particular forests! Forests are quite important as they participate in the fantasy of terraforming mars on the same level as oceans and clouds. So we worked on all of that. The forest coverage is controlled by the presence of tree lifeforms in the region, combined with some amount of noise of different frequencies to make the limits look natural. The color is influenced by altitude, as well as noise and a normal map simulates the lighting and bumpiness of the forest surface. Oceans are a bit easier to do, but will have interesting coastlines where you can still see some low depth geographic elements on the coastlines. And they will of course be frozen in very cold regions. And finally clouds. These are driven by how much rain is in a region.
Forests, clouds, oceans and a blue atmosphere over Mars Next month we will show the progress on the buildings and their implementation. Until then we hope to see you on the virtual gamescom booth to try the demo and beat the high score. Terraformers team

[ 2021-08-05 15:00:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear everyone, June has gone by in a blink and July is around the corner, with the conclusion of the European Football Championships! Things are going a bit crazy and Switzerland played above expectations. It is also exciting to think about the possibility of a future Martian league. Or who knows, a Solar System League, with teams travelling from every world! What would be the sport competition you are looking forward to in a multi-planetary future? It reminds me of a show I liked to watch as a kid: Galactik Football Opening.

Steam Next Festival

The highlight of the month has of course been the Steam Next Festival where we finally presented a demo that introduces the gameplay we are aiming for. We worked hard on it, polishing and balancing it as much as we could. More than 6000 of you played it and many came to share their feedback and we are super happy with all your thoughts and ideas. It is enthralling for us to see other people play the game and we are doing our best to make the game really unique and as good as we can get it. Some of you completely crushed our own dev high score which is quite impressive! The highest score we have seen so far goes to larsoledahl on Steam, with a score of 1065! Also Arnoud deserves an honorable mention, as he held the highest score posted on Discord of 1025.
larsoledahls score So from the bottom of our hearts, thank you, and stay tuned for more! And if you didnt have time to play it, worry not, there will be more opportunities to try new demo versions in the coming months and you can check out some playthroughs on youtube in the meantime.

Future features

So whats coming which was not in the demo you may ask? Well, terraforming of course! The demo is purposefully short and very little terraforming was achievable. We will improve that for the future demo, but youll have to play the full game to really enjoy the feature in its entirety. Terraforming will consist of two different aspects. The first one, which you could glimpse in the demo, is the modification of the planet's atmosphere where you can increase the atmosphere thickness, oxygen, temperature and ocean levels with different projects. The second one, which will be possible in some capacity in a future demo, is the spreading of lifeforms. Each lifeform will have environmental requirements (temperature, oxygen, rain) to be able to be spread into a region. Once spread, it will provide resources and support to the nearby cities as well as unlock new buildings.
An early concept of forest spreading in a region.

New music tracks

Last month we also quickly mentioned we were working on more music tracks and you might even have heard some of them if you tested the demo. We got 3 new tracks in total and have more in the works. One of them is a more chill gameplay track for when things are going well and another is more tense for when you are at risk of losing. The last track is a theme track for the start of the game. [previewyoutube=7Phozid4BuU;full][/previewyoutube] One of the new music tracks which will be included in future versions of the game. Thats it for an intense month of June. Until next time, Terraformers team

[ 2021-07-05 18:00:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, For the first time, Terraformers is part of the Steam Next Fest!
Terraformers is an expansive colony builder and resource management game. Explore the Red Planet, develop spectacular cities, spread life and terraform the planet with ambitious projects. Watch our pre-recorded live stream on June 20 - 11am PT/8pm CEST to get an idea of the gameplay! You can also discover the game by yourself by playing the demo from June 16 to June 22! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244800/Terraformers/ Any feedback is super helpful and appreciated. To give yours, join us on Discord! Enjoy this Steam Next Fest!

[ 2021-06-16 17:05:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear indie-gamers, May has gone-by in a blink and June is around the corner, bringing sun and the long awaited Steam Festival in which well participate (meaning you can try a short demo!). In february, while checking out the previous Steam Festival, we tried another game called Slipways, an awesome indie game by Beetlewing where you expand a space empire by exploring, developing planets to create resources and connecting them with "slipways" to satisfy their needs. The game is easy to understand and yet I managed to spend hours at a time building my empire. They released a few days ago and we highly recommend checking it out!

Tutorial

An exciting challenge coming up for us is the Steam Festival for which we will have a public demo. We have been working hard the past few months to make it as polished as we can. In particular lately we have been working on the tutorial. Creating a proper tutorial is a fascinating and complex task and we have been going back and forth on the best way to approach it. You can go with a very direct approach where you construct an experience and make sure the players go through it. The downside of this can be that the players feel that they are being hand-holded too much, and removes the experience of discovery and freedom.. And on the other hand, you can have a more open approach and just give him tips to introduce him to the important gameplay concepts. In this case the challenge is that the player might be derailed from the best order in which to learn things. In this iteration we have decided to go with the more open approach. For example instead of having an objective: explore a region, with an arrow pointing at where to click and forcing the player to do it, we will have an objective saying find a resource deposit. There will be a soft highlight of the proper button when hovering over the objective to help you out if you want to, but otherwise it will be up to you to actually do it. You can still continue playing however you want if you do not wish to follow the tutorial.
Your leader providing tips and objectives to learn the ropes.

Balanced content

Another challenging design in the same vein is how to propose balanced and varying content every game. How to make each playthrough feel different and yet still be balanced with a proper set of choices for the player to make a plan with? We tried multiple approaches from fully random to fully designed. Recently we settled on a complex system which works with an imaginary deck of cards. If we take the planetas an example, although some aspects of Mars are similar every playthrough, a lot of things will be procedurally generated. For example we want to make sure that the player starts in a location with access to a decent amount and variety of resources, but not the same resources every time. For this we came up with a "deck" system. Basically we add a certain amount of resource locations to this "deck" and a certain amount of empty locations. Then, starting from the initial region the player starts in, the game randomly places locations from this deck outward. After every couple of picks, new resource locations and empty locations are added to the deck to refill it. In this way there is a lot of variety, but the game will remain balanced every time you start a new session.
A partly explored map around the starting area.

Sound effects

This month we have also started to do a new pass on sound design with Frederik who is doing awesome work. Hearing all the soft clips and clicks when interacting with the user interface feels very satisfying. And the different ambiance sounds linked to city size or planet zoom level really bring the game alive. Our goal is that the sound design gives you proper feedback on your actions and makes them feel more there while still remaining quiet enough that you dont think about them. We also want the game sounds to have a material feel as it takes place on a planet and not in space. We have also started working with the composers from Sinephony to create new tracks for the game with the same ideas in mind. The work they did so far is really great and we hope you will like it! [previewyoutube=JtRJ7SOEfbE;full][/previewyoutube] A recording showcasing the recent sound fx pass. Were cheating on the gameplay here. Until next month after the Steam Festival! Terraf Team

[ 2021-06-08 18:15:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We are glad to be part of MGN. You can discover awesome indies on their dedicated page until May 31th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/mgn
Cheers, Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2021-05-31 09:14:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fellow Explorers, Recently youtube suggested to me the videos of Sen Doran who makes incredible montages of just space views with music. I was mesmerized by the recent one he did on Mars and I would absolutely recommend having a look.

First steps on Mars

These works of art always make us wonder, what will it be like when finally, someone will take the first steps on Mars. So we had our go at it! As you might know, before the game we will release, we will release a prologue called First steps on Mars where you will be able to try the game and set up a first base on Mars. We wanted a special key art to represent this moment and after brainstorming for a while we settled on two different possibilities. The first scene is the door of the rocket opening to the martian landscape. And the second is a zoomed in clip of the first persons face behind the helmet, with the landscape reflecting on it. Unable to choose, we decided to do both, and even better, to animate them into a short clip. [previewyoutube=sR4I83xL9Bw;full][/previewyoutube] In progress work of the small animation

Exploration fog

Another visual element which we have been working on is the exploration fog. This is a layer that is put over unexplored regions on the planet. It represents a significant challenge, because we want to provide the feeling of exploration and discovering the landscape, but of course, we already know what Mars looks like from space and we cannot just make the map all black. Our idea has been to make the unexplored area look more like a geographical map of the planet, that perhaps the astronauts have with them on their data-pads, and to make the explored regions more like the real visuals of Mars. Our initial test didnt convince us. It either didnt have a significant identity, or it was hard to read and differentiate between the two zones. But finally we reached a direction that we are happy with. The fog is still mostly dark, indicating clearly that it is unexplored territory. Though we do show the geography of mars through bright orange lines, giving it a futuristic map look.
Mars with the exploration fog

New city names and more

Otherwise, and as usual, a lot is being worked on in the background. In preparation for the prologue we have implemented a localisation system so that the game can be translated easily as well as a save system to be able to test specific scenarios and for the player to continue their on-going game. We are continuing the visual development of multiple aspects of the game such as the city-screen UI and the planet UI. The development goes through multiple iterations of design and integration and many more are still to come. Gameplay elements are also evolving and being added, adding to the iteration process. One surprisingly fun thing has been to add new random city names. In the game you can rename your cities as you want, but a random name is proposed in case you do not want to think of a name straight away. Up to recently we were only using a handful of names which were becoming redundant. We decided to add all the capitals of the world with the word New in front of them and so now the cities will be New Paris, New London and so on. There are 200 names and I have to admit I didnt know the vast majority of them. So it is often a surprise to get New Kigali or New Maputo and I find myself looking up which country they are from.
So which country has Colombo as capital? April was another month full of progress and as our little green buddy would say: excited to show more, we are! May the 4th be with you!
Until next month! Terraformers team

[ 2021-05-04 16:00:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear future Mars settlers, SpaceX is blowing-up prototype-rockets every few weeks this year, which is good, we want them to find all the ways they can blow up before we get on them! Spring is also finally shining on the northern hemisphere of Earth, bringing some long awaited warmth and vitamin D to dev-on!

Deep tidbits

And developing-on we did! Were making progress on a variety of elements. A lot happens in the depth of the code, continually improving, correcting, cleaning and so on which unfortunately doesnt make for very exciting news and visuals. For example, we improved how landmarks are placed on the planet so that they dont overlap visually. We also improved how regions and cities are tracked and stored in the code, so that we can access them in an efficient and fast way. And to help both the programmers and our game designer test and improve the game, Seb created a new development menu that enables us to easily tweak settings and follow variables.
A tidbit of the code generating the planet mesh and the regions.

UI and game design improvements

Thankfully our UI designer Miguel has also been hard at work and upgraded some of the games main screen to fit development in the game design. Taking the landmarks for example, we had discussed in a previous devlog how you can make a choice specific to a landmark. At the time we were using the same presentation for an event and for a landmark where you can make what is essentially an upgrade. We felt they needed to be more clearly differentiated and so here is the new concept for landmark upgrades.
The new landmark upgrade UI design concept. Another development in the game design has been the addition and implementation of adjacency bonuses in city buildings. So for example a GMO (genetically modified organisms) Lab will improve the amount of food that adjacent buildings produce. And a factory will induce disapproval in neighboring population buildings. Here is a concept of how the city screen UI has evolved.
The upgraded city UI design concept showing adjacency building bonuses.

Public events

This month we participated in the Actu Gaming French Direct second iteration for which we prepared a small behind the scenes development journal video. Its in French as it is a media channel focused on french-speaking development. [previewyoutube=ml1y4j1wbGc;full][/previewyoutube] The full AG French Direct video with a small dev journal. We were also pretty excited to be part of the Goblinz Publisher Sale on steam which brought some visibility to the game and helped grow the community. Welcome everyone! To go with all this public appearances we finally worked on a logo for our small studio Asteroid Lab and we are pretty happy with the result! Its an asteroid of course, with a lab inside. The idea is its us, making games in our small asteroid lab, cruising through space.
The new logo of our studio Asteroid Lab! Thats most of the stuff we did this month but there is even more that we cant wait to show you next time :) Until then take care! Terraf team

[ 2021-04-06 16:14:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, Today is a special day for Goblinz, as the studio is already celebrating its 5th anniversary! For the past 5 years, we have been developing and publishing games we believe in. It's been quite an adventure, but this is just the beginning! For the occasion, we have surprises for you including new games announcement and big sales on all our games!

New published games: Diluvian Winds & Defend the Rook

We are so excited to announce the addition of Diluvian Winds and Defend the Rook in the Goblinz catalogue! Diluvian Winds is a sail punk city builder developed by Alambik Studio. In a context of exile due to the rising waters, survive as you expand your community in your lighthouse! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1561040/Diluvian_Winds/ Defend the Rook is a roguelike tactics board combat combined with tower defense elements developed by One Up Plus. Defeat the invading hoards to stay alive and save the land! Enjoy more tactics than a normal TD game, combined with the added challenge of building towers and fighting off waves of enemies! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1531250/Tactics_Tower_Mayhem/ Add these games to your wishlist and follow Goblinz Publishing on Twitter so you don't miss any of their respective news!

All our games on sale!

Take part in our publisher sale and save up to 90% on our games until March 25th! From Legend of Keepers to As Far As The Eye or the recently released ski resort tycoon Snowtopia, it's more than ever time to get the Goblinz games! Check out our sale page: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/goblinz_publishing/sale/publishersale

Neurodeck is OUT NOW!

In case you missed it, our psychological deckbuilding card game is finally out! Build your deck and capacities by answering personality tests, visiting rooms or meditating. Face your phobia and defeat them through the power of life-inspired cards! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1253860/Neurodeck__Psychological_Deckbuilder/#app_reviews_hash Thank you all for your enthusiasm for our games! And don't hesitate to join us on Discord if you haven't already: https://discord.com/invite/goblinzstudio Cheers, The Goblinz Team

[ 2021-03-18 17:06:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We are proud to announce we are working on Terraformers: First Steps on Mars, a free standalone version of Terraformers featuring an exclusive mission taking place before the main game.
We wanted to offer you something better than a demo, that's why we opted for an exclusive mission in which you'll have to: - choose a leader ; - start the planet exploration ; - develop the first outpost. This will allow you to discover the game mechanics for free! Terraformers: First Steps on Mars will be available soon. In the meantime, you can join us on [Discord] to have a chat about it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557040/Terraformers_First_Steps_on_Mars/ Cheers, Asteroid Lab & Goblinz Publishing

[ 2021-03-15 16:49:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi Folks! Last month we were gifted with the incredible footage from the Perseverance rover landing as well as the news that the Chinese spacecraft and the UAE probe all arrived safely to Mars, and we cant get over how cool it looks. Were looking forward to the day people will get on the red planet themselves and send over pictures and videos of their new home. In the meantime, Terrafomers will hopefully give you a small taste of that. We wish Perseverance and the scientist team behind it a fruitful exploration!
Perseverance landing on february 18th.

Exploration artworks

All these images from the real Mars make us dream of the landscapes we would find there. Which is great as Tiago and Ludo have been working on more discovery artworks. One such discovery is an incredible viewpoint of a canyon landscape, suddenly opening before the explorers eyes after traveling on rocky plains.
Explorers marvel and a great canyon on Mars. Another discovery is of a pitch black sand-dune field, stretching as far as the eye can see. The explorers are pondering how to explore it further and are trying to get a better view from a tall dune.
The original sketches of a field of back sand-dunes on Mars.
An improved draft of the above artwork. We have more such discovery artworks being prepared which youll have to discover for yourself in the game :)

A month of improvements

On the development and design side, a lot of effort went into polishing multiple aspects of the game and tackling some long standing quirk and bugs. We worked on UI improvement and polish, adding tooltips, UI animations, breakdown panels and other quality of life improvements for the player. We improved as well the planet lighting and how borders looked. We were happy with the regional border system Seb had put in place, but we never came around to solving the issue of when 3 or 4 regions met together leaving a bit of empty space. Its finally solved and looking much better.
The old borders with empty spaces at the junctions.
The new borders, fully in contact. We have also been iterating on some aspects of the game design such as: single action per turn and auto-passing the turn. This will improve the overall flow of the game to happen more naturally. We are also working on a better way to propose technologies to the player each turn as well as some early tutorial aspects (giving tips and objectives).

Target release window

As you might have seen a couple weeks ago, our publisher Goblinz Studio has leveled-up to Goblinz Publishing! Which is a better and clearer form for all the stuff they are doing and we are super happy they managed to do it. For the occasion they released a small trailer with their upcoming games and when they will come out. Thus we are excited to announce that our current plan targets a release for a late Q3 2021. Though, as always with development, and especially with indie developers, dont take this for a hard date yet and wait until we have a proper release to announce before getting too hyped up. And thats it for February! Thanks for reading and until next month for more artworks and news! Terraformers team

[ 2021-03-03 16:00:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear everyone, The days are short and wet at this time in our part of the world. And with the current virus situation there isn't much we can do outside unfortunately. This got us wondering, what will people do in their off-time on Mars? Eventually, going for a walk outside or taking a rover for a weekend off might become a possibility. But at the start, the first explorers will stay mostly indoors and might have a lot of free time on their hands. I would totally play games and read books to kill time! Or better, make more games! What would you do?
A family enjoying their time off on Mars.

Improved planet UI

As were not on Mars (yet), we took this time to make some progress on Terraformers! Our artists and designers have been working tirelessly to enhance different aspects of the game. We now have pretty animated menus and loading screens, but that is barely the tip of the iceberg. Miguel worked on improving and animating the UI of the game pretty much everywhere. A big part of which has been the elements on the planet such as the city marker, the leader icons and the points of interest. He also worked on all the different popups and screens to harmonise the UI. Ludovic has been continuing his work on the plains city we presented in the last devlog. He is making the different artwork states depend on the size of the city and its looking pretty good so far. Tiago on his side has been making event artworks at an accelerated pace. Some of which you might have seen on twitter or discord.
Updated planet UI with exploration points-of-interest.

Exploration and building iterations

More progress and iterations have been made on the game design by Jasper. Notably we changed a bit how the buildings worked to be more like cards that you play once, rather than technologies you unlock and can do as much as you want. This promotes a more dynamic gameplay as you have to adapt with what you have at each moment. Another element which required a fair bit of work has been the event system which brings a popup depending on random events or on discoveries made while exploring. We upgraded the event system so that decisions require some pre-conditions before you can take them. In this way, for example, if you discover an underground cave full of giant crystals with an engineer leader, a new option will unlock to fully mine-out the resource. But if your explorer is a politician, then you can instead make it a protected area and build a resort & visit center.
The cave event.

Implementation and optimization

As for Alexis and Seb, we made good progress as well, working on multiple aspects simultaneously. On one side we implemented a lot of the new shiny UI and some animations on which Miguel has been working. We also made progress on some new game design features which Jasper wanted to test in our prototypes, such as the new building system and the new events choices. We also progressed on other implementation tasks as well as an Earth-trade system which lets you trade resources you dont need for ones that youre missing. And finally we took some time to do some backlog tasks as well as some background optimisation to keep the game running smoothly.
The earth trade system. And that concludes that intense start of the year. We still have a lot to churn through and there are some exciting things to watchout for next month. One of which is the arrival of 3 rockets to Mars! Cool pictures are to be expected. Until next month, Terraf Team

[ 2021-02-03 16:00:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, Goblinz Studio is releasing a new game with developer TeaForTwo.
Snowtopia is a ski resort tycoon in which you build your ideal ski resort. Keep skiers smiling with fresh pistes and fine facilities. Ski, build and chill in the wintry world of Snowtopia where everyone is welcome! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNzqfBlyAY&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=GoblinzStudio For two years now, the Snowtopia community has been accompanying us on Discord as well as on different social networks. Thank you for all your feedback since the first version of the game in December 2018, and on all the updates. Your enthusiasm helps us a great bunch! The early access will allow us to be even closer to the players, who will have more than ever a decisive role in the development of our game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1124260/Snowtopia_Ski_Resort_Tycoon/ Cheers, TeaForTwo & Goblinz Studio

[ 2021-01-26 14:09:40 CET ] [ Original post ]