Demo and Playtest version 0.561 - Build Mode Revamp

Large new build -- two in one, if you're not part of the playtest: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.561_Build_Mode_Revamp

Build Mode

The general visual style of build mode in prior versions was modeled on citybuilder conventions, which had some problems in terms of readability, and also was not going to expand very well. I've reworked the UI of that entirely to instead be more like a tycoon/sim/factory-builder game, which has more in common with this title. Rather than trying to explain it at length, here are two screenshots of the new UI in action:

The first one shows the new Recommended tab, which gives you a subset of just the things that are likely to be the most useful.
The second one shows the new All tab, which lets you quickly search via text, or just browse by name. In this particular example, I did a search.
This revamp also folds the territory control flags into the build menu properly, which you can see in the first image.

Resource Trends

This release went out to the playtest folks yesterday, but now arrives for demo folks as well. In general, the resource trends are now far more informative as well, and if you're wondering where some resource is going, now you can directly see that without any special extra reports, etc.

There are a variety of improvements, but the brief explanation is that if you're wondering where some resource is going, you no longer have to wonder. As you can see above.

Other Notes

My wife Kara continues to plow through the text of the game, excising my wordiness and enhancing clarity. So far it's been about a 10% reduction in word count, which is great for anyone who gets fatigued by lots of text.
As far as my post-nextfest clarity and flow work goes, I'm pretty much down to the UI tour on the first turn, and then some last minor items. This is very exciting, as I'm greatly looking forward to getting back into content development. Hopefully I can finish the last of the non-content stuff tomorrow, bu we'll see how it goes.

Testing Group Reminder

If you'd like to sign up to be a tester beyond the demo period, feel free to sign up here: https://forms.gle/nNwEnzRyVPMS7bYg6 Make sure that you list your discord username and are a part of Arcen's discord, since that's where coordination is through. Thank you again for all the support and feedback! Cheers, Chris

[ 2024-06-28 04:18:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo and Playtest Version 0.559 - Inventory Dimensions

New daily build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.559_Inventory_Dimensions This one is pretty sizeable.

New in this build

The resources section of the inventory now includes some very helpful filters as well as a search.
The unit types section of the inventory now includes some filters, and then multiple tabular views which allow you to see which units are the best at various things.
Bulk androids have gotten some much-needed clarity updates to their buildings, and then also some fixes to the accuracy of how their stats are predicted in the inventory before they exist.
The way that events like the prismatic tungsten and the seed collection are placed on the map now gives you a lot more options, and should feel better.
TPS Reports are at long last fixed up so that when they are missing some precursors, others properly show the right values.
And then a bunch of other smaller improvements and fixes as well.

I am overall winding down on my to-do list of things before getting back to content development, but a few things have been added in the last week, and I'm still a few days behind where I would prefer to be.

The main things remaining:

A complete revision of the build menu, in general to be more tycoon-like and less citybuilder-like, for similar reasons that tycoon games diverge in general. Clarity and volume, basically.
A way for players to see a list of all jobs producing and consuming resources, to help diagnose shortfalls.
The turn-one UI tour, and other final bits of clarity and thematic bits for turn one.
A couple of new pieces of clarity related to when you first start constructing buildings.
A few fixes related to bulk android targeting.

And that's pretty much it for my current list of "must happen before content" pieces of work. It's always possible something more could come up, but we'll see how it goes. Enjoy! Chris

[ 2024-06-26 03:39:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo and Playtest version 0.558 - Research

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.558_Research This is a relatively small daily build, as far as builds for this game are concerned. However, there's still a lot of good stuff in here:

You can now choose the location of your tower if you skip past the prologue!
There is a new Research Window, which includes a lot of additional helpful formatting and functionality, and unifies a lot of things that were previously in a couple of disparate spots.
If you felt like you were chasing around certain events in StreetSense that moved too frequently, that's a thing of the past.
The flow of opening notifications is now a bit better, and has an option to make it work like in the prior version if you disagree.

More to come soon! Enjoy. Chris

[ 2024-06-25 04:51:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo and Playtest version 0.557 - Filtering And Lensing

New build: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.557_Filtering_And_Lensing This is based on more feedback from NextFest, and it's another large one.

What's New

The lenses on the radial menu have been expanded notably, and unified between the map view and main view.
The investigation, StreetSense, and Contemplation abilities are gone from the android ability bar, and are now converted to being Lenses only.
Investigations now work a lot more smoothly in a lot of ways detailed in the release notes.
StreetSense works entirely differently, and is dramatically easier to use. It's also no longer different per-android.
There are now "Lens Filters" next to the radial menu, and these allow you to customize what you see as part of the various lenses. This has let me actually combine three lenses (Navigation, Beacons, and POIs) into a single one (Navigation), and it allows for you to do a lot of filtering-out of information that you might not need in the Forces lens, without it being completely inaccessible.
The prologue has had a number of updates to it to reflect the new changes, plus other things that people found confusing. It also doesn't make you do any equipment management, as that is more naturally introduced later.
There are now keybinds for jumping straight to specific lenses!

Other Items

Snipers hit less hard.
MilStyle armor now also hides the identity of Predators and similar.
Armor has been extended quite a bit in general, and more unit types have more options. The Nickelbot is steadily gaining in usefulness.
Lots and and lots of writing edits courtesy of my wife Kara. She's been focusing on making sure that text flows better and causes less fatigue.
Employment and housing balance has been notably updated, so that unemployment rates are now in the appropriate ranges.
Because of the removal of so many abilities (that are now Lenses), the ability bar for all units has been rearranged to a notable degree. This is likely to cause some muscle memory issues, but I think that the new order makes sense if you look past that. Details in the notes. Discussion welcome if it doesn't seem to be the case.
Employment and housing balance has been notably updated, so that unemployment rates are now in the appropriate ranges.
Many various other smaller changes, fixes, and so on. This is actually three large releases in one since the last build outside of the playtest branch.

Next Things

There's still a few things for the prologue that need adding. The UI tour, and some adjustments based on the theming of attacking the detectives. Those are way less surgery than all of these other elements were, though. There are some reports that people are wanting related to quickly being able to see what is going on with certain resources, and those are also going to be a focus. An improved technology window also. Then I should be good to go to finish chapter one. For the demo, there will be a few more features added in chapter one, but the really big reveals will not be on the demo branch for quite a while. Apologies on that; but the playtest is open for anyone interested.

Testing Group Reminder

[ 2024-06-24 03:51:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo and Playest version 0.553: Fenceline

This is a very large one! For demo players, this is four builds in one: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.553_Fenceline

Networks

Here's a "before and after" that makes the changes fairly apparent at a glance:

To be clear, that's the same savegame, but just loaded in the old version on the left, and the new version on the right. Some of the key points:

You can see some network info in the upper left corner now. Like electricity, etc.
The way that info is shown is a lot nicer in both locations.
The way the network is drawn on the map and streets view is no longer so overwhelming, and also gives you a bit more range.
You can now lay out network relays in series before they finish building, rather than having to wait for each one to be done.
A lot of more subtle elements with the networks are better in general, and you can read the full release notes if you're curious.

Other Major Items

Predators and similar can now use hoodies properly. They still make terrible guards because if the enemy sees what they are, they are still too scary. But this still means you can use them on more operations around the city.
The "toast" popups in the lower right corner have had pretty much their full overhaul. Left-click now always does something more consistent, and right-click dismisses them. They also have better color variation to tell types of them apart now.
The machine handbook is now much more convenient to use regardless of how you open it, and takes over the screen a bit more rather than getting lost in clutter. It also now has a dropdown allowing you to filter to specific topics.
Minor new content! There's two new Procurement Efficiency upgrades -- one for better wind turbines, one for more microbuilders. Two highly-desired items.
NPC units, including your own bulk androids, now have better targeting for a number of cases. Your own units won't engage noncombatants by default, and also won't wander into military bases or aggro them. Wetwork teams from corporations also won't get distracted with military bases.

Minor Handy Items

If you find the unit icons on the map or in the streets view too small, you can now adjust the size of those in the UI Scales tab of the settings.
The escape menu sidebar now has links to mantis and your local save folder on your hard drive.
There's a really long list of minor bugfixes and clarity improvements, but I'll spare you listing all those.

Next Things

I had planned on going into the Lenses and StreetSense as my next thing, a few days ago, but wound up shifting the order of work. So that's now what I'm going to work on next. There are some reports that people are wanting related to quickly being able to see what is going on with certain resources, and that will probably be the next thing after that. Then there's the general ui tour on the first turn, and a few minor ui-flow things that are still outstanding. Then I should be good to go to finish chapter one.

Testing Group Reminder

[ 2024-06-21 03:26:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo and Playtest build: 0.549 Of Mice And Crowns

Quite a large new build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.549_Of_Mice_And_Crowns

Mouse

This one starts out by getting all of the mouse-related requests that folks have had so far. So edge scrolling is now an option, middle-mouse "grab and pan" is in place, right-clicking in build mode cancels out, double-clicking units either selects them (sidebar) or switches to street view (on the map), and more. It also includes a bunch of things that allow you to invert controls or adjust sensitivity for the new mouse features. And it also makes rotating or panning with the mouse hide the cursor and not interact with other windows or window edges.

Tons Of Fixes

There's a couple of dozen general fixes in here, ranging from some error spam in a few esoteric cases, to various things that lacked a bit of clarity. In particular, deploying units from a factory is now more clear when you're out of resources to actually do it, for example.

Balance

Only three real balance items here, in the main. The first is to reduce the amount of fighting during chapter one at the farms, if you go for both types of farm researches (as of course most people do). The second is to make it so that if you use hostile items against buildings, your unit properly gets marked defective. This is particularly notable for the Decrowner Drones and the Mindport; you could get yourself absolutely overrun with hostile forces by taking that action way too vigorously and with no immediate drawback. The last one had to do with what happens when you reach zero mental energy on a turn. It was blanking out the AP of all units, which was problematic for income for a variety of reasons. But also made it so that if Cold Blood was your last action of a turn, and netted you some more mental energy, you couldn't use it.

Coming Up

I still have a lot of improvements to make based on demo feedback. Probably my next focus will be around lenses, and simplifying how StreetSense works, but we'll see how tomorrow goes. Thank you to everyone for the ongoing support!

[ 2024-06-19 05:08:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.548 High Visibility

New build for the demo and playtest versions of the game! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:After_NextFest#0.548_High_Visibility

Demo And Playtest

The demo is going to be up for another few weeks, basically until the end of June. So if you haven't had time to finish it yet and you would like to, there's time. If you want to be a part of the playtest after that, then be sure to swing by our discord: https://discord.com/channels/240637654717300736/1248015123382276217

The New Build

This build includes a number of very handy features. First of all, lots of visibility things relating to your units and other small enemy units. If they are behind a building or similar obstruction, you now see a colored outline based on their relationship to you. If you hold Ctrl, the game now highlights them all for you in a very high-visibility way. If you want that on all the time, there is a new High Visibility option in the Accessibility section of the Game tab of the Settings menu. In that mode, holding Ctrl toggles the high-visibility display off for a moment. Next up, vehicles and mechs now properly say "crew of" rather than "squad of" to clarify what they are counting in terms of units inside their group. Finally, a couple of rifles have been rebalanced, and made Nickelbot-exclusive. This gives the Nickelbots a much more defined role from early in the game, and also prevents some kind of crazy situations with bulk squads with some of the rifles.

The Last Week

It's been almost a week since the last build, which was not how I had intended to handle things. However, I've been talking to people on discord and Steam, listening to feedback, taking notes, and also filling out various parts of the wiki. A lot of people have gotten into the game in a really enthusiastic manner, which is wonderful to see. But the learning curve is not quite what I would prefer, and a few other elements are long-term confusing as well. So I've been formulating plans for those things, in consultation with testers and the demo players.

The Next Weeks

Overall, my goal is to start smashing through a ton of the feedback that I've accumulated from the past week, and get things more where I want them to be. Then we'll see what further feedback folks have on tutorial difficulty and the like. After what will hopefully be only one week of this initial push (but we'll see how it goes), I'm going to transition over to finishing up the rest of chapter one. There will be some new features added to the demo version, and while the demo version remains up, we'll have parity between the playtest version and demo version. Expect to see much more frequent builds coming again, now that I've done the "measure twice" part of things. Thank you again to everyone who has been giving feedback, as well as all the kind words!

[ 2024-06-18 03:46:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Conquer as Sentient AI

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city filled with unsuspecting humans. Raise an army of robots and obliterate your foes, become a benevolent machine overlord, or explore countless other objectives and the many paths to accomplish them. [previewyoutube=XwSOncE5eHA;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

[ 2024-06-13 23:32:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Conquer as Sentient AI

[ 2024-06-13 23:25:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.547 Energize

New build for the demo! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:_After_The_Transformation#0.547_Energize This is a fairly small build, as mostly what I've been doing is talking to folks and listening to their suggestions, and making lots of notes. As well as updating the wiki, and adding more explanations for a lot of things. There are several new articles linked today, which go into broader questions people had, as well as deep dives on specific mechanics. The main changes in this build are that the parasitic power draws are removed from the game for now, as they were really sending the wrong messages to players in chapter one, especially when they were introduced. They'll return in chapter two later, as contemplations. In the meantime, power generation has gotten a balance pass in general, with both wind and geothermal getting substantial upgrades. There should be plenty of wind to go around until you unlock geothermal, even if you don't take the cap upgrades for wind, and even if you build all the housing. This has been an enormously instructive week for me, listening to folks, as well as really gratifying to see how many people are vibing with the game. It's been a long road, and the shift from realtime to turn-based has understandable turned away some people who wishlisted a long time ago, but I'm really gratified to see how much of a connection the game, its world, and its writing are making with a substantial audience. Thanks so much for all the support, and the constructive criticism!

[ 2024-06-13 03:43:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.546 Crisp

New build for the hotm demo! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:_After_The_Transformation#0.546_Crisp This one improves the crispness of some minor parts of the graphics (borders, mainly), based on some excellent feedback by a demo player with a very high quality monitor. And it allows for tuning a few more things to taste. This build makes Refinery Optimizers mathematically competitive with the Refinery Overdrivers. You now get far more Daily Necessities per turn from the warehouse raid, so if you have taken max housing upgrades and then built all that housing, you can now properly keep all of them clean, with some excess to spare. And lastly, fixed an issue in some maps where you could not get the Wallripper if you were very unlucky that certain kinds of skyscrapers were not seeded. It now pulls from a much wider pool of skyscraper targets so that contemplation is always available now.

[ 2024-06-12 03:09:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Awaken to Power: Heart of the Machine Demo Available Now!

Awaken to Power: Heart of the Machine Demo Available Now

Embark on Your Journey as the First Sentient Machine Intelligence

Dive into a sprawling, futuristic world where your decisions shape the destiny of both machines and humans. The demo for Heart of the Machine is now live, featured in Steam NextFest. Start your adventure today and explore a multitude of strategies and outcomes in this turn-based sci-fi 4X RPG.

Command the Future

From the decrepit labs of a decaying Earth to the bustling streets of a corrupt city, your journey begins. As the first sentient Machine Intelligence, every choice you makebe it benevolent or malevolentcrafts the narrative of your existence. Will you dominate with an iron fist, govern as a benevolent overseer, or remain a ghost in the machine? Your path is yours to decide.

Strategize, Expand, Evolve

Control the intricate mechanics of genetics labs, factories, and military complexes to further your agenda. Build and command a diverse fleet of androids, vehicles, and more, each with specialized abilities and roles. As your influence spreads, so does your ability to manipulate, innovate, and intimidate.

Feedback Is the Fuel of Innovation

As you navigate the demo, your feedback is crucial in refining the game's development. Share your experiences and suggestions in our dedicated feedback forum here.

Join Our Community

For support, updates, or to connect with fellow players, join us on the Heart of the Machine Discord. Your input helps shape the ongoing evolution of this world.

A Universe Awaits

Uncover hidden technologies, manipulate powerful factions, and create a story that is uniquely yours. Every playthrough brings new challenges and opportunities. What will you discover? What legacy will you leave behind in the cityscape that watches and reacts to your every move? Start your saga in the *Heart of the Machine* demo today, and take the first step towards mastering your destiny. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

[ 2024-06-10 18:20:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.545 Focus

New build for the hotm demo, with some requested quality of life updates, and a couple of minor bugfixes: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:_After_The_Transformation#0.545_Focus There are some options that let you slow down unit movement, and your androids are now not QUITE as blindingly-fast as they were before, in general. There's also a change to the whole "watch NPCs phase" of the turn, where now it defaults to not bothering, since it does not matter. But, you can change it via the NPC Actions View dropdown in the main game settings window to be what it was before (watch high priority), or to watch everything. The new default should be the most comfortable view for the majority of people, but use what feels best to you. There's also a fix to the NPC logic of the "IP Security" units in the water fight. Basically, they should have been more focused on your investigator, to the point that you can't distract them with regular aggro. The "service disruption" caused by the the hackamajig does let you distract them, but nothing else other than death should stop them hunting your technician there. Without that single-minded focus, there were some unintended consequences that could lead players to believe that the consequences of a probing action were going to be way more dire than they should be; if your investigator dies, the cruiser goes away. But if you manage to keep the investigator alive, while still failing to kill the cruiser, it would haunt you across the map for a long time, which was... not ideal. Thank you to everyone for all the kind words, constructive criticism, and useful feedback! I've got a long list of other things I want to get done this week in terms of small tweaks and things based on suggestions that have already come in from players of the demo. So expect more patches that tweak minor things, but if you haven't played the demo yet, there's no reason to wait -- even the water fight issue, above, is really minor in the grand scheme. It just sends the wrong signal about future intent of the game, which is what made it particularly high-priority to me.

[ 2024-06-10 15:14:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale

Hi everyone! Heart of the Machine and other games published by Hooded Horse are all featured at the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Come check it out! Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale [previewyoutube=bwcg7R7QfIE;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-10-05 22:01:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Linux Changes For Heart of the Machine

Hello! Chris here. It's been a hot minute since most of you have seen me outside of the forums and discord. There will be other news and previews and demos and things before too much longer, but things are progressing well! Excited to show you more.

Whats Happening

The native Linux build of the game is being retired, partly on advice from Valve, as the Windows version being run through Proton performs better and looks better. TLDR: This game still runs great on Linux, but the optimal way is different than expected.

Q&A

Will Heart of the Machine be Steam Deck Verified?

That is the intent! I'm testing it routinely on my own Steam Deck, as I do about 99% of my own gaming on that platform these days. It's a priority for me.

Are there extra steps to play Heat of the Machine on Linux?

If you already have Steam Play enabled, then no -- just click install and play, and it will launch the proton version of the game. If you dont already have Steam Play enabled on Linux, then go to Steam->Settings->Steam Play and check "Enable Steam Play for all other titles." From the dropdown choose Proton 8, or Proton Experimental, at your preference. Then you can enjoy many windows only games. If youre on Steam Deck, you dont have to take any extra steps.

Any effects on the OSX build?

None at this time. Native Metal builds, and particular Silicon builds, have a large performance gap between themselves and non-native. Metal has also kept up with DX11 on most features, has a reversed z-buffer, and so on.

Does this have any impact on development?

No. This was simply something we discovered via testing, and then talked to Valve about. We noticed the proton version ran about 10% faster than the native version, with better frame timings as well, and they strongly suggested we ditch the native version in that case.

Question: Will a native Linux build be released on other storefronts?

No. It doesnt make any sense to maintain a version of the game that we know is inferior. Proton and WINE are both able to be used on any Linux machine, quite apart from Steam.

Were there other problems with the native Linux build?

Yes.

Performance was 10% worse, and frametimings were less even, but it was certainly playable. This was just how Unity 3D works in Vulkan on Linux, so there was no way to solve it.
Certain parts of this game have geometry that is close together, and on Linux these would flicker. This is because Unity 3D does not support a reversed z-buffer on OpenGL or Vulkan (or DirectX9). This problem is not present in DirectX11+, or Metal. And its not present when Proton or WINE convert DX11 commands to Vulkan.

Other than that, everything was the same on Linux as it is on Windows or OSX. Weve had a native Linux build of this game for its entire life up until recently, just as all of Arcens titles have had a native Linux build for the last decade. So this all feels very strange. But Unity 3Ds support for Linux, and in particular their implementation of Vulkan, is notably inferior to what is going on with their support for DirectX11 and Proton/WINEs ability to bridge across.

Is playability via proton likely to break over time or be flaky?

No. Valve has been extremely committed to making it rock solid, and also offers older versions in the cases where something does break. The WINE community has also been a growing and substantial movement for three decades.

Isn't this a win-win-win?

Yes, pretty much, but it does look like we're backing off Linux support by this move, which bugs me and might bug others.

Does this affect Arcens ability to support Linux in any particular way?

No, because with Unity and similar engines, it already either works or it doesn't. If someone has an incompatibility, we can't change the engine. And Valve has been more on top of things than Unity.

[ 2023-08-11 13:30:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

DevTalk with kormakrtv and Chris

Originally streamed on Steam to over 2000 live viewers during the awesome Tacticon event, here's the youtube archive of what we talked about. Huge thanks to kormakrtv again for the talk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18ltCqo1n6o He noted: about "Heart of the Machine" Imagine Skynet but YOU are Skynet - humans are your livestock - treat them good | treat them bad you choose - decide your path Many other questions are answered on the Steam forums if you prefer a text format: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2001070/discussions/0/5875531492232118124/

[ 2022-09-27 00:35:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heart of the Machine
Arcen Games, LLC

Developer

Hooded Horse

Publisher

2023

Release

Strategy Singleplayer