Hello! I am BACK! It's been a few months since I haven't published an update on the demo, or actually even worked a lot on it, but it was for the best. As I explained in the DevBlog about the Steam Next Fest and the game future, the demo release and Steam Next Fext were exhausting and I needed to rest. I eventually took more time than expected, I have been able to think about other things and work on them as well and now I'm back to writing some updates on the demo and seeing where it leads :)

Changelogs:

Quality of life:

• #1842 - Global Market: Improve buying/selling amount selection (e.g. 100% of the slider should make buy max space or sell all
• #1818 - Market: search bar for resources

Bugs:

• Fix game crash when right-clicking sometimes in the main UI
• [LINUX VERSION] Add missing .so file causing crashes on Steam Deck (and probably some other Linux systems too)
• [LINUX VERSION] Prevent the game from instant crashing when the OS locale is set to "C"

Housekeeping:

• Update to Tauri V2
• Update lots of technical dependencies
• Improve unit tests
• Because of Tauri V2: Drop support for Ubuntu 20.04 (min. version is now 22.04)

Other:

• Remove Twitter link from "About page"
• Update the Bluesky link in the "About page"
• Moved the game servers to a new group of servers (on Jan 25th)

Known issues:

• The MacOS version won't work because of an external issue, it has been disabled temporarily (it's still in the Webkit team's hands :/)
• The "maximum amount" displayed on the global market may include in-transit resources, which may make it wrong by up to 5 units
• Steam overlay doesn't work
• Tutorial needs to be reworked
• We need to prevent the factory from infinitely growing asap, and it's planned in the current set of updates (electricity consumption, employee gauge, and dynamic market prices will be needed)
• Multiple places in the game need tooltips or more information to clarify what you can do (resources icon in the market, machines in the bottom bar, ...)
• The auto-linking between machines and/or storage is still pretty dumb and needs improvements (and a way for you, the player to override this choice!)

Devblog history [olist]

12/2024 - #8 - November summary and Manufactur'inc future (Here !) [/olist] Hey there! I usually post my monthly summaries as threads on Bluesky or Mastodon, but today I had lots to write and to share with the Steam community, so here I am!

November

As stated late October with Manufactur'inc 7th DevBlog, I felt really overwhelmed by the Steam Next fest and didn't know what to do. Eventually, I had to rest and not touch the game for a month and a half. It's not great marketing-wise to not update the game or write this DevBlog earlier, but it was healthier for me and the game's future. After updating Alchemistry early November (I wrote most of the update on November 9th but published 10 days later), I decided I would slow down and work only on the projects when I felt like working, so I spent my free time relaxing on some other things such as Factorio: Space Age DLC, yep I also spent my time on non-IT things such as this cute Lego set:
Eventually, I feel better and am back working on all the projects at a better pace. But, I didn't write a single addition line of code on Manufactur'inc. So, what's next?

Manufactur'inc future

As some of you already know, I was supposed to release the game on January 13th, but it won't be released on that date, I canceled my plans. Here's what I planned for the future:

• Updating the demo until we have a good UI/UX, all the main game features but not all the content
• Preparing the Early Access content
• Publishing a release date announcement along with a definitive trailer (a temporary one will probably be published in the meantime)
• Release the game

That means the game as it exists today will continue to live and evolve, and I will release it if and only if I still feel okay working on it until it's stable enough. "When ?", will be your next question, I'm sure. To be honest: I don't know, in 3 months? 6? a year? It will totally depend on how I feel mentally in the next few months. Let's see what's left from Devblog #7 list: To be considered "stable", here's the list of things I expect to do (some are already Work-In-Progress in the future 0.3.3 update):

• Improve server performances:
  • [strike]Make the simulation run faster on the server (WIP)[/strike]
  • [strike]Stop trying to automatically link the machines and storage and automatically do that when moving/building/deleting (WIP, Breaking change) [/strike]
  • [strike]Limit how much offline time can be calculated at login (WIP)[/strike]
  • Maybe rewrite the whole factory simulation system with another and faster programming language (I'd prefer to avoid this, but can if needed)
• Prevent factory size from growing exponentially by:
  • Making market prices dynamic (the more the player base buys something, the more its price increases; the more player base sells something, the more its price decreases)
  • Add energy management
  • Add staff management
• Make various (needed) quality-of-life improvements
• Make various server optimizations to make it lighter on the server CPU/database (and faster for the player)
• Fix both Linux and MacOS versions (the MacOS version is not sure since the bug is not in my hands but in the Webkit team's hands :/)
• Make more contracts and make them different from the existing ones
• Improve the current "tech tree" to prevent everyone from needing the same resource and selling the same one, as well as some balance
• Manual linking/resource choice for a storage slot to complete the optimization listed in the first bullet point

As you can see, 0.3.3 already fixed the "most urgent stuff" but there's still plenty of (cool) work on the game!

Conclusion

To conclude, I want to thank every single person who tested the game, gave feedback, followed or wishlisted the Steam page, shared the game, translated the game, ... You are the people motivating me and helping me to make this game. If you want to follow my gamedev journey you can:

• Follow/Wishlist the Steam Page to see these DevBlogs
• Join Dysnomia's Discord
• Follow me on Bluesky
• Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live (in French, but I answer English questions!)

And don't forget to wishlist and share the game with your friends: this is a great way to help me achieve this game I'm dreaming of! Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis

[ 2024-12-10 18:09:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! If you didn't see I released a DevBlog about the Steam Next Fest and the game future a few days ago. Here's the first lot of updates as promised!

Manufactur'inc v0.3.3

• BREAKING CHANGE From now on, the factory will re-link unlinked storage and machines together only:
  • When building a new equipment
  • When moving an equipment
  • When removing an equipment
  Soon, you'll be able to manually change these links too. This change will make login and multiple requests to the server a lot faster
• BREAKING CHANGE Do not simulate more than one hour of offline time when login in to prevent lags
• Serverside Do not simulate the factory twice in a second
• Developer-side More automated tests and benchmarks for factory simulation
• #1808 - When linking equipments, storage capacity calculation *should* count other transfer as well
• Fix resource transit animation when incoming into an equipment
• Enable Polish version in-game (Thanks to @ByteBolt556 on Github who translated the whole game and Steam store page)
• Fix a bug when a resource was produced/consumed, the amount in the global market numeric field automatically changed to 1 pretty often
• Fix the music settings slider when the music was set to 0
• Make leaderboard scores round
• Increase leaderboard size to 25 players
• #1638 - Hover text in storage list
• #1844 - Fix the Linux version not starting
• #1834 - Storage: production per second should be the average of the last 30 seconds or so
• #1831 - Button to reset tutorials in settings
• #1688 - Show input/output path when opening an equipment's context menu (right click)
• Serverside (Already deployed since Oct 17th) Fix the factory having negative amounts in storage
• Serverside (Already deployed since Oct 17th) Fix the factory having a weird storage list (duplicate wood for example)
• Serverside (Already deployed since Oct 19th) Simulate in a separate thread when authenticating to prevent freezing the server

• The MacOS version won't work because of an external issue, it has been disabled temporarily
• The "maximum amount" displayed on the global market may include in-transit resources, which may make it wrong by up to 5 units
• Steam overlay doesn't work

Partial outage on Nov. 8th 2024 from 03:30 UTC to 05:30 UTC

Devblog history [olist]

10/2024 - #7 - Lessons learned from the Steam Next Fest (Here !) [/olist] Hi everyone! As many of you know, Manufactur'inc participated in the Steam Next Fest last week, and the demo has been out for two weeks. I think it's time to make a summary of what happened and what will happen in the future. This DevBlog will be cut into 3 parts:

• First we will share figures about the Steam Next Fest, because as you may know, I love stats, graphs, and figures
• Then we will talk about how overwhelmed and exhausted I felt during the next fest, and why.
• Finally, we will talk about the future of the game

For those who didn't play the game demo: I had and still have some major bugs in the game which handicapped the demo growth. A new patch is in development as I write these lines. Why didn't I release this earlier? Well: busy schedule, mental health, lots of reasons, and some of them will be explained here :)

Next Fest Figures

Let's share some figures about the game demo:
As you can see, more than 2.5k people added the game demo to their accounts. And more than 1.6k people played it. The median played time is caused by this server bug as well as a "too minimalistic" tutorial. But if you look at the average time played and other stats, there are still hundreds of people who enjoyed the game and even dozens who played more than a few hours!
Another view on the stats I have, are the Concurrent players and Daily Active users! Here are the concurrent players, from SteamDB (updated every 10 minutes), and from my server (updated every minute):

Finally, the Daily Active Users, compared to the daily wishlists and followers. For a comparison, a normal day is 2-5 wishlists, and I gained 800 in 14 months up to the Next Fest, on the follower side, it was 70 followers in 14 months
Doing more than x2 in wishlists is what I expected with a stable game, so I won't lie, I'm really happy with these figures. Want another mind-blowing figure? How much visibility do you think Next Fest gives? The answer: tons
Last but not least, I tried having an automated livestream despite it wasn't featured anymore. And I was positively surprised it was watched that much! We can estimate around 11k people watched the stream during the week, and here are the concurrent viewers' stats (the gap in the middle is a crash of the machine that was streaming during the night ).

My mental health

I talked about it on multiple occasions (on Discord, on Bluesky, and in the release notes here), this week has been really overwhelming emotionally. Firstly, I didn't expect that many people to try out the demo in the first days. Secondly, because I had lots of feedback ... and bugs to fix. Don't get me wrong, I am really thankful to everyone who tried the game and gave feedback, but it was a lot for "my solo myself" to work on everything at the same time (despite taking days off work for this purpose). Lastly, there were some performance issues on the serverside part of the game where factory simulation would become really, really long with the biggest factories, and that's basically what focused my attention for the main part of the week. This is one of the main issues I will have to spend time working on ... and will impact/change some core processes of the game (I will talk about it in the next section). Eventually, by Thursday, I had to take some time off working on the game because I felt worse and worse. Don't worry: now, I feel better and am back working on the game, but since it's a free-time project, I will be working on this only during my evenings and weekends so the updates will take some time. So, for the game dev and other creators around here, I have something to tell, never go past your limit: burnout comes easily. It's the second time in my (short) gamedev life I feel burnout is close to my door and avoid it by just accepting to let go. And secondly, never forget why you're creating: I sometimes forget that I mainly create for players AND me to have fun. Have fun by playing, and working on the games. I love having "technical fun", this is my drive here, so let's not forget that :)

The game future

Now that the low-key depressing/very serious part is done, let's discuss the game's future! The game was supposed to be released in around 3 months, let's face it: I am not sure I will be able to meet this deadline. And I'd prefer changing the release date if this means I have a more stable and mature game to release. To be considered "stable", here's the list of things I expect to do (some are already Work-In-Progress in the future 0.3.3 update):

• Improve server performances:
  • Make the simulation run faster on the server (WIP)
  • Stop trying to automatically link the machines and storage and automatically do that when moving/building/deleting (WIP, Breaking change)
  • Limit how much offline time can be calculated at login (WIP)
  • Maybe rewrite the whole factory simulation system with another and faster programming language (I'd prefer to avoid this, but can if needed)
• Prevent factory size from growing exponentially by:
  • Making market prices dynamic (the more the player base buys something, the more its price increases; the more player base sells something, the more its price decreases)
  • Add energy management
  • Add staff management
• Make various (needed) quality-of-life improvements
• Make various server optimizations to make it lighter on the server CPU/database (and faster for the player)
• Fix both Linux and MacOS versions (the MacOS version is not sure since the bug is not in my hands but in the Webkit team's hands :/)
• Make more contracts and make them different from the existing ones
• Improve the current "tech tree" to prevent everyone from needing the same resource and selling the same one, as well as some balance
• Manual linking/resource choice for a storage slot to complete the optimization listed in the first bullet point

Once all of this is stable, I can announce a release date, and focus on the last Early access features:

• Ecological and ethical decisions
• Automatic buy/sell resources
• More content (contracts, resources, machines, ...)
• More community-wide features to enhance the MMO side
• Maybe target more platforms than Steam?

But don't worry about the demo, it will be updated along these milestones. Because I need your input and feedback! Note that the demo will stay up, even when the game is released. The difference between both game versions will be the game content size. The demo will have fewer contracts, resources, and machines. And probably a low staff size limit.

Conclusion

I am done with this seventh DevBlog. If you want to read more about the game, you can read the other DevBlog as well as: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Bluesky - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live (in French, but I answer English questions!) And don't forget to wishlist and share the game with your friends: this is a great way to help me achieve this game I'm dreaming of! Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis

[ 2024-10-22 17:23:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! I'm here with another batch of bugfixes and improvements. Thanks to everyone currently trying out the game and/or giving feedback/bug fixes!

Manufactur'inc v0.3.2

• #1840 - Massive game server performance improvements, which should make loading time a lot shorter for big factories, and some in-game actions as well :) To make this fix possible, I had to rollback one of the 0.3.0 fixes (which was horrible performance-wise), and reworked parts of the game code as well
• #1837 - Fix rendering issues when a contract is finished but its requirements are not filled anymore
• #1836 - Emptying the map was causing a game soft-lock
• Fix icons in the history tab
• Improve equipment deletion animation (it shouldn't "lag" anymore)
• Show in red when an equipment slot is full
• Make the factory context menu (right click) slightly larger to prevent text from acting weirdly
• Various serverside hotfixes have been deployed in the last 2 days

• The MacOS version won't work because of an external issue, it has been disabled temporarily
• The "maximum amount" displayed on the global market may include in-transit resources, which may make it wrong by up to 5 units
• You may go past maximum storage space sometimes

• From 0.3.2, the server will be able to prompt you to update the game even if it's already started (before, the version check was only on the game launch), so you won't have issues with future updates
• New set of automated tests to help me catch bugs before they arrive to you!

Hello everyone! Small update along next fest launch about some bugs reported in the last hour :)

Manufactur'inc v0.3.1

• #1833 - After selling/buying, the game may crash when re-rendering market
• Fix player highlighting in Leaderboard
• Fix a bug that would prevent you buying/selling the exact amount you have in the storage
• Fix multiple server-side errors in rare actions
• Update money amount on client side when selling an equipment
• Update user map when your build has been refused by the server

• The MacOS version won't work because of an external issue, it has been disabled temporarily
• The "maximum amount" displayed on global market may include in-transit resources, which may makes it wrong by up to 5 units
• Serverside performance issues may delay first loading of the day by minutes (I'm working on a fix)
• Deleting all equipments from the map will soft-lock you

During the steam next fest, the top players will be shown on the store page!

Hello everyone! I was back to work this week so I had less time to work on the game but here we are with a new patch for the demo version!

Manufactur'inc v0.3.0

• Prevent server-side error if we're unlocking an already unlocked equipment
• Fix user market history order total value sign (it was negative instead of positive and vice-versa)
• Make some server requests faster to respond
• Fix market exchange when the resource type of a slot must change
• #1830 - Loading icon when buying/selling
• #1808 - When linking equipment, storage capacity calculation *should* count other transfer as well
• Fix the user money amount on the top bar
• Fix sounds
• #1807 - Fix factory animation

• Add background music
• Background music and settings volume feedback
• Open the link to changelogs in the login popup
• #1788 - Add a popup when deleting equipment
• #1537 - The server now checks the game version to prevent issues
• #1627 - Add some basic tutorials

• Add more automated tests

• The MacOS version won't work because of an external issue, it has been disabled temporarily

Hello everyone! Back from the convention, I was able to use part of my day off to process feedback from several people who gave me very constructive feedback over the weekend, as well as some feedback from this convention

Manufactur'inc v0.2.4

Roadmap 0.3 - Upcoming improvements and additions:

Hello everyone! I'm currently at an IRL convention so my free time is limited, but I took some time before sleeping to write the most urgent fixes for the game:

Manufactur'inc v0.2.3

Devblog history [olist]

I wanted a tool that helped me to see the existing stuff (items, equipment, recipes, contracts,...) so I don't create duplicate elements, can keep them coherent, and balance them without many issues. [/olist] So, this is why I created this tool! (WIP)
As you can see, it's not as pretty as the game interface, but we don't really care since the only user will probably be me. I will focus on some good user experience, such as this:
It is in active development along with another tool that can apply balancing to the game server live, and the game itself of course. And for those who have followed me for a longer time, you know it's not the only tool I've been creating for my games, since I also built a translation tool for my oldest games a few years ago
This is of course a time investment, but it helps me add new items/equipment metadata in a matter of minutes. What's left afterward when adding this kind of stuff are the graphics ... and this is a whole other topic. Using these tools, I will be able to focus on writing new features, improve the User Experience, and just improve the game itself. If you're curious about other things I use to improve my productivity on Manufactur'inc and my previous games, I suggest you read about Manufactur'inc 2nd DevBlog about automation. If you liked this DevBlog, you can read the other ones and share them with your friends. And one way to not miss the following ones is to follow the game Hub, using the "Follow" button on the Steam page. And if you're interested, I would also be happy if you wishlisted the game as well.
If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !) - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live - Follow me on mastodon - Follow me on Bluesky Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis

[ 2024-04-21 15:59:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Devblog history [olist]

02/2024 - #5 - Your mission for this week, should you choose to accept it... (Here !) [/olist] As you can guess, this month DevBlog will talk about another important chunk of the gameplay, namely the contracts (a.k.a the game quests).
These contracts will pave the whole road of your long-term gameplay as well as your short-term experiences. There are several contract durations:

Global contracts

Global contracts are one-shot and lifetime contracts, they will be used for various purposes from tutorial to "technology tree unlocking". The goals of these contracts will be to help you know more about the gameplay, and of course, unlock new exciting resources or equipment for your company! Some of them will be mandatory for you to pursue further in gameplay, and some others will only help you build your company.

Limited duration events

Most of the non-mandatory ones will be timed events whether it be daily, weekly, monthly, or event-based events the goal will be to give you equipment to build or resources to produce in exchange for some great rewards! These events, along with some balancing updates, will also be created to force players to renew/grow their production in multiple directions and avoid niche-based fortunes.

Okay, that's great, but what kind of rewards can I win with these contracts?

Lots of possibilities will be available, the most obvious one is of course money, but you could also get various resources, get a temporary employee happiness buff, unlock equipment, other contracts, new game features, achievements, ...

Ah, this looks great, but does that mean I have to fill contracts to be sure progressing in the game?

Filling contracts will be a huge plus to your business, but it's not and will not be the only way to succeed in and enjoy the game. You also could try to play with the resources market prices or other future features I will present in this DevBlog in the following months! And one way to not miss the following ones is to follow the game Hub, using the "Follow" button on the Steam page. And if you're interested, I would also be happy if you wishlisted the game as well.
If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !) - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live - Follow me on mastodon - Follow me on Bluesky Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis

[ 2024-02-21 16:45:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Devblog history [olist]

12/2023 - #4 - Events, events everywhere (Here !) [/olist]
Hello, and welcome to this last DevBlog of 2023! This one is paired to the calendar: real-life events impacting in-game events. I plan to add all-around-the-year in-game events linked to various cultures' festivities!

Events ?

That's a feature I like as a player in online games such as Grepolis and World of Warships or solo games such as Cookie Clicker, basing some gameplay on festivities. Yeah, okay, you want to do a Christmas-themed event like other games? Huh? Yes, you are right, fake opposition voice in my head*, but not completely. I really would like to implement various events if not every month, at least every other month. * Yes, I'm having fun doing these silly questions/answers with myself. And that's where I need you, the players! Which festivities are important to you? I already thought about multiple ideas including but not limited to:

• (Occidental or Chinese) New year
• Valentine's Day
• Easter
• Some Summer thingy
• Haloween
• Christmas

So, if you have ideas or agree with some of these, please comment on this post and tell me what's important to you! It is important to me to get feedback from players, and even more for this possible feature :) It doesn't have to be occidental or widespread festivities and I'm willing to consider any interesting idea. So do not fear giving any of your ideas.

What could these events bring the the game?

I have multiple ideas but the main content this would bring are contracts (~in-game quests) specific to these events. E.g. "Produce 1000 units of chocolate" for the Easter event. And, it will probably be a chain of contracts. Btw, we will talk about contracts in detail in a dedicated (future) DevBlog. Stay tuned! I also would like to give some temporary price variations for specific resources/items. In this same easter event, we could also raise chocolate prices because, well, demand increases. (The market and prices system will also have its own future DevBlog!) A third idea I have is to use these events as an excuse to write some major updates introducing brand new resources or tools! I basically have tons of ideas and am convinced these events could bring lots of fun, and additional and different gameplay all along the year :)

Conclusion

This DevBlog has been a bit shorter than usual, but I was mainly writing it to get your ideas!. In the meantime, I wish you a (late) Merry Christmas to anyone doing it, and a Happy New Year to anyone switching years soon (or already ?!). If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !) - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live - Follow me on mastodon - Follow me on Bluesky Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis

[ 2023-12-31 14:09:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Devblog history [olist]

12/2023 - #3 - Logistics (Here !) [/olist] Greetings, fellow entrepreneurs! Welcome to this third DevBlog of Manufactur'inc! As you probably noticed, it's already been two months since the previous one. But don't worry, there will be two in December (next one in a week!). The subject of this third DevBlog is a cornerstone of the gameplay: resources management.

History and proof or concept

The old system

Until November, there was a proof of concept of the gameplay allowing me to work, try features, and play. Here's how it worked: it has a global resource storage - like you can find in most management/strategy games - meaning if you had a saw, it would take wood logs from global storage and produce planks to this global storage pool, without any transportation delay.

The rework

This was a good and easy proof of concept but ... not the best idea in terms of gameplay and fun. So, I decided to completely rework this part of the game during my holidays week in early November. It took a bit more than expected, because I didn't have a first working version before the end of November, and still have some nonworking edge cases at the moment I write these lines.

Why does it take so long?

It takes a long time to develop because Manufactur'inc is and will be a multiplayer and real-time game. This means when you log in to the game, it will have to recalculate what has been happening for your industry since last session. Whether it be an hour ... or a full year. So I have to introduce some shortcuts to be able to simulate these big durations as "repeating this pattern X times". Basically: it's a complex workload!

But, what is this new system?

This new system has two major differences from the previous one:

• I am introducing "local" storage: each tool and each "warehouse" has its internal storage. It means we will check this storage to know if we can produce a resource (if the output slot is full or if you don't have the input material, you can't produce!).
• There will also be some resource transit between equipments. When your saw needs to produce planks, it will first need to bring some wood logs from the relevant storage, wait for them to come, produce, and then extract planks from output storage to the destination.

Tests

I won't go into technical details, but as presented in the second devblog, I write automated tests for most of the game systems. This one is not different; I've been writing tons of tests for this system, including some targeted tests as well as some complete factory simulations (especially the one you will have by the end of the first tutorial!).

Okay, that's cool, but do you have visuals ?!

Yes! While most of the work is behind the scenes, I have some visuals to share, especially this GIF of the first version of game client animation representing the simulation:
And if you're curious how it evolved during time: [olist]

[/olist]

Conclusion

Here we are for this Devblog! Did you like this little behind-the-scenes? If you have questions about the game, you can add a comment under this post and I'd love to talk about it, or maybe even write a future DevBlog on this subject! You can also join Dysnomia's discord so we can talk about this! If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !) - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live - Follow me on mastodon - Follow me on Bluesky Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and have a nice weekend! Elanis

[ 2023-12-23 09:28:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Devblog history [olist]

10/2023 - #2 - Automation isn't just about gameplay (Here !) [/olist] Hello! Welcome to this second DevBlog of Manufactur'inc! If you didn't read the first one and want to know about the game, you can read it here! Today, we're going to talk about automation, but not the one you will be able to set in the game, we will talk about how I automate my own stuff to make my life easier to release update faster and automatically test whole parts of the game. As I presented in the first DevBlog, I'm here to vulgarize things. I hope to share pieces of my developer life with everyone here without going into technical details :)

Auto-updates

Something that made me lose *a lot* of time on my first game was releasing updates. You can't imagine how it's a pain to manually build a game build for 3 Operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Linux) and two architectures each (32bits/64bits, except for MacOS which only has the latter). So, something I set up 3 years ago with Exortion was to automatically create all 5 builds on a server every time I was going to "save my code" on the server. It reduced the time I dedicated to releasing an update from 1+ hour to ~15 minutes: download 5 .zip files from my server, upload to Steam and itch, trigger Steam update, and here we go! "That's cool" you would like to say? Yes, but some improvements were still possible! One year later, I was using SteamCMD to automatically push to Steam servers and Butler to push to itch.io automatically. What do I still have to do now? Press the release button, and write a nice update announcement! So here's what it looks like now for Exortion's demo for example, pretty cool no ?
Of course, Manufactur'inc already has this, from day one of development (and that's really cool to have !):

Automated testing

Another important topic that took up a lot of time in repetitive actions was testing. Being able to re-test every feature of a game before updating is something almost impossible when done manually (and we're not even talking about the time spent !). Automated testing is something common in my original development field (web development) and I wanted to bring this to my games as well, it easily prevents tons of bugs (not all, unfortunately !) and can test dozens of times faster than a human does, while being less error-prone! So, how and what do I test? I do two kinds of tests: - Feature specific tests (called unit tests) - "Global" test (called end-to-end)

Unit tests

A good example of unit test is about this part of UI:
I have to test that the number is displayed correctly, e.g. "123" is displayed as "123" "1230" as "1.23K" "1200001" as "1.2M" and so on So, I write lots of rules about this, and every time I run tests, it will check that this is okay! So, if ever I modify the system because I need to have "P" after "K" (=1 000), "M" (=1 000 000), "G" (=1 000 000 000), "T" (=1 000 000 000 000), I can be sure I didn't accidentally break anything!

End-to-end tests

As for end-to-end tests, I will test a scenario from start to end, e.g: - Login to the game - Place a building - Check that resource X is generating - Go to the contracts tab - Check that we succeed contact Y (because it asked to construct this building) - and so on If you want to see what it looks like for Alchemistry you can watch a video here (Sorry, I can't embed it on Steam !). Or another cool example of Extortion:
End-to-end testing and administration tools have been both my main focus since the game announcement (hence why I'm talking about this here). Those tools will both make me work easier and faster in the future (and I will need this since I will be solo on this project !).

Conclusion

I hope you liked this little behind-the-scene of game development! If you think things could be improved, you can add a comment under this post and I'd love to talk about it! You can also join Dysnomia's discord so we can talk about this! If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can: - Join Dysnomia's Discord - Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !) - Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live - Follow me on mastodon - Follow my new and shiny Bluesky account! Thanks for reading this second DevBlog, and have a nice weekend! Elanis

[ 2023-10-21 14:26:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

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