Hey mates! We love releasing our games to Early Access at Luden.io! Sometimes they can be rough around the edges at first, but that's ok for us: that initial release is just another milestone on the roadmap. We were updating Craftomation 101 every couple of weeks even before it became available - for no one to be seen, except for us and a handful of playtesters. After the game landed on the virtual shelves of Steam, we took a side-quest for extreme post-release bug fighting, but now we're back on the usual track, planning to release updates for the game every 2-3 weeks. So let's check out what's new in the game, shall we? But first, take a second an enjoy this special picture that we made to celebrate the International Day for Human Space Flight:

What's new?

The second part of the game was our main focus of attention in the past couple of weeks. After watching the players go through it, we noted a bunch of things we'd like to tweak to improve the experience. The biggest part of it was adding a second enemy (the first one being the snow) - growing Thorns, that need to be rooted out once in a while, otherwise they grow back, preventing Craftomates from interacting with the occupied tile. We did not come up with this concept instantly, of course. At first, there was an idea to create a zone that would not allow manual interaction with objects, so only Craftomates could operate inside of it. However, we discarded it rather quickly, because we wanted to preserve the opportunity for the players to do everything by hand - it is a tough job, but an honest one! It doesn't mean that zones like that will not be added to the game at some point - it's just that their time hasn't come yet.
The visual manifestation of the new obstacle was also a matter of discussion. Before we decided to stick with thorns, we also briefly discussed sentient crystals and sentient mold. But thorns were a perfect match with the mechanic of growing back (which was the necessary part of the concept for the new obstacle), so here they are. We do not know yet, whether they are sentient or not. What do you think? Please keep in mind: this mechanics is not yet final, so we could use some feedback from you! We will be conducting internal playtests as well. Our biggest doubt at this time is how those thorns will fit into current plant-growing mechanics, which rely on the temperature of the soil. While most of the organics on the planet only provide benefits for the player, it makes sense to keep the ground as warm as possible (for it speeds up the growth of the plants). However, warmer ground makes Thorns grow faster, too. Switch to the heat map to see how warm your ground is:
One of the options we're considering now is adding another brewable item, that would withhold the growth of plants. This would also come in handy for those cases when you place a Bonfire on a tile with Thorn roots on it - effectively preventing you from harvesting the Throns, dealing with them only when they grow back fully. By the way, at the moment harvested Thorns don't really do anything (except for being generally annoying), but we're considering options for making them more useful in the future. What benefits (or other effects) could they provide? Come discuss it with us on our Discord server! Other steps to improve the experience of the second half of the game were taken as well! As part of balancing the aforementioned soil temperature paradox, Steam Bonfire (the most advanced Bonfire in the game so far) now warms out a larger part of the map, but does so at a minimal heat level, to prevent excessive growth of Thorns. We have also changed the order of objectives in a way so tree-management gameplay would emerge roughly at the same time the players discover the Sulfur source. Brewables were also boosted: previously there used to be a tradeoff from using them, but now they only bring benefits. With Thorns emerging, they can become a powerful tool for dealing with those pesky weeds.

What's next?

Major improvements of QoL are on the way, with many changes happening here and there. Key bindings are already in the game, the next step is adding a proper text input interface - we know it sounds like a feature that should have been there from the beginning, but our Defold engine, while being awesome in so many other ways, has no out of the box solution for text input. Fortunately, this issue is about to be solved: [previewyoutube=4_TkoVe4Lco;full][/previewyoutube] The other feature that's going to emerge in the next update is rather colorful. We're going to let you paint Cargomates, the same way you do it with Craftomates. Make this world even more festive!
But this is just a temporary solution. The proper bot-management interface is now in active development, expected to appear in the game in May. Stay tuned for more information on that. We'll see you again in a month, with more exciting news about Craftomation 101! If you want to receive regular updates about Craftomation 101 (and our other games) development, consider joining our mailing list on Substack!