Whilst working on the co-op sequel (KiR: Together) I found a sneaky little bug ('=-' instead of '-=' ah how glorious) which caused an awakened Doll to instantly remove all heat from the Boiler when sabotaging it. With the fix it's now as it should be: when a Doll sabotages the Boiler it takes one coal out of the Boiler, removing slightly more than the amount of heat one coal would give. By the way: the Keep It Running: Together Steam store page is awaiting approval by Valve, so it will be online one of these days!

[ 2025-02-01 09:37:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello my lovely workers, It's about high time I started talking more about Keep It Running: Together, the multiplayer/co-op sequel to KiR.

Progress:

The Factory map itself is pretty much finished and I am now working hard to implement all the gameplay elements and necessary features. Getting all the models, textures and materials done was a huge effort, but the results have been more than worth it. Most of the machinery is fully animated too, with special animations for the production machines when they produce a Toy part or Toy, which does great things for immersion and atmosphere.
There's a "lobby" area in the Factory now where players spawn and where various settings for the upcoming shift can be found as well as information on your team. Most menus in the game will be actually in-world i.e. they are diegetic interfaces. Of course it's not actually going to be the green cubes you see in the screenshot, those are just for testing and initial setup during the Alpha testing :)
Co-op play already works as players can move around and interact with the Shovel, Wrench, Lantern and of course the machinery such as the Boiler and Steam Engines.

A basic day-loop is implemented, with a dynamic day/night cycle so that starting and ending your shifts feels more natural. This also makes lighting a more prominent gameplay element as now there's a second Steam Engine besides the main one: the Generator. This means there are two controls now: one for the main engine and one for the Generator.
Production of the first type of Toy (the Dolls) is functional too and players can put these Toys in boxes and carry the filled boxes to the truck, which will then be added to the Quota.

The Possessed Factory and its Creatures:

The Boss returns along with other familiar monsters of the previous game. And yes: he's as angry as ever!
Competitors will play a bigger role this time: rather than killing you, they will instead kidnap you and drag you into the depths of their underground factories. Can you escape before the day is over, or will you perish in the darkness? This is an entirely new gameplay element and will require some extra work to fully flesh out, so I can't show anything yet... Yet ;) This time there's 3 types of toys instead of just the Dolls. Which means there's much more machinery to maintain and more mischievous Toys to deal with, should they escape. In the screenshot you can see the 3 production lines with the unique machinery on each line.
Of course the demonic contraptions of steam and metal, the Clockwork Demons, make a return in an upgraded format. I'm still figuring out how they'll affect players and how I can further improve the gameplay elements surrounding the Demons. They'll likely play a bigger role in machinery malfunctions, rather than attacking players.

Closed Alpha and Closed Beta tests:

Since this is a multiplayer game I need to do lots of testing via Steam itself, so a Closed Alpha is currently running. This is currently only for myself and my testers/friends. However I am thinking of doing a Closed Beta to which I will invite more people so can get the game tested with more PC setups and connection speeds. This will be invite-only, but feel free to message me if you got game-testing skills or are a content creator. This will be a good chance for content creators to get their hands on an early preview ;) An announcement for this will be made once the game is ready for this. I also need to make a proper Steam Store page for Together, which I'm hoping to bring online by the end of this month (January).

[ 2025-01-06 13:20:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small update that fixes some essential things (for non-VR players mainly):

• Fixed Boss kill animation not working in Deliveries,
• Fixed Demon kill animation not working in Deliveries,
• Fixed some of the outro screens in Deliveries,
• Various small fixes and polishes in the game code.

[ 2024-09-23 09:41:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello my factory workers, This is the final big update for Keep It Running, but don't pack your toy boxes just yet because I've started work on the multiplayer sequel to KiR. It is called "Keep It Running: Together" and will feature a bigger (and highly detailed) factory with more things to do and fear, allowing for up to 4 players (or more if applicable). A more detailed announcement will follow once I got some finished things to show off, in the meantime you can check out my Twitter/X for preview screenshots and other goodness :) I will still release some minor patches for KiR, as the VR implementation still needs some polishing. However I wanted to get this update out now, since it features some general quality-of-life improvements to the game and I won't have much time to work on it the coming two weeks which would delay the update. Anyways, here's what is in this update:

Bugfixes and Polishes:

• Fixed mouse interactions not working when a controller is plugged in,
• Fixed Boiler exploding with just 6 coal by making the pressure relief valve stronger,
• Fixed Lorry rolling backwards at the beginning of Delivery, causing a Boss voice line ("Turn back!") to wrongly trigger and confuse players,
• Lowered Boss anger rate on Day 2 for a better difficulty curve,
• Added progress bar to the loading screen,
• Game no longer hangs during load, to prevent glitches in VR,
• Removed confusing bits on the Ruleboard.

VR support:

VR is now fully supported, but keep in mind I only have an Oculus Quest 2 so I've not been able to test with other headsets. Please do let me know if you experience issues in the Discussions forum on Steam. Further more there's some minor polish that still needs doing, such as certain font sizes and subtitles not always appearing correctly. Functionality-wise it should all be there though!

[ 2024-09-08 09:50:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Since I need to get to grips with implementing VR for Disinfection I figured I should get some practice in and port Keep It Running to VR. Lo-and-behold Godot has some real good VR support and I've already made great progress. The game will automatically switch to VR-mode when launched through SteamVR, with the menus and gameplay all fully supported. What remains is to implement the remaining gameplay elements and give various things a good polishing so the experience is comfortable and smooth. Here's a quick demonstration of what I got working so far: [previewyoutube=zCGmjaPGtXU;leftthumb][/previewyoutube] The public Beta will get an update very soon with the VR implementation, so you can try it out if you're opted in (you can freely do this via Steam).

[ 2024-07-28 10:36:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

I've worked on the game some more, here's what is updated.

Bugfixes:

• Particle effects are now pre-loaded, so there should be no more frame drops when effects happen for the first time during gameplay.

Polishes:

• Changed the Tutorial cutscene with the Demon. I've moved him to a more obvious location, above the machine he breaks. I also added some spark effects to indicate this. This should make things more clear to players,
• Made machine malfunction smoke a little bit more obvious by making it lighter as particles fade out,
• Added more resolution presets, for higher resolutions and widescreen,
• Added drop package animation to the Boss in the Deliveries section of the game.

Experimental Xbox & PlayStation controller support:

I've added basic controller support, although the game is really designed to be played with a mouse. But for the sake of accessibility and giving players options I felt it was good to implement this regardless. The menus should all work as well as movement, looking around and interactions. Since I only have an old Xbox 360 controller here for testing, I've marked this feature as 'experimental' until I've gotten more feedback from players and testers.

[ 2024-07-19 12:14:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

I got my versioning all wrong in last update post, the game is now at 1.1.4 as I'm working towards the new stuff. Full patch update post will happen once I've implemented all the new events stuff, which will take much longer due to work on Disinfection :) For now this is another small QoL patch:

• Continue Game menu now has locked days greyed out and will automatically select the highest unlocked day,
• Dolls now cannot pull coal out of the Boiler if the Boiler door is closed.

[ 2024-05-10 08:42:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

More extensive patch coming later when I'm done with the new Disinfection patch. I got some cool ideas for some non-lethal events during the earlier days/first delivery, to add a little variety and spookiness. For now here's some minor tweaks:

• Added simple instructions board to Lorry,
• Lorry brakes are twice as strong on Delivery 1, slightly stronger than before on Delivery 2.

[ 2024-05-01 13:59:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed bug in lorry controls that caused the reverse and brake levers to malfunction,
• Fixed localization of Custom Deliveries text,
• Fixed main menu buttons being misaligned and clipping out of their panel in certain languages,

Polishes:

• Added more parameters to Custom Deliveries,
• Made Deliveries a little easier, Boss gets less angry from hitting traffic and stopping distance is longer, [*[ Added some more tweaks and differences between Deliveries 1 and 2,
• Added horn lever and sound to Lorry,
• Awakened Dolls now take less coal out of the Boiler,
• Added lorry detach animation to Demon.

This will be the last update for now, I gotta go back to working on Disinfection :) Definitely expect some minor updates every now and then when I feel inspired!

[ 2024-04-25 16:35:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

After having had some great fun watching y'all panic in the Factory and Lorry I've gotten the feedback needed to fix and polish a bunch of things. Lets take a look:

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug with "First Delivery" achievement triggering a day later,
• Fixed "5AM" achievement triggering in tutorial,
• Fixed "5AM" achievement failing when the clock goes past 5AM during a days outro,
• Fixed "dolls" achievement failing when a Doll wakes up during a days outro,
• Fixed ending cutscene not playing at the end of day 6,
• Fixed delivery unlocking when the day before it was also unlocked,
• Fixed some errors in translations due to unsupported characters,
• Various minor fixes.

Polishes:

• Minor difficulty tweaks in Day 6,
• Adjusted some level geometry in Deliveries.

There's still a minor bug in the Deliveries section, where the brake or gear select levers will sometimes move in the opposite direction. I'm currently still in the progress of fixing that, as well as adding some small new things to the game. Of course there need to be more achievements too! So expect another patch sometime in the coming 2 weeks :)

[ 2024-04-24 11:44:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Keep It Running will release tomorrow the 22th of April. There will be a week long discount to celebrate, so tell all your friends, family and enemies! :) Deliveries has gotten a lot of updates this week and during this I was able to get a lot feedback and testing (thanks go out to RandomBritishDude and LupaSpirit on Twitch) to get things right. Some tweaking on the Factory sections has been done too, especially on Day 6 as that day was a little too difficult still. The game should have a very nice difficulty curve over the Days and Deliveries now, providing fun and challenge. A bunch of new Steam Achievements have been added, but I will add more in the future once I get more ideas. If you have suggestions, let me know!

[ 2024-04-21 13:29:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

The new version of Keep It Running for Steam, which includes the new Deliveries update, is almost finished. I'm currently focusing on accessibility, testing, fixing & polishing. The new gameplay is becoming great fun and offers a nice break from toiling away on the Factory floor. Though... It isn't any less stressful with the kind of boss you are working for!

Accessibility:

I'm spending some extra time implementing multiple languages and subtitles, since the game has a pretty strong emphasis on following instructions and reacting to the angry shouts of the Boss. I've added a language select to the options menu, as well as an option to enable subtitles:
I lucked out with some people providing assistance with translations, so currently these languages are supported:

Deliveries:

The Factory part of the game has been thoroughly playtested and is currently fully finished, though I may add some small things later on. The Deliveries part of the game is new however and adds fun new gameplay to the game for some extra variety. In Deliveries you have to control an old steam lorry, which is loosely modeled after the Sentinel brand of steam lorry produced in Britain back in the day:
These hulking, 7+ ton, machines of pure steam power are challenging to control and to make things worse... the Boss is sitting next to you to give you directions and punish you should you get it wrong!
The steam lorry has several controls which you have to manage manually, making for some chaotic and fun stressy gameplay. Especially now that I've further tweaked the lorry to feel more scary when barreling down the windy roads of the town. Don't crash or flip it!
Of course you will be able to unlock Custom Deliveries when you've made it through the entire week, in which you will be able to freely tweak all the parameters to create fun challenges, or maybe to have a relaxing sunday drive through the town?

Achievements:

Can't have a survive-the-night game without some fun achievements! I'm adding a plethora of of them, some are easy to get as you naturally progress through the week, others provide extra ways to challenge yourself and go for that completionist streak!

Release:

Currently the game is set to release on the 22th of April, on a Monday. Go wishlist if you haven't already!

[ 2024-04-05 11:23:55 CET ] [ Original post ]