Closed Beta

Last week, we started sharing the demo among friends. We are ready to share it among a wider group of players through the Steam Playtest feature. Our playtest has been approved by Valve and we are in the process of setting up a Discord server to interact with the community on a more direct basis. We want to limit the closed beta initially to 100 players max, so if you are interested make sure to register on our website: powerplayrts.com

New Buildings

We completely revamped the buildings in the game

• Factory - Resource Processing
• Assembly - Vehicle Production
• Incubator - Worker Production
• Depot - Resource Storage
• Mine - Resource Extraction

Here is the before/after comparison. We hope you like the new buildings!

Terrain Painting

We implemented terrain painting. Our new terrain shader has a palette of 4 colors, that can be used to represent different biomes. Here is how the painting looks in sandbox mode:

New Biomes

Here are the different biomes we created using the terrain painting feature:

Uranium and Nuclear Silos

We implemented the full nuclear production cycle. Uranium is a new resource type, that can only be extracted through mines. We also added Nuclear silos, that are used to launch Nukes. When you have enough Uranium, press the Nuke button!

Thank you and see you soon

Thank you to everyone supporting us in making the best RTS. We hope to see you soon in our closed beta so if you are interested make sure to register on our website: powerplayrts.com

Nuclear weapons

We finally worked on nuclear weapons. They are an important part of any military strategy. Whether you use them aggressively or guard against them by investing in defensive infrastructure is up to you. Investing in nuclear weapons requires collecting uranium and building the industrial chain to make it weapon-grade. This is a long process in which you are vulnerable to potentially fatal disruptions. Still, if you can efficiently control your nuclear production infrastructure you will have a massive advantage in the end game. [previewyoutube=9c5VXCW5Diw;full][/previewyoutube]

New Animations

We added new worker animations for when they are collecting mineral resources. We are not ashamed to admit that this is inspired by Age of Empires!

New Interactions

We added new interactions that make it easier to manage logistics. Using trucks, it is now possible to transport huge amounts of resources over long distances.

Closed Beta

We are releasing a demo of the game (closed beta) towards the end of October. We would love to hear your feedback, so please sign up on our website to get a demo link as soon as it's ready.

We are officially registered for the Real-Time Strategy Fest! Participating in this event is an important milestone for us, and we're eager to showcase our game to a wider audience. We look forward to engaging with the community and receiving feedback during the festival.

Combat polish

We enhanced the visual effects in combat, particularly the muzzle flash, gunshot effects, and death animations. These updates make encounters more engaging while trying to avoid overwhelming players with visual noise. We think we strike a nice balance this time but are open to more feedback.

New indicators

We also focused on improving the feedback indicators. This includes adding motion indicators and action loop indicators. These improvements aim to make the game more intuitive and responsive to player commands.

New Biome

We're introducing a new spring biome. This environment brings a fresh aesthetic. We will experiment further with other biomes. This will make the sandbox mode more interesting and allow players to create more visually appealing worlds.

Next Demo

We are working hard on making a new demo. I can confirm that it will include sandbox mode and you will be able to create your own maps. But my main goal is to nail the single-player experience. This is the next big milestone for this game. We are excited about it and we will try to share more development updates along the way. Thank you all for your support. Please wishlist the game and if you want to get the upcoming demo, signup on our website

Early Demo

We presented an early demo at the MGE expo beginning of summer. It was very well received and we got plenty of feedback that kept us busy all summer. We are getting ready to release another demo to a wider audience. If you are interested, don't hesitate to sign up on our website

Goodbye ThreeJS, Hello Unity steamhappy

Everyone who saw the demo assumed that the game was made with Unity. The game has always been in ThreeJS. Things were great when I was prototyping. However, as the game became more complex, I spent much time working on tools and the game engine. I built an entire editor from scratch, and many tools to support prefabs and ECS workflow. I worked a lot on the engine, in particular for pathfinding, but also on things that people take for granted, such as particle systems and collision detection.
This is no dunk on ThreeJS, which is a fantastic and reliable framework for graphic programming. But video games need workflow tools and a whole set of features which a graphic framework is simply lacking. So In June, I made the difficult decision to switch to Unity. I'm happy to report that things went very well! At this point, I'm 100% back to working on gameplay. steamhappy

Gameplay Update

I worked on making the conveyor belt mechanic more accessible. During the MGE expo, many people struggled to build their industrial chain, which is a shame. We had a free-form definition of conveyors and it was difficult to control the flow of resources once the conveyors were in place. The new conveyor system uses pathfinding to generate optimal connections between buildings. It's also possible to filter which resources go on a conveyor and to start/stop a conveyor. My wife thinks this new system is good, which is a great sign!

Next Demo

We are working hard on making a new demo. I can confirm that it will include sandbox mode and you will be able to create your own maps. But my main goal is to nail the single-player experience. This is the next big milestone for this game. We are excited about it and we will try to share more development updates along the way. Thank you all for your support. Please wishlist the game and if you want to get the upcoming demo, signup on our website