Hello everyone. Last month, I announced my intention to release the game for free. I've since discussed with Steam's support, and they explained that, since my company will cease to exist, I would need to create another partner account but also repay the publishing fee. I'm happy to give the game and soundtrack for free, but paying 100$ USD to keep them on Steam doesn't make sense to me. So I decided to retire the game from Steam, and offer it free on itch.io instead. It won't affect anyone who already has the game. The game will stay in your library, you will still be able to download, install and play it. The community and guides will remain accessible too. I apologize for the inconvenience. I know that some of you felt that I let you down, and I want to apologize for that too. Please understand that it was not a deliberate choice. In early 2021, I started to have serious health issues, and that is the reason I had to slow down and finally abandon the game's development.

[ 2024-06-19 13:57:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Good news, WoMen in Science will soon be free. I haven't updated it for a while now and I think it's time to stop charging money for it. If you bought it recently. feel free to ask for a refund. I'm not exactly sure how much time Valve will require before making the change, some sources say a week after the announcement, others say a month, but either way it will be soon. I wanted to thank you all, you've been almost 5000 to support my work and it means more than you can imagine. I will continue to produce free science-related content, such as the print & play card game I made before. I'm currently working on a cartoon project, it's still a work in progress but here are two "pilot" episodes: Sophie Germain - Queen of Primes [previewyoutube=RuKp2Ra_LCQ;full][/previewyoutube] Pancakology : the science of making pancakes [previewyoutube=cnIpoFIQdGo;full][/previewyoutube] If you enjoyed the science and humor of Women In Science, consider subscribing to the channel. Ben

[ 2024-05-17 20:26:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, I wanted to let you know about my new project named "Kittens in Space". It's inspired from card-battlers like Stacklands and Card Hog, with emphasis on humor and sci-fi references. Manage your space colony, explore the galaxy, conquer other civilizations or make powerful allies. Most actions happen by stacking cards, i.e. you craft something by stacking a Kitten on the right resources, you explore by dropping a Kitten on a planet, you fight by dropping it on an enemy, etc.
There will be roguelite elements. When you win, you'll be invited to unlock new civilizations that you will encouter, and when you lose you will receive some salvaged resources when you start a new game. If that sounds interesting, please consider wishlisting/following the Steam page to be alerted when a demo will be available.
I expect to start the private beta tests in december, have a public demo ready before Steam's NextFest (February), and release the game in early March 2023. Ben

[ 2022-10-13 15:13:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists!

• There was a bug in the quest about plant effects, the quest objective text was mixed up making it very confusing. For example, "insect repellent" was shown as "weed control". Sorry about that!
• I added a random tip to explain that cows and goats need to have babies before producing milk.
• Various minor bug fixes and optimizations were made in the past two weeks, without being announced.
• I also recently added Steam cards, badges, smileys and backgrounds.

[ 2022-09-12 16:45:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, I fixed a few bugs and made minor improvements: - The quest objectives shown on the main screen are now sorted so that the uncompleted ones appear first. - Fixed : sometimes when moving an item in the inventory using a GamePad, the item icon would disappear. - Fixed : Money was not received during Jonas Salk friendship event - Fixed : "PlayerName" placeholder was not replaced by the player's name in Montessori's friendship dialogue - Fixed : Plant effects animations sometimes did not show or got stuck for a second - Fixed : Points will now stay on top when viewing the skill tree - I made the FPS and version number less visible, those are useful for me debugging when someone sends me a screen capture, but have little interest for players and were often confusing.

[ 2022-08-22 16:50:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Here is the second part of improvements for gamepad users:

• Moving the hoe tile selector over plants will show their tooltips
• Better gamepad navigation in UI

Non-Gamepad changes :

• Better management of plant effects
• Pesticide use now cancels pollinator bonus, as intended
• Fallow now works properly
• Minor bug fixes

[ 2022-08-12 16:39:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, I added right joystick support for gamepad users. It makes selecting the tile while using the hoe much easier, placing furniture too. There are still a few things I want to improve with the gamepad (UI navigation, tooltips, ...), so there will be another update next week. I also updated the game's guide (Troubleshooting, friendship, minigames) Ben

[ 2022-08-05 17:44:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

- Shift-click on an item in the toolbar will send the stack of items in the inventory, and vice-versa - Dialogue animation and sound can now be disabled from options menu - The position of the player on the map is now animated for better clarity - Added a new cheat code to add an amount of money - fixed a bug that could prevent exiting a dialog - key mapping options now have more space to show the text (especially useful for German language) - fixed some typos and a few UI bugs

[ 2022-08-02 19:35:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, I just published an official guide for the game, with content for new players but also more experienced ones (easter eggs, cheat codes). Let me know if there is something I can improve. Ben

[ 2022-07-21 17:05:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! I just made an update to fix some issues : - better support of various resolutions : the game should now be playable even if your screen doesn't support 1920x1080 resolution or similar screen ratio. That includes low res like 800x600 and 1024x768 but also extra-large screens (i.e. 2560x1080). These are things that I can only simulate on my setup, so please let me know if there is anything that doesn't work as it should. - There were issues with walking speed on some configurations, this should be fixed now. - The "too far" cursor is now red to show that you can't interact with something. The previous one was not different enough, which led to confusion about click sometimes not working. - Random seeds with genetic mutations will drop less often when you cut grass, but you will receive more of them. This should help with inventory management. - There were some issues with fences not connecting properly. - Manure dropped by animals will not spontaneously reappear after being cleaned - The crafting recipes scroll box has been slowed down so it doesn't skip recipes when you use the mouse wheel - The sound volume of the waterfall and the fountain is now changed properly

[ 2022-07-18 18:28:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists!

Alpha 0.8 is now available. You will have to start a new game, because the world changed a lot. If you prefer continuing your old game, you can disable steam updates or go back to version 0.7 from the "Beta" panel in the "properties" screen. Achievements : I added 55 steam achievements covering many aspects of the game (farming, quests, friendship, crafting, minigames ...) New intro and tutorial quests : I updated the game first cutscene and added some early quests to guide the player a little better in the early stages of the game. It's still a work in progress, I'll use your feedback to make it better. You can now unlock 3 festivals :

• The Drone Race festival happens on day 7 of every season, with a different map each time.
• The hackathon festival happens on day 15 of Winter. It unlocks the hacking minigame, a special quiz game, and 5 more levels (with lasers!) in the BotArena minigame.
• The Animal Market happens on day 30 of Spring and Fall. You can buy adult animals of any color. There is also a special quiz game.

Gameplay changes

Animals now have various colors that are transmitted genetically. Some colors are more common than others, and some genes are recessive (only show if both parents transmit the gene). Some colors are the result of two genes. So, if for example you let a couple of white and black rabbits live together, you could have a mix of white, black and grey babies. For now, the animal market is the only place where you can chose your animal colors, when buying them from the farm it will be randomized.
The plant bonuses have been simplified. Each bonus (fertilized, herb control, pollinators, climbing support) is shown on the plant tooltip, and accounts for 25% more productivity. Pollinators now affect plants that produce pollinated fruits (tomatoes, soy, etc). Currently pollinators are not cancelled by pesticide use, but I will soon fix that too.
Plants use the nutrients available in the soil in order to grow. With each harvest, the soil is impoverished. Poor soil will result in reduced harvests. Nutrients can be returned to the soil via chemical fertilizers, but their effect is temporary (1 harvest). Some plants such as soy provide bacteria that fix nitrogen from the air, which fertilizes the surrounding soil (2 harvests). Finally, compost is composed of organic matter rich in nitrogen and carbon, as well as bacteria and fungi which will allow continuous fertilization for a long period (3 harvests). It is also possible to leave an area fallow, after ten days the soil recovers half its nutrients (1 harvest) and after 15 days in full (2 harvests).

What's next ?

During the next weeks I will concentrate on fixing bugs, and adding a few quality of life improvements I had to postpone. I'm also writing a guide to explain all the aspects of the game. After that, I'm considering leaving early access. Leaving EA doesn't mean I won't continue to add features (there are still a lot of things I want to add or improve), but I've been working on this project for 4 years and I'm at the end of my budget. Currently the sales are very low (less than 10 sales per week), I can't be sure if it is because the game's not good enough, or if it is because I was targeted by people who don't like pronouns or diversity, and don't mind buying a game just to leave a bad review. When I started this project, being inclusive seemed like a no-brainer, it costs nothing and harms no-one, so why not ? I was very naive. It ended up being a nightmare, because in the US it was perceived as political, and even more in the recent year. But I don't regret it, on the contrary, it makes me feel that inclusivity is even more important than I thought. Hopefully, the lack of sales and visibility on Steam is the result of all the (massively upvoted) bad reviews I got because the game is inclusive, trans-friendly and neurodivergent-friendly, and once I release the game for real it will be alright. I'd love to continue working on this project for many years to come.

[ 2022-06-28 16:06:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, This one is a mix between Wordle and the Fallout hacking mini-game. The hackathon festival will also unlock new levels in Bot Arena and a special Quiz game. You may notice some references to Kali Linux, the 1994 game System Shock, the 1983 "Wargames" movie, the hunter2 IRC password meme, the blue MS-DOS editor, hex editors in general, and the easy to remember 0xBADCAFE hexadecimal address. [previewyoutube=KWP3j5OyPY0;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-04-28 17:41:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Here's a little preview of the mini-game I'm currently working on. It will be part of the seasonal drone festival that you will be able to unlock from the city screen in the next update. [previewyoutube=-h42YN-yTwY;full][/previewyoutube] Currently there are 2 bonuses (flags that give you more time, geysers that give a speed boost) and in the mine level there are obstacles that stop you. I plan for two more levels with also some wind zones that will push you in the wrong direction. What makes the game challenging is that you need to look at both the whole map and the mini-map at the same time. I'm going for something relatively easy to win but hard to master. The more time left at the end, the more points you get.

[ 2022-04-08 19:34:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, There were two major bugs making the game very slow at times, one occurred outside during the night especially when there was some light nearby, and the other one happened randomly but was more frequent when you had lots of crops. The game should now run at 60 FPS most of the time. steamthumbsup Many thanks to those who sent bug reports about these issues, it helped a lot!

[ 2022-03-11 20:05:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! What's new in Alpha0.7 ?

• Customize your containers with a name and an icon.
• Create a robot dog who can be called anywhere and fetch items from your containers.
• Destroy and/or move buildings.

[previewyoutube=drl92ijyC1I;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-02-17 19:52:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! This week, I worked on all the bugs that were submitted for the new Alpha 0.6 version, don't forget to download the new version manually if you disabled automatic updates. There was also a recurring issue of the artifacts being too difficult to find, so I introduced an artifact detector that you can build. I think this is an interesting game mechanic that I could build on. I'm considering adding an "Augmented Reality" skill that would permit to use more than one detector at once, and you could for example visualize soil conditions, plants diseases, pollinator status, ... Let me know if you have other ideas! [previewyoutube=l8eEmzLbRtQ;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-01-07 19:48:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Just a quick preview of what I am currently working on :

• New crafting system : I wanted to make crafting both more simple and more fun, so I made a visualization of the probabilities of getting a better quality item as a spinning wheel.
• Compost mini-game : animals now give manure that is great for composting, and you can try to balance the nitrogen and carbon content (commonly called "green matter" and "brown matter") to make the process faster. You can also add worms to cut the waiting time in half.
• Friendship panel to track gifts that NPCs like or don't like : the panel is updated when you make a gift that is liked or disliked, or during dialogues if a NPC gives a hint about something they appreciate.
• City improvements once you become mayor : the 3 new areas of the map can now evolve (3 areas with 4 possible states make 64 possible combinations). Each upgrade has 3 flavours : best for community (parks and activities), best for productivity (power plants, marina), and best for the environment (ecological reserve)

[previewyoutube=JplDVHV7hf0;full][/previewyoutube] I expect to publish the new version before the end of the month. If you haven't already, please consider writing an honest review of the game, it helps a lot!

[ 2021-12-02 17:20:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! My deepest apologies for the long wait, this is a big update and this year has been a difficult one for me. Future updates will be smaller and more frequent. What's new ?

• All dialogues have been rewritten, NPCs have different things to say every day of the week + some new dialogue events when their friendship level increases. I tried to add a lot of humor, but they will also give you hints about their favorite gifts and personal stories.
• Bigger map with 3 completely new areas (Waterfalls, Volcanic area and tropical beach)
• There is now a fast travel system that you can unlock
• Each season now has 3 different music themes, for a total of almost one hour of original music composed by Irene Chan.
• The number of artefacts that you can bring to the museum has doubled (34 artefacts)
• New food recipes (Cheeseburger, Satay, Vol-au-vent, ...)
• Entering a building is not automatic anymore, you have to click on the door (Your pointer will change if it is currently open/available)

I did my best to remove all the bugs, but there are many different play styles and configurations so chances are that there will be more bug fixes coming soon. Remember to press F8 to submit bug reports, especially if you are blocked since there is a "teleport me to home" function that should hopefully correct most issues. I made many changes according to the bug reports and suggestions you sent me, but some are not done yet. Do not worry, they are still on my todo list. The old savegames won't be compatible with this new version. If you want to continue playing in version 0.4, you can go to Steam properties -> BETA and select the alpha04 to get them back. Thank you all for your support! Ben

[ 2021-09-30 17:03:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! I've been having some health issues for the past 4 months, thus the development has been a bit slower than anticipated. But I'm still aiming for a spring release for the world and dialogue update (probably just before summer, but that still counts as spring, right !?) Here's a little preview where you can see two of the three new zones that are added to the map. [previewyoutube=TZDnhHV-SdM;full][/previewyoutube] There is still a lot to do (as you can see some areas are still a bit "empty"), and all you see in the video is subject to changes, but it should give you an idea.

[ 2021-04-21 18:01:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Just a quick word about the game soundtrack : next week I will add 8 new tracks composed by Irene, for a total of 17 tracks in the album. I will also double its price to $3.99. Of course, if you already bought the DLC, you will get all the new tracks for free.
Currently there is a -35% discount on the price, that is +/- $1.30 for almost one hour of music. You probably won't see such a great deal once the price is raised, so if you are interested, now is the best time to buy! Other than that, I'm still working on the game update planned for Spring. I don't have much to show because it's mostly dialogues, refactoring, and rebuilding the world from scratch, but I'm making good progress!

[ 2021-02-12 20:57:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy scientists! Just a quick message to let you know that I'm still working full time on the game. The next update will be major, with a complete world redesign and expansion, new dialogues and a friendship system. There will also be 8 new music tracks that Irene is currently working on (for a total of +/- 1h of original music!). Daniel already started working on the endgame (zones on the map that will evolve according to your choices). This is a big update and it will take time. I'm expecting to publish it in March, but at this point there are still a lot of unknowns and it could change. Ben

[ 2020-12-01 13:04:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! The latest update fixes a few bugs that were reported after the alpha 0.4 update. Many thanks to all the players who sent me bug reports, it helps a lot!

• Fixed: The Quiz would not start correctly on Friday nights
• Fixed: nested loops didnt work in BotArena (they are not required to finish the levels, but now they work properly)
• Fixed: the uppercase letter I appeared as an empty square on Turkish computers (Thanks to Istvan Toth for the explanation)
• Fixed: changed northwest fence's collider so that you cant get stuck on it
• Fixed: prevented dialog to occur at the same time as entering a building (could lead to a "black screen" bug)
• Fixed: there was a 1 second freeze when upgrading a building
• Various performance optimizations that should improve the framerate

[ 2020-10-19 19:39:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, I just published the latest update that brings buildings, two new animals and the possibility to grow crops inside. [previewyoutube=j62_GnxjkX4;full][/previewyoutube] Warning: This update is not compatible with the previous savegames. I try to avoid this as much as possible, but sometimes the changes on the game are so important that it would require too much work to keep backward compatibility. If you have an unfinished game that you want to continue, you can either configure Steam to not install the update automatically, or go to the steam game properties/beta window and select the alpha 0.3 branch.
The plan now is to work on the new dialogues and give more depth to all the NPCs. In November, Daniel will work on new graphics to extend the map to its final version. It is probable that the next major update will take place at the beginning of 2021, but if I have the time I may do a smaller update before that because I'm not satisfied with the current crafting system. I will also do minor updates to fix any bug that I might have missed.

[ 2020-10-02 18:06:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! I realize Im really bad at estimating when an update will be ready. When I said 3 weeks, that was because I thought I would finish in 2, and here we are 4 weeks later and Ill need a few more. My apologies for that, I will work on making better estimates in the future. The thing is, even when I finish something in time, I often see ways that it could be improved and polished. And as a player, I think its better to take more time but deliver something good, than deliver a lot of small underwhelming updates. Here are some of the changes Ive been working on:
Planting inside will be possible, here with light, heating and air conditioning. Plants do not depend directly on seasons anymore, but on their cold/heat tolerance. Some do grow in fresh conditions, some do grow in warm conditions. That means that you can add a heater or an A/C system in a building or greenhouse to grow plants that are not adapted to the current season. You will have 5 buildings that you can build anywhere : the coop, the deluxe coop (hosts 6 animals instead of 4), the greenhouse, the barn and the shed. You can grow plants in all buildings if you wish to, but you will have to provide some artificial light (except in the greenhouse, of course).
The deluxe coop and the barn. Like before you can plant in hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics systems, but there are also simple planting pots if you want to keep it simple (and dont mind watering them). Two new animals can be adopted : cows and goats. For each you have a young, an adult male and an adult female model. Females provide milk, but only after having a baby.
New animals! There are still bugs to fix, and a few things Id like to add like a centrifuge to make butter from the milk or separate honey and wax from honeycombs. I also want to improve the animals pathfinding and provide a fence door so you can prevent them from invading your crops. Finally, it would be nice if you could name your buildings and move animals from one building to another. Im a bit reluctant to give another estimate, but lets say that I will be satisfied if I finish before the end of September. Ben

[ 2020-08-28 18:52:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Just a quick report to let you know all is going well with the buildings update. I worked on the building construction system (you buy the plan for a type of building, then you can build as many as you want as long as you have materials). At first I wanted to make the greenhouse work like all buildings by teleporting the player on another map, but once I saw Daniel's model, I realized it can work directly in the world map and it feels much more natural that way. [previewyoutube=rbkIfPgPigc;full][/previewyoutube] I still have to work on the system that will manage unlimited buildings (big & small coop, barn, shed), giving each one his own little map where you can put furniture and where animals can walk and sleep. Since we have hydroponics, it will be possible to grow plants in any building, if you provide artificial light and eventually heat in winter. Then I'll work on the new animals, and I'll make a lot of tests to be sure I didn't introduce bugs. All in all, I expect to finish in 3 weeks.

[ 2020-07-31 15:41:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Finally, the gamepad support has arrived! Let me know if there is something I can improve. I will now focus on the buildings update, with 2 new animals.

[ 2020-07-16 19:33:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! My sincere apologies for the lack of updates. Im almost done with the gamepad support, but there are still a few bugs that I need to fix. In modern games, we expect a gamepad to be plugged in and just work, and we also want to be able to go back to using the mouse without having to jump through hoops, and the pointer to know exactly where to go at all times. Turns out there are a few magic tricks involved to make these things happen, and many opportunities for bugs. For example, if I plug my gamepad in the middle of a drag & drop operation, it should be cancelled, and so on. These are things Im still learning as I progress, hence the difficulty in predicting when I will finish. In retrospect, my in two weeks estimation at the end of March was extremely naive. To my defense, the strangely apocalyptic beginnings of 2020 did not help either. I hope that you are all doing well in these trying times. This delay should not affect the planned updates I discussed a few weeks ago. I hired videogame artist Daniel Thomas for another 10 weeks and he started working on the new buildings. Heres a preview of the barn and the greenhouse:

[ 2020-06-12 13:05:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Once again, no weekly update while Im focused on the full-gamepad support, but a little post about some of my sources of inspiration.

Games

When thinking about farming RPGs, the Harvest Moon (1996) series and Stardew Valley (2016) inevitably come to mind. But for older gamers, there are even earlier memories of RPGs that included some agriculture and crafting. For me, it was Ultima VII (1992). That is probably the first RPG game where most objects could be moved or interacted with, and the player was free to explore a huge world filled with non-linear adventures. The world was so realistic that you could decideinstead of being an adventurerto harvest wheat, mill it, put the flour on a table, add water (or beer!) to make dough, and put it in an oven to make bread that you could consume or sell. It would quickly become boring, but there was a special feeling associated with letting your weapons aside and just craft for a while. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOfzind4xCA Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley are definitely the main source of inspiration for WoMen in Science, though. Graveyard Keeper (2018), the dark humorous farm-sim game where you manage a cemetery, is where our point system comes from. Anothermaybe more surprisingsource of inspiration is Baldurs Gate 2 (2000). In the dialogues with the imp Cespenar, the game will scan your inventory and branch to funny comments depending on the objects you carry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-RhrMlnklw I implemented a similar system when you bring an artifact to Carl Von Linn in the museum, so that he will not just explain the artifacts but also make comments on other items. In the future Id like to build on this system, and create something like a small database of all that happens in the world, so that NPCs can react to it in surprising ways.

My own life

I think that its important to put a little part of yourself in what you create. I was always interested in agriculture and biotechnology, and that was actually my first career choice, before I went into software development. I played with hydroponic and aeroponic setups, and a few other elements that you will find in game in real life. In fact, the games university is based on Gembloux Agro-Bio-Tech, in Belgium, where I was a (far too unreliable) student for a time.
Blooming Chestnuts, the title of the summer soundtrack, is inspired by that time. The teachers would tell students that they need to start studying for the finals before the chestnut trees are blooming. Once you see the flowers, it is too late, you failed already, they said. The funny thing was that for the untrained botanists we were trying to be, the blooming happened quite suddenly, triggering the unprepared into a panic state.
The winter theme, named Nelligans garden of frost, is a reference to my emigration from Belgium to the province of Quebec (Canada), 20 years ago. One of mile Nelligans most well-known poem is Soir dhiver, where he describes his window being a garden of frost. Hes not talking about the Canadian winter though, but about his own vulnerability. I hope that this little incursion into my world was not too boring! There are of course many more things that I find inspiring. So many in fact, that I have a notebook where I have been writing every idea that comes to mind since the beginning of this project, and that will inspire future updates. PS: If you read the post about Anne Droyd, you already know that many of the scientists' characters were part of a card game I worked on in 2015. I forgot to mention that there is also a free PC version of the game on Itch.io.

[ 2020-05-29 16:57:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! A small update this week : you may have noticed that rabbits and chickens don't go outside when it rains or during the winter. That means they can't find anything to eat by themselves. From now on you can put green material in their feeder inside the coop, and they will take some at the end of the day if they can't go outside. If the feeder is empty when they need food, their hearts will decrease a little bit (which means less egg production from hens). The full gamepad support should be ready early next month. It's the first time I program an interface to respond to a gamepad - truth to be told, I didn't even own a gamepad until two month ago! - so I had quite a lot to learn. Once that is out of the way, I will be back to full speed updates. We will have our very first "Weeklong Deal" starting Monday, if you haven't bought the game yet (or our nice soundtrack composed by Irene Chan), there will be a 20% discount. If you bought the game recently and are still eligible for a refund (played less than 2 hours and purchased less than 14 days ago), know that Steam considers than asking a refund to buy the discounted version is totally acceptable. Take care, Ben

[ 2020-05-22 18:48:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

No update this week, instead I will discuss my plans for the major updates that will arrive later this year.

Buildings update

The first major update will be released before the end of July and will permit to add buildings to your farm. You will have to purchase the plans, then decide where you want to build. Then youll have to bring the materials to complete each step of the construction. Once you have bought a building's plans, you can build as many as you want as long as there is enough free space around your farm, but you will still have to collect or buy the materials. Buildings will include the chicken coop, a barn (with 2 new animals), a greenhouse and a multipurpose shed. This is pretty standard for farm sims, Ill probably add some more exotic buildings and upgrades for the existing ones later. If you have suggestions, dont hesitate to share in the comments.

World Update

The next update is planned for the end of the year, and will extend the map. It will be about 200% larger, with many new areas and more variety.
Map of the current world. The NPCs will also be updated with new dialogues and more quests, that will evolve according to your friendship status. This is a major update that will probably not be compatible with old saved games (since the map will be very different). Luckily, it is possible to keep multiple version of a game on Steam, so I will make sure that those who want to continue to play the previous version can easily do so.

End Game

Next year I would like to work on progress and replayability, two important aspects of the farm sim genre. Currently, the game lacks an endgame, a goal that gives you a reason to continue playing and feel that you are getting somewhere, like the Community Center in Stardew Valley. Im thinking that it would be nice if you could be elected mayor of the community, and choose how it will evolve. You could decide if you let the community grow, or if you keep it small, if you prioritize productivity or the environment or something in between. You could also decide what festivals should take place during the year, what new shops or industries can open in town, etc. Id like to make the changes to the community pretty epic. You could end up with an ultra-modern town with robots and technology everywhere, or turn it into an ecological sanctuary for endangered species, each change on the way having both advantages and disadvantages. It would give both a sense of progression, and a good reason to replay the game and see what happens to the town and its inhabitants when you make different choices.

[ 2020-05-15 13:14:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

I thought that it could be fun to discuss how some characters and other parts of the game came to be. Let me know if you want me to write more about some aspects of the game or the work I do. I love Stardew Valley, and the way ConcernedApe captured the very essence of Harvest Moon and other classics of the genre in his masterpiece, with great attention to details, is really inspiring. In 2017, having just finished a card game about female scientists (free print & play pdf), the idea to create a game like Stardew Valley but with Science and Robots came to me quite naturally. At first, I wanted robots to help with farming. They would need to be recharged frequently, you could customize them with extra batteries or extra backpack space to transport items, and so on, so they could plant, harvest and water the crops. But in a game where you can plant and build anywhere, it can quickly become a pathfinding nightmare, and I decided to put that idea aside for a while and use flying drones instead.
The first version of the robot was a bit ... scary! Another problem came from the choice of NPCs. Using real life scientists make it easy to add personality and fun facts in the dialogues, but it makes it much harder to have comic relief. I wanted humor to be an important part of the game, to balance the scientific content. I could make fun of the scientists, but I could not make them completely ridiculous. But a robot was fair game. And that is how Anne Droyd was born. Her humanoid look with a rotating hand and a clamp is in part inspired by Ada, from Fallout 4! I made no secret that Im a big fan of Bethesda, as you probably guessed during the first encounter with Alexa. Plus it totally makes sense, since the name of Fallouts robot is inspired by Ada Lovelace, a famous Woman in Science. Anne Droyds personality was inspired by reddits group r/totallynotrobots, a community of humans pretending to be robots pretending to be humans (are you still following ?). The group is hilarious, and that was exactly the kind of robot I wanted. Later in game, Annes strange logic develops further in a quest inspired by the Antivax movement. The current dialogues are far from complete, and Im particularly impatient to further flesh out Annes personality. She will most probably join Albert Totally not Einstein - the lovable and surprisingly naive genius - , and Melon Husk (or is it Elon Musk ?) - a billionaire whose ambitious plans tend to fail spectacularly - in a comic trio.

[ 2020-05-08 20:03:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! This week I updated the museum and fixed a few bugs :

• feature : artifacts now appear in the museum
• fixed : artifacts disappearing when you reload a game
• fixed : inaccessible artifact spawner on the island(s) is not an error (you can get there once you are able to walk on water), but it should not have been clickable from far away.

Im still working on the full gamepad support (no mouse), its actually the main use of my time currently. If you are a gamepad user, please know that I did not forget you.

[ 2020-05-08 17:46:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! We passed the mark of 10 reviews on Steam and earned a rating of Positive (80%). I want to thank all of those who took the time to write a review, it means a lot! If you havent yet, please consider adding yours. Steams algorithm uses reviews to decide if a game is worth showing to other potential players, for small indies its a lifeline.
Heres the list of changes for this week:

• Feature : Opening the inventory, quest panel or skill panel now pauses the game. The game still runs in the map section, because I think its nice to see the NPCs moving.
• Feature : Genetic mutations will now randomly appear in crafted seeds. The better quality the fruits/vegetables used, the better chance to have interesting mutations in the seeds.
• Fixed : The bar showing points doesnt always appear when moving the mouse on the top of the screen.
• Fixed : NPCs disappear when you come back from the BotArena minigame.
• Fixed : Black screen when entering a house
• Fixed : Sometimes you have to clic more than once to use the hoe
• Fixed : Friday Night quizz game doesnt start or ends abruptly
• Fixed : Animal names are now limited to 25 characters
• Fixed : Toolltip for the (raw) egg told that it could be consumed with a right-click, which is false.

[ 2020-05-01 15:31:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! This week's feature is being able to pet animals to make them happy (Happy hens will lay eggs more often.), name them, and remove them by killing (producing meat) or selling. I put a list of 20 random funny names for the rabbits and the chicken, but only in English for now. If you have suggestions for other languages, I'll be happy to add them!
I also adjusted the growth time and productivity of each plant. The growth time now appears on the seed's tooltip.

• Feature : You can pet animals by clicking on them and that makes them happy, with a second click you access their menu with possibility of selling, killing or renaming the animal.
• Feature : Show the seed growth time.
• Fixed : Could not use the barbecue
• Fixed : Plants dying of thirst for no reason.
• Changed : increased the probability of finding Battery Cells in Recycle Bins when Anne gives you a quest.

[ 2020-04-24 19:36:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! There have been a few demands for faster movement, so I increased the character speed by 25%. Also, you might have noticed that items sold in the cart gave twice as much money than those you sold directly to Albert, that is now fixed. When I'm not fixing bugs, I'm still working on the full gamepad support. There is much more to do than what I expected, but I'll get there. This week's changes :

• Modified : Player speed increased by 25%, let me know if that is still not fast enough (but keep in mind that there will be faster ways to travel in the future)
• Fixed : Items put in the cart were sold at full price instead of price as intended
• Fixed : Norman Borlaug's dialogue was replaced by the last opened dialogue.
• Fixed : Norman Borlaug gets out from the wrong house, and stays at the door for hours.
• Fixed : drones stations can now be removed and placed somewhere else
• Fixed : multiple drones no longer try to water the same spot
• Fixed : drones now have a quota of 50 plants to water, and will water them even if you go to sleep before they finish
• Fixed: red and blue grapevine names and descriptions were inverted
• Fixed : Navets plant was named Betteraves in French translation
• Fixed : the price of soap was way too low

[ 2020-04-17 17:00:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! The most noticeable change this week is the map. This should make questing much easier.
There are a few of bugs I havent fixed yet. In some cases, the difficulty is that I need to be able to reproduce the bug on my computer to know what is wrong and to check if the changes I make have fixed the problem. And sometimes, the problem just doesnt happen on my configuration, and it takes much more time to analyze whats going on and fix the issue. Please know that a delay in fixing a bug you submitted doesnt mean Im not working on it, I intend to track and fix all of them!

• Feature : A map! Press M in game to show the map with all NPCs. You can hover people to show names and building to show the people inside. In the future I would like to add the map functionality to quests, to make it easy to know where you are supposed to go.
• Fixed : Anne Droyd walks for no reason.
• Fixed : Alex continues to appear named as alexa even after meeting
• Fixed : daylight flashes briefly at night, when getting out of a building
• Fixed : dead plants get alive again when game is saved and reloaded
• Fixed : tooltips from the shop stay on screen after the shop is closed

[ 2020-04-10 19:07:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! I continued to work on full gamepad support, but it will take a bit longer than expected to make it right. Im hoping to finish in two weeks. The map is advancing as well, here is a preview of what it could look like:
I would like to show the NPCs positions and movement on the map in real time. This weeks minor changes:

• Fixed : time goes back to 8:00 after BotArena minigame
• Fixed : content of the cart for selling to Albert is lost after BotArena minigame
• Fixed : lack of message when the cart was emptied by Albert at midnight was confusing
• Feature : Added an email field to the F8 bug report screen
• Fixed : fountain and weather (rain, storm) sound effects volume were not set correctly
• Fixed : Unable to use scythe to remove (hydro/aero/aqua)ponic plants

[ 2020-04-03 20:14:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists, This week I mostly worked on the customization of controls, you can now configure the keyboard in game (from the options screen) which was a feature that was requested a lot. Gamepads are supported, but for now you still need to use a mouse on the side. I'll work on full gamepad support next week.
I also began to plan how the map will work. It won't be ready next week yet, but maybe the week after.

• Feature: you can now configure keys in game. AZERTY / QUERTY / QUERTZ keyboards are automatically configured by default. (Only mouse + keyboard/gamepad is supported, full gamepad support will come later.)
• Feature : access to the toolbar slots with number keys 1 to 8
• Fixed : if you sleep at 2am, you should not wake up the next day (just wake up with less energy than a full night)
• Fixed : game slows when you destroy a storage box with many items inside
• Fixed : Corn didnt grow. Note that corn needs other corn plants nearby to be pollinated by the wind, it should grow correctly if there is at least one other plant at a distance of 4 squares or less.

Thank you all for your support, have a great week-end and stay safe! Ben

[ 2020-03-27 19:05:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here is the list of changes for today's update:

• Change : The night does no longer skip from 0 am to 8 am if you dont sleep. After 10pm, the character will constantly loose stamina until 8am. For now if you sleep at 2 am, you will wake up the next day, I plan to change that too in the next update.
• Feature : Stopping the time in the F8 screen
• Feature : Added an automated screen capture when sending a bug report
• Fixed: When I don't sleep at night, the selling cart is not emptied and my produce is not sold.
• Fixed: when loading a saved game, it would show the wrong day for a few seconds
• Fixed: Alexas quest doesnt work if the cutscene was skipped
• Fixed: Alexas cutsene(s) should only start when getting out of the house, not from other buildings
• Translation : added translations for the end of the day screen

Have a great week-end!

[ 2020-03-20 18:22:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Another small update:

• Optimization: improved performance when there are a lot of objects on the screen. More optimizations will follow.
• Bug: sprinkler animation did not play in the morning
• Bug: should not auto-change tool and hit trees with the axe if the player wants to collect fruits
• Bug: polytunnel should not show an area of effect
• Bug: Wangari Maathai does not accept her tomato seeds from her quest
• Clarification : the double "Hello, I'm Temple ... " looked like a bug, the real Temple Grandin tends to greet people twice because of her autism. I made some small changes so that it doesn't look like a copy-paste mistake. There is a nice movie about her ("Temple Grandin", 2010) and she made a TED Talk that is very interesting too.

[ 2020-03-18 19:51:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here are the bugs that were fixed today:

• Bug : Magical disappearing rocks! Put a rock in a box, close it, open again : no more rock!
• Bug : Watering drone disappearing after reloading game (That one is much more frustrating than the magical disappearing rocks, sorry about that!)
• Bug : Player can be blocked by NPCs, especially in doorways : you can now push them if they block the way. Please be gentle!
• Bug : Sprinklers could not be destroyed / moved
• Bug : When a storage box is destroyed, sprinklers stored inside did not reappear
• Bug : storage box has no name/description
• Bug : Lack of feedback from the interface produces multiple clicks on send bug report button
• Bug : some musics are not playing / music ends unexpectedly
• Bug : skilltree icons for knowledge (flask) and creativity (lightbulb) were inverted, creating much confusion.
• Bug : dandelion and dandelion salad had no text
• Bug : bug hotel & bee watering station cannot be moved
• Bug: Friday night quizz happens everyday of the week. (Nothing ruins your Friday more than realizing it is only Tuesday.)
• Translation : a few errors and missing translations in French
• Bug : Quest from Ruby asking to talk to Anne Droyd starts every day after being skipped once.
• Bug : Empty text for quest asking to talk to Anne Droyd.
• Bug : Maria Telkes quest for cornbread could not be completed.

Once again, thank you for your patience and understanding!

[ 2020-03-17 17:51:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

On this release day, I concentrated on the most annoying bugs that were reported.

• Bug : AZERTY users can't change the keyboard binding because the Q letter opens the quest log. (This is a temporary fix, a better support for customizing the controls is on the way.)
• Bug : on systems using an unsuported language, all the texts are blank or "Lorem Ipsum". The language will now correctly revert back to english when no better match is found.

I will continue to work on all the reports you submitted, thank you all for your patience!

[ 2020-03-16 18:11:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! It's official, WoMen in Science will be released on March 16th! The feedback I received is very positive, despite a few very annoying bugs that I still have to correct before the release. A big thank you to the testers and youtubers who gave me their comments, it is a precious help for me. Deciding on the price of a game is far from simple. You want the game to be played by as many people as possible, but the economic model must also be viable to ensure that you can continue to develop it. You need to take into account that Valve will take a 30% cut, another 30% in taxes, then you have to pay for the software you use, contractors, advertising if you can afford it, ... I chose to set the price 30% lower than my goal during the Early Access period, to reflect the fact that the game still needs many updates to be complete. That puts the price at $13.99 for the US and Europe markets. The advantage is that it is a price that seems reasonable to me, the flaw is that it will limit my ability to make significant discounts. However, there will be an additional 10% reduction during launch week as a thank you to all my day 1 supporters =)

[ 2020-03-02 14:50:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! Just a quick update to tell you that I'm still on track to release the game in early access next month, probably around March 16th. From now on I will mainly do tests and fix bugs, and hopefully do some marketing. Here are a few stats about the game: - 140 items, most of them craftable - 18 plants, and 8 genetic variations (each plant can have up to 3) - 7 trees - 20 quests - 17 artifacts that you can bring to the museum - 1420 strings of text that need to be translated in 4 languages - 633 of these are part of dialogues And that is just the beginning!

[ 2020-02-03 14:21:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! We wish you all the best for 2020! In December I worked mainly on cutscenes, quests and dialogues. I use Articy Draft to manage all the dialogues, here you can see the main dialogue tree for Carl Linnaeus. All characters have at least one, but sometimes a few more for quests, cutscenes and special events. Linneaus is one of the big ones, since he is our museum curator and there is a little bit of dialogue for every item you might bring him.
We are also working on a few more crops like potatoes, crocus, lavender and strawberries, and polishing the looks of trees and rocks during winter.
This month we will wrap everything up in order to be able to use all of February to make tests and hunt bugs, and be ready for launch in March.

[ 2020-01-02 18:24:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy Scientists! For the last month I mostly fixed bugs and worked on the new dialogue system. I also completely changed the way I process mouse events. This was a lot of work since I had to modify pretty much every clickable game object, but it will ensure that the game responds much better when the mouse is over a sprite or a click is received. Irene finished the music, with different tracks for each season. Daniel is still working on the portraits for our 21 characters.

[ 2019-12-02 19:55:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy scientists!

There is good news and bad news ... Bad one first ? The release date will be postponed to early March 2020. Im sorry about that, believe me after 18 months, all I want is to share this game with you all. But there are a few things I did not have the time to implement yet, and several aspects of the game that need more polishing. And much more testing is required too. The good news is that with this 3-month extension, I will be able to finish the new dialogue system and we should have about 30 minutes of original music to listen to while planting cabbages or sequencing their genes. Here are the most notable features I added during the past month: Weather and Seasons
Chicken and Rabbits
And here is a preview of the portraits Daniel is currently working on:
This month I will continue to work on new quests, and the new dialogue system.

[ 2019-11-01 14:08:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Howdy scientists!

With the game early access launch planned for early December, I can begin to feel the excitation growing. I won't lie to you, it is a bit stressful to release something and imagine all that could go wrong! Will player enjoy the game as much as I did enjoy making it ? Will there be awful bugs that I could not discover in time ? But it's also very exciting finally being able to share the result of 18 months of work with other people! Here are the most notable features I added during the past month: Housing and schedules for all the 20 NPCs
Day/Night cycle with lights and shadows
A plant's characteristics are now displayed
This month's objectives are mainly adding many fun quests, making trees grow over time, and adding two cute animals. Here's a preview of our chickens :

[ 2019-10-01 13:24:33 CET ] [ Original post ]