Its a big day for robot chocolatiers around the world. The whole of Captain Contraptions factory is now available to explore, as you experiment with fresh ingredients and automate ever more complex machines. With 40+ levels to unlock, as well as brand new achievements and fiendish modifiers, we cant wait for players to show off their creative solutions to all these puzzles. PCGamesN describe it as "bizarrely cheap" Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory is our latest game. It is a contraption building game. Design and build your own machines to combine ingredients to make chocolates. Automate production using simple components to create ingenious contraptions, which are as satisfying to watch as they are to optimise. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2166920/Captain_Contraptions_Chocolate_Factory/

[ 2024-07-20 10:25:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

You can now play the demo for our next game Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory by visiting the store page using the link below. Its an open ended factory, automation style puzzle game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2166920/Captain_Contraptions_Chocolate_Factory/ Using a simple set of tools youll need to automate production of a variety of sweet treats like chocolate covered toasted almonds. The game plays sort of like a mix between a programming game like Opus Magnum, a factory game like factorio and a contraption maker game like The Incredible Machine. Check it out and let us know what you think!

[ 2023-04-27 19:11:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug which was stopping this month's sandbox challenge to launch.

[ 2022-06-26 14:05:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Increased rate of panel unlocks in the story mode.
• Improved performance of vehicles which have lots of rocket engines.
• Updated to Unity 2019.4.40.
• Updated all 3rd party libaries.

[ 2022-06-19 13:54:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed the bug which sometimes stopped drones appearing in Kingman.
• Drones now update their target more frequently.
• Drones fly closer to your vehicle to make them easier to jump on.

[ 2022-03-14 16:12:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

The forth major update to Making it Home is out now! There are lots of changes which were are really excited to see you get your teeth stuck into...

New Panels

There are three new vehicle components for you to play with. The first two are switches which get activated by propellers and lasers - to let you set up chain reactions and maybe even start doing something close to programming!
And the third is a steam powered rocket engine which will rapidly empty all the water tanks above it to give you a big boost in thrust. We've also added a bunch of new challenge mode templates to the weekly, daily and monthly rotation which will highlight these new components.

Cozy Mode

You can now experience the entire single player story mode with hazards and objectives turned off. This is for those of you who just want to stretch your engineering and design muscles without the worry of drones and low bridges. [previewyoutube=efl-EFEVu0c;full][/previewyoutube]

Lots of Blueprint Editor Improvements

Spending the past few months doing the daily challenges (mostly for our TikTok) gave me time to think about and reflect on how we actually use the blueprint editor. So I took the time to polish it and make some changes, some of these based on your feedback. So check out the juicy patch notes below, grab yourself a copy if you don't have one, and jump in!

Version 1.4.0 Patch Notes

New Content

• New panel: Propeller Activated Switch.
• New panel: Laser Activated Switch.
• New panel: Steam powered rocket.
• New mode: Cozy mode.
• 19 new challenge templates added to the challenge mode rotations.

Blueprint Editor Changes

• You can now filter panels by type and act.
• Scaffolding is now automatically built so you can create panels in "mid air".
• Default scaffolds are made with a bottom floor which means new players won't get stuck with inaccessible panels.
• There is now a visual indicator when you mouse over any component in blueprint mode. This makes quick changing platforms easier and just feels nicer.
• You can now hold left mouse button to "paint" panels.
• Changed the sound logic so placement sound effects happen consistently.

Other Changes

• The tutorial display now appears on the left hand side of the screen during gameplay. This means that approaching hazards and coins are no longer obscured by it.
• Text in initial cut scene now transitions faster.
• Solar panel is now correctly displayed when available in the challenge mode.
• Updated Unity to latest 2019 version.
• Auto sail trim is now an act 1 panel.
• Improved performance during final boss battle.
• Challenge modes now only happen between 6am to 6pm following constructive negotiations with the ladybug union committee.

[ 2022-02-28 15:15:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Making it Home will be taking part in this year's Remote Play Together event on Steam. As part of this we will be streaming the game on 4th March at 7PM GMT. You can set a reminder by clicking the button on the side bar to the right of this announcement. Also, we will be launching the next big update when the Remote Play Together event starts on 28th Feb. This update will include improvements to the blue print editor, new vehicle components and a new "cozy" mode without hazards or objectives.

[ 2022-02-24 19:19:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed bug in challenge and sandbox modes which meant water tanks and solar panels were not always given to the player when specified.
• Reduced the budgets in some of the challenge mode templates.

[ 2022-02-13 12:29:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy February everybody! Making it Home version 1.3.0 is out now. The list of changes is small, but they are significant. We noticed that you were not really playing the challenge modes much, other than the $10,000 sandbox, so the focus of this update is to try and improve the challenge mode. We have made a few key changes. Firstly, we have reduced the number of challenge modes so there are now three challenges and one sandbox. Before there was just so much choice I think it was overwhelming.
Secondly, we have enabled more of the modifiers from the story campaign. Expect to see motherships, carrots and bridges in all the challenge modes (but not the sandbox).
Thirdly, we have removed the complete randomness from before. Instead we have hand crafted 69 sets of vehicle components which are picked at random. Each set has a sort of theme and tries to make you think about vehicle design differently. We wanted to give those of you who love optimising a vehicle design a new mini challenge just waiting for you each day if you fancy it.
Now this is rather experimental, we'll be keeping an eye on the leader boards, but do let us know what you think! Either here on Steam or on our Discord. Happy building!

v1.3.0 Patch Notes

• Updated to Unity 2019.4.35f
• Added 69 new challenge templates.
• There is now a single daily, weekly and monthly challenge alongside the sandbox mode.
• The vehicle does no longer save it's state in challenge and sandbox modes. Essentially this means if any panels get destroyed during a challenge mode run they will reappear in blueprint mode when you retry.
• Fixed a bug caused when two panels in the same column get destroyed in the same frame.
• Changed the random distribution of panel unlocks in Act 1 to improve the new player experience.

[ 2022-02-03 19:37:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added a base to the boulder press to stop it inverting and causing the physics to break.
• Fixed bug which meant that pumpkins were invisible during the winter season (don't ask).
• Tweaked masses of all physics objects to reduce the frequency of objects being pushed through walls. (Hopefully it won't happen at all now)

[ 2022-01-03 12:09:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Updated to latest Steamworks API
• Added character limit to design description.
• Loading steam workshop designs should no longer block the load/save design menu screen.

[ 2021-12-27 11:55:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Holidays everybody! Wherever you are I hope you are able to have a little bit of a break over the coming weeks. To help you relax and get into the holiday spirit here is a plump content update for Making it Home! With this update our philosophy was to just make stuff for you to play with. We have introduced a bunch of new panels which we don't know how you're going to use - and we can't wait to see what you do with them!

Highlights

The universal switch which will open the door to building complex chain reaction style vehicles (and is the first step on our journey to adding programming style panels to the game).
Pinball flippers which are exactly what you think they are.
...and despite my best judgement we added 4 player co-op (local and on-line through steam remote play together).

Patch Notes

New Content

• New Panel: Boulder Press
• New Panels: Universal Switches
• New Panels: Switchable Diagonal Floors
• New Panels: Pinball flippers
• New Panels: Garage Doors
• New Panel: Trap Door
• New Seasonal Sprites for Winter.
• Co-op is now possible with up to 4-players. This is pretty experimental, and kinda dumb - have fun with it!

Improvements

• You can now zoom the camera in and out. You might need to reset your control bindings to get this to work.
• Updated to latest version of Unity3D 2019 LTS
• The direction propellers are turned due to wind has been reversed. This means that the balls which are blown by wind will no longer block them from turning.
• Changed the position and wording of the save/load vehicle in blueprint mode. This is an attempt to get more people using the workshop.
• Lots of performance improvements. Some vehicle designs are seeing a 6 times increase in framerate with this patch. In particular vehicles which rely on balls.

Bug Fixes

• Some of the ball panels would not correctly spawn all their balls. This has been fixed.
• Ball bearings can no longer spawn into themselves or other objects.
• Fixed the centre of mass of the ball bearings, they now correctly behave like balls.
• Portals would sometimes transport the cake ingredient on top of the drones causing strange looking behaviour. This has been fixed.

[ 2021-12-20 13:54:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is steam award time! Look, we know we are a small team with a small game on Steam - but we're proud of what we've made and lots of people keep telling us they haven't quite played a game like this before. So please consider helping us spread the word about Making it Home by nominating us for an award! In other news Dave and I have sat down to decide the next set of panels we'll be making. Our aim is to get the next update released in December or January - we will keep you updated as we go! In other other news I (Sean) am doing a charity stream this weekend to raise money for the MS Society. I've already been blown away by the support from you our community - at the time of writing this we have raised 1,000!!! My wife has MS which is a rubbish progressive disease. The MS Society supports people with MS and funds medical research. My wife actually used to be a medical scientist and was funded by the MS Society to research diagnostic techniques. They are a super good charity. If you are able to, and want to donate you can do with the link bellow... The streamathon will be on 27th/28th November but by donating early you can use your donation to vote for what games I'll play! Donate here.

[ 2021-11-24 18:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Changes

• Sandbox modes are now fully unlocked after you complete the first tutorial story mission.

Bug Fix

• One of the Jack O Lantern's would spawn smaller than it was meant to.

[ 2021-10-29 15:04:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small patch to reduce the par speeds for the first two legs. In the last patch the reduction in leg length meant that the speed you can reach in those legs is less.

[ 2021-10-29 06:55:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

This a small patch with a few things which we forgot to add to the Halloween Update. These changes are based on player feedback that the initial pacing of the game was a little slow.

• Added a blueprint vendor to every truck stop (now there are 60+ components we really need this!)
• Reduced the leg length of the first two legs.

[ 2021-10-28 06:55:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy Halloween everybody! The latest free content update for Making it Home is out now! We started it out as a Halloween focused update but before we knew it we had 10 new vehicle components to add to the game! We are starting to realise that the number of components in the game means we need to start thinking about some UI improvements in blueprint mode - we didn't have time to get that done for this patch but it is something we want to address. The other big change is the addition of seasonal cosmetics and themes. At the moment we have just added stuff for Halloween, you'll see spooky Jack-O-Lanterns, scary spiderwebs and curious candy explosions! Right now these automatically appear based on the date, but eventually we want to add customisation for this stuff. Scroll to the bottom for the full patch notes, but before that here is a sneak peak at four of the new components.

Spiderweb

One of the ideas which popped up when we decided to do a Halloween update. The spiderweb catches objects and converts the forward velocity of them into vehicle thrust!

Pumpkin

Another idea which came from our Halloween thinking, a boulder but with different physics. We've also added a bunch more "ball" panels which give you objects with varying physics behaviours.

Seesaw

When we added all the new ball types we started to think about ball related panels, the first of which is the seesaw.

Circle Bumper

...and this one has been a long time coming - a circle bumper to complete the pinball bumper set.

Version 1.1.0 Patch Notes

Improvements and New Content

• New panel - Spiderweb
• New panel - The Beachball
• New panel - Ball Bearings
• New panel - Circle Bumper
• New panel - Football
• New panel - Basketball
• New panel - Pumpkin
• New panel - Diagonal Walls
• Two new panels - Seesaw (lipped and un-lipped)
• The game now has seasonal elements, lots of effects and sprites have been added for Halloween which will appear during October. We will be adding ways to customise this in the future.

Changes

• Solar panels and water tanks are no longer given as options when you permanently unlock a panel at the end of an act. These will be unlocked by their parent panels automatically.
• Changed balance of all speed/time requirements based on analytics from players.
• Coins now spawn at more random heights.
• If vehicle is taller than 30 panels coins no longer spawn above the vehicle.
• Removed sprint objective tutorial which was confusing players in the first leg.

Bug Fixes

• Sails now activate on button press down rather than button up.
• Added a sanity check to ensure the vehicle's speed cannot go negative.
• The flywheel now shows thrust numbers correctly.

[ 2021-10-24 16:16:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements and New Content

• New panel - Spiderweb
• New panel - The Beachball
• New panel - Ball Bearings
• New panel - Circle Bumper
• New panel - Football
• New panel - Basketball
• New panel - Pumpkin
• New panel - Diagonal Walls
• Two new panels - Seesaw (lipped and un-lipped)
• The game now has seasonal elements, lots of effects and sprites have been added for Halloween which will appear during October. We will be adding ways to customise this in the future.

Changes

• Solar panels and water tanks are no longer given as options when you permanently unlock a panel at the end of an act. These will be unlocked by their parent panels automatically.
• Changed balance of all speed/time requirements based on analytics from players.
• Coins now spawn at more random heights.
• If vehicle is taller than 30 panels coins no longer spawn above the vehicle.
• Removed sprint objective tutorial which was confusing players in the first leg.

Bug Fixes

• Sails now activate on button press down rather than button up.
• Added a sanity check to ensure the vehicle's speed cannot go negative.
• The flywheel now shows thrust numbers correctly.

[ 2021-10-24 16:16:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Last month in the hustle and bustle of release week I wrote a quick announcement to say "Yes, expect us to keep working on Making it Home and add new stuff" - today Dave and I had a chat about how we wanted to approach that so I've got a few more details to share about our plans moving forward! In short we are going to continue to keep adding new panels and components to the game for as long as it makes sense to. We really enjoy coming up with ideas and then seeing you lot use them in ways we couldn't possibly imagine. Our plan will be to come up with ideas for a load of panels, work on them and release patches when we feel enough has been added to the game to make it noticeable to current players. Perhaps that might just be one or two new components that introduce a new system (like the Lasers did) or a collection of simple ideas. Since Dave and I are both university lecturers full time we can't promise when and how often these things will happen, but we will just be honest with you about what we are working on and when we are aiming to get it done by. If you have been with us since early access expect a similar frequency of updates - if anything slightly more frequent. For example, the first update will be Halloween themed with around 3 new panels and will hopefully be released at the end of October. Now if you want to keep up with exactly what we are working on, and/or want to suggest ideas of your own there are three places you can come find us... 1. Join our discord at https://discord.gg/PillBugInt 2. Follow us on TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/@pillbugint 3. Follow us on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/pillbugint/ and join us every Tuesday where we play games and chat about all sorts!

[ 2021-10-10 13:20:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixed a bug which would occasionally stop the player progressing from Primm and Kingman truckstops.

[ 2021-09-12 14:08:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Launch weekend has come and gone. It was rather intense (I released like three patches in two days!) but we have been blown away from the response to Making it Home. Thanks so much to everyone who has left a review and reached out to us to with feedback. Knowing people are playing and enjoying our bizarre little vehicle builder means a lot to us. The question a lot of people ask after a game leaves early access is "Are you going to keep working on the game?" and I wanted to take the time to answer that. The answer is yes. Over the next few weeks Dave and I will be keeping an eye on our forum, discord and twitch to see how new players respond to the game. We have already got a list of things we want to add, but we want to be driven by you our community. So please let us know what you think and what you'd love to see the game become. I'll leave you with some links to the launch weekend dev streams just in case you missed them. Thanks Sean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YnR1ATsuSw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwgMP1uhTvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NizarRaXuNw

[ 2021-09-08 15:54:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Added a fix to an issue people were having using save data which included old versions of panels.
• Put a clamp on the final bosses speed and acceleration.
• Removed the laser thermometer from honeycomb - this was resulting in an infinite explosion loop when it reached a certain temperature.
• Fixed a bug which meant the final boss could unlock one of the hidden achievements for you.

[ 2021-09-05 08:17:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a pathfinding bug which meant that drones sometimes didn't turn up in the drone legs.
• Tweaked some of the par-speeds (which effects star ratings and schedule timing) based on launch day analytics.
• Reduced difficulty of first two encounters.

[ 2021-09-04 11:05:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed a bug which sometimes stopped player from progressing from Kingman.
• Fixed a few typos spotted in development stream.

[ 2021-09-03 18:12:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Making it Home launches today! You can now test your creativity, engineering and vehicle building skills against the full range of routes, obstacles, and boss encounters. In doing so, youll unlock brand new achievements and challenge modes. With the full branching narrative available, will you uncover the truth behind whats happening to this ladybug and her animal family? And what relationships will you make or break along the way? Here at Pill Bug were pinching ourselves. Its been three amazing but challenging years developing this game. We couldnt be prouder of what the whole team has achieved. And we couldnt have done it without the help and support of our community of gamers here on Steam. Thank you all. And as a reward, here are all those juicy day 1 patch notes we know you folks love:

Improvements and New Content

• Added the final encounter of the game.
• Added story to Act 3 and changed dialogue in several places in Act 1 and Act 2.
• Lots of new achievements.
• Changed which legs in the final act require you to be "on time".
• Upgraded all third party APIs and libaries to latest versions.
• The player's velocity now decreases gradually when leaving a moving platform.
• Physics of the propellor and turbines has been improved.
• Performance of the portal panel has been improved.
• Performance of the in-game UI has been improved.
• Memory requirement of the electric fans has been reduced.
• The thrust UI in each panel now only updates when the panel is visible, this improves overall performance in the game.
• Screenshake effect now based on distance squared from the game event which caused it.
• Removed the camera shift when the vehicle accelerates.
• The way that music is played and triggered in leg has been changed.
• The cursor sprite has been improved.
• The co-op camera indicator is now a sprite rather than text.
• The co-op camera indicator now moves towards where the player currently is rather than where the player was when control is passed.
• Objects which fall below the vehicle are now destroyed to improve performance.
• You are now told if you are ahead or behind schedule when asked to do a shift in the diner.
• Added warning sprites which tell you when a hazard is effecting your vehicle off camera.
• Improved the honey effects.
• An arrow now directs the player to push honeycombs to the workshop.
• The permanant unlock blueprint screen is now a different colour to highlight something is different.
• Added sound effects to the teleport grenade.
• Improved visual effect of teleport grenade.
• Changed to incremental garbage collection to improve performance.
• Added end credits.

Balance Changes

• Reduced the number of drones in drone legs by 30%.
• Reduced length of all encounder legs by 25%.
• Increased base thrust of steam engine from 15 to 20.
• Added more blueprint vendors in Acts 2 and 3.
• Increased cost of rockets from $50 to $100, thrust from 400 to 500.
• Act progression is now blocked by number of stars collected. Through testing we found this improved the general pace and feel of the game as a whole - both from a narrative and gameplay perspective.
• Drones now start appearing earlier in the leg in drone legs.
• After your first run through Act 1 you are no longer garanteed to be offered a sail in LA.
• Bee hives now automatically drop honey combs when your vehicle goes below them.
• Increased par speed for every leg by 30%.

Bug Fixes

• Wall jumping and attack now behaves the same on and off of the player vehicle.
• The velocity calcuations of wind coming from electric fans was incorrect, it has now been corrected.
• Carrots now detect vehicle hits based on a raycast rather than a collision, this means fewer carrots fly through the vehicle.
• Reduced the hit box of the portal panel, in rare cases some objects were entering the portal through walls.
• Fixed numerous bugs with the camera when the player leaves the vehicle.
• Portals now know if they are on or off of the player vehicle and apply the appropriate velocity offset to the object exiting.
• The camera controller now ensures the player always remains within frame.
• The tutorial display now works in Act 3.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused an infinite explosion loop with cherry bombs.
• Panels can now be activated by either player in co-op regardless of the order they enter/exit them.
• Fixed a bug where electricity calculations were incorrect after an electric panel was destroyed.
• Stopped the balloon panel balloons from jumping at extreme accelerations.
• Fixed bug in the mothership leg which meant you sometimes never saw a mothership.
• Mothership and drones spawn closer to the vehicle to reduce pathfinding errors.
• Fixed a number of bugs in the dialogue.

[ 2021-09-03 14:00:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements and New Content

• Added the final encounter of the game.
• Added story to Act 3 and changed dialogue in several places in Act 1 and Act 2.
• Lots of new achievements.
• Changed which legs in the final act require you to be "on time".
• Upgraded all third party APIs and libaries to latest versions.
• The player's velocity now decreases gradually when leaving a moving platform.
• Physics of the propellor and turbines has been improved.
• Performance of the portal panel has been improved.
• Performance of the in-game UI has been improved.
• Memory requirement of the electric fans has been reduced.
• The thrust UI in each panel now only updates when the panel is visible, this improves overall performance in the game.
• Screenshake effect now based on distance squared from the game event which caused it.
• Removed the camera shift when the vehicle accelerates.
• The way that music is played and triggered in leg has been changed.
• The cursor sprite has been improved.
• The co-op camera indicator is now a sprite rather than text.
• The co-op camera indicator now moves towards where the player currently is rather than where the player was when control is passed.
• Objects which fall below the vehicle are now destroyed to improve performance.
• You are now told if you are ahead or behind schedule when asked to do a shift in the diner.
• Added warning sprites which tell you when a hazard is effecting your vehicle off camera.
• Improved the honey effects.
• An arrow now directs the player to push honeycombs to the workshop.
• The permanant unlock blueprint screen is now a different colour to highlight something is different.
• Added sound effects to the teleport grenade.
• Improved visual effect of teleport grenade.
• Changed to incremental garbage collection to improve performance.
• Added end credits.

Balance Changes

• Reduced the number of drones in drone legs by 30%.
• Reduced length of all encounder legs by 25%.
• Increased base thrust of steam engine from 15 to 20.
• Added more blueprint vendors in Acts 2 and 3.
• Increased cost of rockets from $50 to $100, thrust from 400 to 500.
• Act progression is now blocked by number of stars collected. Through testing we found this improved the general pace and feel of the game as a whole - both from a narrative and gameplay perspective.
• Drones now start appearing earlier in the leg in drone legs.
• After your first run through Act 1 you are no longer garanteed to be offered a sail in LA.
• Bee hives now automatically drop honey combs when your vehicle goes below them.
• Increased par speed for every leg by 30%.

Bug Fixes

• Wall jumping and attack now behaves the same on and off of the player vehicle.
• The velocity calcuations of wind coming from electric fans was incorrect, it has now been corrected.
• Carrots now detect vehicle hits based on a raycast rather than a collision, this means fewer carrots fly through the vehicle.
• Reduced the hit box of the portal panel, in rare cases some objects were entering the portal through walls.
• Fixed numerous bugs with the camera when the player leaves the vehicle.
• Portals now know if they are on or off of the player vehicle and apply the appropriate velocity offset to the object exiting.
• The camera controller now ensures the player always remains within frame.
• The tutorial display now works in Act 3.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused an infinite explosion loop with cherry bombs.
• Panels can now be activated by either player in co-op regardless of the order they enter/exit them.
• Fixed a bug where electricity calculations were incorrect after an electric panel was destroyed.
• Stopped the balloon panel balloons from jumping at extreme accelerations.
• Fixed bug in the mothership leg which meant you sometimes never saw a mothership.
• Mothership and drones spawn closer to the vehicle to reduce pathfinding errors.
• Fixed a number of bugs in the dialogue.

[ 2021-09-03 13:59:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Making it Home is launching 3rd September, after three years of development, and well be celebrating the big day with a live developer stream! We cant wait for players to see all the new content, and the stream will show off some of the features and experiences available in the full game. So, come by the Making it Home Launch Day Steam Stream (try saying that quickly three times) at 3pm BST 3rd September, right here on Steam. We will also be dropping the version 1.0 patch at the same time! Your support means the world to us and we would love it if you joined us to celebrate, chat and hang out! Hit the set a reminder button on this page!

[ 2021-08-27 17:01:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Launch news!

Its really happening, our little ladybug is finally ready to go home... Making it Home is finished! Were all set to launch on Friday 3rd September on Steam for PC and Linux. If you haven't already picked up a copy, add it to your wishlist to get notified when we launch the v1.0 patch.

Whats new?

Those of you who have already been playing Making it Home in early access will find plenty of new story, new challenge modes, obstacles and bosses, and lots more besides. It's going to take Sean a while to write the patch notes that's for sure! For those trying Making it Home for the first time, youll be able to put your creativity to the test as your ladybug builds a vehicle to get from one side of America to the other, all in time for her daughters birthday. And for those achievement hunters out there, brand new achievements will be added soon for testing which cant be gained until the version 1.0 patch is released. That said, come Friday 3rd September the First Past the Line early access achievement will no longer be available.

Its been a long road

For over three years weve been developing this game, which is the biggest project we (the two person team here at Pill Bug) have ever taken on. From gameplay, to art, to music and narrative this has been a huge challenge for us, and we couldnt be happier with what weve managed to put together for this game. Weve had some amazing help along the way, from composer Jordan Rees and artists Hannah, Ace Volkov, and Goodname Digital Art Studio. We cant wait to see the vehicles everyone builds, and the choices you all make along the way. Will you be Making it Home?

[ 2021-08-21 12:08:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone - hope you are enjoying the Steam Summer Sale. I can hear my wishlist calling me but I have yet to really dive in. Over the past few weeks I took a bit of a break from coding, while Dave finishes off the final bits of the Making it Home story, to work on a new trailer. Check out the results below on YouTube, be sure to let us know what you think in the comments and help us out by sharing the trailer with people you know! [previewyoutube=sc9MWCGlFyI;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2021-06-29 14:59:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just before Dave and I start our summer of getting the version 1.0 patch ready for release join us for a super chill and fun developer live stream. We will be kicking things off at 7PM UK-Time on 25th June. Come along to ask questions and find out what we've been up to!

[ 2021-06-19 08:48:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy May everybody, It has been a busy one here at Pill Bug but I thought it was time to give an update on what we are currently working on and where we are going with Making it Home. Our current plan is to release version 1.0 in September 2021. We came to this decision for a bunch of reasons. Both Dave and I are university lecturers full time and right now are going through the busiest time of the year in one of the busiest years either of us can remember. The up shot is that we do not have the mental capacity to get the game finished prior to the summer and if we can't do that it makes sense to launch after everyone gets back from their summer hols ready to play games! It means we have a lot more time and space to look at the game from a distance, which we have already started doing, and it is incredibly useful. As of today we have got a first draft of the entire story plus a prototype of the final boss encounter. That final encounter has really pushed me and the game code base to our limits, it's highlighted a few little bugs which I've been able to fix and pointed out a few areas where we can add a bit of polish. Being able to take our time and playtest the game has led to lots of little changes, for example you will now see exactly how far ahead or behind schedule you are on the same screen that you decide how long to work in the diner. It's changes like that which seem small but make a massive difference. Those changes will come along with all the new content when we release version 1.0 this September - and I can't wait for you all to get your hands on it! In other exciting news earlier this month Making it Home was selected to be part of the GDWC 2020 Official Selection. We are super chuffed we got selected, lots and lots of games entered.
Before I go I just wanted to point out that every Tuesday Dave and I do a Twitch Stream where we play and talk about games and their design. It's a great place to come hang out and chat with us about anything really. Best wishes Sean

[ 2021-05-15 13:43:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our collective minds here at Pill Bug are constantly blown away by the vehicles you are all making. Just in time for our remote play together stream community member VeryLukely posted an interesting vehicle design to the steam workshop.... https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2435198970 If you missed the stream check out the epic battle below as the unstoppable force met the immovable object! [previewyoutube=nV8oAbIoqjQ;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2021-04-04 13:34:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Making it Home is going to be part of Valve's Steam Remote Play Together event running from March 25th - 29th! As part of this we will be running a live stream of Making it Home Friday 26th March @ 7PM Local time here in the UK. In our most recent update we added local co-op as well as remote play together support... ...come watch as Dave and I try to work together on our vehicle!

[ 2021-03-14 10:05:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed mistake which caused incorrect tracks to play in blueprint mode.

[ 2021-03-06 15:51:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Player 2 now spawns above the platform closest to the camera.
• There is now a visual effect when Player 2 spawns.
• There is now a visual indication when players pass control of the co-op camera.
• You can no longer reset the cooldown on components by rebuilding them on top of old components.
• Co-op tutorials now only appear after your first complete solo run - this is to avoid information overload - you can still play co-op from the start.
• Improved looping of music everywhere.
• Changed music everywhere.

[ 2021-03-06 15:11:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, I'm super excited (as I always am) about this update - lets dive straight into the patch notes!

Local Co-op

Now I honestly can't remember if local co-op is something that we planned to add to the game, or if it was just a running joke in our weekly twitch stream... either way you can now make it home with a friend! It is local co-op only, but we have enabled steam remote play together so you will be able to play with a friend remotely. The whole lockdown thing has made testing this feature really difficult, I've essentially been playing with myself... so it is coming in hot. I think I've found all the places where two players might cause issues and fixed it - but if I've missed any let me know in the usual places. At the moment we have limited it to two players, but based on your feedback we could extend it to more - my gut feeling is that two players makes sense because of the focus on building design. To get co-op working simply plug in a second controller and hit a button when in the driving part of the game. You can assign a controller to player two in the controls menu - this is important if you want player 1 to use keyboard and player 2 to use a controller. When playing there is a single shared camera, but you can switch who the camera follows on the fly. Looking forward to hearing what you all think of this - will it change the way you design vehicles?

Balance Changes

• Drones and motherships spawn closer to vehicle.
• Mothership objective now spawns 3 motherships.
• Laser components can now overheat and explode depending on laser length.
• Pea shooters now kill drones.
• Carrots are no longer killed by a single pea but need multiple hits.
• Cherry bombs now destroyed by peas.
• Teleport grenades now destroyed by peas.
• Smoke grenades now destroyed by peas.
• Increased pea shooter spread.

Bug Fixes

• Music volume would sometimes go to zero at extreme high speeds - this is now fixed.
• Particle system in wind effect now resets in initialise - occasionally the wind particle effect would disappear. This fixes that.
• Fixed bug where collectables appeared in front of smoke effects.

Improvements and Other Changes

• Improved memory management of wind produced by fans.
• Updated Unity3D engine and all third party libraries.
• Reduced max number of particles emitted from wheels.
• Reduced number of particles the player emits.
• Improved memory management in vehicle logic.
• Added particle effects to sails.
• Added light to all internal panels - intensity is related to vehicle speed.
• Wheels now glow at high speeds as they heat up.
• Solar panel emits sparks when it is at full effectiveness.
• Added light to electricity meter.
• Thrust text can now change colour based on active synergies.
• Thrust text now easier to read.
• Added particle effect to bellows.
• Added particles to catapult launch.
• Added some screen shake to catapult.
• Added sparks to turbine.
• Added dust to propeller and turbine.
• Added wind poof effect to electric fans.
• Added launch effect particles and screen shake to trampoline.
• Added particle effects and screen shake to bumpers.
• Added screen shake and smoke effect to cannons.
• Added water particle effect to water panels.
• Added light to steam engine display.
• Pea shooter gun barrel now smokes.
• Added panel light to pea shooter.
• Added screen shake to pea impact.
• Added hit effect to peas.
• Added better light effect to explosions.
• Added squash and stretch animation to peas.
• Added glow to laser.
• Changed laser end light effect.
• Improved headlights visuals.
• Added visual effects and animation to rocket engine.
• Rockets make the camera shake when they fire.
• Corrected flywheel animation speed and added sparks.
• Added light effect to coin collection.
• Added light effects to gravity well and anti gravity well.
• Sound of bellows impact now depends on speed of impact.
• Added a wind sound effect to bellows.
• Targeting of pea shooter significantly improved.

[ 2021-02-28 16:35:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balance Changes

• Drones and motherships spawn closer to vehicle.
• Mothership objective now spawns 3 motherships.
• Laser components can now overheat and explode depending on laser length.
• Pea shooters now kill drones.
• Carrots are no longer killed by a single pea but need multiple hits.
• Cherry bombs now destroyed by peas.
• Teleport grenades now destroyed by peas.
• Smoke grenades now destroyed by peas.
• Increased pea shooter spread.

Bug Fixes

• Music volume would sometimes go to zero at extreme high speeds - this is now fixed.
• Particle system in wind effect now resets in initialise - occasionally the wind particle effect would disappear. This fixes that.
• Fixed bug where collectables appeared in front of smoke effects.

Improvements and Other Changes

• Improved memory management of wind produced by fans.
• Updated Unity3D engine and all third party libraries.
• Reduced max number of particles emitted from wheels.
• Reduced number of particles the player emits.
• Improved memory management in vehicle logic.
• Added particle effects to sails.
• Added light to all internal panels - intensity is related to vehicle speed.
• Wheels now glow at high speeds as they heat up.
• Solar panel emits sparks when it is at full effectiveness.
• Added light to electricity meter.
• Thrust text can now change colour based on active synergies.
• Thrust text now easier to read.
• Added particle effect to bellows.
• Added particles to catapult launch.
• Added some screen shake to catapult.
• Added sparks to turbine.
• Added dust to propeller and turbine.
• Added wind poof effect to electric fans.
• Added launch effect particles and screen shake to trampoline.
• Added particle effects and screen shake to bumpers.
• Added screen shake and smoke effect to cannons.
• Added water particle effect to water panels.
• Added light to steam engine display.
• Pea shooter gun barrel now smokes.
• Added panel light to pea shooter.
• Added screen shake to pea impact.
• Added hit effect to peas.
• Added better light effect to explosions.
• Added squash and stretch animation to peas.
• Added glow to laser.
• Changed laser end light effect.
• Improved headlights visuals.
• Added visual effects and animation to rocket engine.
• Rockets make the camera shake when they fire.
• Corrected flywheel animation speed and added sparks.
• Added light effect to coin collection.
• Added light effects to gravity well and anti gravity well.
• Sound of bellows impact now depends on speed of impact.
• Added a wind sound effect to bellows.
• Targeting of pea shooter significantly improved.

[ 2021-02-28 16:32:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year Everyone! I'm super excited about todays update - update number 6 which we anticipate to be the last major update before we release version 1.0! Thanks for everyone who continues to support us through early access. If you haven't picked the game up yet now is a great time to join us by buying the game, or if you prefer to wait until release make sure to add the game to your wishlist now.

New Content

Drones

For a while we've been thinking about adding more active hazards and enemies to the game and this patch sees that thinking take shape with drones. These are flying vehicles which will chase your vehicle and drop all sorts of nasty stuff on you. But don't worry, simply grab the cake ingredient they are carrying to send them spinning out of control!

Smoke grenade

With the drones we've added some toys for them to drop onto you. The first of which is a simple smoke grenade which you'll start seeing towards the end of Act 1. It's hard keeping those sails up when you can't see them eh?

Act 3

With Update 6 comes Act 3! Lots of new objectives and some new mechanics on the map screen itself. We have not finished the story yet, or the final boss fight - but we wanted you all to have a play with the new mechanics and see what you think...

Motherships

One of the Act 3 objectives is the mothership leg. Be prepared for motherships as big as your own vehicle trying to slow you down. To destroy them you'll have to jump inside and explore to find all the cake ingredients.

Harpoon Guns

How do the motherships slow you down? Well they fire flipping harpoons at you that's how!! Also watch out for harpoon drones...

Teleport grenade

In Act 3 everything is getting a little sci-fi - which you would have noticed from the panels we introduced in the lasers update. The teleport grenades dropped from drones are using some super high tech ... tech to mess with your vehicle. When they explode they will shuffle the panels around in your vehicle - so get ready to adapt and rebuild on the fly!

Workshop Support

We added workshop support *picks up a mic and drops it* This is something the community has been asking for and I've been figuring out how to do for months and months. In the blueprint screen you can click save/load designs (another new feature) and you can save designs and upload them to the workshop. Anything you have subscribed to will then automatically be downloaded and you can load them from there. The game automatically creates a thumbnail and tags your vehicles for you, but you can edit everything on the workshop itself from within the steam client. Have a play, let us know what you think. I'm so excited to start downloading your vehicle designs!

Balance Changes

• Changed lengths and par speeds of all legs.
• Changed cost of unlocking challenge modes based on additional stars available in act 3.
• Reduced the maximum height of balloons in the balloon objective in act 1.
• Increased cost of sails to $10.
• Reduced thrust of steam engines from 20 to 15.
• Drag coefficient now based on logarithmic relationship to allow bigger vehicle designs.
• Increased price of propeller and turbine to $40.
• You no longer unlock a new blueprint every truck stop in story mode. This was overwhelming for new players.
• When you are given a choice to unlock a blueprint you will now always have one thrust panel and one utility panel from the act you are in, plus an additional random panel from the act you are in and previous acts.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where wheels would come off during act 2 boss fight.
• Fixed bug where boulder spawns into player and traps her.
• Fixed bug which occasionally stopped player from jumping on moving objects.
• Fixed bug where the headlights panel was still referencing some old assets from beta.
• Fixed bug where bees could push you through the floor.

Improvements and Other Changes

• Updated all third party APIs.
• Added drone legs to act 1 and 2.
• The size of all grenade hazard sprites has been decreased.
• Music now plays throughout entire leg, volume changes based on vehicle speed.
• You can now jump (and wall jump) on propellers and turbines - but still get fired through them by a cannon.
• Changed almost all objectives in act 1 and 2.
• Added act 2 and 3 variants of the bridge and balloon tower objectives.
• Changed the idle animation speed of player character - this changes based on your vehicle's speed.
• Completely revamped the camera controller to add more effective screen shake.
• Increased opacity of the map in the map screen to make it easier to read.
• Added tutorial messages in truck stops.
• You can now save and load vehicle designs in the blueprint mode.
• Added all the new objectives to the challenge modes as possible daily challenges.
• Added a number of new achievements.
• You now collect cake ingredients from bridge legs.
• Balloons are now bigger.
• Added a custom mouse cursor.

[ 2021-01-10 16:52:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Merry Christmas everybody! We are currently hard at work on the final act in Making it Home. Things are coming along really well, check out our previous dev log to see what we are up to. While we are working on that we thought, in the spirt of giving, we would drop some new achievements. 22 in total ranging from milestones related to the challenge modes, sizes of vehicles and a series of achievements based on how far you've travelled in the game. Since you play an adventurous lady bug trying to get home for her daughter's birthday we thought we would use our achievements as a way to celebrate famous women adventurers! Check them out below...

Sophia Danenberg

The first African American and the first black woman to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.

Valentina Tereshkova

The first (and youngest) women to have flown on a solo mission in space.

Felicity Aston

The first person to ski solo across the Antarctic using muscle power alone.

Amelia Earhart

The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Jean Batten

The first person to fly solo from England to New Zealand.

Jeanne Baret

The first woman to circumnavigate the globe.

[ 2020-12-22 10:33:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've been hard at work on the next big update for Making it Home. Check out what we've been working on in this short developer diary! [previewyoutube=Lfk4igEN3jE;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-11-28 12:41:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

As we start to design and work on the third and final act of the game (which is going to be pretty involved and take longer than any update we've worked on thus far) I wanted to push out a small patch with a few bug fixes and balance changes we've been working on. ...plus a bonus new Act 3 panel :D

New Panel: The Portals!

These come in one of two colours as an Act 3 panel. We're looking forward to seeing the designs you come up with using these!

General Changes

• The electricity meter now only displays 4 full bars when the panel has the maximum electricity it can use. Previously the electricity amount was rounded which meant when you had 99% of the electricity needed it would display 100%.
• Steam engines now emit steam!
• Increased the size of particles in the wind gust effect to try and help players notice it effecting other panels more.
• Improved the carrot explosion particle effect.
• Added particle effects to Ellen during the race.
• Added sound effects to Ellen during the race.
• Added some new backgrounds which are used in the Act 3 challenge modes.
• Changed the scale of act 2 backgrounds.
• Bumpers no longer require electricity and now fire objects and the player at a predictable constant speed.

Balance Changes

• The power of effect caused by lasers is now effected by the square root of the length of the laser rather than the raw length. This is to encourage and reward players to use the beam directors rather than just building long straight paths.
• Challenge modes are now all unlocked using stars. Previously the sandbox modes required you to submit so many daily and weekly challenges. We have felt bad about that initial design decision for a while, in particular the kinds of behaviours it encourages.
• Drop rates of panels in story mode have been completely changed. You will now see act 2 and 3 panels in act 1 and 2 in the pre encounter truck stop.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where placeholder assets were used when the flywheel and gravity wells got destroyed.
• The laser sound effect no longer activates when you try to turn the laser on without enough electricity.
• Fixed a bug where the game calculates how much money you *could* have earnt in the story mode. We use this to effect how characters talk to you and some of the dialogue options. Prior to this patch the calculation was under estimating how much money you could earn, this meant the characters always thought you were spending all your money all the time!
• Boulders no longer spawn into the player.

[ 2020-10-25 14:47:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

A few weeks ago we were kindly invited onto the Vox Ludio podcast to talk all things indie games. They asked some really interesting questions that made us reflect and think. Be sure to listen below to learn more about our development process! [previewyoutube=nGvx2mcnMOs;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-10-04 09:45:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

For this update we focussed on adding act 3 panels. Our general idea is that act 1 panels are all about player movement, act 2 panels about automation and act 3 panels are wild sci-fi techy stuff! Most of these panels you'll have to check out in the challenge modes since act 3 is not in the game yet. As well as adding more panels we've rebalanced the existing panels based on how we've been seeing people play with them. Our aim was to make the panels more powerful from act to act, but relatively balanced within a single act. ...but when you figure out how to get panels to work well together it deliberately throws that out the window and rewards you for discovering that stuff. We've also removed the requirement to unlock a set number of stars before you transition to the second act. Looking at our data we found that people often stopped at the end of act 1, we also saw a few streamers feel a little bummed when they found out they would need to start again. So now you can just move on as soon as you want to. There are still lots of reasons to loop round again, to try new challenges, unlock more panels, stars and story.

New Panels

Laser

The set of panels which are going to have the biggest impact this patch are the lasers. There are 6 panels associated with them, the laser itself and 5 beam directors... ...it's up to you to experiment and figure out what the laser does.

Solar Sail

The solar sail generates thrust from the laser and the longer the laser beam that hits it the higher the thrust... ...but you need to hit the sail from the correct direction!

Flywheel

The flywheel stores energy when your vehicle is slowing down. At any point you can convert that energy back into thrust by activating it.

Gravity Wells

Watching the wild boulder builds you have all been experimenting with led us to these two panels. They are gravity and anti-gravity generators tuned specifically to the frequency of boulders. They require electricity and the amount of electricity changes the size of the force.

Other Changes

• Increased minimum distance of daily challenges.
• Bonus effect of boulders hitting props now decreases over time. This avoids situations where you could use the boulder to start a prop spinning and still get the bonus when you spun it with wind.
• Slightly reduced the size of boulders to make them easier to use.
• Corrected the spelling of Propeller in a number of places.
• Upgraded to latest versions of third party libraries (Unity, Rewired, Ink).
• Reduced cost and weight of sails.
• Reduced mass of horizontal bellows.
• Decreased cost and mass of steam engine.
• Increased steam engine thrust.
• Decreased cost of water tanks.
• Decreased cost and mass of rocket engine.
• Increased thrust of rocket engine.
• Decreased price and weight of waterwheel.
• Decreased cost of dehumidifier.
• Decreased cost of fans.
• Decreased cost and mass of boulders.
• Decreased mass of bumpers.
• Decreased price of pea shooter.
• Decreased cost of cannon and catapult.
• Decreased cost and weight of trampoline.
• Decreased mass of time dilation device.
• Changed text on end of act blueprint selector to make its function clearer.
• You no longer need to collect stars to unlock act 2.
• Increased par speeds for all legs.

[ 2020-09-28 16:04:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version 0.4.0 is now available to download. It is the first update since we launched in early access and is a chance to explain our approach to updates. We have talked to a lot of you about this and found that most of you would rather we released fewer, more significant, updates during early access. We want to try and balance our development time between adding new content and responding to player feedback. Our approach is going to be releasing patches when we have three new chunks of content ready for you to play with. A chunk of content might be a new panel, or it might be a new objective, or perhaps something else. The patch will also include all of the fixes, balance changes and quality of life improvements we've managed to cross off our list while adding new content. Our aim is to release an update like this around once a month. Like always with game development plans change, but we wanted to be open with you and let you know our current thinking. If this changes at all we will of course let you know. So lets get into the patch notes...

New Panel - Non Copyright Infringing Time Dilation Device!

If you can generate enough energy and get your vehicle fast enough this baby will slow down time...

Community Suggestion: New Panel - Bumpers!

A suggestion from our community bumpers are powered by electricity and will fire you and objects diagonally with a little boost. The more electricity the more effective the boost... ...anyone fancy building a pinball machine?

Challenge Mode Revamp

Those of you in our discord will know we've been thinking about this for a while... We have decided to try the following structure for challenge modes.

• Three daily challenges (Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3) which are unlocked using stars from the story mode. With the daily challenges there is a chance that the leg may have a modifier which coincides with an objective from the story mode. For example, there might be bridges, carrots or bees...
• Three weekly challenges (Act 1, Act 2 and Act 3) which are unlocked using stars from the story mode. The weekly challenges will not have any modifiers and are all about vehicle design.
• Three monthly sandbox challenges with all panels available to you but different budgets ($500, $5000 and $10,000). These will be unlocked by attempting the other challenge modes.

We have also played with how panels are randomly selected to try and make things more interesting. Our aim with this structure is to give you an easy way to launch the game and play around designing a vehicle, while still leaving the enjoyment of discovery in the story mode. It will also allow you and us to test Act 3 panels and new hazards as we add them. Please let us know what you think about this structure.

Balance Changes

• Price of water wheel and amount of water it consumes has been increased.
• Increased the max rotational speed of propellers and turbines and decreased their rotational friction. This means they require a little less constant attention.
• Increased suction force of coin collector.
• Solar panels now generate bonus electricity depending on the time of day (in addition to what they generated pre-patch)
• Bellows now decrease the velocity of objects which pass through them.
• Reduced mass of Auto Sails from 5 to 2
• Increased mass of all bellows from 10 to 13
• Decreased mass of electric engine from 10 to 5
• Decreased mass of haulage container from 50 to 35
• Decreased mass of headlights from 10 to 5
• Increased mass of boulders panel from 5 to 10
• Decreased mass of propeller and turbine from 10 to 8
• Decreased mass of sails from 10 to 7.5
• Increased mass of empty scaffold from 1 to 2
• Increased mass of water wheel from 5 to 15
• Decreased cost of wheels from 10 to 5 and decreased mass from 5 to 4

Other Changes

• Increased the hit boxes on all bellows to fix a bug where sometimes an object is travelling so fast the bellow doesn't detect it.
• All physical objects are now effected by the trampoline.
• Two music tracks now play during each leg.
• Music credits now complete in game.
• Moved suction point of coin collector forward.
• Increased vision range of bees to stop them hanging around at the front of long vehicles.
• Propellers and turbines no longer take the player out of a boost from a cannon.
• Cherry bomb fuse is now triggered a few frames before it hits the ground.
• Fixed the text rendering bug in the water tank description.
• Fixed the bug where the backwards facing cannon walls appeared mirrored in game.
• Added total weight indication to blueprint screen.
• Added linear drag to boulders.
• Fixed a bug which was stopping wind effecting sails correctly.
• Fixed a crash in blueprint mode caused by mousing over the add new column button before the player controller was initialised.
• Fixed the insurance fraud bug which allowed you to earn money when panels got destroyed in leg.
• The boulder panel now shows how many are left.
• Fixed the bug where the on schedule message would sometimes not display a time.
• Player dialogue no longer animates character by character.
• Fixed a bug which stopped the sail tutorial correctly triggering.
• Changed video codec to VP8 to improve Linux support.
• Fixed a bug which caused a the player to move when standing on an overpass.
• Fixed a bug whereby objects would move incorrectly when the player was not on the vehicle.

[ 2020-08-24 15:53:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have just about recovered from the launch of Making it Home a few weeks ago. Launches are always intense, and as much as you try you always ending up working on things right up to the wire. It has been positive so far. We are already hard at work on the first update which we are aiming to push out in the next few weeks. Our aim with each update is to include enough new content for you to really sink your teeth into along side balance changes and bug fixes. Earlier this week we were invited onto the Tanked Up podcast to talk Making it Home and other things. They do some great work over there so please check them out. You can watch the episode we were on below or download the audio podcast on their website. [previewyoutube=4AML3wtDNEY;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-08-21 14:35:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Every Tuesday at 8PM BST Dave and I stream over on twitch. We play a mix of games and talk a lot about design and what we can learn from them. This week we will be streaming Making it Home (and will also push the feed to steam). We'll be talking about what is next for our little vehicle building game. Be sure to join us and ask questions!

[ 2020-08-10 12:53:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, First thanks to everyone who has either wishlisted or bought the game in Early Access. We're a small team and all your support has been touching and makes all the hard work worth it. Usually when Dave and I come up with ideas for games the first thing on our mind is how we can make lets players say silly things on camera... With Making it Home I think we've nailed it, so I wanted to share a few videos from some great content creators you should head over and give some love! We have been trying to keep track of all the videos in this playlist. If I have missed any let me know in the comments! [previewyoutube=asYwPxidbvg;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=d9Sv_WkqSaY;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=Qf2DTptb3uY;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-08-07 13:24:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're beyond excited to be announcing the launch of Making it Home in Early Access! The game's in great shape already, with 2 of the 3 Acts playable in Story Mode and 7 different Challenge Modes to unlock! There's tons of panels to discover, animal friends (and foes) to meet, and loads of objectives to challenge even the best ladybugs out there. It's been a wild ride so far. Over a year and a half of development, four(ish) months of closed beta, and we're finally ready to share our vehicle building ladybug game with everyone. We'd like to thank everyone who has helped us get this far. There's too many people to mention individually, but they know who they are. We're hoping Early Access and the feedback from our players will help grow the game, and give the best experience possible. So let us know what you think, right here on Steam, or find us on Twitter, Discord, Twitch and many more.

[ 2020-08-06 15:10:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balance Changes

• Water tanks now start with more water, but can not be built during the leg using your workshop.
• Steam engines consume less water.
• Water wheels consume less water.

Bug Fixes

• Tutorial messages explaining the leg objectives sometimes didn't appear. This bug has been fixed.

[ 2020-08-05 07:46:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Its been a long road, getting from there to here.... its been a long time, but my time is finally near... This Thursday (6th August) we will be launching Making it Home into Early Access and I just pushed the build you'll download on Thursday to Steam. Many of you helped out as part of the closed beta which ended at the end of May (which feels like 10 years ago). I wanted to put together some patch notes to let you know what has been added and what has changed. If you didn't take part in the beta then this is to help give you an idea of what to expect if you decide to join our community for Early Access. There is quite a lot so rather than explain everything in detail I'll drop in the odd gif or screenshot to wet your appetite for Thursday! ...I also want to let you discover the new objectives and panels on your own in the game.

New Locations, Music, Characters and Story!

New Objectives

• Honey Jar Objective - Collect honey from bee hives and try and get it into your workshop.
• Cherry Bomb Objective - Try and push these off your vehicle before they explode.
• Another Race - This time you're racing someone in a vehicle...

New Panels

• Boulders - To help you start building Rube Goldberg machines
• Pea Shooter - All I'm going to say is "peas and carrots"
• Water wheel - Another way to generate electricity...

Challenge Mode Revamp

• Challenge modes are now associated with the panels you find in different acts. There are currently 6 in the game, a weekly, daily and monthly for each act. All with leader-boards for average and max speed.
• A sandbox challenge mode where you have all panels available is unlocked by competing in the standard challenges.

General Improvements

• Added flying text to thrust panels which tell you exactly how much thrust they are creating at any given time.
• Changed a number of sky boxes in Act 1.
• Reduced jump height to reduce how often player head butts the ceiling.
• Added a one second re-spawn delay after you fall off your vehicle. Players were often running straight off the back of the vehicle after re-spawning.
• Added arrows to map screen and changed colours of location buttons to make things clearer.
• You can now manually dismiss the tutorial window.
• If unlocking a blueprint would automatically unlock another this is communicated when you have to decide which to unlock.
• You can now customise the colour of your vehicle's walls.
• The bite radius is larger making it easier to eat carrots around turbines.
• Added a number of particle effects for impacts.
• Implemented steam stats and achievements.
• Complete refresh of panel sprites - during the beta we made the walls bigger which covered part of the sprite so we needed to edit them all.
• Implemented jump caching which means if you hit jump a few frames too early the game still registers it.
• Added a destruction effect to panels when they get destroyed.
• Added more sounds when objects collide with each other.
• Added a visual effect when you collect an item.
• Added a glass window to the back of each open panel to help reduce the visual noise in the game.
• Game now pauses when steam overlay is opened during the leg.
• Implemented steam cloud saving!
• Disabled buttons are easier to read.
• We no longer highlight options when you have dialogue choices (some players were always picking those options).
• Added bridge icons to the progress bar so you know when to expect them.
• Increased max zoom level of the camera in blueprint mode, and increased mouse sensitivity.
• Added milestones to complete for each act (which relate to achievements)
• Race wins are now measured from the front of the vehicle.
• Fixed some typos in Act 1 story.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug when detecting if there is enough water left in a tank, which meant the steam engine could sometimes run on zero water.
• Fixed bug where replacing a panel using the workshop in leg always ended up with no walls.
• Sometimes Ellen would stop racing the player (she would rest but not start racing again) this bug has been fixed.
• A few edge cases which resulted in the occasional super jump have been fixed.
• Sometimes the tutorial window would never leave, that bug has been fixed.
• Sometimes dialogue choices did not detect the mouse click, this has been fixed.
• Balloons would sometimes fall off, they shouldn't now!!
• The camera now resets correctly when you re spawn.

[ 2020-08-03 15:48:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

We'll be streaming Making it Home on Tuesday 4th August 8PM UK time, just two days before the game launches in Early Access! There will be all the usual banter, game dev "insights", and plenty of new content from your favourite ladybug. So, if you want to avoid spoilers maybe check back on the VODs after launch day. Otherwise, come by the stream and tell us what you're most looking forward to in the game!

[ 2020-08-01 10:03:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, Hope you are keeping safe and well! The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that Making it Home has an early access release date of 6th August 2020 ! For more info on what we will be adding to the game before and during early access check out the 'What the developers have to say' box on the store page. We are both excited and nervous as you can imagine. Thank you so much to everyone who tested the game during the beta, we got lots of great feedback which really shaped the direction of the game. Once I have finished posting this announcement I'll be ending the steam closed beta so I can upload the first early access build for Valve to approve. Many of you ask us how you can support the game, we really appreciate that and feel lucky to have such a supportive community. At this stage what is important for us is getting the word out about Making it Home. There are two ways you can help us with that (1) Add the game to your wishlist (2) Tell any of your friends who like this sort of game to do the same. This can help us appear in the popular upcoming games list on Steam. Many thanks Sean

[ 2020-07-07 15:17:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here, take Act 1 of our cute vehicle building game out for a spin! Plan and design a vehicle in a blueprint mode - get really creative about what you put where. Then, you're a ladybug that's jumping around the vehicle you just made, trying to keep it going. As you hit the road, you'll face loads of different challenges that will test your vehicle design skills to the max. Oh, and there's plenty of friends to meet along the way!

[ 2020-06-16 17:01:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sean, Dave, and special guest Jordan get together to play Making it Home, answer your questions, and talk all things development in our cute vehicle building game. Join us at 8pm (UK time) on 16th June!

[ 2020-06-15 07:52:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sean, Dave, and special guest Jordan get together to play Making it Home, answer your questions, and talk all things development in our cute vehicle building game. Join us at 8pm (UK time) on 16th June!

[ 2020-06-06 14:58:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

We'll be chatting all things Making it Home in Discord. We know our way round a good office hour, so expect all kinds of pro tips and excitement! Join us on Discord from 6pm (UK time) on Friday 19th: https://discord.gg/PillBugInt

[ 2020-06-06 14:53:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balance Changes

• Reduced speed requirements for star ratings on all legs.
• Reduced Ellen's top speed.
• Reduced height of balloon tower challenge.

[ 2020-06-05 15:44:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Made a few small changes to help new players understand the wall editing system.

• When replacing a panel in the blueprint editor the default walls for that panel now replace custom walls.
• Controls for the blueprint mode are shown by default.
• A tutorial message has been added for the first time you go into wall mode.

[ 2020-05-31 11:13:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug which meant you could edit your vehicle design by clicking through the panel selector.
• Fixed the bug which caused the mouse input to be blocked on the right hand side of the blueprint screen.

Other Changes

• Added logo to main menu.
• Increased time to read the long tutorial text.

[ 2020-05-29 16:00:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

We'll be chatting all things Making it Home in Discord. We know our way round a good office hour, so expect all kinds of pro tips and excitement! Join us on Discord from 6pm (UK time) on Friday 12th: https://discord.gg/PillBugInt

[ 2020-05-28 14:29:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sean, Dave, and special guest Jordan get together to play Making it Home, answer your questions, and talk all things development in our cute vehicle building game. Join us at 8pm (UK time) on 9th June!

[ 2020-05-28 14:09:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. As always thanks for everyone who is taking part in the closed beta and giving us great feedback. If you aren't in the beta but want to join you can sign up here. Going to dive right into it today...

New Panel: Dehumidifier

Yes, that's right a DEHUMIDIFIER! It uses electricity to suck water out of the air and refill your water tanks.

New Panel: Coin Collector

It uses electricity to suck coins out the air and refill your wallet.

Cargo Objective Revamp (Community Suggestion)

We weren't happy with the way the objective in Kingman felt. It just made your vehicle slower and didn't give you any interesting choices. We loved one of the suggestions from our discord and have implemented it in this patch. Now if you go through Kingman you will unlock the cargo panel, then it is up to you how much you want to carry. The more you carry the more money you earn. Also it works like a normal panel so eventually you might unlock it permanently.

General Changes

• Blueprint mode warnings are now more clever. For example, if you can generate electricity with a turbine it won't suggest you build solar panels.
• Added some hooks which allow us to decide if panels can be built in leg or not. For example, the cargo containers can only be built in blueprint mode.
• Added electricity meters to every electric panel.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a crash which occurred when trying to build new wheels in leg. (introduced in last patch)
• Fixed bug whereby the sails tutorial never completed.

[ 2020-05-27 17:37:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• The empty frame panel is now unlocked permanently when creating a new profile - i.e. it won't show up as an option to unlock at the end of act 1. This fix won't effect saves prior to v0.2.1.
• Fixed a bug with the camera control in blueprint mode for players with adaptive refresh rate monitors.
• Fixed a bug caused when trying to build panels while other panels are being destroyed (resulting in insurance fraud and very large wallets!).
• Under certain (really specific) conditions hitting the attack button would not result in a full attack animation - this is now fixed.

Other Changes

• The timing window for wall jumping has been expanded in both directions - i.e. you have a few frames either side of actually hitting the wall to hit the jump button.

[ 2020-05-23 16:33:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. As always if you aren't in the beta you can sign up here. This patch is a pretty big milestone for us and is the culmination of responding to beta testers feedback over the past few months. Along with the past several big patches this is all about making the game more about building and designing vehicles.

Progression Revamp

In the last patch we introduced bonus objectives to all legs. The feedback for that was super positive, they gave you short term goals and reasons to change the way you build your vehicle. In v0.2.0 we have made these stars an essential part of the progression. When you view the map screen at a truck stop you will see the highest number of stars you have achieved in each leg. We keep track of those and your total number of stars will be what determines progression. At the moment that means you'll have to earn stars to unlock the challenge modes, but when we add future acts it will be the number of stars you have unlocked which dictates when you progress. Previously our plan was to allow you to progress once you have successfully defeated the final boss, but as we changed our focus to encourage creativity we wanted to reward that. If you are better at building slower vehicles which are super good at completing the objectives then we want you to be able to progress. The other thing we have changed is that now you unlock a new panel every truck stop. We figured that when we start giving you specific objectives then you need more options! Also, and we may or may not keep this in the final game, in the final truck stop you might find act 2 panels.

Music

The other major thing this patch brings is some amazing music by Jordan Rees et al. I won't say anything here because it won't do it justice. But Jordan has agreed to come onto a stream with us in a couple of weeks to talk about it, so follow us on twitch to join us for that. As always let us know what you think! Thanks for spending your gaming time with us.

General Changes

• Sprint legs now have a bonus objective for vehicle top speed.
• The empty frame panel is now always unlocked.
• All truck stops now have blueprint vendors.
• Adjusted par speed in Santa Ana.
• Improved bridge sprites.
• Increased difficulty of Ellen.

Bug Fixes

• Your panels no longer overtake you when they fall off.

[ 2020-05-16 13:32:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Fixed typo in falling off vehicle tutorial.
• Changed order of sprite layers so that the cannon does not cover the new thicker platforms.
• You can no longer click through UI elements in the blueprint mode and click buttons you didn't expect to click.
• Fixed a bug with the player controller which was causing a slight miss-match in timings. This was very small but it was bugging me! It should help make everything feel a little more responsive - you shouldn't feel like you missed a jump you should have made for example.
• You can no longer click through the loading screen during the fade animation.
• Made a small tweak to the physical panel debris objects to try and stop them overtaking your vehicle as often.

Balance Changes

• Reduced reward values of bonus objective.
• Decreased the 'on-schedule' time slightly.

Other Changes

• Tweaked the start time for music in the challenge modes and Ellen race. My aim is to make it so the song finishes just as you pass the finish line... Calculus for the win!

[ 2020-05-09 15:23:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. As always if you aren't in the beta you can sign up here. Usually I make a bunch of gifs and screenshots for patch notes, but today I just wanted to get the patch done and uploaded. It is quite a big one with some love to the story mode and challenge modes.

Bonus Objectives and Ratings in Story Mode

As much as possible Dave and I try to 'follow the game' when we think about game design. We have an idea, we try implementing things, and let the game and the fun lead us. This is also why testing is super important and why we appreciate you spending your valuable game time playing our game as we develop it. Lots of feedback we kept getting was that people really enjoyed the core loop of building vehicles and driving them, but that people didn't really know why they were doing it. With the blueprint mode we wanted to push the idea that this is a building game - and with today's patch we are dealing with the why. We have added ratings and objectives to the story mode. Each leg you'll get a rating for how fast you did it in, and get some money based on that. In addition some legs will have bonus objectives which you will have to design a vehicle in mind for. Depending which route you take you'll have some different objectives, these are all shown with icons on the map screen.

Average Speed Leader boards

A few people have made some very good points about the problem with having competition for maximum speed. As soon as we introduced the rocket it became clear that top speed isn't that competitive. So we have now added 2 leader boards for each challenge mode, one for top speed and the other for average speed. We have also added an end screen so you can see your position on the leader board and retry straight away without going back to the main menu.

General Changes

• Player velocity is now set to zero on respawn.
• When falling off the vehicle the player now drops $5 (from their own wallet) which can be recollected. This is to add some punishment for one of the new objective modes where you can leave your vehicle to complete a bonus objective.
• Tutorial system has been revamped behind the scenes. There is now a little more tutorialisation because of this.
• Made the walls and floors thicker and clearer.
• Added some music to the challenge mode and Ellen encounter.

Bug Fixes

• It was possible to get a negative wallet using the blueprint editor, that has been fixed.
• Removed the bump from the balloon panel.
• Blueprint editor UI now correctly scales on different resolutions.

[ 2020-05-08 15:15:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone. As always thanks for everyone who is taking part in the closed beta and giving us great feedback. If you aren't in the beta but want to join you can sign up here. Today's patch has taken us a while to get done because there is a big change. One thing we keep hearing is how people really like building, which is great because we do as well. With that in mind we've done a bit of a pivot with our design to really bring the building side of things to the foreground. This patch is our first step in that direction.

Blueprint Mode

We want to push your creativity and make it easy to play with the options you're unlocking. So we've implemented a blueprint mode for creating vehicle designs. We've still got the 'on the road' workshop for when you have an idea mid journey, but we think the blueprint mode will really open up possibilities. For example, you can now build walls anywhere you want!

Rockets

This is the first Act 3 panel we've designed, and you'll see why it's something you'll get as an end game option when you use it in the challenge modes...

New Challenge Mode

In the spirit of letting you be more creative we have added a challenge mode which gives you every single panel. All of them. Each month the length of the leg and budget will change. In the future we plan to add 3 permanent leader boards at different budgets.

Music

We have had some initial drafts of some of the soundtrack from Jordan so have put those into the menu and blueprint mode.

General Changes

• Changed tutorials based on new blueprint mode.
• Removed scaffolds because you can now edit walls in blueprint mode.
• Removed dependence of leaderboards on version number, they will reset less often with patches.

Bug Fixes

• Sail tutorial would sometimes stay permanently, that is fixed.
• The camera would sometimes glitch when you pause and un-pause the game, that is fixed.
• The game would un-pause when editing controls while driving, that is now fixed.

Balance Changes

• Decreased cost and weight of solar panels.
• Decreased cost and thrust of steam engine.
• Decreased cost and increased weight of water tanks.

[ 2020-04-26 14:24:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

General Changes

• A more explicit tutorial has been added to the start of the game following player feedback. We felt this was important enough to push out a small patch. Existing players may need to reset their profiles in the options menu since we had to change the way some of the save system worked to get this in. As much as possible we will avoid messing with the save files, but as we are in beta it will happen occasionally.

[ 2020-04-13 16:30:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balloons, automatic sails, steam engines oh my! Hey everyone - hope you are all keeping safe out there! Thanks so much for all the feedback from our beta testers, it has been really useful. If you aren't in the beta but want to join you can sign up here. Today I've pushed out the first update which contains some new panels. These panels will all appear in the second act which is not currently in the beta so we've also included a new challenge mode to let you try them out...

Balloons

Balloons is the first panel which will effect the weight and friction of your vehicle. They will reduce the friction and weight of the column you build them on.

Automatic Sail Trim

Who has time to jump around raising sails? Well with this panel you can raise all the sails on the column you build it on with a simple smash of a button!

Steam Engine and Water Tanks

Act 2 of the campaign is going to be all about automation. Some of you have already been playing with fans to automate solar panels, well the steam engine is a panel which is automated right from the start. You'll need to build some water tanks to provide the steam but once they have run out they are gone. These will only get refilled when you reach a truck stop. The steam engines can be turned off and also put into a boost mode, it will generate twice the thrust but use water twice as fast.

New Weekly Challenge Mode

All the panels introduced in this patch won't be available in the campaign mode since they are act 2 panels. So we have added a new challenge mode which is guaranteed to have the panels which were introduced in the last patch, plus a few random ones to spice things up a bit.

General Changes

• Redrafted dialogue throughout to reflect game play changes.
• Added a backwards facing cannon.
• Internally we have added the concept of 'child' and 'parent' panels in the engine. This allows us to create dependencies between panels and automatically unlock child panels when you unlock the parents. For example, solar panels are child panels of electric engines. Typically child panels won't be unlockable independently. This allowed us to remove solar panels from constantly appearing in the challenge modes.
• Added a button prompt for the first time you need to attack a carrot.
• Added a visual indicator of where walls will be built for each panel in the build UI.
• Leaderboards are now linked to the version number, so they automatically get reset when any balance changes come in.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where pausing the game while in the working animation would lock you into that animation.
• Fixed a bug where you could get stuck in build mode in the challenge modes.

Balance Changes

• Increased the difficulty of Ellen's race and decoupled carrot attacks from rest phases.
• Reduced the difficulty of keeping to schedule.
• Carrots now have a chance of dropping a coin when you eat them.
• Increased the max thrust of bellows.
• Increased effectiveness of turbine and propeller.
• The drag of the vehicle now increases less rapidly with size. This means that building larger vehicles is a more viable strategy.

[ 2020-04-11 14:01:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

General Changes

• Opening cut-scene is shorter and skip-able.
• Added the title 'Act 1' to the map screen to make it explicit the beta is currently only the first act.
• Players can now choose to not talk to characters in the truck stops.
• The thrust arrows have now been changed to try and communicate the differences between thrusts of various panels.
• We have added vendors that give you scaffolds towards the end of act 1. Scaffold allows you to have more control over your vehicle's layout.
• The colours of the buttons have changed, hopefully this makes it clearer when you have highlighted/selected them.

Bug Fixes

• Removed some more edge cases with the character controller which led to the hero floating off into the void - I hopefully have caught all these now.

Balance Changes

• The blueprint vendor has been removed in the truck stop before racing Ellen.
• On a player's first play-through only the sail will be available in the first truck stop. The solar panel/electric engine combo was always something we wanted as a 'starter panel' - but it turned out to be the hardest panel to understand. Players who picked this panel first were more likely to stop playing without completing the first leg. It is now available in vendors in other truck stops.
• Time no longer passes until you start moving when you are on the road. This allows to build without time pressure.
• Similarly Ellen waits for you to start before she starts racing.
• Ellen's acceleration changes less frequently during the race, and we reduced the number of times she throws carrots. We eventually want this to feel more like a boss fight than a race, this is an half step towards that.
• Moved the vendor in Searchlight to Chambless.
• Players were reporting that they just used the sails and nothing else. To try and reduce this happening we have decreased the sails thrust by 10% and increased the thrust of all other panels. In particular the bellows now behave more like we envisioned.
• Carrots now decrease your vehicles speed slightly when they hit you as well as increase your vehicles drag. This is the first step in a potential rethink of the carrot design - let us know what you think!
• Generally tweaked the speed of Ellen and the 'on time' schedule based on analytics from testers.

[ 2020-04-04 11:07:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

General Improvements

• Added directional buttons to the solar panel tutorial to try and make it clearer for new players. We are still thinking a lot about this, at the moment this is a partial 'fix'.
• Refactored and optimised memory usage in the player controller logic. This wasn't really causing a problem, but when I was fixing other bugs I noticed some lazy memory management left over from prototyping which I was deeply ashamed of.

Bug Fixes

• Hitting a wall during an attack now cancels the attack. Previously this was causing soft locks in a small number of cases.
• Fixed the bug which would sometimes result in players getting stuck in a diner unable to progress.
• The game now reloads the main menu scene when resetting your profile. This is to fix a bug where some of the previous saved data was cached and caused unforeseen consequences!
• Fixed a bug which caused you to get stuck in the landing animation during an attack.
• Changed the default resolution to 1920x1080 rather than detecting the monitor resolution. This fixes problems with players who have ultrawide setups. The game would launch in an aspect ratio which meant you couldn't see the menu to change the resolution.

[ 2020-03-29 11:37:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Stuff

• Added a display which shows you how far ahead or behind schedule you are at each truck stop.
• Added some balloons to the workshop to give more of a sense of motion and speed.
• Added an opening cut scene. This only appears when you start a new game in a fresh profile.

Gameplay Changes

• The challenges now have random distances and start at random times of the day. This has meant I've had to reset the leader boards.

General Improvements

• Tweaked the menu layouts.
• Added and tweaked idle animations of characters in truck stops.

Bug Fixes

• Flying attack no longer possible from cannonball animation.
• Solar panel no longer appears twice in challenge mode UI.
• Corrected a number of typos.

[ 2020-03-24 17:03:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balance Changes

• $5 coins no longer appear one after the other. This makes them feel more special and gives you more of a reason to stop what you are doing to go grab them.
• Carrots now spawn lower down which means building a low profile vehicle doesn't make carrots ineffective.
• The friction and drag has been re-balanced so that adding height to your vehicle has the same effect as adding width. This means the choice between building high and long can be based on more interesting things like synergies between panels or play-style.

Improvements

• Added lots of sound effects and reworked the sound engine completely.

[ 2020-03-15 14:54:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fixes

• Solar Panel and Electric Engine now are permanently unlocked together.
• Added a clamp to the player's velocity to stop her sometimes flying off into the void!
• Changed carrot hit box and hit detection logic.
• Implemented a new loading screen. The old one sometimes would hang, especially when quitting from in a leg.

Balance Changes

• In the challenge mode you can only build before you start building. This fixes an exploit which meant you could reset timers on some panels by building them on top of each other.

Quality of Life

• Added spacer to all time displays between day and time
• Removed the start new game button from launch menu and added an option to reset a profile in the settings menu.
• Added customise controls menu to pause menu in game.
• Added exit game button to profile select menu.

[ 2020-03-14 15:56:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, We have started sending out keys for our closed beta. Our aim is to run the beta up to a month or so before we launch into Early Access. Over the coming weeks we will be slowly releasing keys in batches and there are a few places you can sign up/join/follow us in order to get hold of one.... Our mailing list - everyone on our list will get a key during the next phase in a week or so. Our discord - we will be randomly dropping keys into our discord as we move through beta testing. Best wishes Sean

[ 2020-03-11 18:00:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dialogue is a going to be a big part of Making it Home. Early in design discussions, we wanted to make sure the player could actively interact with their journey. We liked the idea that the player would make decisions that mattered on a gameplay-level, but also decisions that altered how they viewed those characters around them and, ultimately, their own situation as the "hero" of this story. Not groundbreaking stuff, of course - games have been doing that for quite some time now. But unlike the hidden stories of Intelligent Design and Cycle 28, we wanted narrative to be front-and-centre this time. Dialogue seems an obvious way to achieve that. And why else have a writer on the team? [previewyoutube=xzzOtzQ6cok;full][/previewyoutube] Firstly, we knew we'd have branching dialogue. The truckstop screens immediately worked as an initial site for these conversations. The player has stopped for a rest, a chance to pop to the loo, grab a snack. They also pick up new blueprint for their vehicle and can earn some cash by taking a shift in the diner... you know, all the usual pit-stops on a long journey. So, they bump into a recurring cast of characters along the journey. One such character is Ellen, our hero's sister. They have a ... difficult relationship. There's a lot of history there that the player gradually learns about as they talk more. As branching dialogue has been around for a good while now, it's easily recognisable as a device. That device has developed as any gaming or narrative element does - from its early, blunt forms, to more sophisticated iterations, and then on to the self-aware or self-referential. One good example of this development is the ubiquitous "being a jerk" option. In many branching dialogue conversations the player would meet a brand new NPC, who says a thing - maybe asks a question - and of the three possible responses one is clearly a nice guy option, one is non-committal, and the last is being a jerk, possibly even outright hostile. The last is often such a huge overreaction it slips into the ridiculous. It becomes the comedy option. "Who would ever say that?" a player utters, as they press that option, just to see what happens. But if players are aware of this, you can be sure developers are too. So why keep doing it? Well, it's something players have come to know and expect. It also makes decisions easier. Taking a supermarket analogy: do you want players choosing between three varieties of apple, or an apple/banana/pineapple? One of those takes actual thought, the other can be done more reflexively or intuitively. But being us, we wanted to take the apple x3 route. No one would deny a Golden Delicious is different to a Pink Lady. But maybe you actually have to think before you decide which one you want today. So, the player needs to think through their interaction with Ellen. They struggle to get along, sure, but is *this* particular response going to cause more problems? Or is it going to make things easier? That felt more active to us. And then there's non-branching tutorial dialogue... But that's a whole other post... [previewyoutube=DObr5Jp2DyU;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-02-23 10:15:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just in case you missed it, here is the archive of the developer stream we did the other night. Be sure to wish list and follow Making it Home on Steam to keep up to date with our latest development! [previewyoutube=58HaMyUTsfs;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-02-06 20:00:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Good news everybody! Tomorrow night Dave and I will be streaming the latest build of Making it Home. This will be a great chance for you to see how the game is coming along and ask those burning questions. We will be kicking things off at 8PM GMT. Be sure to follow us on twitch and/or subscribe to our YouTube channel to get notified when we go live.

[ 2020-02-03 17:05:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Recently, we've been all about the cannons. Big, badboy cannons; the kind you'd normally see firing balls off the side of a tall ship. Except for us, the cannons are firing our player. Why? Well, who doesn't want to be fired out of a cannon...? But really, it's all about player movement. We've realised that a big part of the fun of this game is how the player moves about their vehicle. Why they move is important (doing tasks, getting coins, building stuff, etc) but that doesn't necessarily generate the fun. Enter the cannon: [previewyoutube=7jE0diALhkc;full][/previewyoutube] The cannon offers the player a faster, but more restrictive horizontal movement option. It won't be for everyone's vehicle. And just like any other panel, it has certain synergies that work really well, and some anti-synergies too. Early on it was clear the cannon's best friend was the vertical bellows, seen in the above clip. Ultimately, the cannon was an obvious iteration on from the catapult, which offers a fast vertical movement option. [previewyoutube=hwrzp7OoxnA;full][/previewyoutube] Both take up space, money, and make demands of any vehicles design. Cannons and catapults don't come cheap, after all... We're just waiting for Dave to finish his "fired out of a cannon" animation, and we'll be all set!

[ 2020-01-29 14:50:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, Thanks for those of you who joined us last week on stream. For those of you who couldn't make it here is the archive of Dave and I showing off the latest development build. As always let us know what you think! Sean [previewyoutube=KIiVKZz13xQ;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2019-10-06 15:40:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone, Those of you who are new to Pill Bug won't know that we do a developer stream every Tuesday at 8PM UK time on twitch. Usually we play other games, but regularly take a look at our own games. This Tuesday we will be playing our latest development build of Making it Home and answering your questions. Be sure to follow us on twitch to get notified when we go live. Best wishes Sean

[ 2019-09-29 15:43:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are super excited to finally share all the details about our next game Making it Home. Its a concept we have been working on for a couple of years now, and having the game built enough that we can make a trailer feels like a big achievement. We are now working towards getting a build complete for a public test. The first round of testing will be closed and the only way to get into that is to join our patreon community. Following that we will expand to public testing, and if you want to be involved in that be sure to sign up to our mailing list. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to add Making it Home to your wishlist!

[ 2019-09-04 16:13:39 CET ] [ Original post ]