Greetings, Magnates! Oh boy, this update is long overdue. I'm happy to report everything is going well. I picked up development early January and have been at it ever since, although I've been taking it a little bit easy in May. But overall It has been 5 super active months. A lot have happened and many things have sort of fallen into place. I could talk about that for several pages worth of reading, but to save my time and yours, here's a list of the most notable news:

• Added 14 new buildings and 31 new items, for a grand total of 34 buildings and 55 items.
• Scope was cut; got rid of the idea of managing multiple factory sites simultaneously.
• Contract and market mechanics were scrapped.
• Some unsatisfactory content was removed, most notably water tiles and pipes.
• Economy as a game mechanic is almost entirely gone; the only purpose of money in the game now is to purchase bonus effects (mentioned later in this list).
• Optimized and refactored a bunch of stuff.
• Changed map generation and animated some tiles.
• Added clouds and passing ships, because why not?
• Implemented building augments and upgrades. Aaaand then removed them again..
• Implemented a brand new UI (again!), but this is the final iteration, guaranteed.
• Implemented a main menu. 19 months of development had gone by without one at that time, so it was a pretty big milestone.
• Implemented proper screens for saving, loading and starting a new game.
• Implemented the Codex, an ingame wiki-like interface.
• Added particle emitter capabilities to buildings and tiles.
• Implemented the core objectives mechanic. This is going to be the main driver for the player to progress and ultimately win the game.
• Implemented a player rank system, XP and special bonuses that can be purchased whenever the player ranks up. Bonuses will affect the factory in various ways.
• Implemented the core research mechanic.
• Made every string translatable through a simple JSON file, allowing for community translations.
• Started the Steam integration: rich presense, cloud saves, achievements, and, you know, launching the game from Steam. But I am getting a little ahead of myself, because the demo won't have achievements.

So yeah, that's 5 months worth of development right there. I also recently finally gave the Steam page a long needed overhaul with new screenshots and a more fitting description of what the game will be about. If you don't follow me on twitter, you should go check out the updated Steam page because there will surely be something new for you to look at. With that out the way, I want to address the big question: When will the demo be ready? Honestly I still don't know. I believe the demo is mostly feature complete, there are no huge programming tasks left except a tutorial. However, there is still plenty to do: play testing, build testing (on different screen resolutions and densities), bug fixing, balancing, laying out a plan for progression, defining objectives and research, sound and music, proper error handling. I will say that I HOPE to make the Steam fest in October, but I can't make any promises yet. I'll keep you updated. I also want to add that any news of a demo will hit the Discord first, way before anyone else finds out. In fact I will be asking Discord members to help polish up the demo before it's released to the public. So if you're interested in that, you should join. Until next time! (And I hope it won't be another 5 months) Fey at Rising Tail