Hello everyone, Frederik here!

It's been exactly one week since the launch here on itch.io, so I'd like to talk about it, as well as the work focus that we will have during the upcoming weeks.

The launch was a success! The game as of yet is more of a show-of-progress, rather than a fully playable game yet. That is why we didn't look for a huge explosive entry. Still, over a hundred people checked out the game, and the testing and encouragement we've received has been very helpful!

Although it did mean delaying the launch until late evening, we actually managed to squash (almost) all the gamebreaking bugs before we released. That meant the playing experience for the people that tried it out seemed to be very much functional (most of the time), so we could focus on the more important design feedback. The gameplay and controls worked out just fine, however it's clear even more polish is needed, as the game is still pretty unintuitive, which I'll get to at the end of this post.

But before we get to the next development focuses, we will have to announce that we'll be gone for quite a while.

Being students, we'll be going on a student trip for a month, where we'll also develop another game. That unfortunately means no work for that period. Before then, we do have 2 weeks, but even those will be going to the 4 school assignments we've been tasked to complete before the trip.

Despite that, we will try our best to put out an update to the game before then.

This week we've focused on probably the most essential missing feature: the saving & loading system! So far, we've already got it churning out savefiles with 50k lines of text in under a second, that can save and load most things in the game. Making everything work correctly when suddenly dropping loaded items into a world requires more work, as does saving the complex tasks the crew are supposed to carry out.

Some of the essentials that constitute a "human" in a savefile.

We've also worked on redoing the sprite art for the asteroids. And by asteroids, I mean the grey blocks placed around the map. They're not very pretty at the moment. Even before the launch, we were aware several people didn't even recognize them as asteroids. Luckily they will be looking better soon.

That's what we're focusing on before the school trip, and what we will try to release as an update.

Afterwards the focus will be on the early game, as well as on making it more intuitive. That means a more interactive advice system. Currently, the advisor will display a couple of advice messages in a predefined order. These only contain text, and if peopled knew how they work, they would work on a basic level.

Therefore, we'll first be looking to work on distinguishing them from the rest of the UI. There will also be more messages, focusing on essentials like camera movement, and explaining what the messages themselves even do. Don't worry, they won't be showing up if you're already moving the camera around. Lastly, using visual indicators to show how the UI works is also a consideration.

Later we'll be focusing on making the early game more engaging,  where we'll probably start working on character skills. But more on that later.

Sorry for the wall of text, I wanted to share all the thoughts we've had for the near future. But that's it for now.

Thank you for staying tuned!

The below changelog includes all changes that was made to the game before launching the first alpha here on itch.io.

+ Medical
    + Medbay room
    + Healing with medkits
    + Injured entities go to medbays
    + Unconcious entities are rescued by doctors
    + Medkits obtainable through new botany plant
    + Eyes close when unconcious
+ UI overhaul
    + Supports all screen sizes
    + Redone all visuals
        + Better button highlighting
    + Roster zoom to crew member button
    + Made right-click inputs consistent for all UI elements
    + Metal counter
    + Construction metal cost counter
    + Improved object tooltips
        + Shows price, build time
        + Shows needs objects fulfills
        + Shows production
    + New settings
        + Difficulties
        + Windowed mode
        + Surround sound support
        + UI scale
        + Start paused
        + Toggleable dev tools
        + Vsync
        + FPS limiter
        + Max simultaneous sounds
    + Simplified advisor
        + Objects, items and entities display their own advice with indicators
        + Sell/dismantle indicators
    + Visual line when moving objects/items
    * Fixed ugly text
+ Redone sprites
    + Pliers
    + Prybar
    + Screwdriver
    + Welder
        + Unique carry/noncarry sprites
    + Wrench
    + Metal
        + Unique stack/singular sprite
    + Produce
    + Seeds
    + Background sprites
    + New logo and title
    + Humans
        + Skin color
        + Eye color
        + Clothing
            + Job coloring
            + Shirts, pants, shoes
            + Unique shirt and boots for Security Officer
            + Spacesuit equipped in space
+ New sprites
    + Finished wall construction sprites
    + Finished maintenance floor sprites
    + Added unique pipe construction sprites
    + Icons for needs
+ More sound effects
    + EVA ambient chatter
    + Cooker frying
    + Hydroponic planting/harvest
    + Redone crew selection, both with/without helmet
    + Redone wrench
    + Enemy alien sounds
+ Object overhaul
    + Converted all legacy "machine" objects
    + Easier to add/remove future objects
+ Added multiple plants
    + Plant growth visuals
    + Hydroponic progress bar
    + Two food plants, slow and fast
+ Expanded name list
    + 18239 forenames
    + 1000 surnames
+ Entities die from no oxygen
    + Idle entities return to oxygenated rooms
    + Entities return to oxygenated rooms when only has 4 minutes left
+ Production system overhaul
    + UI to set max desired item amounts
    - Tracking of anticipated items removed
+ Entities carry more metal if there is more nearby construction
+ Automated vent pressurization of airlocks
+ Object/Entity/Item hover & selection outlines
+ Crew wealth depends on health
+ Pause lowers pitch
+ Added glow to airlock indicators
+ Added item animations
+ Added endless asteroid spawning
+ Added object dismantling
+ Added moving of object construction
+ Added cancelling of object construction
+ Added different colors for error popups
+ Added advice text to cinematic
- Removed security officer selection
- Removed constructing outside map bounds
- Removed ability to designate unimplemented rooms
- Removed airlock decompression explosion
* Optimized physics
* Balanced plant/harvest/cooking task durations
* Renamed stove to cooker
* Included controls in airlock tooltip
* Tweaked airlock open time to be longer
* Fixed edge case when removing wall that generates new region
* Fixed entity fall animation
* Fixed all bugs related to item dropping/stacking by standardizing methods
* Fixed cancelling construction tiles not refunding inputted materials
* Fixed bugs when cancelling tile under construction
* Fixed entity behaviour when not standing on a valid tile
* Fixed occasional false positive blueprint output collision
* Fixed object blueprint output visuals
* Fixed all instances of entities getting stuck in walls
* Fixed enemies dying of no oxygen on spawn
* Fixed enemy AI
* Fixed wandering error in enclosed rooms
* Fixed sprite rotations on fast forward
* Fixed rounding errors on displayed time
* Fixed statistics counting of item wealth
* Fixed pending airlock doors not being openable by player
* Fixed item throwing
* Fixed cursor selection over UI
* Fixed entity oxygen displaying negative numbers
* Fixed crew continuing to construct when having a partial amount of mats
* Fixed engineers not getting tools before deconstructing
* Fixed post processing still blurring the screen after reentering game
* Fixed items getting stuck in newly constructed walls
* Fixed an overly specific bug that could make mechanics delete their pliers