Craftomation 101 Dev Diaries, Feb 2023: Much Planning, Such Heat & Oodles of Sketches
Craftomation 101 Dev Diaries, Feb 2023: Much Planning, Such Heat & Oodles of Sketches
It's almost safe to say that Craftomation 101 in its current state is a stealth operation: we're not updating the demo publicly, nor are we writing notes as we used to. But behind the closed doors, there're a lot of discussions, prototyping, feedback analysis, and a lot of work in general. Base Builder Fest showed us that people are indeed interested in games like Craftomation 101, and we need just a little push (see below) before we are ready to hit Early Access.
And by the time this push happens, we will be ready. Here's why.
…but first! Here's one of the most comprehensive (and hilarious) videos that were ever made about Craftomation 101 so far!
We've Got A Plan
Two plans, actually. One contains the list of features we're planning for the full release - but we'll talk about it some other time. For now, here's a brief list of things we plan to add before the big Early Access release celebration.
It's Getting Hot!
New heating source. Along with the Command Center, this might become one of the centers of attraction for your colony. Once you warm one of them out, they will become a source of heat themselves, bringing back the flora and maybe spawning resources. Its’ codename was ‘Hot Spring’, and it was a very spectacular task for development, as we got to see through hundreds of photos of national parks (Yellowstone was one of the important inspiration sources for us) from all over the planet. We can't show these photos here as some of them may be copyrighted but we sure can show you a bunch of sketches they inspired Alex the artist for:
…come to think of it, it's not quite a hot spring by now... What would you call it? Let us know on our Discord server, maybe?
What a Moss
Back to Early Access Plans though! If you played the game, you probably know that you can grow a seed into a Tree at some point. If you played it long enough, you probably know about Mushrooms, too. What you don't know yet, is that we're planning to add yet another organic fella to the game. Enter the Moss!
Give it some time, and you'll be able to mix it with some Mushrooms and get a powerful booster of speed and battery capacity for your Craftomates. To do that, you’ll have to build a special building codenamed ‘Brewery’.
Bring More Mates!
Other things that are yet to be drawn into life include new fire sources (along with those that melt Hard Ice in a more effective way), another new resource - Copper, and, of course, we'd need someone to help handle the former and be crafted from the latter. Someone like one of these guys:
Remember CargoMates? They're coming to Early Access as well! As the name suggests, they'll be helpful when it comes to carrying large amounts of items around but their looks, their crafting recipe, and their very functions will come into their final(-ish) shape closer to release.
Meanwhile in the Game
As you may remember from last month's dev diaries, we've added copying and pasting of nodes on the work field, which was one of the most desired features by our players (and, naturally, by ourselves). Another thing that the community was asking for frequently is labeling the Craftomates. We introduced an option to change the colors of robots a while ago but we want the game to have an as little interface as possible. Hence the new item - Edible Paint.
Currently, in the game, it can be found around the map or manually crafted. But weren't quite happy with it: it was taking too much time for the players to get to the paint, and crafting it manually made it a costly thing to have.
So now there are natural sources of paint on our nameless planet. Who knows where this paint comes from but it sure makes the process of terraforming more festive!
The interaction between robots is also on our table. The animations for them is technically ready but there's still much coding to be done. Chances are good: we'll talk about them in detail next time!
What we can show off today, is the new (work in progress) look of the in-game wiki! Our main source of inspiration is the periodic table of elements:
Your Move!
We've talked a lot about Craftomation 101 hitting Early Access soon. But in fact, a couple of things need to happen before that's possible.
Insider fact: one of the key metrics that helps understand whether a game might find its audience - is the number of wishlists on Steam. As of now, we're about 1500 wishlists short for us to become confident enough to push the game to Early Access. We've had a great boost during the Basebuilder Fest in January, and now you can help us go for the moon!
Tl;dr: If you want to see new updates for Craftomation ASAP, here's what you can do:
Add the game to your wishlist on Steam
Let us know about your favorite influencers on YouTube/Twitch/Other who are playing games like Craftomation 101
If you feel like it - maybe even write a comment to one of the aforementioned influencers to let them know Craftomation 101 is worth checking out
You can even scribe yourself into the game's credits: most of our games’ localizations are community-made, and we now have a spreadsheet for those who are willing to help us translate the game into their native language
Buy the supporter pack to gain access to exclusive WIP stuff and full-time access to the devs’ ears and minds
And of course, play the free demo on itch.io or Steam, leave us a comment, or come to Discord and discuss your experience with us personally
See you next time, Mates! Keep being awesome, we've got a planet to unfreeze and robots to program!