Hi guys, the latest update is here. Here are the big hitters:

This month's update comes with two new features increasing the possibilities for staff management.

The first is the ability to disallow your staff from using certain items or tasks which 'require skill'. The most immediate use of this is prohibiting your less experienced staff members from taking on the tricky jobs such as 'high skill required' tasks and supplements.

You can find these new controls under the Advanced tab after selecting a staff member. You can also right-click on a staff portrait directly from the staff management window.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other uses players come up with for using this new feature!

The second new feature is the ability to mark a task as 'important' by clicking on its task bubble.

This will make staff prioritise this task over all others regardless of distance away. However, it will not overrule the role priority or zoning orders. Therefore, if a staff member has the feeding role set to a higher priority than the fixing role, they will still do all feeding tasks before fixing tasks, even if one of them has been flagged as important.

The Auto-Feeder has undergone a significant change. It now refills automatically at the beginning of each day so it does not have to be filled by staff anymore.

To make up for this, they will break down from time to time and the associated fixing staff is 'very high skill required' so it will be awkward to use unless you have skilled fixing staff available.

In addition the Auto-Feeder can no longer feed animals which 'require skill' or feed Supplements to any animals. Both these types of feeding task still need to be done by hand.

I like this change quite a lot. The Auto-Feeder clearly works best to replace the role of low-level feeders. It can handle large quantities but struggles with higher level animals which 'require skill' and supplements.

At the same time it puts additional pressure on your skilled fixers so there'll be some interesting decisions to make here.

It also might add interesting curation decisions: will you design a tank that can be fed 100% by Auto-Feeders at the cost of leaving out that show-stopping fish?

This update brings some tweaks to the prestige generation formulas which I believe bring it more in line with what you would expect from a real-life aquarium.

More information in the changelog below and also in the latest dev vlog.

https://youtu.be/N_dGVIxXSv0

• Tweaked prestige generation rates so that larger animals have a greater success chance than small animals. In other words, you need less in a tank for them to be seen.
  
• Likewise, larger decoration items have a higher chance to be seen, reducing the need for many large items in a single tank which could look less appealing. Groups of small items are still encouraged.
  
• Tweaked the prestige generation rates so that you get diminishing returns, the more animals of the same type you add to a tank. This encourages more smaller groups of small fish in different tanks.
  
• However for large animals a single group will continue to be sufficient.
  
• Added a more detailed tooltip when you hover over the prestige icon on any animal so that it communicates the prestige generation mechanics better, allowing the player to make more informated decisions.
  
• Added option for window to close when you click a second time, this is also now the default option but can be switched off in the settings.
  
• Changed "requires skill" icon to military chevrons. Added this indicator to task bubbles so you can see the skill level of a task at a glance
  
• Auto-feeder changes color depending on what food it is feeding.
  
• Reduced some animal aquascaping requirements. Many of these were increased in the February update but I believe they threw the balance off especially for small animals which need to be kept in larger numbers to fulfil their prestige potential.
  
• Added additional details to the task bubble tooltip so that it lists the skill level and a breakdown of the animals that need feeding in the tank (for feeding tasks only).
  
• Added load game confirmation dialog if a game is already in progress.
  
• Facilities apply their effects to guests instantly now, rather than over time.
  
• Fixed paint glitch
  
• Stopped guests dropping rubbish straight after looking at something
  
• Added reset to default key bindings
  
• Increased cave value for gaping cavern
  
• Increased rock value for rubble and live rubble
  
• Increased starting money for level 3. Elmshorn
  
• Fixed so the search menu doesn't come up when you finish naming something.
  
• In sandbox, all side objectives, trades and merchants appear on the way to rank 12. Before they continued to appear above Rank 12 but this led to some confusion and missing some events.
  
• Sped up zooming with keys.
  
• Fixed a pump UI error.
  
• Refresh message count immediately when you delete group of messages.
  
• Fixed 'running on spot' bug when auto saving and returning to menu.
  
• Fixed bug where supplement feeding times were sometimes over-calculated.
  
• Fixed ground dweller eating animation.
  
• Shows skill numbers when you hover over skill bars in the manage tab.
  
• Fixed the positions of the skills in manage tab so they are always in the same places.
  
• Fixed bug where it would show "When fully grown" eat/damage information on animals even when no numbers change as they grow. For example, when an animal will damage Gorgonians or Stony Corals.
  
• You can open the advanced tab by right clicking on the portraits in the staff manage tab.
  
• Cursor texture only loaded once
  
• Decreased some coral sizes (affects food consumed, bioload and prestige generation rate). Note: growing corals to full size now has large effect on prestige because size determines the prestige generation chance.
  
• Added '=' as alternative to ':' in search box.
  
• Added 'equipment' as a search criteria to differentiate to animals.
  
• Fixed bug where end game credits could be interupted by pressing escape.
  
• Fixed bug where end game credits would be in 'fast-forward' mode if you were at that speed when you completed the game.
  
• Fixed bug to do with info/task bubble positioning on some objects.
  
• Fixed coral food box which had the wrong icon on it.
  
• Fixed Power Light so lights are in the correct position.
  
• Dropdown menus go in front of other information windows.
  
• Improved platform laying tool so it guesses the height your require more intelligently.
  
• Upgraded to Unity 2018.3.

Mini patch with a couple of things that didn't quite make it into the big February update, plus a couple of bonus fixes/features. :)

- Upgraded underlying Unity version which should hopefully fix the 'Citrix workstation' bug. Let me know if you still encounter this issue.
- Added 'Exclusive fullscreen' mode.
- Added tooltip to point button toggle in top right.
- Fixed bug where messages don't reload if you drop an animal with the message window closed.
- Fixed bug where floor arrows blocked 'attraction aura'

For the next couple of weeks I'm going to be working through the backlog of small and medium sized feature requests that have built up over the weeks and months and making some headway through that.

I'm also going to be experimenting with some tweaks to the prestige generation formula and the way that this information is communicated to you. ːsteamhappyː

Hello all, a new update has just gone live with a bumper crop of new features and improvements. Let's take a look.



You can now bring up a new search menu in-game which allows you to filter the contents of the build menu to just the items you are interested in!

For example: by writing "tropical shoaler count:0" you will see only tropical animals with the shoaler care requirement, which you currently have zero of in your aquarium.

For more examples check out the latest episode of the official Megaquarium vlog:

https://youtu.be/BKINwrUdP9U

You can bring the menu up by pressing the Return key (this is rebindable) or by clicking the search button at the top of the build menu.

(Click on thumbs to enlarge)


5 new plants have just been added to the game. The focus here was adding more large plants and also adding more variety in terms of the gameplay purpose of each plant.

For example, the all new 2x3 Shellweed is only worth a few additional plants but adds a lot to the rock count and a whopping 50 filter power!

Meanwhile the Velvet Horn is more balanced with a mixture of plants, rocks and filter power.

I've also rebalanced some of the existing plants to make the differences between them more drastic. Some are excellent for plant count, while others are strong passive filterers and then there are the ones which give a range of minor benefits.


The final big feature is an expansion to the sandbox mode. There are now additional options which allow you to unlock all animals and equipment from the start of your game, as well as toggle access to unlimited money.

I know some people have missed having a fully "creative" mode with absolutely no restrictions and these new settings allow you to do that.

I've also added a set of new presets to challenge you to try the game in different formats. Let's take a look:

Full unlock - here you have access to everything from the start but don't have unlimited money, so you still have to create a balanced aquarium. It's harder than it sounds!

Research mode - here you have unlimited money but you still need to work through the ranks to unlock all the animals and equipment. This is definitely a relaxed mode where you can proceed at your own pace however it does reduce the burden on managing your staff efficiently.

Creator mode - the ultimate sandbox experience. Everything is unlocked and you have unlimited money.

Just like all the other presets you can tweak individual settings to your own preferences.

That's the major stuff out of the way, but the update comes with all these minor improvements/fixes too:

• Added drag-to-paint for tiles.
  
• Added rebindable hotkeys for all the buttons in the top left.
  
• Rebalanced plant/rock/cave lover requirements. Some are also worth extra prestige.
  
• Added info panels for any animal given to the player as a gift in the campaign so you can see what its needs are before picking it up.
  
• Added difficulty to save game info.
  
• Switched to proper fullscreen borderless window mode. If you click on your other monitor it won't minimise the game.
  
• Fixed animation speed going faster than simulation.
  
• Optimised build menu so that it loads quicker.
  
• Optimised animations in general for better FPS in large aquariums, especially on low detail mode.
  
• Redesigned point bubble system to increase performance.
  
• Optimised objective checking to increase performance.
  
• Zoning interface now scales/wraps when it gets to full.
  
• Slightly increased opacity of build menu UI.
  
• Added feeding skill requirement to Blue Spotted Ribbontail Ray.
  
• Striped boxfish no longer eats starfish.
  
• Danger to tooltip now says "Starfish with size x or less".
  
• Fixed bug where tank counts were calculated incorrectly.
  
• Slightly increased size of tooltip text and width.
  
• Fixed mega light lights.
  
• Megalopolis tank enquiry objective tells you to check log.
  
• Fixed objective tooltip in level 1 tutorial with incorrect description of button.
  
• Tweaked active swimmer icon so that it always says the required volume even when met.
  
• Added rounded tank and kreisel tank icons.
  
• Fixed minor display bugs for needs rounded, needs kreisel and congeners only icons.
  
• Fixed supersonic walking bug.
  
• Fixed issue where tooltip hangs over edge of screen on higher than 1080p resolutions.
  
• Added kreisel tank description.
  
• Fixed a number of portraits positions.
  
• Fixed double unlock of some science items in sandbox modes
  
• If you have already unlocked everything at a new rank it skips the "newly available" screen.
  =Modding=
  
• Animal mods can create a new animal category without updating gui.data, see Azure Demoiselle for example.
  
• Game is slightly more resilient to mods being added/removed midgame

Hope you enjoy the update guys, please let me know if you notice any bugs via the Steam discussion forums as usual. https://steamcommunity.com/app/600480/discussions/0/ ːsteamhappyː

Hey all, quick patch with a few bug fixes.

- Fixed bug where one of the Chicago tanks was always available regardless of the rank you started at. Unfortunately the fix only affects new sandbox games. Sorry about that!
- Cursor is now hidden in first person mode.
- Altered the way the game calculates whether a deep tank has been correctly connected to the floor in level 3.
- Fixed a minor graphical issue caused by moving stairs.

There's still a ton of smaller tweaks/features that I'm itching to get into the game over the next few weeks but the next major feature I'm planning to work on will be some kind of smart search/filtering system for the build menu to make it easier to find things (especially animals) in the later stages of the game.

Exciting stuff!

Howdy all and happy holidays!

The brand new Winter Update for Megaquarium is brimming with new features, improvements and even some new stuff to build!

Managing your staff just got a whole lot easier with a new and improved 'Manage' tab and zoning tool



The new 'Manage' tab shows your staff in a vertical list rather than a grid. Each row has enough space to show useful information such as what they are currently doing, which zone they are assigned to and what their skill priorities are.

What's more, you can directly adjust the skill priorities right from this tab, rather than having to bring up each individual staff window.

You can also get directly into the new and improved zoning tool by clicking on the zone button itself...



I'll be the first to admit that the old zoning tool needed some improvement, but I'm really proud of its replacement!

As you can see in the screenshot above, all the zones are shown at the same time and in different colours, so it's way easier to get a overview of how your zones are set up.

Even better you can now directly edit zones and reassign staff with a few easy clicks, all from inside the tool, no more having to go find each individual staff member just to edit a few zones.

Players have been calling out for a new rounded tank that is larger than the Belfast or Small Tunnel Tank but not quite as big as the Mega Tank. One that comes out early enough in the ranks for your fully grown Spotted Eagle Rays.

Well, I listened! Introducing the brand new Chicago tank. Rather than just being a large version of the Belfast tank, I've tried to design something interesting.



This tank comes in two variants, one with the access on the inside edge, and one with the access on the outside. This means it can be used as an internal or external corner of your wall of tanks.

The update also comes with 6 new decorations spanning sizes between 2x2 all the way up to 6x3.



I'm also planning to add some brand new plants in the early part of next year. They are fully designed, I'm just waiting on the assets from my artist.

Some of you might wonder why the game didn't release with Steam Cloud support. The truth is that I had a fully functional version working pre-launch using Steam's own "auto-cloud" feature.

However, literally days before launch I discovered that the system had serious flaws including being unable to delete saves from the cloud, once they were up there. For me, this was totally unacceptable.

Therefore, I waited until now, when I had some more dev time, to implement a really robust version using the more complicated Steam Cloud API.

The bonus news about this is: with this in place, I'm halfway to implementing Steam Workshop, which should also land in the early part of next year!

• Added information about the max size an animal can eat when fully grown to its tooltip.
  
• Slightly reduced volume of small tunnel tank.
  
• Swapped Angel and Lemon shark ranks so that you have access to the Mega Tank at the same time as the Lemon Shark
  
• Added difficulty tooltips on the main menu.
  
• Redesigned animal animation system to avoid clipping issues and weird movement of larger animals.
  
• Fixed various issues to do with animals eating each other.
  
• Fixed bug where negative prestige would not show on prestige bar on load.
  
• Fixed various minor graphical bugs.

As always, please let me know if you notice any bugs. I'm around until this Thursday and then I'm on my hols for a couple of weeks.

Happy holidays everyone! ːsteamhappyː

Hey guys, I've been super busy with a house move over the last week but I've still managed to squeeze out a little patch for you!

- Added staff priorities to level up messages.
- Added fully grown active swimmer requirement to tooltip.
- Fixed bug where cashflow was misreporting the costs of food, drink and gift shop items.
- Fixed bug where guide book and balloon refills were too cheap.
- Fixed bug where calcium reactor was free.
- Reduced number of horse eye jacks given as gift in Myra level from 5 to 3.
- Fixed bug with deep outcrop tank where staff would go inside temporarily if you dropped it on top of them.
- Fixed bug where Blue Whiting had no ecology point value.
- At end of day we don't auto drop items that are being carried by the player unless they are tanks or animals.
- Scenery no longer produce negative prestige if a guest sees it over and over.
- Clicking cancel task now drops the item making it slightly easier to force staff to do a particular job. (More stuff coming in this area!)
- Fixed bug where staff learned slightly slower on fast mode.

I'm still very busy with the house move but after I've moved I'll be back with more update goodness! ːsteamhappyː

Hey guys, big update for you today. There really is something for everybody in this one!

a) Important message toggle - filters out unimportant messages like autopsy and growth reports after they have been read. Also trades, merchants and missions that have already been completed.
b) Delete message functionality with the option to "delete all" of the same type e.g. autopsy and growth messages.

Staff level ups are now just messages which sit in your log until you are ready for them. This was a highly requested feature from players who found the constant interruptions annoying.

The good news is that staff continue to accrue skill points even when they are ready to level up. Therefore there is no penalty if you delay levelling up while you are busy with something else!

I have added 14 brand new staff to the game. That is a 50% increase on the existing staff cap.

I have made this change in reaction to requests from players whose aquariums were being constrained by the old staff cap, especially in sandbox mode. This boost should help a lot!

If you already have a large sandbox aquarium you should be able to load it up and you'll immediately gain access to new staff!

I am not ruling out additional increases to the staff cap in the future but I want to change things gradually, to avoid breaking the game.

One thing I'm keen on, is staff not feeling like mindless drones like you get in RTS games. I want to keep the total number low enough that the player is familiar with their staff and can manage them effectively.

To that end, the next area I want to focus my attention on is improving the productivity of each staff member via additional control settings, improved zoning, a better staff manage tab and by tweaking certain mechanics.

My hope is that by improving overall staff productivity we can allow for huge aquariums but without resorting to the blunt instrument of hundreds of unmanaged staff, which I believe would reduce the overall fun of the game.

- Massively increased performance of the simulation when running on fast speed setting.
- Build menu now remembers its place if you return to the same menu as last time.
- Min and max volume of tanks is now shown in the build menu.
- Fixed bug where hats and hair appear to lift off guest and staff heads on low and medium detail graphical settings.
- Fixed bug where guest animations would stop when too close in first person mode.
- Added two new hair colours for guests and staff!
- Slightly reduced point bonus when giving talks with a very high talking skill.
- Added missing food boxes to Hartcliff, Myra and Carbon City levels.
- Calcium Reactor no longer gives Prestige points (whoops!) and will stop providing coral growth benefit if broken down for too long.
- Corrected coral growth bonus provided by Calcium Reactor. The bonus was being incorrectly inflated before.
- Slightly increased staff salaries.
- Renamed Other Inverts to "Anemones, Clams and Gorgonians". There were two sections named "Other Inverts" before.
- Added missing string to end of level 10.
- Fixed issue where daily sales objectives were blank in French language.
- Sandbox mode always starts with at least one "cleaner"
- Large tunnel and Kreisel tanks are now paintable.
- You can now paint underneath Belfast and Kreisel tanks.
- Fixed various Kreisel tank issues: off-centre task bubbles, could not build across back wall.
- Fixed bug where certain walls on Deep Outcrop and Large Tunnel Tank could not be built across.
- Fixed bug where info box on message would escape its message window when you scroll.
- Tweaked words on level 3 to point player to message log for two of the corals.

Enjoy! ːsteamhappyː

Hey guys, lots of background performance stuff in this patch, plus a few minor bug fixes.

- Increased performance on main thread for better UI responsiveness in large aquariums.
- Slightly reduced memory consumption rate during game (more work needed here! Quite complicated!)
- Increased performance of save and load menu.
- Reduced memory usage of save and load menu.
- Fixed issue where staff in level up window would poke through windows in front of it.
- Fixed issue where closing the rank up window after clicking the rank up button would get the game stuck.
- Fixed minor graphical bug where rank tabs in research window would remain highlighted after everything was unlocked.
- Tweaked a few portrait positions to stop them escaping their boxes.
- Tweaked text in first level a little.

Now there is still plenty of optimisation to be done but I'm going to take a short break from that work to deliver some much needed quality of life and UI improvements, as requested by you, the players!

Top of the list are making the staff level up popups optional and improving the message log to make it easier to find what you are looking for.

Hey guys, here's what's new in the latest patch.

- Completely revamped system for packaging 3d models to decrease load times.
- This seems to have relieved the issue with slow loading times on OSX
- This also seems to fix one issue facing the Linux version of the game but may not resolve all issues.

Next week, I'm hoping to do a bit more work on optimisation and try to reduce the memory footprint of the game.

I have been listening to all your quality of life improvement suggestions and some of these will start to filter through too!

If you have been modding the game or using mods read here for how the latest update will affect you: https://steamcommunity.com/app/600480/discussions/0/1733213724906948173/

Hello, another set of minor bug fixes and tweaks for you.

- Fixed a range of issues with autofeeder.
- Fixed bug where lights get in the way of tanks after paint tool has been selected.
- Animals cannot eat another animal if they just grew up themselves, this will give the player time to adjust.
- Fixed bug where an animal that just grew up is eaten even though it shouldn't be possible at new size.
- Attempted to fix black background bug (let me know if not fixed).
- Fixed bug where you could sell things for more than you bought them for.
- Fixed a couple of bugs to do with supplements.
- Egg wrack is deep tank only.
- Fixed Unicorn Surgeonfish typo in level 10.
- Removed second Penny from level 10.
- Fixed issue where hotkey definitions are overwritten if on AZERTY keyboard but not playing in French.

Thank you for being so patient, I am halfway through creating an update which will hopefully relieve the loading time issue. I hope to be able to trial it within the next couple of days so please check back over the weekend. ːsteamhappyː