Hi all,

I'm happy to announce the next major Overcrowd update: New Facilities!

New facilities brings a bunch of completely new objects to the game with new functions, as well as several new levels of existing objects. It also has some new features, some balancing and some bug fixes.

Please note you need to start a new campaign (or sandbox) to see the new tech. As every campaign is procedurally generated, this is a good time to start a new one and test out the shiny new stuff. Don't worry, you can keep your old save if you grew attached to it.

So what do you get with New Facilities? Lets take a look.

Functionally, the substation probably makes the biggest difference to the game. This is at the end of the power tech tree, and connects you to the national grid, meaning you don't need to refuel. However you will need to build multiple instances to power large stations, and they generate substantial heat.



You can now build 2 levels of hand sanitizors to attach to walls or place freely. A hand sanitizor, in case you haven't seen one, squeezes out a disinfecting hand wash to prevent the spread of disease. You get these in hospitals, public toilets and now, your metro station. Nearby commuters with gastric flu or flu will use it and have a chance to be cured.

With the New Facilities update, you have access to 3 levels of map for lost commuters to use. The difference is the range they can be seen from and then used.

You also have access to level 2 ticket machines, which take up half the space and use less power.



Level 2 turnstiles use slightly less energy, but more crucially, only take one cell of space, allowing more efficient and neater stations.



There are also now 3 levels of light fixtures. These have an increasingly larger radius, and become more energy and heat efficient at later levels.

A new level 2 indicator board can also be placed away anywhere in the station and limits rep loss due to lateness.

The air purifier has been redrawn and is now a ceiling mounted grill. The air conditioner level 2 has been nerfed as this was previously far too powerful.

As well as the existing rat poison, you can now also build a rat trap. This is useful as rat poison is eaten and must be replaced. A rat trap does not, though needs to be reset, which will happen automatically when staff remove the dead rat from it.

Rats have been balanced as they have been too easy to cope with so far. They will now breed more frequently. Another minor change is that they will no longer eat the corpses of other dead rats (yes, they did that!). This means rats now pose a more significant threat because you will have more rat bodies lying around, and they will be more frequent, so keep on top of that. In case you don't know, decaying rats will create toxic green fumes and further upset your commuters.



I have added the often request volume control for human noises. If you hate the drinking or vomit sounds, you can alter their volume, or set them to zero. You can also remove the mouse click/hover sounds it that is not to your tastes.

If you scroll way off to the side, the game will also prompt you to press "C" which centres your view (re-bindable in options).

The text alerts from commuters now fade slower giving you more of a chance to see where reputation is being lost.

When you place certain objects you will now see an area of effect, which is how close a commuter must be to use/see an object. This applies to things like bins, maps and lights.

There are also some other balancing changes and bug fixes I list below.

There have been major updates to the Korean version. Expect full re-translations for German, Spanish and Japanese soon too, and improvements across the board in other languages.

I just want to say thanks for all the nice messages of support you guys sent me via various channels, be it comments or just your upvotes to the post about my recent gallstone surgery. It went well! I'm making a good recovery and I'm nearly back to full working capacity.

I can't wait to add more stuff to this game so I hope you stick with us (and by us I mean me who codes it, and Sarah who draws it!) on the journey. There several super interesting, game changing updates planned, and lots of cool new things coming over the next few months.

As ever, especial thanks to those who take the time to leave reviews for the game. This is done by clicking the the "would you recommend this game to a friend" option in your Steam library when you have selected the game. Steam review scores make a massive impact to the prospects of early access games run by a 2 person team like this.



-added area of effect (AOE) overlay when placing bins, maps, indicators and various other objects
-revised area of effect to use standard symbol unless placing light
-kiosk properly uses heat sim
-billboards and maps, tools use heat sim, not sold by entering thermal
-4 celled substation added (no refueling, created power and heat)
-air con 2 nerfed
-extractor fan updated with new sprite, ceiling mounted, with AOE
-added mouse trap added (there is a known issue in mouse behaviour - when they die they will just slide away out of teh station and disappear)
-added 3 maps levels (wall mounted, standard free standing, and larger information point)
-added ticket machine lvl 2 - only 1 cell
-added turnstile lvl 2 - only 1 cell
-added wallmounted hand sanitizor, with AOE
-added free standing hand sanitizor with AOE
-added freestanding indicator lvl 2, reduces lateness with AOE
-added 3 levels of light fittings
-fixed no tickets bug
-added sound FX volume slider for mouse sounds
-added sound FX volume slider for human sounds (vomit, cough etc)
-if you scroll far off map, message says press C to recentre view
-Commuter text alerts eg "GLOOMY", "NO SHOPS" etc will hang in the air at point of spaen, and fade away more slowly.
-Turnstiles correctly place floor mats
-Turnstile 2 is not unlocked at start
-Compactor correctly draws power
-Hand sanitizors do not draw power
-Hand sanitizors lvl 2 has a solid mask
-Hand sanitizors are in Utility build section
-indicator does not reserve adjacent cell
-New sandbox missions default to zone 1 preset for larger more fulfilling freeplat experience with 5 tracks to build
-Korean font ranges adjusted
-new Korean translation
-fixed zone 1 maps missing tracks on lowest level
-alt-tab save status is loaded correctly
-Rats respect their dead - they no longer eat other dead rats
-Rats breed 66% more often
-Rats animate correctly
-Rats do not instantly grow or shrink in relation to energy level (they still have internal energy levels so can starve or live depending on amount of trash/vomit available to eat)
-Rat trap functions and springs when used, rat trap only unsprings when dead rat removed by staff
-Staff repair lvl 2 ticket machines

Beta 244:

-new korean translation
-fixed zone 1 maps missing tracks on lowest level
-alt-tab save status is loaded correctly

Hi all

Beta 243 fixes some minor issues from Beta 242. You must be opted into the beta branch to see these.

Thanks for those who already game me initial feedback this weekend. Any more testing and feedback would be invaluable. I am recruiting more active beta testers :) Drop by the discord server and join the beta channel to help out.

Details of today's update are posted there.

Al.

Hi all,

This is just a quick update to let you know that a) i'm back working on Overcrowd (not 100% but increasingly) and I'm doing well; and b) I have put the long awaited *next major update* live in the beta branch.

If you want to help test this build (which probably has the greatest number of new objects of all updates so far) - you can opt in by right clicking on Overcrowd in your Steam library and selecting game properties > beta tab > use the drop down. Feedback would be very much appreciated! (eg. does it work? Does it not?)

Keep in mind you will need to start a new campaign/sandbox/cotd to initiate the new tech tree.

Please do drop by the discord server to chat, hang out, find out the full list of beta changes, and talk Overcrowd.

Thanks so much for the well wishes over the last week, it's meant a lot and really helped me not stress so much about being away from developing the game.

Al.

Hi all,

So today's update brings continued improvements to fonts and tweaks to some GUI elements.

Build 240:
-added missing Chinese words
-the back panel of build menu, procurement tree, to do list and right click objects is now a solid darker grey colour rather than transparent to help with readability.
-back build panel is larger to accommodate larger font labels.
-fixed issue with CSV files which was skipping entries in non english versions. Eg. utility room was labelled as power generation hover as a result.

Final note. Regular Overcrowders know I like to update the game frequently. However, unfortunately I have to be away for the next few weeks as I am undergoing gallstone surgery tomorrow. They'll be taking it out in the morning, and full recovery is expected to take 2-3 weeks.

However I expect, as it's not too far to the keyboard, it won't be too long before you hear from me, especially in discord. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, but given the pain I've had for the past few months, kind of keen to have it sorted too.

Final thanks to those who have come by to help improve the translations. Dropping by discord is the best way to do this.

Al.

Hi

I've been working on fixing more language and font related issues so this update mostly affects non English players.

However - I have made a few nice usability changes in the process that help everyone.

Please note, I am aware that with the way objects are grouped in infrastructure/facilities/utilities it can be a pain to find objects and will streamline that shortly. In fact, many things will be improved over early access so I thank you for your patience and understanding that this game is not yet complete. For example, based on feedback, I will be soon be improving the tutorial to make learning the basics more pain free.

I have also received reports of save/load not working. This is almost certainly due to your virus software - please check this if you are losing saves.

Ok here we go:

Build 239:

-larger font size in build menus, improves readability.
-right click on power generators opens power report directly
-right click on commerce/shop opens the commerce report directly
-updated more minimum font sizes to 11 in Chinese. This may temporarily cause issue with fonts going over boundaries however this will be resolved soon.
-Chinese to do list shows awards correctly.
-Chinese procurement tree corrects showing number of bonds
-fixed font draw errors on build menu and procurement tree in Chinese and other non - English fonts.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has left a review for the game. Reviews are super important to small indie developers like me, it really affects how steam treats us, so if you have left one, thanks!

Hotfix 238:

-increases minimum font size in Chinese
-creates floor mats when building turnstiles, even if not configured. Prevents rare issue with turnstiles blocking tracks if you built them too close to the track blueprint.
-Trash compactors use power correctly and draw out of power symbol at correct height.

Thanks for filing these issues with bug form yesterday guys, much appreciated!

Hi all,

Thanks so much if you picked up Overcrowd in the recent daily deal! I appreciate the trust you put in me as the sole coder on the project. I'll be working super hard to get the game to its full potential through early access.

Please let me know any issues on the Steam forum and I will reply and fix as soon as possible. In the next few weeks you can expect a major update adding several new facilities and items.

I have learnt that in some languages, some of the translations are not perfect. I'm very sorry about that! I am updating my process to improve any current issues and prevent this happening again.

I ask for your patience in this - for now, this update improves the translation in Chinese.

Look forward to bringing you many more updates - it will be an exciting year!

Al.

Build 237:
-improved Simplified Chinese

Build 236

-Reintroduces "retry" button at end of game if failed map.
-Autosave does not occur if reputation is under 10%

Just a note - if you notice that your game is not saving - please check that the game is not being caught erroneously by your antivirus. Stay tuned for a new update with some exciting new objects, coming very soon!