Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game - Killrob
It took a while to get this out of the oven, but here it is, the brand new and much improved Light Campaign has been added to the ongoing open alpha with the 4.2.15 patch. So what do we see as the main changes since LCV4.1?
Note: To opt into the open alpha, right-click the game in your Steam Library, select Properties, Betas, select the openbeta branch and let the game update.
Light Campaign V4.2
The largest improvement we see in the much improved feedback on your car designs in terms of potential sales. Being able to not predict in any way what volume of cars you would be able to get to the market was like flying blind. This has been addressed by the markets tab in the car designer, which now allows you to set a price and see potential sales numbers for your car before any production setup has happened. This adds lots of predictability and gives that essential clue as to how to size your factories before setting them up! Of course it still requires the skill of knowing how to design a car to make it producible at a reasonable cost... so that you have that much needed margin to get out of the debt hole you likely dug for yourself.
Being able to see sales potential right when you design your car model and its trims.
In the same vein, the forecaster has been improved and fixed. It can now give pretty decent predictions of what will happen in the context of your future line-up, instead of providing often poor guesses.
More relevant information illustrated right in the factory setup where it is needed.
In the factories themselves, a lot of UI improvements have been made to give you more relevant information right there. A new staffing mechanic allows players to balance worker quality and wages, versus the available pool of potential workers. While you'll be able to fill a 1990s Gasmean medium factory with good staff within a handful of months, in 1940s Archana you would be waiting years to do the same.
Much better direct feedback on what is going on with your marketing efforts.
The very first iteration of the new, detailed world map makes an appearance too! Still a work in progress, the new map is the foundation upon which a detailed lore will be built.
A tiny render of a big world!
Hundreds of smaller changes and fixes have made their way into campaign as well over the past three months of focused development, too numerous to list here, but they certainly will be felt.
In the background we've continued work on the massive engine designer revamp which from scratch revises and replaces the engine designer calculations with those you've seen as part of the turbo revamp of this 4.2 milestone. The plan is to switch out the remaining naturally aspirated base calculations with fully updated ones as well, turning this part of the game more into an actual simulator while keeping its usability.
The prototype of the new engine calculations now considers all throttle settings and maps them.
The latest two Little Dev Update videos go deep into these changes and you should definitely check them out to see what is coming!
https://youtu.be/x4gWjOfUf-0 https://youtu.be/GBzEAiLPsu4 We're continuing to work out these fundamentals and implement them into Automation at the moment in a separate development branch until they are ready to be switched out. Once the naturally aspirated engine calculations have been fully revamped, we'll focus back on getting the 4.2 milestone goal of sequential turbos ready as well.
Patch 4.2.15 Changelog
Since most of the recent work has focused on both the engine calculations and campaign, the changelog is mostly about "all the other things" instead. Here is what's new in LCV4.2.15 beyond the addition of the campaign!
Gameplay Fixes & Improvements
Added Steam Rich Presence hooks to Automation!
Fixed rim weight calculation using tire diameter instead of rim diameter
Fixed harmonic dampers being far too expensive in material costs
Tweaked seating row availability for various bodies
Changed warning thresholds for brake fade
Art Fixes
Reworked exhaust glow progression and coloring
Made it possible to apply glass to rims by default
RTX settings are now stored in photoscene presets
Fixed ray-traced shadowing settings not working at all
Fixed performance problems in Modern Studio and 90s Studio photoscenes
Fixed poor photoscene performance when car loaded, mostly blur related
Fixed boxer engine short cast turbo manifold having an enlarged texture
Fixed headlight "bases" having no texture defined
Fixed visual issues with chunky offroad tire tread
Fixed fixtures being lit drastically different to bodies when using the same material
Fixed rendering artifacts in desert gas station when ray tracing was enabled
Fixed editable text fixtures not hiding when hiding fixtures in the photoscene
Fixed Fixture3d_SpareHousWheel_02_FPD and another being in the wrong fixture family
UI Fixes & Improvements
Import function for .car files will now move them to /Imported folder instead of deleting them
Added prompt to fixture UI to allow unlocking to delete missing fixtures
Added a back button in car paint slot paint selection panel to return to slot selection panel
Added tag/list views to engine selection buttons in car designer
Added notification to tell users when the text they input into an editable text fixture is too long
Fixed car pricing UI not allowing manual pricing input
Fixed drag of rotation or translation axis on props not calling place-on-ground on completed drag
Fixed issue where fixtures selection sometimes created a new fixture instead
Fixed placing engines in cars resulting in engine year being changed
Fixed colour picker mode switching
Fixed colour picker slider colour bars not fading out correctly in the photoscene
Fixed photoscene colour grading gain slider functionality
Fixed animatics not stopping when escape is pressed
Fixed car selection button on side stats bar getting too large with large car names
Fixed held engines not retaining turbo count
Fixed engine engine not recalculating when changing from turbo to naturally aspirated
Fixed placement of photoscene transform widget
Fixed categorization of some interior fixtures
Fixed fixture gizmo UI not fully entering the screen sometimes
Fixed engine bay clearance warnings being out of sync with engine bay widget
Fixed body preview tooltips not updating after keybind change
Fixed adding another car in photoscene having UI problems when using grid mode
Fixed "ignored suggestions" UI not updating correctly
Fixed car and engine manager showing stats when no item is selected
Fixed blown-up turbo motors that keep revving on the engine testing UI
Added "copy error to clipboard" button to lua error popup
BeamNG Exporter
Fixed interior fixtures to all be marked unbreakable with cardinal lock on
Fixed cloth paints and fabric paints tend to export glossy to BeamNG
We definitely expect there to be a significant section of campaign bugfixes in the following patches, but we do hope you'll be able to dip your toes in even in this early version.
Let us know what you find and share your feedback in the appropriate threads. Thank you again for your patience and enjoy! Cheers!
Desktopia: A Desktop Village Simulator - mf.tinyturtle
'As idle as you want...' is the unofficial catchphrase for Desktopia amongst our team, but the opposite is also true. If you want to get involved in the world you're simulating, we want to provide all the means and tools to do so. That can mean jumping in with a sword or gun, or just digging into the statistics in order to build a more balanced village.
Amongst a slew of changes and developments in the past week, I think the team ) are most excited about the implementation of visual information representation in the form of GRAPHS!! Exciting, dynamic, charts that give continuous and live updates on your villager's needs, earnings, moods, health with other data still being added.
Moving on from the nerd-porn.... We've also continued to develop a lot of the core features, with a day/night system being added, villager moods which affect their speed, spend, and reactions, and villager personality types.
Up next, we have a LOT of sprite work to do. We need a completely new set of sprites for statues, and plaques, sixteen more buildings along with a unique villager for each, and whole new tier of technology! Wish us luck!
NEW FEATURES: .pitch and pitch variation added to Sound gameplay objects .gauge "player death resets gauge" new gameplay setting
BUG FIXES: .grabbing a power-up while focusing didn't work .menu sound effects should not loop .musics were not streamed resulting in an increased memory consumption .sounds not found would play the last sound in a stand-alone game .musics were not always starting with triggers in a stand-alone game .sounds are not clipped anymore: they are all played in their entirety .building a stand-alone game could pack unwanted directories, resulting in a bigger file size .playing the game in the editor didn't reset the gauge if "reset gauge on next level" is unchecked .invincible bullets now can't hit an enemy more than once .player death always did reset the gauge .multipliers were reset after player death if "next level resets multiplier" was checked .big memory leaks fixed between start menu and playing a game
This event is a bonus event for your recharge into the game, since when recharging you get separate points in this event, with which you can try your luck by spinning the reel for x50 points or spin a large scrolling for x500 points.
Added a new resource - steel (reward for challenges) If you have already completed the challenges, you will immediately receive all the steel you have earned. Added 10 effective upgrades with a fixed cost. Increased the speed of gain experience. Fixed a few minor bugs.
It’s June, and the 6th episode of “It’s saucy time” is here. Time flies, it really does. I first established Lucid Realm Studio on November 6, 2021, and merely two quarters later, the Demo of Shred & Tear: Explosive Kajun was officially published on Steam. This may sound really small compared to some of the big sharks out there, but to us, this is concrete proof of our determination. We started with little, and yet we are aiming high and dreaming big!
If you haven’t tried out the Demo yet, head over to the Steam front page and get a sample of the visual feast we are serving.
Alright, let’s get started with all of the events that happened
Current State of the Shred & Tear
The Demo Release - 20-year journey summed up in 20 minutes
The beginning
It takes a lot to get to this point. I have managed to show you approximately 8 months of work on Twitter, but before that point, counting altogether, almost a year has gone by since we started this. However, it didn’t ACTUALLY begin in 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, it was way earlier than that!
Some old art when I was 16 and then - now. It started with me - a teenage PDD with a burning passion for video games and anime art in the 90s.
That boy worked his way up to Art School and had been working in the 3D Game/VFX industry since 2005, and strives to world-class level somedays. And I managed to keep that spirit up even to this day (but with a lot more Lewdness injected!!! - since I am an Adult now haha). Fast forward to 2021 with a whole lotta new challenges, I finally had the resources together, and visualized my Lucid Realm!
Head over to the Front page or click the banner below to get a grasp of what that boy had worked on - it will take you roughly 20 minutes ;) and I hope you will enjoy it!
Shred & Tear is just an early entrance to what I have always been dreaming to make over the years! Sexy, Badass, Extra Thick Waifus in actions fighting against the grotesque hideous monsters in brutal hellish worlds!
The changes As I have mentioned earlier in this episode of It’s saucy time, we have released the first ‘rough’ closed-beta version of the Demo and let our folks in the Lucid Realm server test it out. Sure enough, there were flaws. Then in the rush to refine it, then release it in time for upcoming events, the production team and I had worked our arse off, literally ~ but we managed to clean ourselves up after that so no worries.
What did they spot in the closed beta, and what have we done to refine it? We set the survey to cover Graphics, Sound & Music, Gameplay, and Difficulty and received hundreds of comments and roughly 80 critical points to refine Shred & Tear that brought this new version alive! Look at that long list of todo list I have cleared most of them after the private testing pharse. The Demo now is still needing alot of works but It is enough for you to get a gasp of Kajun-chan full taste !
First of all, I have quickly put together a photo mode that allows you to take the best shots of Kajun-chan and her glorious battle with Tentamons. Have you tried it out? Post that in the Discord for the troop to admire! I intended this mode for a small “interactive” gameplay session later but it’s good to push it out as an early iteration of the model.
About Shred & Tear, since the beginning, I didn’t make it tailored to hard-core gamers, I made it for everyone, from men of culture who enjoy lewdness as it is, to people who are fond of gory mecha monsters and fun, violent gameplay. Therefore the feedback on the difficulty of the controller varies widely. I decided to make the Controller setting available. Then further into the game, there will be more skill guides as well as custom key binding for you to work well with Kajun-chan in the battle against those Tentamons!
As we are targeting a mass group of demographic as well as game experiences, I believe the gameplay will have significant room for improvement. After the playtest, many did encounter multiple bugs related to the combat in general - therefore I really emphasize on this as it is critical to the overall players’ flow. According to some of our testers, the changes were “day and night” comparing version to version. Even though the Tunnel Raid gameplay is still a little buggy at the moment, you have my words, it will get better!
Last by not least, A Big shout out to (twitter)@_PixieWillow for voicing our lovely Kajun-chan ! perfectly in character and crank the sexy up x69.6 times !
Highlight Events
Playtesting Private Party
As you may have known from the last episode, we have organized a small Playtesting Private Party in our Discord server with over 70 participants.
Thank you all again for your contribution to Shred & Tear. Your valuable response will be our main motivation to do better. The number didn’t include just our supporters, but also streamers and Youtubers! Please be on the lookout for their reaction videos as well.
This event honestly put the team in awe of how wholesome, constructive people can be. Just look at how well the original tweet did!
The tweet alone attracted a flood of newbies to the server. And of course, they had the chance to see Kajun throughout & inside-out first in the prototype demo!
Apart from all the feedback & suggestions I got which are super helpful to know which direction should I polish the game. Some of the feedbacks really give me much motivations to pour my heart & soul to Shred&Tear !
“Overall, even so early on, the graphics are very polished and I hope to see more as time goes on for sure!”
- TheoneMantis
“Very cool designs. Kajun's design is absolutely amazing!”
- Justenrules
“Excellent choice of music, sound effects, especially for enemy attacks and Kajun's reactions could be a bit louder”
- MetalCaveman
“The small enemies feel way too fast and aggressive. They more or less instantly hit you if you get close, forcing you into a hit and run playstyle.”
- Horsen
“The tunnel; the comic art; the interesting story and concept; Kajun's two-tone hair and her large breasts.”
- Patriot-Warrior
“Rip and tear your way through tentacle monsters wanting to destroy humanity.”
- Titanium
And of course! A Big Thank You to everyone who participated in the private play test party and taking time to fill in the Survey ! You guys 's contributions does really help me tremendously in shaping/refining the game toward its better form. I got a little credit slide as a small thanks for all of our 69 testers ! In the future, if there is any private play-test for S&T , I hope that we still be able to receive such care & love from you guys. Soon one day we will hop on and meet Kajun-chan again!
Steam Next Fest announcement
Again, about Steam Next Fest, just to keep you guys informed, Shred & Tear is all set for one of the biggest festivals for game developers and promising indie games out there. It is the chance for you to try out our Demo and show your support! I really hope to be able to see you all joining hands during the event and spreading words about Shred & Tear and sharing a little bit of Kajun-chan altogether XD!
About Steam Next Fest, it's a big official event by Steam as a multi-day celebration of upcoming games. Explore and play hundreds of game demos, watch developer livestreams, and chat with teams about their games in progress, coming soon to Steam. Even though Shred & Tear final game is far from release but the Prototype Demo is worth trying out !
Communities & Press activities
The Gamer Section
I was so glad to hear from The Gamer Section earlier in May regarding an interview on Shred & Tear and what I had been working on so far. @kayokano was extremely kind and enthusiastic as a host and I got to share many things with the audience of The Gamer Section. You can watch the interview again here, oh and if you like the channel, give him some loves, thumb ups or even subscribe !:
Demo trailer featured by our fellows and friends
From Shady Corner
From Game Infinite
From our beloved Pixie the badass/sexy voice behind Kajun-chan!
Just a small reminder: Join us on Discord for the code to unlock our “exclusive” content!
After some time running the server, Ms. Lily - our Community Manager, has finally found herself a companion - the Mod - @Ribbonizer. He is the perfect complementary for her duties, together this duo covers every single timezone there is on this planet Earth! I am so relieved to see people being super welcomed on the server, and literally, no one is left behind!
Allow me to give you a tour of our server! These are our famous attractions
#snt-faq: Where we answer those frequently asked questions! #snt-discussion: This is where men of culture, ladies, and even Tentamon get to show their passion to Shred & Tear and discuss the experience #snt-kajun-chan-s-fan-club: Yeah, a place to simp. And you can only simp Kajun-chan, obviously. Wanna see some fanart there?
#lewd-land: yeah, there is lewd (Catto) content. Discover for yourself!
Snap & Tear: a photo contest
As the development of Shred & Tear progresses, more features will be added. And we have always wanted to embrace the ‘indie’ element every step of the way. Indie products pride themselves on their power to create very personalized experiences, and that’s what we are aiming for!
The photo mode is made not only for better interaction within the game, you guys can create your own Kajun-chan masterpiece of Tentamon slaughtering. Isn’t that fascinating? And we wanted our fans to be a part of this journey. So here’s Snap & Tear! At this point, the contest is closed, and Lily and I are having a really tough time selecting the winner!
Let’s run through the prizes again!
- 1 platinum: 2 keys for the Official Release, shots will be featured on the Steam front page, Lucid Realm Twitter & Discord Server
- 5 gold: 1 key for the Official Release, shots will be featured on Lucid Realm Twitter & Discord Server
- 10 silver: 20% off code for the Official Release, shots will be featured on Discord Server
That's pretty much it for this month! Luckily everything is ready to some extend right in time for Steam Next Fest ! Let’s dive in and let me know what you think in our Server.
