Sep 3, 2022

The Universim - Alex

Hello dear creators,
We hope that you had a wonderful time this summer and that everyone is rested and prepared for the start of the new upcoming season.

As many of you probably know, we recently moved our headquarters from San Diego, California to Dallas, Texas. This relocation caused some disturbances to our progress within the game, but for the last 2 months, everyone on The Universim team was able to pick up the pace and move forward with extra speed. Recently, we added two additional programmers to our team along with an additional concept artist. This should help us to speed up our development progress quite a lot. Due to that addition, we decided to release one more patch after this one. We heard a lot of you loud and clear - that you would like to have some expansion on Exiles. Therefore, we dedicated a couple of people from our team to work specifically on military expansion.

This v57 patch will be a bit unusual for us and for you. In this patch, we put a lot of attention to bug fixes and improvements to the current systems. Since we are currently in the end phase of the game, we are heavily concentrating on end game content and polishing. Therefore, this patch is very important for us to see if we were able to resolve some of the major issues within the game.

We are constantly looking over the suggestions in our Discord as well as the bugs that are being reported. Certain bugs have a higher priority than others. We are still trying to track one bug that does not allow us to save the game correctly. In order to catch this bug, we implemented a system that will provide a warning message stating that, during the game save, the game was not saved correctly followed by the error that comes with this. Please, if you encounter that error, reach out to us via our Discord. With your help, we will be able to locate and track that error and fix it for good!

Now to the content of the patch! Here are some of the improvements and bug fixes that you will encounter.

Improvements:

- Increased size of the Pollution warning notification

- Incorrect description for the Garrison Building

- Missing text for the Lizard Candy and Massage Buildings

- Incorrect translation within the main menu of the Twitch Integration (German language)

- Bunker improvements:

Meteor strike does not kill Nuggets within the bunker anymore
Lightning Strike does not kill Nuggets within the bunker
Tornados
Fire
Volcano
Earthquake
UFO Crashing onto the bunker
Drone explosion
Planet Cracker stomp
Blizzard Storm
Firestorm

- Fierce enemy quest drop zone ground projection didn’t look good when it was overlapped with the quest area projector

- Over 30 popup windows reworked in order to be closed by pressing ESC button

- Buildings without assigned Nuggets will have lower resource delivery priority compared to buildings that have Nuggets working in them

- Any Nugget within the building will have a consistent interaction throughout the game (in other words, you can pick them up, use certain creator powers on them, etc. while they are inside the building)

- Nuclear Plant received an “assign all” button

- Colonization rockets and Space Trade will now have a different Nugget priority when you are sending Nuggets to another planet. Young and educated Nuggets without a family will have the highest priority, next will be Medium/Old age Nuggets with an education, then Young uneducated Nuggets, followed lastly by Medium/Old uneducated Nuggets

- Finishing hut received an indication icon above the building showcasing when there is no more fish to catch

- All mines that extracted all resources beneath them will automatically remove Nuggets from the building and shut down the building

- System that will detect if the game is being saved incorrectly and will provide a notification to the player. That system was put in place in order to prevent broken save files and will allow us to track down certain game breaking bugs

Bug Fixes:

Fixed: Localization Error in the Overpacked quest

Fixed: Using switch Era functionality did not switch the Education requirements of the buildings back to corresponding building level education

Fixed: Certain quests didn’t show the correct name for the Nuggets quest giver

Fixed: Fierce enemy quest drop zone was not always correctly displayed on the ground and disappeared if you moved the camera too close to it

Fixed: Objects in the world can no longer be clicked upon while the celebration dialog is active

Fixed: Research screen and other full screen UIs are no longer overlapped by the celebration dialog

Fixed: Pressing ESC Button while being in the load game screen removed Load panel completely

Fixed: While holding a Nugget via telekinesis, Nugget could have been dropped if any pop up or UI Screen would be opened

Fixed: Min/Max temperature was not updated correctly within the Reservoir panel

Fixed: Power Hour event didn’t turn off electricity for the entire duration of the event

Fixed: Subtitles would overlap with Full Screen Menus

Fixed: Same Nugget could have been added to multiple different trades

Fixed: Missing localization within the spaceport

Fixed: Firestorm and Blizzard on screen effects were visible within different full screen menus (Loading Screen, Research, etc.)

Fixed: Error that was happening during the trade in space which was leading to corrupted save files

Fixed: Shadow from the raincloud disappeared at a certain angle providing no indication for the location of the raincloud

Fixed: Minister of Space was missing a lock icon on the slot

Since we are currently in a state of polishing and improving the game, we are planning to release bug fixes and overall improvements on a more constant basis.

We would also like to share some of the progress that has been made.

Currently Working On

Nuggets

We went through all the Nuggets and their jobs in order to update their clothing and accessories for the Modern and Space Ages. In total, over 20 different jobs will receive new outfits and over 20 new items as accessories will be added to them. Some of them you can check below:

Defense Towers

Defense towers are currently going through multiple stages of rework and upgrades. We are adding machine gun mode that will primarily target ground units where rockets will shoot anything flying up in the sky as well as Planet Cracker.

Planet Cracker

We are putting a lot of effort and polish into Planet Cracker. Upon full release, you will be able to encounter that evil machinery that has been created to stomp out civilizations and destroy planets.

Snapping Tool

We received a lot of requests from the community to help with the arrangement of buildings and the addition of a snapping tool. One of our engineers is currently working hard on adding a snapping tool that will allow you to snap your buildings to the roads or other buildings, aligning them perfectly in a straight line.

New Planets

We had mentioned that we created a system that allows us to create different planets. Now it is finally time to start making them! Our design team is working on brand new planets that you will be able to encounter during your journey.

Star Map

The star map was created internally quite a few months ago, but it still required some polishing. Using a star map, you will be able to discover both planets and different space objects. Currently, our engineers are working on expanding star map functionality in addition to the new UI/UX elements that should help with navigation.

Final Battle Scene

Yes, you will have a proper finish of the game as well as some story line. Even now, certain narrator phrases, quests, and other subtle elements within the game have some connection to the main story. After the final scene, we hope that you will be able to connect all the dots and figure out the connection :). The final scene is currently ready from the technical side, but still requires some polishing and UI/UX elements.

Credit Screen

The credit screen is also already created, but currently has a placeholder UI which will be improved as we get closer to the actual end of the game.

Below you can see the overall progress that we have made and where we are currently standing.

We hope that this will give you some understanding where we are and what we are currently working on.

Thank you everyone for all of your support and for staying with us. This means a lot for the entire team and we are grateful for having such an amazing community. We are almost at a finish line and we can’t wait to show you all the things that we have worked on.

Sincerely,
Crytivo Crew

https://store.steampowered.com/app/352720/The_Universim/

Sep 3, 2022

Patch 6

Rogue Blight Playtest - CodeRad;

- If you receive new gear/weapons, "New" text will appear on gear slot and gear itself
- Gear/Weapon icons now have correct aspect ratio and are no longer partly obscured
- If you gain status effect as you die (stay in poison as you die as it fully fills up) game crashes, this is due status effects being removed in coroutine
- Berserk Skill before increase Physical damage by 35% and Elemental by 15%. Now it increases all damage by 35%.
- Berserk Blessing now is only active if you are 30% health or lower and it adds (20% damage) (It also stacks with Berserk Skill)
- Defender Blessing now is only active if you are at 70% health or higher it adds (20% less Damage Taken) (It also stacks with Defender Skill)
- Endurance Blessing now is only active untill you get hit.
- If player is dead, status effects can not be applied on them anymore
- When player dies health/mana UI no longer is updated to full
- If player dies, the lag is reduced
- If player starts fighting enemy, lag is reduced
- Shop can no longer appear in "?" node
- At Bonefire now you have choice between "1. Restoring health/mana/potions" or 2. "Adding additional potion"
- Play time now is adding up correctly for save files (save files before this will have insanly huge playtime since data is in different format)
- If in cutscene, no longer show status effect text on screen (This is mainly for blessings that give status and are active at start of scene)
- Reward screens "Take All" button now is enabled faster
- Fixed, If you pause game as you walk/run forward, stop walking, unpause, character keeps walking forward
- Spamming selecting map node, will try to load node multiple times causing lag, now the map buttons are disabled as soon as node button is pressed

Controler Support Improvemnets:
- if unselected button on cutscene button options, pressing any Controler button highlight first avaliable button
- if unselected button on Reward Panel (Take All button), pressing any Controler button will highlight "Take All" button
- if unselected button on Blessing/Gear choice, pressing any Controler button will highlight first avaliable button
- if unselected button on shop menu, pressing any Controler button will highlight first avaliable button
- if unselected button on character creation menu, pressing any controller button will highlight first avaliable button
- if you purchased item in the shop with Controler, the first avaliable button will be highlighted
- Map Node is now selected by default after a node completion or after selecting starting weapon
- If pausing game, the "Pause" button will automatically be highlighted
- Using new input system on cutscene text prompts, controller will work correctly with "A" button to skip through text
- Using new input system for pausing, controller will work correctly with "Start" button to pause game
- If selecting gear, it highlights button for first armor avaliable
- If went back from selecting gear, it will highlight the button for that gear type you were selecting
- If selecing gear, you can press "B" on controller to go back to inventory menu
- In main menu, delete this save file now works correctly with controller
- Demo Ending, Wishlist button now is autoselected if using controller

Sep 3, 2022

A peek at Unpacking merch, and a new way to play Dark Star Mode

Unpacking - hummeline

How on earth is it September already!? Time flies, especially when you’re headed to multiple events like we have. The team headed back to BitSummit for the first time in three years (!) and showed Unpacking, as well as Witch Beam’s newest game, Tempopo. Then, we bounced over to New Zealand for Wren to give the keynote at NZGDC. But we’re home now, thank goodness!

We’re VERY excited to share that ✨ Unpacking merch is coming soon! ✨ We’re so excited to have partnered with Serenity Forge to create some things we’re so excited to have in our hands soon and do our own IRL unpacking of boxes!

We’ve got two t-shirts, one with a rendition of the final scene that says “Unpacking a life with you,” and the other with Piggy peeking out of a cardboard box—and the box is a POCKET!

Then some keychains of some of our favorite plushies (jk we can’t pick favorites, we love them all) AND an enamel pin set of some of the achievements in the game.

They’ll be available at PAX West this weekend in Seattle (at Serenity Forge’s Booth: #757), and after that… well, you’ll just have to stay tuned! (and we just might have a few more things in store for you… 😉)

Also at PAX West, we’ll also be a part of Pinny Arcade’s Pin Quest with these fantastic enamel pins that will be available at the Humble Games booth (#317).

Jeff’s GDC talk is now officially on YouTube! Go listen to him talk through all the intricacies of foley in the game.

A great piece on Jewish characters in video games featured Unpacking and it’s well worth the read!

“We wanted to make the characters feel like real, three-dimensional people so that players could relate to them. One aspect of that is a religious and cultural identity. Our character happens to be an artist, and she happens to be queer, and happens to be Jewish. All of these are important parts of who she is.”

Our Discord is finding new and exciting ways to play the game, play Dark Star mode, and speedrun (yes, we have a speedrunning community!). Our current favorite is “Floor is Lava” mode for Dark Star, where you still have to put everything in the wrong place, but the floor is off-limits! Let us know if you give it a try.

Finally, do you know anyone that hasn’t grabbed the game on PC yet? If so, Humble is having a sale through September 6th, and Unpacking is 20% off in their store.

That’s all for now!

Cheers,
Emily & the Witch Beam team