The Steam Next Fest is almost there and it's time for another demo update! It consists mostly of bug fixes and balancing changes. But also a few more important changes.
Learn the technology tree!
First, let's talk about the technology tree. The game offers random choices to the player so you may not realize it but there is actually an internal tree with dependencies between techs. When you pick something, it makes new choices available in the future. Until now, all of this was quite invisible. I receveid a great suggestion to make it visible in game and so here it is!
Journal entries now display the requirements and potential successors of all buildings, relics and weapons. So, if you really like a technology, you can now learn more easily which choices can lead to it. Technologies never picked yet are shown as "???" in successors, so it also helps your search if you are a completionist who wants to unlock every possible journal entry!
Teaser: yes, there will be a long-range bomber in the full game!
Neutronic balls decay over time
Another major chance concern neutronic balls. I got feedback that they felt too easy because they can attack monoliths from any range. However, this is the second main offensive technology and I wanted it to be a bit more difficult than the first one (i.e. the neutronic bombers). It was not so I had to make a change. I decided to make the damage power of neutronic balls decay over time until a minimum cap. The summoners remain usable from any range, but they are a lot more efficient if you place them close to monoliths. Also, it incentivizes to keep their path clear, because enemies blocking the balls will waste travel time and thus damage power. Please give the demo a shot and tell me if you enjoy these changes!
Also, I fixed the pathfinding of the balls that was still a bit akward at times. In particular, balls will now try to change their path if you suddenly place a building on their way. They won't get stuck anymore. The piece of code to allow that has actually been there the whole time... but one line was missing to activate it, oops. At least it was really quick to fix once I realized it! I guess any programmer can relate to that 😉
What is next?
The Steam Next Fest, of course! It starts on Monday and will be a great event. Right now, I'm focused on promotion and reaching out to content creators to make sure the game gets as much visibility as possible during the festival. I hope many new players will give the demo a shot and share their feedback on the Steam forums. Also, I will be livestreaming the game on Steam on Saturday and Sunday.
See you very soon! -Radiant Sloth
Full changelog (Demo v0.7h)
Added
Journal entries for buildings, relics and weapons now show their requirements and successors in the internal technology tree
Changed
Neutronic balls (from Neutronic summoners) now lose some damage power over time, until a minimum cap. They remain usable from any distance but will be a lot less efficient when far from monoltihs
Increased probability of technologies never seen yet (i.e. locked in the journal) to appear in the choices
Replaced a building choice by a relic choice in the level-ups
Changed stats of some relics (energy tanks, reinforced walls, etc) to be (hopefully) more balanced
Reduced sightly the damage and health scaling of enemies
Tweaked Lush Archipelago map generation to have more ore
Increased the distance at which monoliths get discovered and showed on the minimap
Fixed
Fixed building sight panel not updating the health immediately when repairing
Fixed journal entries of many turrets showing the wrong target ("Monoliths" instead of "Minions")
Fixed force field effect being always active instead of being triggered by a relic
Fixed neutronic bomber not showing a warning message when no more monolith in range
Fixed tech reroll button having no uses left when it should have
The date and time for the scheduled maintenance on 10/10 (Tue) (PDT) will be changed to the following time:
10/10 (Tue) 4:00 PM (PDT) to 10/11 (Wed) 1:00 AM (PDT)
*Please do not connect to the game servers until the end of maintenance is announced.
*Please note that the availability of Weekly Tasks and Limited-time Tasks that end at 8:00 PM (PDT) on the day of scheduled maintenance will end at the start of scheduled maintenance.
*Please note that if the 24 hour period after a Character Deletion Request passes during the maintenance, the character will be deleted.
*Characters that have completed the “Application for Ship Transfer During Scheduled Maintenance” will be transferred. AC will not be consumed until the Ship Transfer is complete.
*Ship Transfer applications will be processed according to the order in which they were submitted. However, some Ship Transfers may be postponed until the next Scheduled Maintenance if the number of submitted applications is excessive.
*If you do not have enough AC at the beginning of the Scheduled Maintenance, Ship Transfer will not occur, even if you purchase AC during the Scheduled Maintenance.
*For more details on Ship Transfers, such as the requirements, please check here.
Please note that the time maintenance is scheduled to end may change depending on the circumstances.
1. Under Mods > Maps in the wrist menu you can now launch public and private instances. Be advised that this is a preview feature and you might run into some issues. Known problems include, host migration is currently still in development so if you are host and leave server the other players will get sent to the main menu. Please look at the download sizes before choosing to start or join a map. Have fun!
2. Addressed issue that was causing art in the gallery to not properly display.
3. Added sound occlusion to all maps to enhance PVP weapons effects.
We're happy to announce that Resonite just went live on Steam and is available to everyone! This is it, we're live! \o/
On behalf of the entire team, I would like to thank all of your for your generous support. Without your help, this new platform would not be possible.
We're excited for everyone to dig into the new platform and start exploring and building with the tools and our novel and powerful visual programming language ProtoFlux to bring unprecedented level of interactivity to the virtual worlds, avatars and items.
It has been a long road getting to this point, but there's even longer one ahead of us, as we'll keep growing and expanding the platform with you, our community.
There is much more to come in the upcoming days and weeks, from updates, to big future plans.
We are working on the next batch of mermaid content for winter updates, and the other girls also plan to have more content.
DragonGirl
Most of DragonGirl’s massage animations have completed, now we’re currently writing story and designing positions for her. The key point is to make her actions unique compared to the common human, considering she has four arms.
Scene Design
Many players have asked why we design buildings and cities.This is so that we can expand the story outward in the future, rather than confining it to just one small room.
3D Model
Concept Art
Once again, thank you all for your support. If everything goes as planned, the next big update will arrive in the winter.
As puzzle lovers, we love to think, but right now, we want to share what we’ve been feeling since you embarked on this journey with us and played Islands of Insight for the first time.
We are so thankful for the thousands and thousands of Seekers who came into the islands to solve our mysterious and handcrafted puzzles and explore a sample of our sublime landscapes.
Over the course of the two-week playtest, you spent over 58 thousand hours solving and exploring, completed over 35 thousand enclaves, and, perhaps most incredibly, solved over 6.4 million puzzles.
This kind of response is beyond what we expected – so, thank you for the playing the game, for sharing your excitement, for making fan art, and for giving feedback and answering surveys. We appreciate you.
We’re thrilled to have finally gotten the chance to put the game in your hands, and overjoyed to see how positively it has resonated with so many of you.
And, we’re also excited to show you what’s coming next… maybe sooner than you might expect. Until then,