■Update Contents ~Limited Time Event~ ・Addition of Christmas limited-time event stages (unlocked after clearing Story 3) ・Addition of a Christmas limited mascot character (available as event stage reward) ・Unlocking of a high-difficulty challenge stage after obtaining rewards
The event is scheduled to end in early January. Don't miss this chance to get the exclusive characters!
~Improvements~ ・Displaying explanations when hovering the mouse over instrument icons in talent details on the talent list and formation screen
~Other~ ・Addition and partial replacement of a public recording version to Shiranui Flare's voice ・Fixing an issue where proceeding directly to the next stage from the parade results screen sometimes skips the tutorial
The update will also be available simultaneously for the Mac version.
Small hotfix that reduces memory footprint buy about 1gig and fixes an issue that was causing some graphics settings like shadows off on the Ultra preset to make the game look strange.
Welcome to this third DevBlog of Manufactur'inc! As you probably noticed, it's already been two months since the previous one. But don't worry, there will be two in December (next one in a week!).
The subject of this third DevBlog is a cornerstone of the gameplay: resources management.
History and proof or concept
The old system
Until November, there was a proof of concept of the gameplay allowing me to work, try features, and play. Here's how it worked: it has a global resource storage - like you can find in most management/strategy games - meaning if you had a saw, it would take wood logs from global storage and produce planks to this global storage pool, without any transportation delay.
The rework
This was a good and easy proof of concept but ... not the best idea in terms of gameplay and fun. So, I decided to completely rework this part of the game during my holidays week in early November. It took a bit more than expected, because I didn't have a first working version before the end of November, and still have some nonworking edge cases at the moment I write these lines.
Why does it take so long?
It takes a long time to develop because Manufactur'inc is and will be a multiplayer and real-time game. This means when you log in to the game, it will have to recalculate what has been happening for your industry since last session. Whether it be an hour ... or a full year. So I have to introduce some shortcuts to be able to simulate these big durations as "repeating this pattern X times". Basically: it's a complex workload!
But, what is this new system?
This new system has two major differences from the previous one:
I am introducing "local" storage: each tool and each "warehouse" has its internal storage. It means we will check this storage to know if we can produce a resource (if the output slot is full or if you don't have the input material, you can't produce!).
There will also be some resource transit between equipments. When your saw needs to produce planks, it will first need to bring some wood logs from the relevant storage, wait for them to come, produce, and then extract planks from output storage to the destination.
Tests
I won't go into technical details, but as presented in the second devblog, I write automated tests for most of the game systems. This one is not different; I've been writing tons of tests for this system, including some targeted tests as well as some complete factory simulations (especially the one you will have by the end of the first tutorial!).
Okay, that's cool, but do you have visuals ?!
Yes! While most of the work is behind the scenes, I have some visuals to share, especially this GIF of the first version of game client animation representing the simulation:
And if you're curious how it evolved during time:
Conclusion
Here we are for this Devblog! Did you like this little behind-the-scenes?
If you have questions about the game, you can add a comment under this post and I'd love to talk about it, or maybe even write a future DevBlog on this subject! You can also join Dysnomia's discord so we can talk about this!
- Fixed Super Settler and Maxed out achievements not rewarded in situations where the character has multiple traits
If you previously already have a settler that satisfies the achievement condition, the game should grant the achievement when reloading the savefile or when the character re-equips equipment.
