Craftomation 101: Programming & Craft - ElJorro
Releasing a game is pretty much like throwing a party. You hang around some decorations (set up a page on Steam), plan the entertainment (prepare the game build), maybe invite a popular DJ (that would be content makers from YouTube/Twitch/TikTok). And then, when the time is due, you open the doors, expecting to see a hyped crowd.
What could be your worst nightmare at that moment? To see no one there, that's what. Were we afraid of it? You bet. But everything turned out to be alright!
Let's be honest: Craftomation 101 is a different kind of a game. We're no Fortnite, nor are we The Elder Scrolls VI (if you're reading this, Mr. Howard, please consider sharing more details about that game!). It's a game about programming. It's an Early Access title, too, meaning that only a small portion of the game would be available by the time we'd start selling it for money. We did see a decent amount of wishlists, but that's no guarantee that a game will spark interest in the players’ hearts.
With that in mind, we were prepared for the worst: that metaphorical empty space instead of a bunch of people with sparkles in their eyes and money in their hands. Fortunately, we were wrong. Even more so: despite all the bugs and bumps in game design, our players turned out to be very forgiving. We received a bunch of reviews in which people would meticulously list all the flaws in Craftomation 101, and still leave a thumbs-up review.
What is there to say? Thank you. Thank you! Thank you!!! Now we know that something clicked, and we're on the right track.
It also means that now we simply have to push this game to v1.0 release. It's probably gonna take some time, because Craftomation 101 is being developed by a new team at Luden.io, and it's a very small bunch of 3 people (with some occasional help from our very supportive peers).
It is also our first released project made in the wonderful Defold engine, and some bugs we're facing are quite unique, too! For example, we received a bunch of crash reports, that we struggled hard with, but weren't able to trace back for some time. The game would just crash upon launch and it seemed that nothing could fix it.
Turned out, that Defold has a feature of checking inputs on a user's PC, looking for connected controllers. If a user had some unexpected hardware connected - say, a joystick for flight simulators - the engine would crash: apparently, this is an issue for every game on Defold out there.
Luckily, Defold's team is very supportive and responsive, and this bug will hopefully fixed soon.
A side story: why Defold?
We meant to tell this story in the previous edition of these diaries, but it was so heavy on pretty pictures, that we decided to save it for later. So here it is now!
It took us almost 3 years to bring Craftomation 101 to Early Access release, and one of the big reasons behind that is that originally it was meant to be a whole different game. You see, in 2019-2021 our team was experimenting in the hope of developing a game that would prove beneficial for players with autism spectrum disorder. One of the problems that people with ASD often struggle with, is recognizing and dealing with emotions. At some point, we came up with the concept of a deck-building game, in which the players would need to defeat enemies by understanding their feelings and using words instead of swords and bullets. You can still play the prototype on our itch.io page.
Naturally, we also had to mind the fact, that neurodiverse children study in schools, and schools often have Chromebooks, or similar devices, which only allowed to launch apps in a browser. That's how we stumbled upon Defold, which would easily allow us to have a browser-based version, while still being able to release a good old installable version. As for the game for autistic children… turned out that those of them who play games usually don't need specially tailored projects, they play pretty much the same video games as their neurotypical friends. The jokes were on us, apparently, but the idea of making a game about emotions lived on - at least, for some time.
The game that would later become Craftomation 101 featured quite different robots: they would emotionally burn out, as they were drowning in more and more work. You can also play it, still! We've had great fun making it, but here's another thing that's magical about video games: sometimes you find out that the idea you thought would be fun to play doesn't turn out so well, but something completely different turns out to be way more exciting! For us, it was experimenting with combining resources first and automating robots to do it, second.
Which brings us back to the present day!
What's next?
At the moment, we're quite busy eradicating some nasty bugs that were discovered upon releasing the game - hang in there, folks, and thank you for your patience!
As for flaws in the design that our players mentioned in their feedback elevated our spirits, surprisingly perhaps, because, once again, the collective unconscious of our audience perfectly matched our plans for the future of Craftomation 101!
For example, many, many players want some sort of a meta interface for managing all the robots. It only makes sense in the late parts of the game, when there are so many processes to manage! We even wanted to add it before the Early Access release, but time is merciless, and the release date was set in stone. Which means, that this is what we will be working on in the next couple of months.
The next big feature… Well, this one we didn't foresee, although it matches the game's spirit perfectly: we'll add procedurally generated maps to the game! More replayability, more challenge for the brain - what can possibly go wrong? Time and playtesting will show, we guess.
Balancing the current map will be another thing for us to meditate on. We thought that we got rid of the silly strategy of building a hell load of Bonfires to unlock the map within a couple of hours before release. It turned out that some players would still refer to it, so we will probably add additional obstacles to prevent this in the future. Or maybe come up with something completely different! And remember: if you want to suggest your own solution, or simply have a chat, you're always welcome to our Discord server!
We hope that the aforementioned features will fix a big part of the issues that the players are complaining about now. And after that, we will be able to focus on adding more programming-related content. More diverse variables. Properly working counters. Other smart sounding stuff! Oh, this is going to be so much fun!
See you in a month, with more exciting news about Craftomation 101!
If you want to receive regular updates about Craftomation 101 (and our other games) development, consider joining our mailing list on Substack!
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