Apr 4, 2024

🌵 Developer Update: Deadrock Redemption Now Available on Steam! 🌵

Deadrock Redemption - Sexydigitalgames

Howdy, partners! We're thrilled to announce that Deadrock Redemption, the highly anticipated open-world RPG from Entropy Digital Studios, is now officially available for purchase on Steam!

Get ready to saddle up and embark on an unforgettable journey through the wild, untamed frontier of Deadrock. With a fully explorable 3D world at your fingertips, every trail, town, and tumbleweed is yours to discover. Whether you're chasing down outlaws or forging alliances with fellow settlers, the choices you make will shape the destiny of this lawless land.

But that's not all, folks! Deadrock Redemption boasts thousands of lines of professionally recorded dialogue, bringing the vibrant characters and rich, mature-themed storyline to life like never before. Dive headfirst into the gritty, uncensored world of Deadrock, where danger lurks around every corner and no secret stays buried for long.

And let's not forget about the hundreds of HD animated babe animations sprinkled throughout the game. From sultry saloon dancers to fierce outlaw vixens, Deadrock Redemption is guaranteed to satisfy your thirst for adventure and, ahem, other desires.

But don't just take our word for it! Experience the thrill of Deadrock Redemption for yourself and embark on a journey unlike any other. And for a limited time only, enjoy a special launch discount of 15% off the retail price!

So what are you waiting for, partner? Grab your six-shooter, saddle up your steed, and head on over to Steam to purchase Deadrock Redemption today. The wild frontier awaits!

See you on the dusty trails of Deadrock!

The Entropy Digital Studios Team

Apr 4, 2024

Weekly Update

Final Factory - slims

Hello engineers!

Release is a mere 5 days away! In this final week, I'm focusing on bug fixes and stability. But over the past 2 weeks, I broke my content freeze rule and added a bunch of stuff (whoops!). Let's review!

Alarms!

Notifications for bad things happening in your base have been sorely lacking in the game. I've beefed them up with multiple warnings types:

Warnings for structures being damaged by attackers (no alarm sound)
Warnings for structures being destroyed (urgent alarm sounds)
Warnings for structures being damaged due to overheating (mild alarm sounds)
Warnings for when asteroids are low on resources (non intrusive alarm sound)

This should really help players see at a glance if things are going wrong, before things get out of hand.

Technology Rework

The tech tree, especially planetary science, has been reworked a bunch.

Most planetary techs have had their costs greatly increased. You could easily make due with 1 or 2 planetary research stations and not have to produce that many bots
Comet Catchers and greenhouses now require Planetary Science, and hydrocarbon and high density material techs require you research both. This should guide the player more for the organics production pipeline. Before these techs and their order made no real sense.
Planetary Science itself now requires advanced materials in addition to Ship Reprocessing

Factory Balance

There's been some items on my list for rebalancing for some time now.

Greenhouses now produce 7 organic ores, up from 6. Since the production loop requires 5, this basically doubles their effective output
T2 assembler machines all have had their craft speed buffed to 1, up from .8
Singularity Power Stations no longer cost stability, to encourage their use more, especially for ships. They also got a baseline 20kW buff. They should be a very attractive power option, despite them consuming fuel
Increased based Rocket Adapter speed to 100, up from 80

Combat Balance

Combat is tough to balance in FF. You want just the right amount of difficulty to make exploring satisfying, but not tedious. You also want just the right amount of attack strength so the entropy of enemy attacks is a real threat, but not overwhelmingly so, as players mostly just like to quietly work away building their factory.

A huge number of balance tweaks have been made to various units, see the full patch notes for details. But the gist is this:

Most friendly ships have had their attack power increased
Most enemy ships have had their hit-points cut substantially, to make them easier to clear out
Attacks have been made more difficult overall, as before they were barely even noticeable on standard mode
Camps respawn their buildings much more slowly, so they aren't respawning new structures while you're destroying them
Camps are now less dense overall, making it less tedious to clear them out as you explore

Loot

Enemies that are sent on attack to your base no longer drop loot or research. This is for 2 reasons:

It's awkward to have a bunch of items and research dropping that can not be feasibly picked up, making it feel wasteful
I want exploring to be more rewarding. The new system encourages leaving your base to farm items and research

I also reduced artifact drop rates by 20% overall. This should make the end game artifact assembler more useful. And securing one is a good challenge for later in the game.

Game Modes

I've added a bunch of new presets to the game to encourage playing the game in different ways.

Hardcore mode: Enemies are stronger and attack more (not quite as much as relentless mode though). In addition, the first planet and oracle are not explored, nor are they automatically spawned nearby like in the other modes. You'll have to do a lot more exploring to find them in this mode. Technology costs are also doubled.

Explorer mode: enemy camps do not spawn in this mode. However, they will still be guarding precious resources and points of interest. Once defeated they won't ever respawn. This definitely has a different feel from the normal mode. If you're not interested in the Factorio-style camps, and want enemies to stay dead, this is the mode for you.

User Interface

I've beefed up the user interface in various important ways:

The maximum power a station could potentially consume is now displayed on the Station Grid Panel, making it easier to plan how much power you should place
The maximum heat a station could potentially produce is now displayed on the Station Grid Panel
Adjusted the default position of Defense Platform Range indicator panel so its not hidden when you open it

Performance

A number of huge performance fixes have been made.

Enemy camps more than 3 chunks away from player structures or the player will now be deleted. This effectively means that performance related to enemy camp spawns are no longer linearly scaling with how much map the player has explored, which should be a huge performance boost for players that have explored a large part of the map. Previously every chunk you've ever explored would have camp generation logic applied to it, so every new chunk explored would cost performance. Now chunks are only considered for camp generation if they are within 3 chunks of player activity.
Production stats on large bases would pile up, causing major performance issues that scaled with your production levels. I've added a system to regularly consolidate old production stats data, so that the amount of data remains constant, greatly improving speed of tracking production stats for larger bases
Improved performance of station connections calculations so that placing large blueprints is faster (and doesn't crash the game!)

Countless bugs have also been fixed. For full patch notes, head over to the discord starting here.

Final Factory is nearly ready for EA launch. I plan on continuing to support this game with the same tenacity I've had for this last year with my great playtesting community. I cannot wait to finally share this game with the world.

See you all next week for launch!

Slims

Apr 4, 2024

Demo 2.0 available now! (Tips & Tricks)

Monster Mop Up - Teh Zok

We are excited to announce the release of Monster Mop Up’s Demo 2.0! You can get it right now on our steam page!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2451310/Monster_Mop_Up/

Also here's our brand new trailer showing off some more levels and mechanics we are so excited for you to play in the future!

What to expect - New Features

1. More Ragamuffins: Make more friends!
2. More Missions: Besides the “Lack of Teeth” there are two extra levels to Clean and Explore!
3. Unlocks added: Upgrades for your gadgets and a new room in your home are waiting for you!
4. Home: Purchase and decorate your home to make your fluffballs as comfortable as they can be!
5. Tutorial Mission: A place to learn the ropes, if this is your first time playing!

Tips & Tricks

As you already know, our mission here in the Ministry of Monster Concealment is to make sure that:
a. All Ragamuffins are safe in a cozy environment surrounded by love.
b. Humans never learn about the existence of Ragamuffins, by cleaning all evidence.

You, as a Custodian working for the Ministry, will be rewarded based on your performance on each mission so you can unlock more gadgets, upgrades and home expansions.

Here are some helpful tips so you can make the most out of the new Missions:

Cleaning

The Mop is your best friend! Keep it clean by using a bucket, and don’t forget to get fresh water from the closet!
Poops can be burned and we’ve already brought boxes so you can transport massive loads with just one trip!

Not all poops are created equal, some do have other attributes. Read here for the full roster.

Rescuing Ragamuffins

Ideally you want to catch Ragamuffins with a trap. This will pacify them (by being comfortable) so you can transport them whenever you want to the closet. Use the Right Mouse button to throw the trap instead of dropping it using the Left Mouse Button.

You can catch Ragamuffin with your gloves, but they don’t like that (they just met you, they haven’t figured out yet that you’re the rescue party), and will continually make a mess until released.

Check out the Monster Encyclopedia on your home to learn more about them!

Unlocking

You can spend the coins you gained on missions on your home, by purchasing extra rooms for you and your fluffy new roommates.

Permanent upgrades for your gadgets can both be purchased in the Ministry’s Monster Workshop (suspiciously looking like a cleaning cabinet) in your home while others can be found in missions for free.

Decorating

Make your house a proper home by purchasing any of the 150+ decorations, furniture and fun items from the Bazaar of Human Stuff conveniently bolted on the wall of your house!

You can buy the same decoration multiple times if you wish!

The only limit is your imagination, and coins earned from each mission. In case you need more coins you can always replay a mission.

Now you are equipped to tackle all the missions in the demo! You can use the closet to pick your next mission, and AFTER finishing the Custodian Exam (you got this, I believe in you), you will unlock the Lack of Teeth and Around the World!

We hope you enjoy the Monster Mop Up demo 2.0! Share your thoughts with us, and feel free to share the news with anyone that would enjoy the game!

Apr 4, 2024

Devlog 018 - The road to Early Access

shapez - Jelle

Hello everyone!

We have something a little bit different for you today! Our topic for this devlog is the future – more specifically, where we are with the development of shapez 2, what still needs to be done and how we’re looking at the Early Access release. In general, it should give you a better insight of how we work.

You could technically call it a roadmap, though all the information we’d like to be included is a bit too wordy to be put into a single fancy image. You’ll have to do with a 5-page devlog again. Sorry!

Demo reception

To get us started, let’s talk about the demo again. Two weeks ago we shared a survey with everyone. There’s a lot of very useful information here that will help us determine the sentiment on the demo now that it’s over and gives us more to work with when it comes to the eventual release of the game. However, we would like to share the results of one of the questions.

These are the ‘grades’ you all gave the shapez 2 demo. Of course, these results will be biased. We shared the demo within the Discord and the blog, so the people filling out the survey will be big fans of shapez. It’s safe to assume that the grades will be higher than they would be if we were to ask a group of players that have no prior knowledge of shapez.

However, even if we were to subtract a point of every grade for a possibly more accurate score, we’re very happy with the responses. It fills us with confidence that the demo gets such high scores, considering the flaws it had – most of which have been fixed by now.

Shapez 2 today & the road ahead

Shapez 2 and the development thereof is looking very promising. With the demo, we were able to show what we’re capable of, now that we’re more than just a single person working on a game. We want to deliver the same quality for Early Access, but aspire to go beyond.

The biggest challenge we face now is to finalize the newer mechanics. The demo mostly consisted of “proven” mechanics, things from shapez 1 that we know work well. Shapez 2 and its Early Access will of course have a lot of new mechanics as well, which require more iterations and testing to make sure they’re functional and fun.

So, let's start to look ahead. There are three phases: developing the core mechanics, making them work in the game & polishing everything up for publishing. This system is used when it comes to developing mechanics, but it also applies to the game as a whole.

Phase 1: Game Mechanics

The beating heart of any game are the mechanics and core elements. We’re still partly in this phase, developing new mechanics, reworking old mechanics and gathering feedback on everything to make sure it all feels right. It’s a lengthy process, but you can’t really continue when parts of the core game are still missing.

Currently, we’re happy with the following major mechanics:

Fluids
Wires
Crystals
Research
Building layers
Blueprint library
Pin mechanics
Space belts & tunnels
Shape types (including the reworked Windmill shape)
The majority of buildings
Colorblind mode (see below!)
...and many more smaller features and improvement to tie everything together

This is not to say that we will never change anything about these mechanics ever again, but we’re confident that they are fun and work as intended leading into Early Access.

Colorblind mode – colors have patterns to help differentiate them if two or more colors look alike

Colorblind mode – these patterns are also applied to icons in the UI

There are also some mechanics that are still in the concept or prototype phase and we’re actively gathering feedback on how they should work. Once the concept is sound, we can finalize the concept and work on implementing it all into the game. These mechanics are as followed:

Trains
Chain miners & Fluid Extractors
Infinite Research (not yet started)
MAMs (Make Anything Machines): Everything you need to make a MAM is in the game, but there currently is no incentive to make it without the Infinite Research goals.

We’re aiming to have all the major mechanics done by the end of April. When everything is functional, it’s time to move onto the next phase.

Phase 2: Production

This is the phase where you turn the mechanics from phase 1 into a completed package. It includes all the visuals, quality of life improvements, placement, optimization, sounds and music – all in the name of making shapez 2 a nice experience. Let’s go through a couple of these points.

Wires are functional, but everything is still missing its visuals

Fluid pipes were in already, but got some improved visuals

We are always improving the simulation (don’t make me link the blog again). Currently, our focus lies on the precision issues of shapes and factories that are not on your screen. This is important to make sure every shape is where it should be and the factory keeps behaving when you look away for a second. Additionally, we have lofty goals when it comes to maintaining performance for huge factories. Not all our planned improvements made it into the demo but did get implemented shortly after, so it’s already in a very good state compared to what you got to try. We didn’t stop there though: it’s our goal to allow for 500k to 1 million buildings in a save on an average PC setup. For context, shapez 1 would start stuttering at 50k on the same system.

Then there’s our planned input rework. Shapez 2 works well with its default keybinds, but things start to break down a bit when you start customizing them. It’s very easy to produce conflicts or unexpected behavior – rebind Shift at your own discretion. When it comes to physical keys, there are some issues as well. For example, on the German QWERTZ layout you have to press Ctrl+Y instead of the expected Ctrl+Z to undo an action. Outliers like these are very difficult to fix, but not impossible.

Other ongoing work includes readability improvements – like the overview mode needing improved visualizations – and a statistics panel.

How long this phase will take is hard to predict, but we’re currently planning to spend about three to four months to get this phase right. That puts us around early August!

Phase 3: Polishing

Now, the gameplay is mostly done. There’s still a lot to do though! This is where we work on the tutorial and the knowledge panels with all the necessary content. The research goals need images or videos and the game should be localized for all the major languages.

Work on UI is also always ongoing, but you can now bind blueprint and folders to your toolbar!

New animation when you deliver your first shape

This is also the moment where we do a lot of testing of all parts of the game with the help of the community and external partners. A feature may work in phase 2 but a bug could still suddenly rear its head when you’re finalizing it with an image.

At this point it’s also time to work on the trailer for the Early Access release. The visuals will be done by this point, so we can record the footage we need.

This phase should take about one or two months, putting us around September or possibly October.

Early Access

So looking at this all, it’s unrealistic we’ll be ready for Early Access before September. Our bottomline is to release the game this year still. The latter half of the year already seems quite busy when it comes to factory games, so we’ll need to find a good window of opportunity to release shapez 2 – and we would like the game to be ready for us to jump on said opportunity.

As we’ve always said, our outlook on Early Access is that while the game is technically not finished yet, it should feel and play like a complete and polished game. We don’t want you to think you’re missing out on anything by playing it early! A lot of you tried the demo and gave us incredibly valuable feedback on the game, and the same goes for Early Access. We’ll be confident in the state of the game, but there are always other perspectives and ideas to explore that could make shapez 2 even better.

If you’d like to be part of this process and support us during development, do consider supporting the game on Patreon. It helps us fund the ongoing development costs, and gives you access to bi-weekly Alpha builds with the newest features before they go into Phase 3. Your feedback on these builds will in turn help us make a better game.

Another way to support us is by simply wishlisting the game on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

That's it from us today. We hope to see you again in two weeks!

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

Join the community:

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon