Phew, Creators!
It has been a while since we last spoke! Our team has been slaving away on some exciting stuff, and we hope you’re going to love it. Before we jump in, if you’ve been enjoying the game so far and would like to give us your thoughts, please hit us with a Steam review. It helps so much! If the overall score remains positive, we loosen the shackles on our developers a tiny bit to make it more comfortable. Spread the word!
There’s been a lot of progress behind-the-scenes, so it’s a great time to run through some snazzy changes heading your way soon.
In preparation for the Space Era, we are completely reworking our planet generation algorithms (and boy, is it exciting!). We have cut loading times down by a whopping 90%, making transition times between planets take mere seconds. Performance has been bumped up, too, which allows us to make planets slightly bigger and have 2-3 times more objects on each planet. Some additions include a new mountain formation system, new object distribution logic, and more! Most importantly, we reworked Nugget pathfinding once again, which should (theoretically) eliminate any issues with Nuggets getting stuck and/or doing nothing.
They will be smarter with how they plan their routes and find a path to their objectives. It’s still under R&D, but we may soon be able to have dynamically-created bridges over water sources and even tunnels through mountains. All of this has been in heavy development for quite some time, and we’re happy to say that we’re around the 90% mark. Expect to see a new planet soon! We don’t want to spoil too much with screenshots, but take a little peek:
We will talk more about alien planets in later updates. Be ready! Sign-up here if you don't want miss it!
Now, let’s discuss what’s new in this patch
Riots
Nuggets will no longer endure great hardships in silence, especially if it has something to do with your management skills. If global Happiness drops too low, you’ll certainly hear about it. If crime shoots up, you’d better be ready to see some riots. There may be fires and some damage to local businesses. Riots can be quelled by either allowing them to run their course (which can lead to a lot of damage), arresting rioters, or, quite literally, squashing the uprising with a few powers. Exile Orators can now rile up your citizens by dramatically decreasing their Happiness, making them a bigger threat.
Stone Age Town Hall
We’ve heard you! You don’t always want to hold your Nuggets’ hands, even when they’re still young and dumb. Maybe you just want to sit back and watch the world evolve on its own. In this update, we have added the Stone Age Town Hall to allow Elders to fulfill the essential needs (food and water) of Nuggets. They will also handle auto-assignment of workers in buildings, giving you more time to perform your other godly duties.
Temple 2.0
Temples now work a bit differently, plus look a lot cooler. Every Temple (beginning in the Stone Age) comes equipped with an unsentimental grinder. Ever found yourself lacking sufficient Creator Points when a Tornado or Meteor Shower is hurtling towards your civilization? Eviscerate all of those worries, along with your least-favorite Nugget. It not only generates a chunk of Creator Points, it can also help feed your other citizens! The reviews have been excellent so far. Everyone who benefits from it has given it a 5-star rating, and there haven’t been any complaints from those who were sacrificed.
However, if that sort of thing doesn’t tickle your fancy, you could always take the benevolent path. By creating a peaceful civilization and avoiding sacrifices, Temples will start passively generating increasingly higher amounts of Creators Points. Now you can choose to be good or evil, and your civilization will change to reflect your alignment. Being evil will make buildings look a lot creepier, and Nugget Happiness may be affected. You’ll get more believers, though, whether they like it or not.
Advanced Air Defense System
Upgraded Defense Towers! This system is linked with a Satellite network to allow your civilization to monitor the local air space and defend it from extraterrestrial threats, be it meteors, debris, or uninvited guests. It also looks really, really cool.
Twitch Integration
Many of you have been wanting new ways to share your awesome gameplay moments with others and engage with viewers. The Universim now has some awesome Twitch Integration features, allowing viewers to spawn their own Nuggets (avatars) in the world by typing #CreateNugget in the chat panel.
Action Points
We have also introduced Nugget “Action Points”, which a chat member’s Nugget passively acquires over time. These points allow them to start a few different events in-game. Chat Nuggets will have special icons and the viewer’s name above their heads. Streamers can also configure the system to reward those who cheer with extra action points.
#CheckBalance
By typing #CheckBalance into the chat, you’ll be able to see how many Action Points your Avatar has.
#Commands
Typing #Commands in the chat will show you all the active and available commands for viewers to use. There’s a cooldown between each use of a command.
Certain actions were designed to challenge Streamers and some to help them.
#StartFamily
Avatar Nuggets will be able to form their own families. Typing #StartFamily in the chat will instruct your Avatar Nugget to find a partner, form a family with them, and mate.
#StartFire
An Avatar Nugget will try to start a fire in the streamer’s city. Streamers can deal with these misbehaving Nuggets by sending police to arrest them (they can be released later). Alternatively, this could be the perfect opportunity for streamers to test those fancy new grinder systems on Temples.
#Suicide
If you no longer have the desire to be a part of the mess unfolding within the streamer’s city, you can quit the game peacefully.
#Steal
Your Nugget will try to steal from the streamer’s resource stockpile. Avatar Nuggets will receive additional Action Points after bold actions like this.
Public Events Voting
Instead of the system automatically deciding which disaster to unleash on an unsuspecting city, viewers will be able to vote. Periodically, a voting panel will appear that everyone in chat can participate in. This panel contains 3 random items, and the most-voted option will be activated. These can be useful for streamers (bonus Creator Points) or… unhelpful, like summoning an evil UFO.
The Universim’s Twitch Integration system is highly configurable, and streamers can enable, disable, rename, and modify the Action Point cost of any command. The streamer can also control the items that appear in the voting panel, as well as how frequently the voting panel appears.
This is the initial release of the system, so expect more awesome stuff to come (and maybe a few bugs). Help us spread the word! Contact your favorite streamers to test it out. Let them know they can reach out to us via Twitter (http://twitter.com/crytivo) if they would like to request a free review copy of The Universim. You can help us make this feature even better by reporting bugs or sharing your ideas with our dev team on our Official Discord channel here: https://discord.gg/eReCRFZ.
If the system becomes popular enough, we’re planning to extend it, giving you the tools to track your Avatar’s actions. You’ll be able to form your own Exile Villages, with the option to declare war on or form a coalition with streamers. Avatars can also potentially participate in democratic societies formed by other Avatar Nuggets, choose leaders, and much more. We think it’s a great feature, but we’d like to hear your thoughts! Let us know in the comments!
Building Upgrades
Oil Jack
Stone Age Town Hall
Modern Age Town Hall
Forecast Tower
Archive
Police Station
Engineering Hut
Defense Tower
Evo Tower
Space Construction Center (WIP)
Fiber Factory
Big Ben
Hair Salon
Candy Shop Upgrade
Stone Age Temple
Modern Temple
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where you couldn’t drag the research screen while clicking on a perk
- Fixed a bug when dropping Nuggets onto Cemeteries would break the game
- Fixed a bug where buildings could be built on top of meteors
- Fixed a bug where sometimes Creator Powers would cast twice for each click
- Fixed a bug where load button in the escape menu would glow during the transition between game and escape menu
- Fixed a bug where houses were not being upgraded
- Fixed an issue with modern scaffolding
- Fixed a bug that prevented the airport perk from unlocking
- Fixed a bug when the object would be dropped if it was held while the player was dragging the planet
- Fixed a bug where tabs beyond 100 in the Nugget panel wouldn’t render correctly
- Fixed a bug where refinery building progress bars displayed work progress incorrectly
- Fixed a bug where you could drag the planet while in the escape menu.
- Fixed a bug where colliding with an object would trigger Camera break effect but if you continued to drag it would cause your camera to weirdly flicker
- Fixed Rejuvenate creator power that in some cases it would not restore the building health
- Fixed an issue with the nugget clothing textures. Certain clothes were not appearing correctly on the nuggets
- Fixed a bug where starting a fire on top of a construction site could cause the game to crash
- Fixed the issue where ground snow color would not match the snow color on the buildings
- Fixed an issue where assigned icon to the nugget would stay after nugget is exiled
- Fixed an issue where Medieval hunters would not utilize guns after the researched perk
- Fixed a bug where some sounds wouldn’t be affected by audio settings
General balance changes / Improvements
- The planet can now be dragged from anywhere on the screen
- Pause menu animations sped up
- Exile Orators now greatly reduce Happiness
- Nuggets now put on criminal clothing before committing a crime. This allows for vigilant creators to intervene and prevent criminal actions before they occur.
- Creator points per sacrifice were increased based on the Evil / Love Level.
Evil Side
Low Evil Level previously awarded player with 25 creator points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 50 creator points.
Moderate Evil Level previously awarded player with 35 points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 75 points.
High Evil Level previously awarded player with 50 points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 100 points.
Love Side
Low Love Level previously awarded player with 25 creator points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 50 creator points.
Moderate Love Level Previously awarded player with 20 creator points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 35 creatore points
High Love Level Previously awarded player with 15 creator points per nugget sacrifice and now it awards with 30 creatore points.
High Love Level Previously previously generated 0.15 creator points per second. Now it generates 0.25 creator points per second.
- Medieval Forecast tower health was increased from 1000 -> 5000.
- Medieval Forecast tower water consumption was increased from 5 -> 10
- Defense tower received two additional parameters: Hit chance and reloading speed.
- Certain perks in research graph got rearranged in order to accommodate new perk additions.
Art
- Big Ben model.
- Stone Age Temple, light and dark
- Modern Age Temple, light and dark
- Stone Age Town Hall
- 3D models for resources, fiber and carbon
- Modular Satellites along with Defense, Discovery, and Communication features
- Modular rocket
- Rocket Hangar building
- Rocket Launcher
- Nugget Riot animations
- Nugget Rioters clothing and accessories
UI Design
- Rocket Launcher Building Panel
- Rockets editor screen
- Voting panel implementation
- Temple UI updated to contain 8 Nuggets
- UI resources - fiber and carbon
- Construction menu renders for all new buildings
- Nugget panel now supports over 100 tabs
We wanted to release the Space Construction Center (Satellites, Rovers, rockets) today, as we’ve been working really hard on it, but it’s unfortunately not quite ready for prime time yet. You’ll be able to assemble satellites for defense, communication with aliens, and exploring distant planets before colonizing them. For now, you can still construct this massive building to show off, but it won’t have any functionality. In time, it’ll reveal its secrets.
Sayri Adventure
We're happy to announce a new addition to the Crytivo family! Sayri, a colorful adventure for anyone to enjoy. We will have a proper email announcement soon. For now, check out this small teaser trailer. If you'd like to chat with the devs, head to their official Discord server here: https://discord.gg/wtjXfUS
New Trailer for Today Is My Birthday
Another team we're publishing also just released their latest trailer for the next big survival horror game, Today Is My Birthday. Check it out below. If you're a content creator (streamer, YouTuber, etc) and would like to cover it on your channel, reach out to us at pr@crytivo.com for a free review copy.
As always, thank you for your amazing support and messages! It’s a joy to hear from all of you. Don’t forget to leave us a review on Steam, comment below, join Discord, and follow us on Twitter for the latest updates. You can also sign up to our newsletter to keep informed and receive free games (no spam, guaranteed).
With love,
The Crytivo Crew