Next in our Dev Diary series is here, and this time it's about Environment system, beautifications and how to make the best out of it, with least resources.
First of all - what is the Environment system? Well, Environment is one of the categories that makes the broader Happiness score of your citizens. In the early game, your entire population will be happy with only the bare necessities - food, fuel and a place to live in the pressurized domes. As your colony grows and expands, people will start demanding more from life. And that's where the Happiness categories come in. There are numerous categories here: safety, religion, education, environment... Each category has its own points and different mechanics of how to increase these points.
In today's Dev Diary we're talking specifically about Environment points, since it has arguably the most complex calculation. But it's really pretty simple once you get the general idea.
Environment includes everything that impacts your dome lifestyle: what amenities it offers, how appealing it is to spend time in. Remember that people didn't just choose to go live underwater, they were forced to. And now, they will expect you to offer them a lifestyle as similar to their previous life on the Earth's surface as possible.
How do you do that? Through the beautification building panel. The availability of various beautifications will increase as you unlock them through the research tree. And each beautification object (fountains, trees, plants, monuments, benches, street lamps, parks etc...) awards a certain number of environment points. Not all beautifications award the same number of points, and even the same beautification object can yield different amount of points depending on where and how it is placed.
This means that you can't just unlock the simplest beautification object and stamp dozens of them in one place to gather a bunch of needed points. You need to combine them, plan how to use them and where exactly to place them. In essence, you need to have an idea of how you want your domes organized, not just randomly placing beautifications around. Each object grants some points, but the exact amount depends on proximity of some other beautification object. When placing them, a highlighted number will be shown of how many points that object will give at a specific location. So, feel free to play around with it a bit before deciding.
Note that, in some cases, if placed in a completely meaningless way, beautifications can even yield negative points and decrease the overall Environment standing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twyaqDdUjbg
In our Diary video, you'll see how this calculation works and how you can maximize the Environment score in any given situation.
Well, that's it for today, hope this is helpful! Until next one!
Dev Diary: Pressurized Domes and some tricks for managing them
Greetings,
It's time for another quick video Dev diary from us. Today we'll explain a little bit more about the second building layer in Aquatico - the Dome section.
In general, your underwater city will consist of two separate and different layers: the sea floor level for mostly industrial production and pipeline infrastructure layout, and the upper Domes level on top of the first one.
The main difference between them is that "ground" level is exposed to the environment directly, meaning all the work done here must be performed by either mechanical drones, or by people wearing underwater "walker" suits. Domes, on the other side, are fully pressurized with their own micro environment, meaning inside them your people can live unhindered, with no life support suits. Basically, in Dome section citizens can live very similar to the way they used to live in any surface city before the catastrophe that drove them into the oceans.
In Domes, you also don't need to set up any pipelines (base pillar of each dome is already connected to the pipeline on the ground level), and here you'll do most of the work to make a good and cozy life for your people - build houses, trade companies, cinemas, restaurants, bars, schools, make parks, plant trees etc...
Note that in the early stages of the game, your Domes will be used mainly for simple housing, all other features of Domes will come in play more and more as you progress. When the population reaches higher numbers and your city becomes more advanced, people will require better living conditions and more amenities. They will also desire a better looking environment to live in, so you'll have plenty of tasks to perform in Domes.
Through research and development, you'll eventually get access to three different sizes of Domes, and at one point you'll essentially have an entire city on top of a city.
Of course, once you expand both layers of your colony, you'll also have an option to build and connect cable cars between Domes. This transport system allows your people to cross between Domes without the need to descend to the sea floor level, equip underwater suits and head to another dome. There is literally no chance you can build everything necessary in a single dome, so this feature greatly simplifies everything.
Some more details on all of this you can check in our dev video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnw4Gp5-o1c&t=23s
Until next time, happy holidays and all the best!
Dev Diary: Food system + what we did this week
Hello everybody,
As we did last week, today we'll post another short dev video explaining, this time, some details on food requirements, potential challenges and best ways of handling it. Quick update on the general development progress (I know many of you are curious) will be below.
Food production in Aquatico is among the few things that are existentially important for your colony and your citizens. Being underwater, they will initially rely on specific nutritional resources found on the sea floor, but as time goes on you will secure ways to produce more and more different types of food, including some typical for conditions on the surface of the planet.
In general, there are three things you'll have to manage regarding food, and that goes for the entire game:
Food quantity
Food variety
Securing all food tiers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AI3BBeC01M
In early game, sheer quantity will be sufficient. Your people aren't demanding too much, so simple gathering buildings should do the trick and get them whatever is necessary for surviving.
In mid game, your people will start seeking more different types of food resources, but still from the same food tier (call it food complexity or "fanciness"). That is indicated by "food variety" info at the end of each food tier datasheet. In this stage you'll have to start producing different types of food resources yourself. Open access to more advanced food productions and buildings by researching various tech related to farms and mariculture.
In late game, your people will, for happiness and health reasons, require multiple different food types from all food tiers, so expect to already have tuna cages, greenhouses and buildings for manufacturing specific highly advanced food types (lobsters, sushi etc...)
Demands from people will increase gradually, as you advance through the tech tree and as your population grows. Basic food amount must be met in order to sustain your colony. Later, once you start getting notifications for the lack of food diversity, happiness will start to decrease, but you'll have plenty of time to set up the needed production, or simply buy the missing resources via trade.
Development update: Yes, we're still on track for the stated release date. This week we've been working mostly on implementing all remaining social points mechanisms (religion, safety etc...), and giving them early balancing. We've also been adding "smart tips", a helper tips for players throughout the game that open as you reach certain stages of development. Next round of optimizations is also underway with optimizing more buildings, pathfinding, level of details and tweaks to processes that present the greatest loads to hardware elements.
Last part of this week's effort was most fun - shooting at sharks and other stuff. It's not perfect yet, but made us a little bit happier already.
That's all for today, stay dry and see you next week!
Dev Diary: Population + quick progress report
Salutations future underwater governors!
Today, we just felt like reaching out and sharing some news from behind the scenes. As you're probably well aware, we're fast approaching the final weeks of development, a crucial month will soon begin, and the pace in general is seriously increasing. And since we're deep in a million things to prepare for release, we feel maybe we're too quiet. The paradox is that the reality is completely the opposite, there are so much things happening every day now, you wouldn't believe it!
But, I'm getting side tracked here, back to the topic :) . First of all, since Aquatico release is coming closer, and the game is getting bigger and bigger, we realized some deeper insight into the game mechanics via short videos could be very handy for many players. So, we'll start with the first one today, and offer some details & tips on how Population works, as well as some tricks to manage it more efficiently.
In the coming weeks, we'll cover more game mechanics like this, and once all of them are public, you'll be able to use them as sort of a quick tutorial guides as well.
Since these videos are recorded by one of our devs, mostly during ongoing testing sessions (hence the lack of "Hollywood level production" :) ), you'll also be able to notice certain parts of the game that weren't yet showcased. Our internal version by now contains some features that weren't in the last Playtest version and aren't part of the current demo version either.
And yes, to immediately answer some of your questions in advance: at this moment we're still on schedule for the announced release date. For the last couple of days we've been setting up defensive buildings and shooting at hostile... stuff near your underwater city. Maybe you've noticed a placeholder for these buildings, but they are now becoming operational. Can't yet go into full details, but the remaining features are now on the table being created or improved.
One more thing being done in parallel is the gradual implementation of dozens of suggestions we received during the last public betatest. It's mostly a slew of smaller corrections, tweaks, additions and modifications, but in combination they really enhance the enjoyment of the game. So, once again we thank everyone that took part in the betatest and helped us populate the lists of these improvements!
To provide the answer to another question we received multiple times: yes, the demo version of Aquatico will be updated at least once again before release. The demo version will remain limited (in playtime hours), but the intention is to have it updated to match the full release version when it arrives.
In any case, that's the quick progress update, more to come in the coming days. Check it out, and don't forget - wishlist the game and stay up-to-date with the incoming details on everything coming in January!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJXGCF4hPoE
Stay safe and watch your oxygen levels!
Aquatico demo updated once again
Hi everyone!
Just a quick heads up - after beta Playtest ended, we're back at work implementing feedback based improvements, and also finishing remaining features for full version of the game.
Meanwhile, Aquatico demo will remain available on Steam, and we're updating it today. Remember that this is still the demo of unfinished version of Aquatico. We want to update it as much as we can (because it is limited ofcourse), to be closer to our developer game version.
Some highlights are additional ingame events, opened expedition system (it might be tricky to get to it within time limit of demo, but if you're fast it is possible), numerous smaller improvements and fixes, and sizeable batch of optimizations.
Hope it will improve your experience, and we hope you'll share your feedback on either Steam or our Discord channel. Thank you in advance for helping us mold Aquatico into a really positive experience!
Have fun! Digital Reef Games
Aquatico beta Playtest is now closed
Greetings all,
Aquatico beta Playtest weekend is now finished. Our email and Discord is packed full of fantastic feedback, impressions and suggestions, THANK YOU for that!
We really appreciate every minute of everyone taking part in this weekend's test. Amount of feedback and data gathered is awesome, an that will be the foundation of next development steps.
We'll now take a few days to go through and analyze every single report, every file received and every suggestion written, then draft the plan for incoming steps. We already know what's still missing from the game, but feedback we received this weekend will be the cornerstone of making roadmap for lists of priorities, as well as additional improvements players highlighted as needed.
Playtest is finished, but updated demo version of Aquatico will remain available on Steam.
As for us - we'll be embarking on another, highly intense development run, this time to finish and unlock all remaining game features, improve on all details mentioned in beta Playtest, and prepare for the big day in January!
Until then, stay well! Digital Reef Games
Aquatico beta Playtest weekend, day 2
Hello,
It's been a great first day of beta Playtest, and we thank everyone already trying out the game and sending feedback to us!
As we did with earlier alpha Playtest event, we'll remain present and active throughout entire weekend, looking for your reactions, and also ready to intervene in case any technical problems appear. Our task is to make your weekend fun go as smooth as possible.
Remember that this Playtest will conclude after this weekend is over. We'll keep registrations open for the entire time of the test and allow more players in gradually.
Regarding playsessions themselves - don't forget there are 2 available scenarios this time - starting a completely new game from scratch and also starting from premade save file that's already in more advanced stage of the game.
Once again big thanks to all participants! You're helping us improve Aquatico big time!
Enjoy!
Digital Reef Games
Aquatico beta Playtest weekend started!
Hello everyone!
As announced earlier, we've just started our Aquatico beta Playtest weekend! Similar to the earlier alpha Playtest, the main goal is to gather feedback and your reactions to the current state of game. The version available today is quite different than previous alpha version, so we're very excited to see what all of you think.
The main differences include a lot of changes/tweaks/improvements to existing features (result of player feedback from the alpha Playtest), revamping of balancing variables, a number of optimization related modifications, plus the addition of many new features unavailable in earlier versions.
We'd like to reiterate that this beta Playtest still doesn't represent a finished or feature complete game. Aquatico is still a work in progress, but we feel there are big enough changes that require another round of feedback from the players.
Many of you are probably already familiar with how this event works, so let's just put a reminder on some basics:
All players already registered for the previous alpha Playtest, will be automatically registered for the beta Playtest, so if you're interested you'll be able to access and test the new game version
New registrations will remain opened throughout the duration of the Playtest
Playtest will conclude at the end of this weekend
We ask the participants to send us their feedback and data for analysis needed for further improvements: - Your AquaticoLog.txt (created anew on each game start, located in game folder) - Your save game file (.sgs file from Saves subfolder of game installation folder) - Your dxdiag.txt report (create it by running „dxdiag.exe“ from Windows command line) - Email for this purpose is alphatest@overseer-publishing.com
Please feel free to send us these files and your feedback regardless if you experienced some technical problem or not. Every bit of information will be useful!
You're also welcome to join our Discord for more direct communication with our awesome members, or post your remarks directly on Steam forums.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Each individual game session will be limited to 10 hours, but this time you'll also have access to 2 different scenarios: starting a completely new game, or starting from a premade save file that is already some years later into the game. The purpose here is to give you all a chance to take a look farther into the game, and also get some balancing data for later stages of playtime.
That's it! We hope you'll have a good time! And big thanks for everyone taking part in this test!
Digital Reef Games
Aquatico gets an official release date
Hello our dear Sea people!
Many of you have already asked about the specific release date for Aquatico, and we're finally ready to commit to an exact day! Aquatico will be released on January 19th 2023!
First of all, we'd like to apologize for the delay we had since our initial estimations. The amount of new game details suggested and adopted from earlier alphatest was a bit larger than anticipated, and we also decided to push in additional modifications for later game content. Both of these things will make the game better, but it did require some additional development time on our side. For anyone being impatient, we're sorry for making you wait a little bit longer.
Our internal testing is now showing good progress during 20+ hour long sessions and into later stages of the game, so we're now confident to share this release date. We do have a lot of more work to do, but all features in our dev version are now either working, or are already prototyped and tested for functionality, pending implementation and final testing.
And very soon the time will come to get your input again. For that reason, the beta Playtest will be conducted very soon. It should start on November 11th and last for a few days, and selected players will get access to a more advanced version of the game (with two scenarios - one with new game, and the other with limited playtime but starting from more advanced save file). More details on that soon...
Another important note: the demo version of Aquatico, released some time ago during Next Fest, will be temporarily taken down! The reason are preparations to deploy the beta Playtest version, and also update the demo at the same time. After that's done, expect the demo to reappear on the game store page again.
The next couple of months will be very dynamic for us, with relentless testing, final implementations, optimizations and preparations for release (yes, some nice game details will wait for the release version). Beta Playtest will hopefully bring us a lot of valuable data again to speed this process up, so thank you all in advance for participating!
If you wish to remain up-to-date on the release plans and be notified when the big day happens, add the game to your WISHLIST!
Again, apologies for missing the chance to get the game out as predicted, but the opportunity to finally get seriously submerged is coming on January 19th!
Thank you for understanding and start loading your submarines! Digital Reef Games
Third batch of improvements for Aquatico demo
Hello everyone,
As promised, we're continuing to update the demo version. We're mostly working on fully unlocked internal version, so not everything additionally done in recent days can be added to demo version which is more limited, but still, we'll keep including whatever can be applied to demo in order to keep improving your experience.
Some highlights from this update:
• Jobs bord panel is modified and upgraded • Corrected an error with autosave which caused the repeated resave of .bmp image • Trade Fee cut Directive is now functional • First pass on optimization – faster terrain drawing, foliage and objects optimizations • Fixes to several ingame panels • Added basic functionality for human classes (engineers and specialists) • Improvements to few building models, such as schools • Added few more parts of japanese localization
Hope this update will further improve the general experience. We'll continue to push forward so expect more updates in near future!
Until we drop next batch of improvements, enjoy the demo, WISHLIST the game if you still haven't, and keep having fun!
