Dream Engines: Nomad Cities
Overseer's survival guide & Short-term plans
A few days ago we released Dream Engines: Nomad Cities to the public, and ever since we've been scouring the web, Steam, and Discord listening to all you have to say. We're learning about the stuff that you love, and also the things that you are not happy with. We were very excited to see how well the game was received with Streamers and Youtube content creators, and we learn a lot from watching them play as well.
In the next few days, we'll continue collecting all this feedback and making plans. We already uploaded two small updates, fixing some bugs, some tweaks to difficulty and adding some controls that were missing like rotating the camera with the keyboard. In a couple weeks we plan to release a larger update focusing mainly on what we're learning from the early access release. After that we'll continue working on content updates and our roadmap.
If you are enjoying the game so far, please consider leaving a review on Steam, and upvote existing reviews that you find useful (or downvote those you do not) — this only takes a few minutes and really helps new players learn about our game.
In addition, we published an Overseer's Survival Guide, this in-depth guide created by our trusted colleagues at Jaleo PR (and reviewed by us), teaches the basic mechanics and strategies in much more detail than the tutorial and in-game texts. Check it out.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2547576348
Thank you all for your support and feedback. We'll keep you posted again soon.
The Suncrash team
Update: Latest patches:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1076750/view/3007826277553401927
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1076750/view/5631172529439983607
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1076750/view/5631172529425301331
Early Access minor patches 1 & 2
- The "Still Learning" difficulty now has ironman off by default.
- Minor tweaks to some "Forgiving" difficulty settings making them a tiny bit easier.
- Preset difficulty levels now have color codes.
- Added the ability to bind a keyboard key to rotate the camera in addition to the middle mouse button.
- Added missing texts for zoom in and out key binding.
Patch 2:
- Fixed a bug that would break the game if a building was highlighted by hovering it in management mode at the time that it was destroyed by enemies.
- Unocking the Dream Weavers now requires 3000 flux as noted instead of 3001.
- Fixed texts and typos.
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities available NOW!
It's been more than three years since we started working on the idea of "what if the land was so full of monsters that the only way to survive was building cities that can fly?". And now, we're finally ready to release Dream Engines: Nomad Cities into early access!
Get it now at a 10% launch discount!
This is not the end of our journey, but it is a major milestone and a very exciting time for us. We hope you like what you see, and If you want to know more about the state of the game and our plans for the future, check out our FAQ and Roadmap.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1076750/announcements/detail/3006697839967064647
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1076750/announcements/detail/3006697839982165752
We hope you enjoy Dream Engines, and we are looking forward to hearing your feedback as we work together to make it even better.
Early Access Roadmap
Please keep in mind that the development is flexible, and this roadmap may change. These are only the main changes we are planning, there are many more that do not appear in the roadmap.
If you have any questions, come join us on Discord, and don't forget to read the FAQ, perhaps your question has already been answered.
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities Frequently Asked Questions
We took some time to review all the questions you've asked about this game over the months since we announced it, and we've compiled a list of common questions and answers for you. With this, you should have a better understanding about what the game is like and what our plans are for the future.
In the next few days we'll also publish our Roadmap for the Early Access phase. If you have any more questions, please join our Discord server
Also, take a look at our roadmap:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1076750/announcements/detail/3006697839982165752
Frequently Asked Questions
What is this game exactly? What other games is it like?
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities is a survival city-building game with a player-controlled avatar. It combines base-building and automation mechanics from games like Factorio, survival base-defense elements from games like They are Billions, and action-RPG style exploration and combat. All this with our own unique twist of entire cities lifting into the air and flying.
Does having a player avatar make this an action game?
It is primarily a city building and management game. However, due to the unique twist of having your city fly from area to area, there is also plenty of exploration, searching for resources, and action-RPG style fighting to be done. The fighting is fairly simple and more reliant on equipment than skill in action games, but it's still an integral part of the game.
How similar is this to Factorio and They are Billions?
There are similarities to both, but it's also very different. Resource production does use automation and transport-line mechanics similar to Factorio, but their level of complexity is lower. It's also similar to They are Billions in that you have to build defenses and keep your city safe, but it's not an RTS game, you don't have free camera and you don't control any units. You defend your city using Tiny, your steam-bot avatar and by building defenses.
Can I play it as an RTS without the player-controlled character?
There's no way to play the game as a pure RTS. There are no units under your control, and so exploring, finding resources, and changing the camera view are all done by controlling Tiny, your steam-bot avatar.
Can you upgrade or replace Tiny?
Tiny is the only Avatar, but you can upgrade him through a skill-tree like mechanic and also craft new equipment. Making Tiny stronger as you progress is crucial for surviving in the later parts of the game.
How does the flying part work?
The main game takes place with your city landed, where you can build within it, expand it, build on the land around it, and explore your surroundings to find and exploit resources. As long as the city is landed, enemies will raid it in increasing numbers. Eventually, their numbers will be more than you can handle, at which point you will have no choice but to fly away, or risk being destroyed.
Once you fly away, you will choose a new area to land in, each one procedurally generated, where you will begin anew but everything you built within the city before will still be with you, as well as all your construction materials, research progress, equipment, and other upgrades. The game spans over many landing zones until you either manage to win the game by building and fully charging a Nullifier Shield, or your city is destroyed.
Are all the maps the same?
Not at all. Each landing zone is procedurally generated, and there are several different biomes that affect the visual appearance, the available resources, and other gameplay elements. In addition, each one of the landing zones that you can choose from has different random traits that can have a variety of effects on your next landing, and which can significantly affect your strategy for the next map. All these make each playthrough a whole different challenge.
Can I just relax and play creatively?
We have many difficulty customization options, including modes that completely disable raids on your city or the world difficulty increasing over time - which allows for more relaxed and creative gameplay. Keep in mind, however, that the game was primarily designed as a survival experience.
How long does the game take?
A single playthrough can take upwards of ten hours before you can beat the game with the content available in the Early Access launch, and that is assuming you already know what you're doing. Difficulty customization and unlocking additional tribes to play with allow for even more replay value, and more content will be added throughout the early access.
Are you planning any other game modes?
Other than the main game mode which consists of multiple landing zones and advancing gameplay where you keep all your progress when you fly from area to area, you can also play in Sandbox mode by tweaking some difficulty settings. You can also unlock new tribes to play with, that differ from one another in ways that can significantly change your strategy. Other than that we are not currently planning any other game modes.
The game world sounds interesting. Will we be able to learn more about it in the game?
We plan to add more story and lore elements during the early access phase. At the moment it's very basic.
What kind of cool things can we find when exploring the area around the city?
Other than lots of Dream Plagues trying to devour you and your city, you'll find resource nodes to exploit, debris that you can scavenge, and ancient ruins that you can interact with to craft unique equipment or scavenge for even more loot.
More points of interest will be added during the Early Access phase.
Will there be modding?
We plan to add modding support later down the road.
Will there be multiplayer?
At the moment we are focusing on the single-player experience. We may consider adding co-op multiplayer in the future.
What languages does the game support?
The Early Access release supports English, German, Chinese (simplified & traditional), Japanese, Russian and French. We will consider additional languages later down the road, depending on how much interest we see from these countries (based on wishlists & sales).
What are your plans for the Early Access?
We plan to keep the game in early access for a year or two, but these plans may change. Please read the Early Access section on Steam for more information. We also plan on sharing a high level roadmap soon.
I have more questions. Where can I find out more?
Join our discord, we and others from our player community will be happy to help you out. We're also monitoring the Steam forums.
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities will be released on July 14th
Good citizens, we have an important announcement to make. Dream Engines: Nomad Cities will be released next month, on July 14th! We marked the occasion with a new Early Access trailer.
[previewyoutube="lE--8CJ5akA;full"]
It wasn't an easy journey to get us to this point, we started working on Dream Engines more than 3 years ago. We're very excited to finally be here, and hope that you are as well.
Expect more news from us in the next couple of weeks with sneak peeks into the Early Access version, a Q&A, and more info about Dream Engines and our plans for the Early Access phase.
Don't forget to Wishlist & Follow to stay up to date.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1076750/Dream_Engines_Nomad_Cities/
Alpha program is ending, getting ready for Early Access
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities' alpha program is coming to an end. Alpha 4 - The Swarms update that we recently released will be the last alpha build, and the next big update will be when we launch the game publically in Early Access. Here's a sneak peek of some of the new content.
There is still a lot for us to do before we can launch, so we don't have a final release date yet. We have some bug hunting to do, more elaborate QA, quality of life improvements, translations, and a whole lot of marketing related tasks including making a new trailer. So we'll be very busy for the next couple of months, and we'll share the release date as soon as we can.
Sign up to be the first to hear when we announce our release date!
In the meantime you can still purchase the supporter editions and get access to the latest alpha build, but we won't be adding any more keys once these run out. Alpha players, we still want to hear any feedback that you may have, we're actively working on the EA build and anything you have to say is valuable.
Thank you all so much for your support. Keep your eyes peeled for additional updates and announcements to come.
GameraGame will be Dream Engines' publishing partner for Asia
We are an experienced Chinese publisher that recently published "Dyson Sphere Program", an automation game of galactic scale that has a lot in common with Dream Engines. We are excited about this partnership and are happy to help the team at Suncrash better attend to their Asian players through our experience in localizing, publishing, and managing communities in this region.
More news about the development progress and Early Access release date will follow soon.
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities - Swarms update is live
The swarms update mainly tackled combat, balancing and performance aspects related to it. We made the combat more fast-paced and with a better flow to it, mainly through the use of weaker, faster enemies that come in much larger numbers. In this update we also added a major UX change that better separates city-management tools from combat controls, allowing us to show more information and simplify the UI for each phase.
Below are some of the main changes in this update. I hope you enjoy it, and as always I am really looking forward to getting your feedback. The full list of changes can be found below that.
Click to join the alpha
As always, I'd like to thank all our early supporters and all of you who sent us feedback. If you haven't joined our alpha yet, check out our supporters page to find out more.
We also spent several weeks since our previous update working on a demo version that was available for a limited time during the Steam Festival. It is no longer up-to-date, however, and keeping it so would consume additional resources - so the demo is no longer available.
Below is a list of the most significant changes in this update. You can see the full list of changes in this link.
Note: Since the change is so significant, saves from previous alpha versions are not supported. If you wish to continue your old games, you can still play the older version by selecting Alpha 1 or 2 from the betas tab on Steam.
Swarms - faster, better flowing combat
My original direction regarding steambot combat while exploring was to give it a feel of survival - where every shot counts and every hit hurts. But I also didn't want to put too much emphasis on quick reflexes, since this is after all primarily a strategy/building game.
The result was some kind of hybrid, where enemies attacked in medium numbers, so there was no intense 1 on 1 combat against strong bosses, but neither were they quick and simple combat encounters. We were not happy with it. I came to a realization that to create proper survival-style combat we'd have to put a lot of resources into combat alone - with many unique enemies, each with a different set of behaviors, and complex AI. This would be almost like making a whole new game, and we prefer to spend the majority of our valuable time and resources on improving the city building aspects, adding more content, and making an interesting world to explore.
So I decided to simplify the combat mechanics, make them faster, simpler, and more rewarding. The solution came in the form of swarms. The vast majority of enemies you will enounter following this update are weak enemies that can be killed with a single hit. They attack in much larger numbers, making the whole fight quicker and more action-packed. Skill is an important factor, if you manage to get yourself surrounded by tens of dream plagues you'll get hurt bad. That said, you don't need to be an expert player in order to fight well, as long as you have decent equipment on your steambot and city defenses.
Combat balancing
With the change from a few stronger enemies to swarms of hundreds of weaker ones, there was a lot of balancing that needed to be done.
Melee was pretty much worthless because you could only hit one enemy at a time, at short range, while being surrounded by tens of them. So we made all melee attacks into area attacks that could hit multiple enemies. This introduced a problem with the special melee weapons that had splash damage - they became unecessary if all melee attacks dealed damage to a whole area.
Heavy crossbows were totally useless, with a very slow firing rate that would hit a single target and deal 10x more damage than was necessary to kill it. So we made them shoot explosive shots that hit several enemies for high damage. The light crossbows were better, firing 5 shots in succession, but even they were a bit too slow for the swarms, so we increased their combo to 10 shots, and slightly increased their fire rate. We also added upgrades that increase ranged attack speed even further.
We faced similar issues with turrets. These had a more interesting solution. We have 3 turrets (wood, tarbomb, and copper tiers). So the basic wooden turret now has slower firing rate but deals explosive damage that can hit several enemies, and kills the weaker ones in a single shot. The tarbomb turret has a very long range, deals even more explosive damage with double the explosion area, but fires even slower - perfect for defending a large area against weaker enemies. The copper tier turret, we gave a single-target attack, but they fire at much faster rates with much higher DPS. The high DPS makes it perfect against bosses and stronger enemies, while also efficient against swarms of weaker enemies due to its high firing rate.
Which brings me to the next issue - with hordes of weaker enemies, at some point, the numbers stop mattering. If there is a choke point that allows a limited amount of enemies to pass through, at some point your defenses with 3-4 turrets can destroy any number of enemies faster than they can pass through. Increasing the amount of enemies makes no difference. So we needed some stronger enemeis to add to the mix, which required a slightly different strategy, and allowed us to better control the difficulty curve. There are now 4 sizes of each enemy - small, regular, large and boss. small, regular, and to a lesser degree large enemies can show up in the map while exploring. Bosses only show up in higher difficulty raids, and can challenge your low-DPS area of effect towers.
This is step one, in future updates we'll add more weapons, defenses and abilities - each better suited against different enemies - which will also consist of more unique types. We'll add special bosses in the map guarding unique treasures, and other goodies to make combat more interesting.
Management mode
There's a lot going on in Dream Engines. You have a city to manage, a world to explore, enemies to fight, and a steambot to customize. Each of these requires different controls, and mixing them all together is a challenge that could get confusing for players. Most city-building games let you left-click a building to open it, but fighting and exploration requires left-click to attack. So, to make things easier and less complex, we decided to separate them.
In comes management mode. Previously, pressing space-bar opened the strategic view, which changed the camera angle and added some info and buttons on the map. Now, space-bar toggles between combat mode and management mode, and each mode behaves very differently.
In management mode, left-clicking does not trigger an attack. Instead, it can be used to open a building's interface, and lets you manage these buildings without having to move your steambot near each building you want to open. Management mode is now the only mode in which you can build, move, and demolish buildings, and we added keyboard shortcuts to select buildings and categories.
In combat mode, left and right clicking are used to attack with your Steambot's weapons. The keyboard shortcuts that would let you select buildings in management mode now let you activate quick-bar items and abilities. Re-using the same keys like this was not possible before when there was a single control scheme.
Ammunition
After a lot of thought and uncertainty whether adding ammunition to the game will make it more interesting or just add micromanagement, we decided to add it in a fairly simplified manner, another small consideration into how you fight enemies with your steambot. Ranged weapons now have an additional drawback compared to melee, in the form of using up ammunition.
At the moment there is only one ammo type used by all weapons, it is a global resource (so you don't need to deal with inventory management), and it is fairly easy to produce. It does cost some resources and Flux, so players will be a bit better off economically if they use less ranged weapons and more melee, but it's not a blocker on using ranged weapons.
In the future, we are considering different ways to expand on this - exotic weapons that are very strong but use more expensive ammo, maybe even some that use ammo which you can only find, and can't produce or craft. Another option is switching ammo for the same weapon, with different costs & beneifts.
The management/combat mode separation also freed up some screen real-estate to show currently equipped weapons & their ammo in the HUD.
Title screen & music
We have a brand new title screen, that comes with a new original music score by Alon Kaplan. This beautiful piece will serve as Dream Engines' main theme.
You can see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLkWNzpXUO0
Join the alpha
Got questions?
Remember you can see the full list of changes on our website.
If you have any questions, join our discord and chat with the team!
Dev Update and plans for the near future
It's been a crazy month for us, mainly working on a demo for the Steam Game Festival and analyzing the data and feedback. The demo was a specialized version with limited content, different balancing, and pre-generated maps, that gave players a taste of Dream Engines at a faster and more guided (less freedom) pace than the full version.
Despite the differences from the full game, we were able to learn a lot, from demo players and alpha players alike, and form a more solid plan for the future.
The first conclusion from this plan is that the game still needs some major changes before we feel we can expose it to the whole of Steam, so the Early Access release will take another couple of months. I've set the date to Q2 2021, and we're aiming for April or May.
We've also made some decisions on what we want to focus on before the early access release, and also what we won't be focusing on. These are the main topics we'll be working and improving before the release:
* Better balancing, fine tuning, and more content - especially of the economic aspects.
* Improve the flow and feel of combat, both player-controlled combat and city defense.
* Increase replay value and reduce repetitiveness, mainly through improving the exploration and making the different landing zones more different from one another in several (semi-random) ways.
* UX and quality of life, making the construction and management of the city a smoother experience (raids and horrible death aside).
We'll also continue to fix bugs, improve performance, audio, and other smaller details required for release, such as achievements, trading cards, and proper win/lose/loading screens. And, of course, any other important issues that will come up from alpha players during the remaining months before release (and after).
Stay tuned as we share more precise information of what we're doing in each of these areas. There are many exciting ideas I can't wait to try!
Click to join the alpha
In the meantime, don't forget to sign up for updates, come and chat on discord, and if you don't want to wait until the EA release, join the alpha!