Another day, another build. This time, a bit of content!
In spellcasting tutorial, you can no longer cast spells if you haven't figured out how to drop them to departments yet (so no empty moves on your first duel)
In factory building tutorial, you can now apply the steps first, without the game telling you to do so, and it won't break the flow
Rewrote the Railway Station islet from the Ceremonial Junction, and added a few lines about it to that adventure's conclusion
New engine! Get the Train Engine as a bribe from a certain Station Manager, and turn your spells into fire or gold to your heart's content
New outfit! Get the Jacket for helping the workers of a certain Station, and rock the Union look. You can change your outfits from a suitcase at home
A new conversation for leaving to the Ceremony without checking out the other islets first — don't miss out on your baggage!
Improved mouse-over cards for the engines, hopefully making them easier to understand and use
Adjusted the rewards screen for a few islets, so the departments you get don't clip into the islet
Spelling fixes
I'm happier with the story flow of the Ceremonial Junction now, hopefully you appreciate it as well. I'm off to my little post-release vacation, but expect the first content drop next month.
And if you have anything to suggest, praise or criticize, I'm reading every message over at my Discord. See you!
Build 73, Cooking Minigame Fixes & Futureproofing
Another build coming in, here are the patch notes:
Multiple fixes for the cooking minigame, including:
ingredients don't get stuck between rounds anymore
unreadable colors are now readable
better popups for incompatible ingredients (you can't cut seaweed!)
Made some changes to restoring islet state, it's supposed to be more error-proof now (also, the ambassador won't stand in the middle of the Ceremonial duel anymore when reloading that islet)
Playthroughs are now assigned a unique GUIDs instead of a unique index; this should help with separating playthroughs for different profiles on the same machine, or when you add a savefile someone sent you (for example, if you are a game dev debugging this game)
Added a system that checks your old saves and tries to fix them when opening a newer version for the first time. Hopefully, this will help with keeping the saves compatible going forward. There might be a minor hiccup when opening this build, this is that system at work!
Stay tuned for the upcoming content updates!
Early Access Roadmap
Hi comrades,
Thank you for all the love, time and passion you've put into my little game so far! I have big ideas for the Early Access, and here's an outline:
huge plans!
This roadmap focuses on the things I want to improve or add in the near future. Once I'm done with most of these, I'll focus on new big adventures, including Act 2 and Act 3. That doesn't mean that there will be a content drought for now: apart from the new parts, outfits and decorations, there're at least 3 more side-quests coming in the next few weeks — your Overseers’ continuous employment at the Fourth Cartel is safe with us.
So, without further ado, let's take a deep dive on different sides of the game.
Factory & Duels
The strategic part of the game requires a bit of polishing, and a lot more content as I see it. There are more departments, engines and policies that I will add in the coming weeks and months. One of the very valid criticisms I've heard is that duels feel a bit dragged out, and this is something I'd like to improve as well.
More departments, engines and cosmetics — ideally, every duel should have a unique reward
Power Rework: activated policies automatically consume power without clicking on the core
Better tooltips: explainers for quirks (Locked, Cursed, etc.), previewing policies before enabling them
More reactive lines, more factory conversations
More reactive & conniving opponents, with different personalities
Opponents' cornerstones and flavor
Adventures
I hear encouraging feedback surrounding the adventures themselves! The biggest problem here seems to be that there's not enough of them, so I better get back to work! One thing I want to improve is the factory development between adventures: for now, Fay improves her health at the hardcoded points in the story, and I want to replace it with something like a skill tree, so you can choose what upgrade is the most important for you at the moment.
Fay’s Skill Tree (select a stat to upgrade after each adventure: health, heal per isle, factory power, etc.)
More side quests involving characters from Displace Bay and No Job Slope
Infinite roguelike adventure
More coping mechanisms & contextual actions (ie, drinking when sitting at a counter in tavern)
World reactive to spellcasting (moving trees, a whirlwind of leaves, etc.)
A unique font for names of all characters
Edge Harbor
Your trusty corporate town feels a bit empty at the moment, and this is an area I want to improve a lot. I've also seen some really fun and creative homes (hello pentagram mugs! staring into the wall! plushie typing the next big novel on the typewriter!), and I want to put some work into that too, and also make it easier to share your beautiful house.
Living up the town: more inhabitants, random events, busy streets
Tavern, townhall, and more interiors
World map improvements, including better lighting, showcasing which adventures you've already visited, and highlighting what adventures you have available
Home improvements:
Stackable decorations
Changeable walls & floors
Photomode
More outfits and outfits colors
A way to obtain the departments the player missed
Better sleep animation and flow
Technical Improvements
The game runs quite stable from what I hear, and the launch went quite smoothly (as much as could be expected!) While I've already fixed a few of the most annoying bugs and spelling errors, there's still room for improvement and polish. Another technical limitation is that the game only supports 16x9 or wider screen ratios, leaving several important devices with black bars at the top and the bottom: Steam Deck, laptops (including MacBooks), and tablets (if you have one of those tablets that run Windows). It will take some time, but this is something I'm eager to work on.
Support for Steam Deck and other handhelds
Support for 16x10 and taller screen ratios
macOS version beta — this might take awhile
UI scaling — this might take awhile
Big sound design improvements
Varying level-of-detail models
Bug & spelling fixes
In Conclusion
So, for now — I have my work cut out for me! While I don't want to commit to a date prematurely, I expect the full release to happen in very early 2025 (don’t quote me on this!). I will continue to release updates all the way up to release, so please stay tuned, and thank you for your support — it means a lot to me.
Come chat with me at the Discord if you have any questions, concerns, or bug reports, or just want to follow the development a bit closer.
Build 72, Difficulty Settings
Another hotfix hot off the presses, introducing a few new game settings and fixes.
Introduced game difficulty settings, including Incoming Damage, Outbound Damage, and Healing Multiplier. Make foes a little tougher, or turn off incoming damage completely — it's your playthrough!
Added speedrunning mode from my stream into game settings, go for it! Currently, I myself am the reigning champion, my time in Ceremonial Junction is 6:06
Moved "You've completed the entirety of Early Access" message a bit farther, since people were missing that there's more side content after it, and added a quest that will help players find the side content
Made console rebindable since (~) button isn't working on certain keyboards
Fixed calibration tutorial: you won't get stuck anymore, and the game will move a department into the factory if you have none. Ideally, I want any department to work with this tutorial, but it will take some more work
Thank you to everyone who reported the bugs in the Steam Community and over at my Discord, I appreciate your feedback dearly.
STREAM: Let's build a Tavern together
Hi comrades,
I have a second stream lined up! I'm planning to make the Tavern interior on stream, and publish it in a later build for your Overseers to visit.
I will show off the tools and the engine I'm using to make this game (yes, it's Unity). Drop by to get a sneak peek of the future content, and maybe even suggest a thing or two? I'll do my best to add your idea to the game, and you will be immortalized in the credits.
The stream is this Saturday, May 11, 5pm UTC. Please, do set a reminder to get notified when the stream will start!
I also figured out how to restream to the Discord, so you can hang around there as well.
Hope to see you soon!
Build 71
Another hotfix incoming!
- Engine repair now happens overnight, and is more reliable - Player.log won't be riddled with inconsequential errors anymore, which does nothing for you, but makes debug way easier for me - There's a new islet in the Ceremonial Junction, which works better for pacing. Detain the train! - The Board will now handle the deliveries for you if you won't do them yourself. No more getting stuck with a warehouse for the entire game. - The robbers quest won't get stuck anymore if you don't decide the knights' fate - A few more story consequences at the Ceremonial Junction - Added speedrunning mode, unlockable by typing "speedrun" into console (~)
There's more content, parts and fixes coming in the very near future, so stay tuned, or come by my Discord to chat!
Build 70
Build 70 is a quick patch of some of the bugs reported in my Discord:
- Character creation screen now works correctly at 21:9 screen ratio - Adjusted colliders of certain levitating sorcerers - Sometimes, the bubble that was supposed to be above the overseer wouldn't show up, that was fixed - Fixed infinite mugs exploit — the economy of the country wouldn't handle such an influx of cheap beverage containers - Fixed rewards clipping into buildings on certain islands - And numerous spelling fixes, of course
There are more patches and updates incoming in the coming days, stay tuned!
Fay's Factory is Out Now!
Hi comrades. It is here.
I'm about to hit the release button on "Fay's Factory"! It's been a long road, and there's still much ahead, and now we are in it *together.*
Thank you.
Stop by my Discord to chat about the game, report bugs, show off your factory or your corporate house, and to follow future announcements. See you in the Hundred Kingdoms!
— egor
STREAM: Developer Speedrun
Hi comrades,
In celebration of the upcoming release and the LudoNarraCon, I will attempt a speedrun of a beloved videogame Fay's Factory. This Thursday, 9pm UTC.
The rules are:
I have to read every line of dialogue in a dramatic voice
Time only counts outside the conversations
I will do zero preparations except for making an in-game timer (will be available in a public build)
Come ask me anything or watch me trying to cheese my own game. You can set a reminder inside the Steam itself for your convenience. See you then!
Release Date & LudoNarraCon 2024
Greetings comrades, big huge news today!
The videogame product "Fay's Factory" will be released into Early Access on May 8th, 2024!
The game will be priced at $19.99 for US, with a 15% launch discount
For Early Access version, one playthrough will take around 4–6 hours
Another bit of news: "Fay's Factory" is also a part of the Official Selection of LudoNarraCon 2024! I am so honored to be featured alongside the best narrative games in the artform. The LudoNarraCon will run from May 9th to May 13th. Do check out the heavy-hitters they announced to be in the Official Selection, just to see how lucky I am to be featured in such an event!
May is shaping up to be quite a Month in my life, I'm both proud and terrified. Most of all, I'm excited for you to try out the game, see the care I put into it, roleplay the character your own way, go adventuring, build the most overpowered factory, and face all the bugs that found their way into the release build. I can't wait for all your feedback!
See you in the Hundred Kingdoms soon, Overseer. (or in my Discord!)
