Honey, I Joined A Cult – Coming to Steam Early Access in 2021
Put your funky leadership skills to the test in Honey, I Joined A Cult – arriving on Steam Early Access in 2021!
Please watch this mandatory video presentation:
[previewyoutube="4mIImUMP-3M;full"]
In Honey, I Joined A Cult, you’ll manage your very own 1970s-based cult – recruiting new followers and acolytes, designing the layout of your groovy headquarters and growing your influence to make the organisation as successful as possible.
As you progress, you’ll face challenges both inside and outside the cult, not least the leader’s ever-growing ego and an increasingly meddling media, all of which need to be kept in check in order for your cult to flourish.
Key features:
Take full control of a funky cult: Recruit cultists and followers to maintain the organisation’s smooth operation; keep them entertained and happy to grow its money and influence
Build freaky deaky bases: Build the cult from the ground up and design the layout from ‘hypno chambers’ and bathrooms to monoliths and bedrooms
Overcome groovy missions and challenges: Complete missions to unlock resources or fulfil the leader’s demands to keep their ego in check
Stick it to ‘The Man’: Overcome threats from nosey journalists, oppressive government bodies, and rival heretical cults
Get down with deities: The player’s choice of the cult’s focus of worship affects the wider tech tree, as well as the missions and unlocks available
Add Honey, I Joined A Cult to your Steam wishlist now!
We’re back with another instalment of “What Have The Devs Been Up To?!”
Over the past few weeks, we’ve updated the in-game art…
Shadows
We weren’t happy with the lack of tonal variation that previously made everything look a bit flat. So we’ve added in subtle shading around walls and added cast shadows for objects that changes with the night cycle!
Lighting
To add EVEN MORE tonal variation, we now have indoor coloured lighting for rooms! We’ve implemented an automatic system that places lighting as the base is constructed. You’ll also have the ability to manually move, delete and add lights!
Characters Turning
You may have previously noticed that characters only faced forward, which could look a bit weird in certain situations – especially when they were interacting with objects ‘behind’ them or were essentially walking backwards. Now, characters can face in four directions, which not only makes it obvious which object they are interacting with, but also makes them more interesting to watch!
In-game Sprites
We’ve redrawn nearly every sprite in the game! Some have been tweaked and others have been totally changed. We made outlines thicker and more uniform for all objects and in game characters, AND softened internal lines on objects.
Other in-game art updates to come…
We have a bunch of work we still want to do on the art of HIJAC.
Other than unifying their outline, we haven’t yet updated outdoor objects, such as trees. But we’ll be changing this in the future.
We’ve also started to experiment with making the grass look more interesting, updating the style and adding grass edging. We want this to look a bit more ‘cartoony’ and fun! We’re still playing around with the grass, so this may change of course but we want to add more variation to it if possible.
We may look to implement some more general updates in the future, giving further variation to the in-game textures. We’re experimenting with different types of noise so thing like carpet look more varied.
On top of this, we also want to add some proper door animations and we have a load more in-game sprites of objects to build too!
It’s worth noting that this art update doesn’t include any of the artwork for UI, which is being overhauled separately (in addition to general UI design).
Simon and Ed would also like to note that they are not dead, nor have they joined and subsequently been trapped in a real life cult and gone AWOL.
That’s it for this month’s update! We’ll be back next month with more development news!
Dev Log #1 - HIJAC's First Regular Monthly Update!
Ye of so much faith…
Welcome to our first regular Developer Log, from July these will be a monthly feature and you’ll be able to look forward to them on the first week of the month!
We’ve wanted to be more active in the community for a long time and to give you more insights into the game but as a two man team, development takes up nearly all of our time!
Why we’ve got a publisher
This moves into why we’ve signed up with Team17, our publisher. If you missed the announcement, you can find it here a long with some new screenshots and a slightly tweaked trailer.
Firstly, development assistance, the game has become a lot more ambitious than we originally planned! Team17 aren’t just a publisher, they’re also a developer and having gaming industry veterans on hand is going to make sure the game is the best it can be when it reaches your hands!
This includes help to improve design, UI, art and testing - all of which will make the game better.
Secondly, publicity, Team17 can get the word out about HIJAC in ways we could only dream of. As a new studio working on our first release, this is obviously a big draw!
Community Engagement
Again, we apologise for not being the best at updating the community but with Team17 assisting, we’re now going to be much more active on Steam, socials and wherever discussions come up.
Some of this future engagement is a monthly dev log, which you can expect on the first week of every month from now on. These will focus on the development, what’s happening with the studio and should give you previews of features we’re working on. There will be a chance for you all to get an early first look but also to give your feedback and help us to shape the game.!
We’re in the process of putting together an FAQ of regularly asked questions which we’ll keep updated as questions come in and we know what everyone else wants to know about HIJAC! Feel free to respond to this news post with any questions you would like answered and think should make it into this FAQ!
On this note a regular question is release date, whilst we aren’t ready to share a release date just yet, we’ll be looking to update you more on when you can generally expect the game. Please understand that the game is coming, development takes time, and we’ll keep you updated as soon as we are certain we can deliver the best possible game! 😊
We’ll have hypnotising social media content every week on our accounts, video clips, screenshots and more! You can find these here: Twitter Facebook
We’ll also be more active in these Steam Forums and will be checking back regularly to make sure we can respond to your questions and feedback!
Next Month’s Dev Log
Some of you may have noticed in the last news letter that some of the visuals in the game have already been updated! We can’t wait to share with you more of this art overhaul, which that is coming to the game and will be the focus for the next developer log!
Thank you all for gathering for this sermon of new information! Again if you have any questions you think deserve to make it into the FAQ, any feedback or are just looking forward to the next log, be sure to let us know in the comments below.!
We’ll see you in a few weeks for the first regular monthly Dev Log! 😊
Simon & Ed
Honey, I Joined a Cult Partnership Announcement
We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with Team17 to bring Honey, I Joined a Cult to PC!
Honey, I Joined a Cult puts players in charge of creating, operating, and growing a cult in the funky 1970s! Your duties range from choosing the organisation’s symbols, relics, and merchandise, to recruiting new acolytes and deciding where the toilets should be at the compound.
Be hypnotized by our partnership trailer: (Please note: art isn’t final.)
[previewyoutube="nTskvG8YwkQ;full"]
Key features
Maintain and grow cult influence: Recruit cultists and followers to maintain the organisation’s smooth operation; keep them entertained and happy to grow its money and influence.
Base building: Build the cult from the ground up and design the layout from ‘hypno chambers’ and bathrooms to monoliths and bedrooms.
Groovy missions: Complete missions to unlock resources or fulfil the leader’s demands to keep their ego in check.
Counter threats: Overcome threats from nosey journalists, oppressive government bodies, and rival heretical cults.
Cult themes: Choose the cult’s focus of worship, affecting the tech tree, missions and unlocks available.
Feast your eyes on these new screenshots!
More information coming soon!
Find out more: https://www.team17.com/introducing-honey-i-joined-a-cult/honey-i-joined-a-cult
Sermons, Liquification Chambers, Food, Maintenance and much more...
Hello all
A quick update on some things that have been added since our last post:
Sermon and Resource System
We've overhauled the resource system. In particular, Faith and Influence have been added and Admin and Security have been removed.
Faith is of particular importance as if it gets too low, your cult will quickly become unhappy and cultists could react in some very negative ways (see 'Cultist Consequences' below). You can now call sermons, which will will generate a certain amount of Faith calculated by a number of different factors. As your leader hosts the Sermon, his happiness is a big factor in how effective each sermon is.
Kitchen and Food System
Some cultists are born to eat gruel. Some are destined for the (suspiciously produced) purple stuff. You can now make food in your kitchen, serve it up in your canteen and micro-manage your cultists food preferences.
Cultist Consequences
Letting cultists become unhappy now has a range of consequences. Not only might they leave your cult and generate you some unwanted heat, they also have a chance of attacking or insulting their cult mates, vandalising objects or staging a dirty protest.
Durability and Maintenance System
Objects have a fully functioning durability system whereby items eventually break after prolonged use or can be instantly broken in certain situations. You’ll have to make sure you assign cultists to the new maintenance room to keep items repaired and the HQ clean.
Speech Bubbles and Thought Bubbles
Cultists will now let you know exactly what they think with these (hilarious) speech/thought bubbles. Some provide valuable insights into their well-being, others… less so.
Liquification Chamber
Sometimes cultists don’t turn out how you want them to, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be useful... meet the liquification chamber. Some say it is linked to the purple stuff served in the canteen.
Cold Calling System
The cold calling system has been further developed. You’re now able to choose which area of town your cold callers are going to harass. Each area provides certain advantages and disadvantages to being targeted.
Thanks for bearing with us. Further updates to come as soon as we have them.
ːhappyyeyː Simon & Ed ːneutralyeyː
Soiling yourself, CRT televisions, golden toilets, Insomnia 65
Hello all
It's been an incredibly busy few months on HIJAC. Not only have we been adding new content, but we've been working flat-out in the run up to Insomnia 65 to make sure that the rest of the old game systems were integrated into the new building system.
Insomnia 65
HIJAC had a great reception at Insomnia 65 and we were pleased to see a large amount of people coming back from previous expos to play the latest version. It was also a good opportunity for further Alpha testing and the chance to get feedback. It also highlighted, *ahem*, a few bugs, which were quickly sorted out. ːsteamfacepalmː
Cultists Soil Themselves
First but not foremost, Ed took time out of the busy development schedule to ensure that cultists who do not have access to a toilet (or who have the incontinent trait) visibly soil Cult HQ. This has a negative affect on the room rating (more below). Clicking said soiling brings up useful information, such as who the culprit is. Thanks Ed!
Fully Integrated New Build System
As per our previous posts, rooms can now be built in any size and shape. Walls can also be built individually rather than having to build entire rooms.
We've alluded to this before, but our decision to ditch our old build system has been a mammoth undertaking, most notably due to the knock-on effects. Redoing the building system meant we had to redo how objects were placed and used, which meant that we had to redo how characters interacted with rooms and objects... which equated to redoing the bulk of the game.
Now we knew that changing the building system would have this effect, we just didn't appreciate how long or painful the task of re-integrating everything would be. It was great to get the systems stable for Insomnia 65 and to be able to show-off all the hard work. ːsteamhappyː
Free Time System
Cultists now have different free-time interests and will slowly get bored of certain types of free-time activities. This means that you'll need to think about a broad range of things to keep them happy. Not only will cultists get bored of individual activities (they won't want to play the same arcade game every day), but they also get bored of the type of activity, meaning you'll need a broad range of things to keep them interested over longer periods of time.
Room Prestige System
Rooms now have a prestige rating that is affected by various actions/events. The most notable way to change a room's prestige is by adding objects to the room. Certain items will decrease a rooms prestige (dirty mattresses aren't prestigious), other's will increase the prestige rating (think golden toilet). Soiling decreases room prestige. Prestige affects cultist happiness.
Room Specific items and items generally
New ratings for items have been added in, such as prestige, durability, and ratings to show how well certain items do their job (for example, different beds have different energy replenishment ratings).
We've added a tonne of items and also put in place a system to ensure that items need to be placed in the correct room type for them to function. For example, putting a cold-calling desk in the canteen isn't going to work.
Certain items require related items to start to function. For example, for a bed to become usable there also needs to be enough storage space for the cultist to store their belongings and a HypnoDisc requires it's own control panel etc etc
Beds can also now be assigned to certain cultists, so you can ensure the more valued members get the best beds whilst the disposable members sleep wherever they can.
Further Content
Now we have the main game systems in good shape, additional content should be forthcoming at a faster rate. We haven't been very good at keeping you updated but part of that was to do with the fact that there was very little of interest to tell you! With that in mind, we should be increasing the amount/rate of the updates.
If you've got any questions then let us know.
See, we're not dead!
ːhappyyeyː Simon & Ed ːneutralyeyː
Technical Update - Game Optimisation
Hello all. We are still alive. We wanted to provide you with a chunkier update than this but thought it best to keep you updated, even if the update is somewhat short and not hugely interesting.
For the past few weeks we’ve been redoing a lot of the backend of Honey, I Joined a Cult to make it run smoothly on those with less powerful PCs. These performance issues stemmed from decisions we made at the beginning of the development and as such have been manifestly painful to remedy, given how much content has already been added. Alas we are almost there, cultists are happily indoctrinating and cult HQs are being constructed at lightning quick silky-smooth speed.
Although this is by far the most time-consuming part of the update, it isn’t particularly photogenic. Therefore to provide you with a bit of eye-candy and break up this increasingly long block of text we can also show you the new and expanded City map we’ve added:
Click to enlarge:
More to come soon.
:happyyey: Simon & Ed :neutralyey:
Base Building and Cultist Overhaul
We’ve made good progress on the Early Access version of Honey, I Joined a Cult. Having taken on board the feedback we received from the expos we attended last year (at Insomnia, RGX and EGX) we made some tough decisions about overhauling some of the most fundamental parts of the game to make the playing experience more enjoyable.
Base Building
Construction is probably the most fundamental part of Honey, I Joined a Cult and we’ve decided to give you complete control over how you build your base. To give you an idea of how this has changed over the course of the development, we started off with pre-set room sizes that the player could build, we then improved this by making room construction draggable to allow for any size you want. The latest update allows you to build your base elements individually, for example you can build walls however you like to allow for irregular shaped rooms and merge rooms together by getting rid of walls. This is particularly important when you start to expand your base as previously rooms could only be reassigned or deleted. Allowing people to have complete control of the construction aspects certainly makes the expansion process much more enjoyable and manageable.
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Cultist Schedules and Priorities
We realised that there’s no point in having NPCs with unique abilities (and disabilities) if you had little control over how you use them. We’ve therefore ditched the old “3 slot system” and implemented a fully customisable schedule, allowing you to choose certain jobs for a cultist to prioritise or to stay away from, as well as exactly how much sleep and free time they have in between carrying out their cultish duties. You can also now manually command your cultists if they’re slacking off and there’s work to be done.
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Cultist Mood
We want a cultist's mood to be the result of a huge amount of different influences. In our previous versions it was too easy and very simple to keep your cultists happy as there were only a few needs to attend to. Now your cultists will be affected by a huge amount of things, maybe your Leader has been abusive, maybe their schedule doesn’t allow enough time to eat, maybe they’ve soiled themselves.
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Trait Expansion
Although we’ve had traits implemented for a while we weren’t happy with the traits we had or how they were presented in the UI. Previously a character might have one trait that was set for them when they were spawned. Now characters can have multiple traits and have the ability to gain positive and negative traits over the course of the game in a variety of different ways (through missions for example). The substance of the traits has also been overhauled and they are now presented in a more attractive way.
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General Changes
We’ve continued to upgrade the games UI to make things look more attractive. Many of the menu screens have been changed since our last update. We're also added some more bits of information on the bios of the cultists, which gives the characters more, er, character. Generally, where there was once huge amounts of text we’ve now putting in graphics and symbols. This is an ongoing process and we’re not yet finished but things are looking better and better.
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Why are you guys so slow?
How dare you! We're working as quickly as we can but the reality is that there's been a a huge amount of work for two people to do, especially given how big the changes are that we've been pushing through. The recent overhaul has been a very long and technically demanding process whereby we binned months of our previous work to make the game as good as it possibly can be. We think the extra time has been well worth it and look forward to showing it to you soon ːsteamhappyː
What next?
We’ll be moving to closed beta testing the current version shortly and depending on how that will affect what our expected early access date is. We know there's a lot of people that have asked to be beta testers but at the moment we're keeping the test group to a reasonably small set of people that we've met in person. Wider testing will follow once we've processed the feedback from this initial group.
:happyyey: Simon & Ed :neutralyey:
Early Access, Expos, Reception
Expo Alpha Testing
We've been attending various expos over the past few weeks with hundreds of people getting a chance to play the latest Alpha build of Honey, I Joined a Cult at Eurogamer Expo, Insomnia 62, Insomnia 63 and Rooster Teeth Expo.
Reception
The expos have given us the chance to discuss face-to-face what people think of the game development so far and what they think we can do better. The response from players has been hugely positive and we've also had lots of great press coverage. There's still a lot of work to be done before we launch the game on early access however.
Early Access
We’re working hard to make HIJAC available as soon as possible. Trust us when we say that we want to release the game as much as people want to play it! That said, we want to ensure that the game lives up to expectations and provides a good amount of play time. Originally we wanted to have an early access release for later this year but that has now slipped to 2019. We’ll continue to keep you updated - substantial updates will be posted on the forums, whilst day-to-day information continues to be posted on our Twitter Feed .
If you have any ideas, feedback or just want to show your support, leave us a message below.
Simon & Ed
Alpha Build Update
We’ve been working hard on our Alpha 2.0 build which will see a complete overhaul of many parts of Honey, I Joined a Cult.
Mission system and world map
You can now send your Cultists on missions at various locations to do the bidding of your cult. You might be rounding up vagrants at the local homeless shelter, you might be poisoning the water supply. Missions will allow you to wield your cults power in the outside world – perhaps you’ll take a particularly aggressive stance towards external threats, or perhaps you’ll keep your head down, slowly infiltrating the political system and focusing on your cults image. Missions take place at different locations that can be seen on the map. As the game progresses, more locations become available. Some missions are also connected and will allow you to develop a specific story arc (if that's something you want to pursue).
For your mission to be successful, you'll need to make sure you send the best Cultists out to do the job. Traits and skills play an important role in the outcome, as does planning the mission in advance in your cult HQ. For example, certain missions will only be able to be performed if you have a Cult member with a certain trait, and gaining a cult member with the said trait will likely require you to have already successfully completed a different mission/built specific items within your base/located certain items. Planning missions will increase the likelihood of success but also puts further pressure on resources, as you’ll have to commit Cultists to time in the relevant room, planning the mission. Missions have a number of outcomes ranging from catastrophic failures, which might end in Cultists being arrested and the Cult suffering other severe consequences, to Overwhelming success, whereby you'll get the reward of the possibility of other beneficial consequences.
Custom room size building
We initially put in fixed room sizes thinking that they would be sufficient to allow people to build the base they wanted. In reality, nobody was happy with pre-set room sizes so now you can drag build whatever size rooms you want.
User Interface
At the start of the development we wanted the UI to be merely functional but as we’ve progressed we’re trying to make it not only more attractive, but more intuitive. This is still a WiP but we’re getting there. We're moving away from the minimalist monotone design that we had used before, because, quite franky, it was a little too minimalist. Although we've not made the interface over-complicated we've added in a few extra touches to make them more colourful and to break up the large blocks of monotone which made up the vast majority of all of the menus before.
Upcoming Events
There's a few more features that need to be added to the game before testing can start. We'll keep you posted about these when they've been implemented. Until then we are taking the current Alpha build to a few events in the UK:
Insomnia 63 - Birmingham, UK (24th - 27th August)
RTX - London, UK (15 - 16th September)
EGX - Birmingham, UK (20th - 23rd September)
If anyone feels like a preview of the game then drop by and find us in the Indie Zone ːsteamhappyː.
