Occupy Mars: Prologue at Steam Survival Festival 2022
Hello, Martians!
Steam Survival Festival is just around the corner!
Occupy Mars: Prologue will be featured among many other wonderful survival games. If you’re a fan of survival games, this is not an event to miss!
About the game
Occupy Mars: The Game is a highly technical, open-world sandbox game set on Mars. Your task is to build and upgrade your base, discover new regions, conduct mining operations, retrieve water, generate oxygen, grow crops, and fix broken parts – all in order to survive.
Occupy Mars: Prologue (2020) is a free Prologue version of Occupy Mars: The Game created at the early stage of development to introduce players to the premise and basic gameplay mechanics. Occupy Mars: The Game is currently undergoing Beta playtests while we're preparing the game for its Early Access release.
Give a Prologue a try if you haven't done so already, and if you like what you've played so far, take a look at the Early Access version's store page.
Have fun! Occupy Mars Team
Devlog #43: Development Progress & Beta Status
Hello, Martians!
We’re back with another devlog!
As some of you may know, we’ve been busy with another game of ours that has just been released, Dinosaur Fossil Hunter, but that doesn’t mean development of Occupy Mars: The Game has stopped! Quite the opposite, we have a lot to talk about, so let’s get on with it!
Improved game interface
Our dev team cooperates with a team of artists to further improve game UI and Tablet interfaces so it’s both intuitive to navigate and true to Occupy Mars technical spirit. Some of the screens we’re working on are:
Sleep Panel
Building / Blueprints menu
New Map (Radar)
Quest Panel
Tech Tree Panel
Character Creation Screen
Sleep Panel in particular went through some big changes and while it can still go through some changes, we’d like to show you its current look! Now you’ll be able to set the time with up/down arrows or use a slider to set the time even more accurately. You’ll no longer have to set time to full hours. Want to take a 30 minute nap? No problem! :)
The map you can access through the tablet menu is now also available in the rover, so during the long journeys, you won’t have to move away from rover controls in order to check your current location! Moreover, the map will allow you to control the electricity flow in your base. Other than that, you can also remotely activate and deactivate switches to control the flow of other substances, such as water in pump station.
We have also made some changes to the notification system. First of all, you’ll no longer have to read the same message over and over again every time you pick up a potato or routinely perform some other actions. Similar notifications will be grouped together to avoid spam. We also made some fixes to weather notifications.
Graphical improvements
Graphics of Occupy Mars: The Game keep getting better day by day! Of course, the most major changes are already past us – you don’t need to worry. :) What we’ve decided to work on further is lightning and postprocessing. Thanks to recent improvements, scenes look much more realistic, which you might have already seen on some of our more recent screenshots. Here is a little comparison:
To add more life to the game, we also want to make use of motion capture and include more animations. Our astronaut will have different animations while sleeping, sitting and much more!
Some tweaks were made to the rover lights and player’s flashlight. We noticed that at their previous state, lights were barely able to provide enough light for the player. Flashlight is now positioned a little bit differently and its light is much more intense, while rover lights should give you a good enough light to see the rover’s closest surroundings.
Weather effects have also been improved to blend in nicely with the current game’s graphics and lighting. New weather effect Solar Storm has been added which is even more vivid and beautiful with the new lighting system.
New locations to visit
World of Occupy Mars: The Game keeps expanding and there are even more locations to explore!
Besides lava tubes you already know about, caves can be found at random places. You’ll be able to find items in some of them and they can also serve as a good hiding spot when weather unexpectedly worsens.
There are also more abandoned bases scattered throughout Mars. Contrary to the other ones, these will look differently and hide very useful equipment such as parts necessary for building a jetpack or your robot companion Spotty.
New mechanics
We are also working on numerous additional mechanics.
You’ll be able to charge up your rover in the hangar with the use of a special plug in the hangar.
Speaking of remote control, we have finished implementing mechanics related to antenna and their radio range – if you’re within the antenna's reach, you’ll be able to remotely control various devices.
We’re polishing the radiation mechanic.
Before, if your suit wasn’t charged and you found yourself in the radiation area, radiation level would increase and after passing a certain value, you would receive damage. It would stop only after you hid in a safe place and the radiation level decreased.
Now, this mechanic is closely connected to the aforementioned Solar Storm. If you enter the radiation area, you receive damage at once, and it will only cease after leaving the affected area. There are also specific areas where you can expect a high radiation level – for example, areas with uranium rocks nearby.
As for a brand new mechanic, there will also be a helpful system which will highlight the interactable objects in the area.
Our team is now working on a rocket launcher mechanic, which will allow you to shoot down meteors endangering you and your hub. This is a work in progress and we hope to tell you more about it in the future, as well as about many other things we have in store. :)
Beta playtests status
As the end note, we’d like to tell you about the status of the Beta and hopefully clear up some confusion that has arisen recently.
So far only small numbers of people got access to the beta since we wanted to iron-out some issues and also finish the above-mentioned content updates before we let more people in. The people who played so far also had an NDA to avoid spoiling the unfinished parts :)
Now the time has come and in the next few days we are going to let a few thousand more people in. This is an important milestone in preparation for the Early Access Release. To keep track of all your feedback we have also created a separate Sub-Forum on Steam called Beta Discussions where it will be easier to keep track of the beta related issues. Please also remember to fill our survey after playing the Beta.
Stay tuned for future announcements and devlogs!
Best Regards, Occupy Mars Team
Playtests Status Update
Hello, Martians!
As you know, it’s already past 20 March, which was our initial deadline for playtests registration.
We have sent invitations to first aspiring astronauts, who will start their adventure on Mars. ✉️
If you haven’t received an email, it means you weren’t chosen… yet. For now, we have invited a small group of players, but we want to invite more and more Martians over time. To make sure the process is clear, we’ll keep you updated via status updates like this one.
Important reminder for our playtesters: remember to fill out BETA SURVEY after finishing your playthrough and remember that you're not yet allowed to share any footage from the first Beta version.
With that, Request Access has been disabled – we hope that with that extra time between initial deadline and this announcement, all of you who want to participate have managed to sign up. 🙂 We’ve received a lot of applications and we thank you for such a big interest in the game!
If you’d like to hang out with other players outside of Steam forums, we have dedicated servers on our Discord channel!
Stay tuned for upcoming updates!
Best Regards, Occupy Mars Team
Devlog #42: Beta Playtest Signups & Steam Next Festival
Hello, Martians!
Let's start with the most imporant information: 🚀 the day has come and today we are finally opening signups for the Beta Playtest version of our game! In the beta you will be able to play the sandbox mode with many more buildings and features than was available in the Demo/Prologue!
Our Demo and Prologue were released in 2020 so in the beta you will be able to see how much the game has changed since that time! Our game will also be featured in the upcoming Steam Next Festival.
The Festival will feature our 2020 demo as we didn't want to divide our time into preparing new Demo. Instead we've been focused on the Beta, which is a very important step on our way to the Early Access version. During the festival we will be doing live streams showing the new beta version here on Steam, as well as on our Twitch and YouTube. Of course the beta is still only a sneak-peek of the full version, without the campaign mode and some other features.
We will first collect signups for the beta. Registration will be open until 20 March, after that we'll contact our playtesters by email and announce further details here, on Steam. Number of playtesters who can participate is limited, but over time, we will start granting access to more and more players.
The most important thing for us is to gather feedback from you after playing the beta so we've prepared a special Beta Survey, you can access it here: https://forms.gle/GhnUszERMjpDDrNy5
Thank you for taking the time to read this devlog and we hope you will enjoy the playtests. Please remember to fill the Beta Survey after playing the Beta. As always, we invite you to our Discord server if you’d like to hang out with fellow Occupy Mars enthusiasts.
Best Regards, Occupy Mars Team
Devlog #41: Tech Tree & New Finds
Hello, Martians!
First of all, our apologies for not publishing anything in December. With Christmas, New Year’s Eve and all the accompanying preparations, things have been busy for our team in work and outside of it. As a result, it was difficult to fit in a devlog during that time. We’ll make sure to let you know about any such delays in the future.
We need more time to wrap up our preparations for upcoming Beta. As much as we initially wanted to make this devlog an announcement for beta tests, we don’t want to make the delay any longer. Today, we’d like to tell you about our progress on the game. As soon as we have everything ready, we’ll make a separate announcement regarding the Beta.
What have we been working on during these past 2 months?
Our main focus has been shaping up the Tech Tree. You may recall this tab being present on the tablet in the Prologue, but being otherwise inaccessible.
We’re been intensively working on it – both on its functionality and aesthetics. At first, Technologies were unlocked by fulfilling certain conditions such as building 10 objects of a specific type.
Now, unlocking a Technology will require a specific amount of points, which are acquired for gaining experience. You will gain experience corresponding with every field of the Tech Tree (Botany, Electricity etc.) depending on your actions. For example, planting seeds will allow you to raise Botany experience, while mining will improve your experience in Materials field.
Additionally, we want to include a laboratory desks, which will allow you to develop more advanced Technologies and examine your finds from abandoned bases. We’re also working on a new visual design of the menu, which will be much clearer and adjusted to the new experience system.
Speaking of abandoned bases, our team has added a loot system to make sure that exploring abandoned bases gives you enough finds to make those trips worth it.
Before you start stripping down the base, it’s a good idea to search it first, as you can find many useful items left behind by your predecessors, such as packages with food, seed magazines or upgrades for your vehicles. Sometimes, you can even find items that are only available at a later stage of the game!
Searching scattered bases will come in handy in Freeplay mode as it will allow you to build your first robot! Another thing that we’d like to include in abandoned bases are decorational objects, which you can use to add some personality to your own hab!
You’ll be able to explore new areas – Gusev Crater, Ares Vallis, Echus Montes, Elysium Planitia, Argentea Planum, Arsia Mons.
If new finds in abandoned bases were not enough, you will also be able to spot famous rovers while exploring the Red Planet! Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance have been added and they can all be found during your adventure! Pickup Truck has been implemented in the game and can now drive through Martian landscapes! There is also another Easter Egg, but we’d like you to discover it yourself in the game. 🙂
If you’ve been following our other social media, you could have seen a post with a new design of the tablet’s minimap. This is how it looks like in the game now, but keep it mind some changes can still be made:
We are also redesigning some of the other menu panels in the player's tablet as well, for example the new build screen looks much better🙂
There are also some other improvements leaning more on a technical side of things.
In one of our previous devlog we mentioned that some of our team members were in charge of reworking the translations system. This system is now finished and it will help us greatly while applying translations to the game! Sure, some translations have been present in the Prologue, but there is quite a lot of new content to translate. 😉
We have also improved loading time to make sure you can swiftly boot up the game and start your adventure. We are also implementing new achievements in the game, in total there will be close to 50 of them!
Thank you for taking the time to read this devlog and we hope you like what’s in store for you. We're also working on a more detailed roadmap to present to you in future devlogs. As always, we invite you to our Discord server if you’d like to hang out with fellow Occupy Mars enthusiasts.
We hope to share more exciting news with you in the next devlog!
Best Regards, Occupy Mars Team
A special broadcast has started!
Hello Players!
The special live stream on Train Station Renovation and Gas Station Simulator steam site has just started. Don't miss the in-game gameplay by the Gas Station Simulator team & Live Motion Games team!
