We got some good news here at Soup Co. today! Nom Nom Galaxy has been nominated as a Finalist at Independent Games Festival China!
Here's to hoping we take home the Grand Soup Prize! That's probably not what it's called, but we'll rechristen it if we win!
This week we'll be doing the first of our Post-PAX updates for Nom Nom. PAX was a boon for us because we got to see what new players experiecne when they first set out to start their soup empire. These updates will be focused on addressing issues that we heard at the show and a few that have been echoing on the Steam forums.
Astroworkers will now have a base 15% increase to movement speed. Coupled with the AstroBoots upgrade, you'll be a Soup Speedster!
There seemed to be some confusion about rotating corridors for new players at PAX. Until we work out a more intuitive way to let players know that most base pieces can be rotated, we've added Vertical Corridor pieces to the Building Blueprints.
Ladders will no longer be the end all for supporting structures in midair. Any buildings places above ladders without proper support will now fall.
Girders and struts now transfer power to adjacent buildings! This will help base design variety. There's also a power indicator on blueprints when placing buildings.
Finally, we've fixed the zoom issue with the UFO Boss a.k.a the PAPP (Passive Aggressive Pestilence Platform). When playing co-op, you can now see what you're doing. Soup Co. would like to apologize for that. ;-)
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
The Soup is PAX Primed! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (Ver. 0.14)
Astroworkers, welcome to PAX Update 0.14! This update will be on the floor at PAX today, but even if you can’t make it to Seattle you can enjoy the soups of our labors! This update adds more ingredients, more enemies, and some adjustments to research. We’ve also thrown in some nagging bugs.
Because of the large amount of changes in the current build, we recommend you delete your previous save data. You can delete your saved data from the planet select menu. With that said, let’s look at the new stuff!
Like a Boss
Nom Nom Galaxy is all about battling rival corporations for galactic domination of the soup market. Up to this point, your rivals have only sent small waves of alien mercs to disrupt your operation. Starting with this update, they’ll be bringing out the big guns! Or should we say, the big UFOs!
This behemoth will appear after you’ve launched a certain number of rockets. When your rivals feel like you’re getting a little too big for your britches, they’ll send over this ship to knock you down a few pegs. You’ll have to make some sacrifices to repel it!
Exploring Strange New Worlds
The ‘galaxy’ in Nom Nom Galaxy continues to expand. You’ll now be able to visit Iddil, a heavily forested planet, Unba,a water world, and the mountainous Pomelyk. Each planet will require it’s own strategy in order to build a successful factory. Gameplay for these planets is in development, so we’d love to get feedback from the community on them.
IDDIL
Iddil introduces new fruit bearing trees and spiny thorn plants. Neither can be moved easily, so you’ll have to plan your base around them.
UNBA
If you fancy a swim, Unba is your planet. With most of the stage area covered in water, you’ll have to create island bases in different places to expand your factory. The ever-important Oxyflower has the added benefit of repelling water, so you can use it to plant under the waves, or prevent water from entering your base.
POMELYK
The most challenging of the new stages is Pomelyk. The rocky planet offers few places to cultivate your ingredients and deposits of matter and discs are sparse, so you’ll have to maximize your management skills to expand.
Expanding Your Pallet
There are a few new flora to add to your recipe book now. We haven’t had proper trees in Nom Nom but that’s because we’ve only been exploring deserts and plains. Iddil is our first planet to introduce a forest biome.
The trees of Iddil bear delicious fruit, but are sturdy and can’t be chopped down. You’ll have to plan your factories around these trees to harvest them. The trees will die in winter, so stock up on fruit for the cold season.
Needle Grass, like the trees of Iddil, is difficult to get rid of. It’s covered in thorns so punching it will only leave you with bloody gloves, and if you dig it up with your buzzsaw, the remaining bits will sprout as new plants. You’ll have to use other tools to take it out-but it’s rumored that beautiful flowers sometimes blossom on its thorny branches…
Nom Nom now has an uber tuber! Yams grow underground, and like the trees and Splinter Grass, are resistant to conventional harvesting. If you want to get to the goods, you’ll have to dig them up!
Adjustments
The following items have had their costs adjusted:
Hoverboard -
Increased Research key costs from 2 to 3
Increased the Gold cost from 100g to 1200g
Jack
Increased Research keys costs from 3 to 6
Increased Gold cost from 100g to 450g
Floppy disks should be easier to dig up now.
Mole enemies won’t be nearly as persistent in destroying your base and will disappear after paying you a visit.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where you could create two offices on the Tutorial Stage
- Fixed a bug that allowed ivy and seaweed to grow in places they normally couldn’t
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!
Full Speed Ahead! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (Ver. 0.13)
Welcome back, Astroworkers!
Well, one month sure flies by! We've been hard at work on a multitude of things, both big and small, for this update. We're also getting Nom Nom Galaxy ready for the big game shows coming up in August. We won't get into where (or how) you'll see Nom Nom Galaxy this month, but we're pretty excited with the upcoming announcements! Look for more news next week! Because of the upcoming shows, we're holding some stuff back for this update anda few other features aren't completed. But that's what Early Access is all about - testing, testing, and more testing. We'd love to hear your feedback on the changes, so please leave comments! With that said, let's get to it!
Research
One issue that's come up in feedback constantly has been Astroworker walking speed. In a game that requires you to ship your stock as quickly as possible, being a slow poke doesn't bode well for future promotions. There were debates among the team on whether a speed boost the should be applied given to the Astroworker by default, as a research upgrade, or as a boost button. For now we've added a new research item to speed up the Astroworker by 30%, so please check it out and let us know what you think in the comments/forums. Limits on purchasing research at the end of each day have also been removed! Shopping spree! Finally, we've added a new structure, Storage, that allows you to store up to 6 ingredients! We think you'll really appreciate it when you see what else is coming...
Removed the limit on the number of research upgraded you can purchase at the end of each day.
New Astro-boots research available! Increase the speed of your Astroworker by 30%!
Added Storage to research.
Environment
In order to accommodate some of the new and more varied environments we're working on, we've changed the way that oxygen works with water on the planets. Mon Cala, anyone?
Oxygen will now deplete twice as fast when under water.
Oxygen pockets can now be created underwater. These pockets will prevent water from entering, allowing you to expand your base underwater.
UI Changes
The planet select has been revamped to give you that universal flavor!
On the select rival screen before returning to a planet you've previously gotten 100% market share, the following information has been adjusted.
Total days will now accurately report previous play sessions.
Enemies defeated will be cumulative for all play sessions.
Fixed bug where screenshots of previous play sessions were being overwritten.
You now find more information about rival corporations at the rival selection screen before starting a planet.
Controls
We've moved from the Maintenance Menu button for keyboard and mouse controls to the CTRL key.
Tutorial Changes
With Nom Nom Galaxy heading to show floors this month, we're shoring up some of the tutorials. This will be tweaked up until the last minute, so we're looking for feedback from the community on how to improve the tutorials. What did you find difficult to understand when you started playing?
Game hints will now remain on the screen longer.
Major hints during the tutorial will now pause the game.
Testing
The following features are still being implemented and may be have bugs.
Astroworkers can now reset their base at the planet selection screen by pressing “Y” button on the controller, or “R” on the keyboard.
You can now build a second office on planets you return to after beating a rival with 100% market share. Currently, this is only working on Egon.
Seasons
We've begun testing for seasons, and winter is coming! The seasons are currently on a 15 minute cycle and only switch between summer and winter. Also, the winter assets are still being completed so you'll only see a blue filter and some icy tiles for now.
Winter effects
-Grass, Sunflower, and Ivy will die, making it impossible to grow or harvest them.
-Plants will not grow or spread seeds during winter.
-Animal nests shrivel up, and animals don't leave their nests.
As you can see, winter is pretty harsh, so be sure to make good use of the new technology!
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
Gazpacho Sunscreen? Cooling Down for Summer
It's that time of the week again, Astroworkers! And for this week's update we've got some great news this week about the upcoming development this month!
Since Nom Nom Galaxy launched in March, we've been taking feedback, fixing bugs, and slowly adding features, all in the hopes of making the soup empire experience as tasty as possible. The weekly updates have served the team really well in this regard. It's enabled us to react quickly to issues that spring up. Moreover, thanks to all the feedback from players on Steam, Facebook, and Twitter, we think that Nom Nom Galaxy is more accessible and fun than it was when we launched just a few short months ago.
Now that July is here, we're ready to throw on all the burners and prepare some more substantial courses! And seeing as how it's July 4th, this might be the time to start thinking about turning those burners on some nice, juicy mammoth meat...!
This month we'll be holding any updates on Nom Nom Galaxy for a much larger update at the end of the month. This allows us to work on some larger features that we haven't been able to focus on with our week-to-week update schedule. We'll still be posting to the blog, so you can monitor what we're up to here and in the Steam community forums.
To whet your appetite, here's a hint at what we've got in store!
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
Charlie and the Chowdown Factory! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (ver. 0.12)
Yaho, Astroworkers! p0rk1ns here with another weekly update!
Charles & Charlie are the lifeblood of any factory. Without their hard work, you'd be lugging all of your ingredients and soup around- but you've got better things to do! Our most dedicated of factory robots have received some great updates this week that will make them even better helpers in our conquest of the galaxy!
For starters, previously Charlie & Charles, consummate workers that they are, would continuously walk in the same direction when you put them down. We've updated their circuits so that when you put them down now they will continue along the direction that you are facing (or the direction of your mouse cursor).
Their dedication to everything soup also caused some weird behavioral bugs that have been squashed, too. When trying to get past our new traffic robot Jimmy, C&C would sometimes get stuck walking past him. We've tidied up their "Respect My Authoritah!" code and they'll now follow Jimmy's instruction to the letter.
Finally, we've made improvements to the HUD to help you understand just what your dastardly rivals are up to. When customers receive shipments of rivals soups, you'll now see their reaction, for example "Yummy!", and you'll see the percentage that their market share has increased.
Update Notes
The HUD will now display customers reactions to your rivals soups and how much market percentage each gains.
After picking up Charlie & Charles, they will now start walking in the direction that are facing when you place them.
Fixed a bug that would cause Charlie & Charles to get stuck when trying to deliver something past Jimmy.
Fixed a bug that would cause Charlie & Charles to get stuck when encountering a hole in their path.
We want to remind everyone that you can still submit your data to us if you'd like to see your company in the game as a rival soup company! Check out our announcement on Steam for more details.
We also did an interview with GameRamble about some of our influences for Nom Nom Galaxy!
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
Industrial Revolution! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (ver. 0.11)
Hello there, Astroworkers!
First, allow me to introduce myself! Mass1ve, Strategic Operations Sub-Manager here.
As SoupCo grows by leaps and bounds thanks to your efforts, we wanted to give you more ways to use your noodles (the non-soup ones, that is) and expand that market share, while at the same time snatching away your rival’s share like a rabid squidfly. To that end, the heights of SoupCo’s technological genius are being brought to you in a number of new changes!
First, some exciting news from our robot division-TWO new robots have been developed to help you bring that SoupCo flavor to the far reaches of space! Say hello to Jack and Jimmy!
Jack is a real firecracker, and by that I mean he’s an extremely high output demolition module. He’ll help you take out that pesky bedrock that your buzzsaw couldn’t handle, as well as anything else nearby, so exercise caution!
Jimmy is a stand-up guy. In fact, he’ll stand in one place all day, directing foot traffic in your factory! Place Jimmy and flip the switch, and he’ll make sure Charles and Charlie only go where you want them to go. Hard workers, but sometimes they lose focus…
Using some leftover soup cans, we gave Freddy an upgrade so he can now be turned on or off with a quick jab. But don’t worry- he’s a tough one, so to him it’s just a light tap!
Next, “Yummy!” is now decided by ingredients, and not by soups.
For example, once a soup using Tomaty triggers "Yummy!” (Red Corn for example), you can then send any soup that uses Tomaty (like Tomaty Plus or Tomaty Squeeze) and reap the benefits!
And now for a BIG one-we’ve added a combo system to soup delivery! Sending soup quickly while customers are still floored by the flavor of the last soup means your market share will increase more and more!
Finally, until now “Yummy!” and Fever Time were separate for you and your rival, but thanks to the SoupCo Spacetime Division, these are now shared, along with the new combo system! This allows for a new level of strategy as you eye your rival more closely and decide whether to take advantage of their hard work, or break their combo with random cans of Grass Stew (heh heh heh).
Update Notes
Added Jack, the bomb robot.
When Jack is hit (punch, buzzsaw, or enemy attack), he’ll start a countdown and then explode. In addition to breaking ground and damaging enemies (and you and your factory if you’re not careful!), the explosion will also destroy rock that can’t be broken with the buzzsaw.
Added Jimmy, the traffic control robot.
Charles and Charlie will make a U-turn when they run into Jimmy, so he can be used to control their range of motion more precisely.
You can now turn Freddy on or off by punching him
“Yummy!” is not determined by ingredients, and not by soups.
A combo system has been added to soup rocket delivery.
If a soup is delivered within a set time frame after another soup, it will form a combo and the amount that market share increases will continually rise. Currently, the combo window is active while the “Yummy!” display from the previous soup is on screen.
Only soups with the same ingredient included will result in a combo. For example:
Tomaty/Grass→Tomaty/Grass=OK
Tomaty/Grass→Tomaty/Corn=also OK
Tomaty/Grass→Oxygrass/Corn=no combo.
Yummy, Fever Time, and combos are now shared with rivals.
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
Become a Soup Legend! Get your name in Nom Nom Galaxy!
If you've been following Nom Nom Galaxy's dev blog lately, you'll know that we're slowly bringing in more competitive aspects of gameplay as we build towards having a truly multiplayer experience. One step in that process is letting you show off your soup making & base building skills.
We've recently changed the way that the ghost data works. The ghost data is essentially what you're competing against when you start on a planet. Up to this point we've been using each players own previous play sessions to create this data, but as of ver.09 we're implementing leaderboards based on players ghost data. We can then use that data to create opponents for you to test your skills against.
We're looking for Astroworkers to share their data so that we can create a database of players for our leaderboards. You're ghost data will be live in the game, and other players will be able to download it to play against 'you'.
We don't have a submission system or servers to collect the data now, so I'm reaching out to a few players to help us build up the initial leaderboards.
In order to participate, you'll have to update NNG to the latest version and play a stage to 100% market share. After that go to Steam\SteamApps\common\NomNomGalaxy\ghost and zip up the folder for the stage you played and send it over to us.
Your game may be located in a slightly different location. In that case, go to your Steam library and right click Nom Nom Galaxy. Go to Properties. Open the Local Files tab, then click on Browse Local Files.
Your data will show up in the leaderboards under your Steam name, but you can change the name on the save file if you'd like to change it to something else. For example, you're Soup Company, YouTube channel, or favorite Game of Thrones character. (Sorry, still in awe of that last episode! lol)
For example, my save data might look like this:
"ghost_20140610_011117_0002_porkins"
Simply change your name (porkins in this case) to whatever you'd like.
It might be a little confusing as to which folder is which stage.
Egon = stage_wide_x
Big = stage_big
Tutorial = stage_tutorial
Alteria = stage_wide_y
Apoxus = stage_floating_island
Of course you don't need to play all of the stages; any you can send over will help.
Please send your data to john@q-games.com. We'll only take about 10-20 per stage, so the quicker you can get your ghost data over, the more likely you'll be able to see your company in Nom Nom Galaxy!
Information is Power! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (ver. 0.10)
Salutations, Astroworkers!
Your benevolent Middle Manager p0rkins, here. This week we've got some cosmetic changes that will make pushing your soup cans into the hungry gullets of customers just a little bit easier!
The building menu now displays how many of each type of factory or soup rocket you have and lists the selling price on the galactic market. This will make planning your soup production much simpler. Found a recipe that sells for 50g or 150g? Make a farm and take advantage of it!
Other spiffy changes this week include highlighting objects you can interact with while you are standing next to them. When you've got a bunch of items laying around and break time is just around the corner, it's best not to waste valuable seconds looking for the right ingredient!
Finally, since we love our robots and always treat them tenderly, we changed the "Throw" hint to "Drop" when carrying them.
Update Notes
Soup selling values now listed in the building menu
The number of buildings currently in your base is now displayed in the building menu
Highlight targeting for "Pick up" items
Robots tool tip changed from "Throw" to "Drop"
Planet Egon has a new rival - BomSoup
Planet Alteria has a new rival - HuntingSoup
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
Here Comes a New Challenger! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (Ver. 0.09)
Greetings once again, Astroworkers!
This week brings yet another round of glorious changes to improve company morale and productivity! Last week we hinted upcoming changes to expand the community and multiplayer aspects of Nom Nom Galaxy. We've continued on that journey in this patch with a few changes you'll see when you update.
Leaderboards
When you select a planet to play now, you'll be taken to a screen that show a leaderboard for the planet. From this screen you'll be able to select the rival company you'll compete against. This ghost data will then be used to create your opponent. Previously, we used your most recent ghost data from a previous play session to create the MegaSoup Co. Now we'll be using other Astroworker's data, so you'll have to step your game up!
Because of the changes in the save system, any of your previous saved data will be lost. This means that if you had a game in progress before, it will disappear. We're sorry to bulldoze your factories, but it's all in the name of PROGRESS!
For now, we're only using ghost data we're collecting in the office. In the future, we'll allow players to upload their ghosts to share with players around the galaxy.
Working Overtime
One of the features often requested is the ability to continue working on your base after you've reached 100& Market Share. Now when you conquer your rival, you'll be taken back to the main menu where you can select "Continue Work" to keep working on your base. You'll be given the option to select a new rival company and start the game over with your market share reset.
Reload!
You can now spent money to reload your Missile and Shot towers! This will eliminate all of the dead towers littering bases.
Update Notes
As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next week!
