It's been a little while since I have dropped any updates or news about the game, but as we dive head first into the spring steam sale I want to go over v0.2 and the big gameplay changes coming along with the new spring features and what's coming next. I will also provide a bit of clarity on the timeline of upcoming updates and a possible full release schedule.
Gameplay Changes
Firstly the game has had its entire gameplay loop reworked, and while the gameplay of building your world and acquiring resources is still a major factor, the way you acquire resources and how you store and use them and ultimately build up and explore the world has changed.
As you can see, yes, you're now in control of your own ship. The world will be taking a bit of a time warp back so expect to see the models and types of buildings change to accommodate this change. You will travel across the seas from island to island; collecting resources, storing them in your ship, uncovering monuments and unique discoveries to expand your set of tools to grow and explore the world. Your ship is your life and it needs to be taken care of as you explore the world.
Without spoiling too much, one of the main mechanics will require you to stop at docks around specific islands to be able to place object and take resources from the world. It will also be required when you want to discover a monument or another unique discovery.
The world and environment will also change too with trees and other resources dying and growing, other environment and weather changes will be implemented at a later date.
All of this is part of the v0.2/Spring update
Design Changes
There will also be several design changes, as mentioned before this includes changes to the types of buildings you can place and the overall time period of the world. The world itself has also been cut down to one world with multiple biomes, meaning you no longer have to select a biome to play in when creating a new game.
Release Schedule
Starting next week all major updates such as v0.2 and v0.3 will be released every 1-2 weeks with smaller patches in between to make sure everything works correctly, this ensures a constant stream of updates and fixes so you guys are not having to wait months between releases. Focusing in on this new overhauled gameplay loop and limiting the game to one world means new content can be streamlined.
I can also say that if the update release schedule stays on track, Polyion should go into full release (1.0) some time around May or June.
I hope this lengthy post answers some or all of your questions and I hope you look forward to further posts regarding content releases.
Thanks,
Luke.
Polyion Patch Notes v0.1a
CHANGES AND UPDATES
Camera now rotates around a more defined anchor point, making the camera rotation feel less clunky and off.
All menus now have a background volume that blurs anything behind it, as well as a faint tinted image to make the menus less bright.
Cloud height has been increased.
Saves can now be deleted.
Building menu now statically appears and disappears when clicking the relevant hotbar buttons.
Value of starting resources (Funds, Wood, Stone, Metal) have all been lowered from 10,000 to 1,000.
The cost of buildings and the rate of earning resources have also been lowered and balanced in line with the starting resource amount changes, the buildings are also a lot cheaper to buy and build in comparison to their previous costs.
(Clone) suffix has been removed from object names.
BUG FIXES
Child objects of loaded buildings now load in correctly, and any related animation issues have been fixed.
Issues where some objects were not saving or saving with incorrectly assigned values has been fixed.
You no longer need to restart the game to see new saves, these can be loaded from the creation/selection screen immediately after going back to the main menu and clicking the play button.
Issues with the escape key not working in some instances have been fixed.
Hovering over objects no longer goes through the UI and you can only hover over and view the stats of buildings and resource related objects when UI is not blocking that object.
Volume slider now changes the volume of the music.
World selection/creation screen no longer persists when going back to the main menu.
Objects and values from the previous save no longer persist when returning to the main menu and then immediately loading up a different save/creating a new save.
Will no longer save when pressing the escape key while in the menus.
Trees and Rocks now spawn when loading a save.
Trees and Rocks now spawn in the correct positions relevant to the currently chosen world/terrain.
Exit button now actually closes the game.
Polyion Early Access 0.1 Re-Release
EARLY ACCESS 0.1 PATCH NOTES AND INFORMATION
Changes
A complete overhaul to the visual style; assets have been remodelled, the terrain and worlds have been re-made, change of colour palette, UI design changes and more.
Game loop has been re-designed and re-made to be much more simple and consistent, no more additional modes or lots of different features cluttering the main game loop.
You have to now maintain the sentiment of your population while placing down buildings, harvesting and earning resources and earning money. Mostly operates as a sandbox/world management game but both can be true.
Less cluttered UI, much easier to navigate through menus and settings.
Multiple saves now available.
Humans leave the world if their sentiment drops too low
Humans are assigned jobs when they are created, job related buildings provide funds from general earnings and taxing.
Buildings can affect population, funds, environment, wood, stone, metal, power and water stats negatively or positively depending on their own internal stats; While placing you can see the kind of affect it will have on your stats.
Not all changes could be listed as the game has gone through such an overhaul for this 0.1 Early Access relaunch, and while there is still so much to do this update into 0.1 sets the foundation for a new future for the game. In the coming days and weeks I will lay out plans for the game and set out what the 0.2 update will involve. The main goal is to add new buildings, terrains, unlockables and flesh out the game loop further to add more for you, the players.
There are also several bugs and issues that will be fixed with a patch this week, most likely within the next day or two. These bugs are not game breaking but do cause visual issues like child-objects for some buildings not showing up or new saves not appearing in the menu until you restart the game.
Achievements will be added in a post-launch patch within the next day or two
Developer Note
Hey! Thought I would drop this here under the important stuff to say thank you to everyone who stuck around or bought the game over the last few years. I know the lack of content has been annoying and probably pushed many away from the game or what possible future it might have had. But, I am happy to say that right now I have some motivation back to work on it and I will be making plans for future updates and I am already planning/working towards 0.2!
Please bear with me as I iron out any issues and bugs, as well as while I add content to the game as I understand it may be lacking in quite a few areas. I want to be open and honest about the current state of the game and the future and this is my way of doing it! Keep an eye out for future posts and patch notes, and I hope you stick around for future content and news around Polyion and other stuff I'm working on!
Luke <3
An Update on Polyion and the Future
Hi everyone!
This post is being made to provide clarification on a few things regarding Polyion. As you know I made a post about a month ago stating that release of the game was going to be in December, unfortunately this could not be met for a variety of reasons and I'm going to go into detail about that now as well as talk about my own feelings towards the game and my motivation as of late.
Firstly, I ended up being sick just a day or two after I made my last announcement post on here which resulted in me being out of energy and having a lack of motivation to work on Polyion for a week or two. With still so much to do I believe I misjudged how long it would take to finish all the final assets and code clean up. With this in mind I ultimately came to the decision to stop working on Polyion for the Christmas period to take a break and get my thoughts together, after Christmas and leading into the new year I had to ask myself whether going into full release and the pressure of meeting a specific standard or rushing to get things done was the best way to bring the game into full release...
I decided it was not the best way to do things, and this is why Polyion will stay in early access for the foreseeable future. The plan is to update the game on Steam to the latest build on the 14th of January, giving me the next few days to finish up what is left on the priority list and push the update out some time on that date. This is to ensure that if there are any problems I will be able to deal with them on the day after people play the game.
Before I answer a few questions I also want to say that Polyion has been on Steam in early access for the best part of 3-4 years now and as a developer it's a project I would like to finally move on from and take the lessons learned from it into my next project. While this doesn't mean complete abandonment of the game itself, I want to move on as my motivation and desire to work on Polyion has slowly decreased as time has gone on, since graduating from University and looking for work I have become less and less attached to the game that was once a big passion project of mine. I hope one day I can bring into full release, but for now keeping it in early access and releasing a major update is the best way to do things at the moment.
Now I will answer a few questions you might have:
Will there be any new content or updates after the 14th?
Yes, the plan is to continue updating and working on the game after the 14th. However, I will be taking a small hiatus from development while I begin moving from planning to development for my next game.
Does this mean Polyion will be supported long-term?
I cannot guarantee long-term support for Polyion, as stated before I will continue to update the game over time but there is no guarantee that the game will continue to receive updates past a certain point.
Will Polyion ever go into full release?
If in the future Polyion ever gets to a point where I believe I can stop working on the game and it's in a state that I believe warrants a full release, then yes. Right now there are NO plans to push the game into full release and this will stay true for the foreseeable future.
Why an update and not a full release?
As stated in this post, I lost motivation during and after being sick and ultimately believe there's still so much to do to warrant a full release. With how unstable the future looks for the game, I would rather push out updates every so often rather than bring the game into full release and under-deliver.
What is the next game?
I can't say much right now as it's still in the planning and preparation stages, but once I feel ready to showcase it I will.
Will you provide more open and constant communication about future games and updates?
Yes, going forward I plan to post more information about games I'm working on and engage in conversation about the games I make and release. I will attempt to branch out into making youtube content and possibly streaming and posting about my development process on multiple social media sites. This will give me a way to openly discuss projects I am working on and talk to my community.
Thank you to everyone who has stuck around and thank you for your patience and understanding,
Luke
Polyion goes into full release in 9 DAYS!
Hi everyone!
This will be one of the few announcements/community posts that I will write up before the game goes into full release, I am happy to announce that Polyion will release out of early access in just 9 DAYS (10th of December). Before this I will post images and screenshots of the game and talk about some of the fundamental changes, mechanics and aspects of the game I have yet to talk about.
As well as revealing the release date in this post, I just want to say a big thank you to people who purchased the game very recently and those who purchased it since it launched. While the launch did not go the way I wanted it to and put me into a severe burn out game development wise, I am happy to say overhauling the game and working on it again for a full release has made me very motivated and excited to work on games again. I'm excited to push the full release version and planned future content updates post launch into the new year, but for now I just want to say thank you!
I'll see you on the 10th of December!
Luke
Polyion is going into Full Release
Hi everyone!
I know it's been a while... again. But, I'm here with some good news about Polyion and its development. To turn back the clock I want to talk about how 3 or so years ago I started working on this game as a passion project, my second "commercial" game that I went into with the main goal of making something I was proud of and something I could release on Steam, it went through many iterations and unfortunately the early access release was something I was both proud of finally releasing and not proud of because I didn't think it was the game I originally set out to make. For the last 3 years I have been at university working towards a degree and now that journey has come to an end I have been working on Polyion again for a little while.
To put it simply the entire game has been overhauled; visually, functionally and the purpose of the game and its game loop has been completely re-thought. The game is finally speeding towards what I always wanted it to be and I couldn't be prouder. Some characteristics of the early access builds remain, but the game is shaping into what it was always meant to be; A world builder, a canvas for you to build your world on top of and manage and help it thrive. I was always a fan of creative games and city builders where you can place what you want and build your world to be an industrial giant, environmentally friendly, economically viable, etc.
But, I will have more to share later this month through videos and screenshots and updates to the store page. I will be pushing marketing online so make sure you keep an eye out for that, but now lets jump into the main reason for this post.
Polyion WILL be launching into full release some time in autumn. Whether that's early autumn or late autumn I don't know as it depends on how development goes over the next month or so, and I have a couple of dates in mind but I will update you all accordingly. I will also have several post launch updates planned to iron out any possible post launch issues and add content to the game.
Thanks for sticking by me and I hope you're excited for what comes next for Polyion.
Luke <3
HEADER, GIFS AND OTHER IMAGES SHOWCASE UNFINISHED GAMEPLAY, MODELS, ETC.
Full Release for Polyion is coming!
Hi there everyone! It has been a whille...
I have been pretty silent on this game for a while both through community posts and actual game updates, I want to apologise for that. I had lots of updates planned after release, but as University work overwhelmed me and other life obligations got in the way I started to lose motivation and lacked the time to work on it. But I am now done with university which means I can get back to working on Polyion and reveal what I'm working on for the game, when it will come out and the future of the game itself post full release.
Firstly the game is going through a massive overhaul as of right now, many of the planned and promised modes are being scaled back and developed into the game itself rather than being separate modes. The game is now being developed into a world/city builder, which was what the game originally was prior to it being scaled down, with vast features that will allow you to build up your world; with animals, architecture, life and more while managing money and resources to grow and advance sectors of your world. This overhaul update is planned for release during the summer and will be the defining update that leads the game into full release and post full release I will fix bugs and issues and release several patches for a little while until I feel like the game is in a good enough state to let go of the wheel.
I want to get Polyion out of early access as soon as possible, I want to have a game that is fully complete and at a point where I can just release small updates and patches to maintain the games lifespan and to make sure it functions as best as it can with very few issues.
Some key additions and changes to the game include money and resource management, which will be a core factor in how you grow and build your world. Another one is the inclusion of life and agriculture allowing for your world to be thriving with life which you can control and manage to improve your worlds finances and overall health of your world. The more jobs, money, food, cleanliness and activities you have in your world the more it will thrive. Buildings will have multiple stages and as you advance your world they will either automatically upgrade or you can manually upgrade specific buildings or types of buildings, for example upgraded shops may provide more money and job spaces for your population. As you grow your world there might be random events or minor changes to the environment or surroundings that are merely cosmetic to showcase the growth and changes your world is going through.
Finally I can say that the release date for this overhaul update will be announced some time this month. It will most likely be in the later half of this month, but I'm hoping to put together a small trailer and some screenshots to showcase everything.
I just want to say a quick thank you for your patience and I can't wait to show you all what I have been working on!
Polyion: EXPLORERS
Long time no see!
It's been a while since an update or news announcement has been posted regarding Polyion and its early access development. I'm happy to say that next month will be when we begin the road to full release, starting with a new change and expansion to the game. As you can probably tell by the title of this post there is a new mode coming to the game known as EXPLORERS/EXPLORE, this will take the place of the current mode and make it the main experience in the game. However, the timer-based mode will still be available to play. (The game will have three modes after this update including; EXPLORERS, SURVIVAL, CREATIVE).
As part of the explorers update, you will be able to build your world across a large open water while collecting resources to place said tiles. Points of interest are also scattered across the map and when you build on one of these an effect will be applied to the world which could decrease and/or increase tile costs, the rate at which resources spawn in etc. A proper trailer will be released just before the update comes out, along with up-to-date screenshots and an additional news post to make sure current players are kept in the loop.
Thanks to everyone who's stuck by even with the long hiatus.
Thanks,
Luke (WideLuke)
0.1.2 Patch notes (17/11/2022)
Changes:
The amount of reset points you'll earn for placing a tile will now appear above the timer in the bottom right.
A build menu has been added to the creative mode to allow for easy access to all of the tiles in the game.
Tile information now shows up as a tool tip both when hovering over a tile and when you're placing one, so you know what type of tile it is.
You can now view your personal best stats by clicking the player icon on the bottom right of the main menu. Here you'll find basic stats such as longest survival time, most reset points gained in a game and most tiles placed in a game.
Day one patch (0.1.1)
Changes:
Implemented better visuals so you know when you are and are not receiving reset points.
Camera boundaries have been increased to allow for further movement around the world.
Added a hotkey for the building button.
Values for the reset points, tiles and calculations have been slightly adjusted to balance out the game. The world clock also has a slightly increased value which it is decreased by.
Fixes:
Creative button no longer persists on screen when moving back from the create game screen to the main menu.
