Hello there!
Today, we’re excited to share with you our third major content update for Laysara: the Tunnels Update!
The main thing we’re introducing is, of course, tunnels - with a brand new scenario for showcasing them! But this update is also packed with other changes, like:
Steam achievements
A last-chance mechanism preventing unexpected game-over screens
No more wacky bridges and shafts going through cliffs
Hotkey for enabling/disabling buildings (TAB by default)
Button for cycling over source buildings of markets
Marking scenarios as completed on the scenario selection screen
…and tons of other smaller stuff! (see full patch notes below)
Let’s have a closer look at what this update brings!
We can finally reveal that the tunnels are the end-game long-distance transportation mechanics that we’ve been preparing for you!
They actually work quite simply: each tunnel (or to be precise, the tunnel entrance) building allows you to send or extract resources through the underground to wherever you want on the mountain!
But why do I even need another transportation method? Are carts and yaks not enough, one might ask? Well, they both have one pretty significant downside: the number of carriers they employ (be it Artisans or Yaks) grows with the number of transported resources and the distance they’re being transported over. This means that if you wanted to transport something more than just a couple of units of salt across a few zones, you end up with a lot (and I mean A LOT) of carriers, and there was nothing you could do about it - up until now!
The tunnel (or to be precise, the tunnel entrance) building has a fixed cost - no matter how many resources you’ll transport in or out of it, the number of employees required to run it won’t grow. Sure, it still requires quite a few workers and takes some space, but for really long transport routes with numerous transported resources, it’s more effective than the army of carriers - and by a long shot.
As mentioned before, we’ve prepared a brand new scenario to introduce you to this new mechanic.
Embark on an expedition to Snowfury Summit, where the risk of avalanches lurks around every corner. It’s the perfect place to familiarise yourself with tunnels and get a refresher on other tricks to maximise your town’s efficiency!
We’re super happy to tell you that Laysara now has 43 achievements, with a few more probably coming with the 1.0 launch. We originally planned to prepare them for the full release, but you were crystal clear, you didn’t want to wait - so, no more waiting! Let’s go and catch them all!
We also heard your feedback about the game being too easy to lose. In Laysara, it’s quite common to get entangled in the never-ending process of reorganising your city and find yourself with no money left just before making it all work again - or just simply miss the info about funds running out. And we didn’t even touch upon the avalanches…
So, to give you just a little more slack and a chance to recover, from now on, when hitting the bottom of your coffers, instead of the game over screen, you’ll see this message:
After continuing, you’ll get some funds that’ll hopefully buy you enough time to figure things out! But if you fail to do this and hit zero again, this time the game will be truly over… So I’d say staying on surplus and avoiding getting low on money is still highly advisable!
For all power-gamers out there: yes, this “last-chance mechanism” can work multiple times in a single playthrough, as it resets after achieving a positive money balance again. If you want to check if you’re still in danger of losing, just open the money tooltip and see if the Artisan is panicking more than usual.
If you want to familiarise yourself with this new behaviour, we encourage you to take a look at the rebalanced Blink of an Eye challenge. Especially on boosted difficulty, this is now a truly masochistic kind of fun.
Alright, this post is already getting horrendously long, so if you want to know the full extent of the changes, you can consult the patch notes below - but first, let us address one more thing.
Those of you who are observing our Early Access road keenly won’t be surprised that this content update is the last of the major ones for Laysara’s EA, as our roadmap currently looks like this:
So, there’s light at the end of the tunnel (sorry, I couldn’t resist :D)! The future plans are really straightforward for us: the campaign. It’s already in the works, so we’ll be launching it alongside the 1.0 version of the game later this year. There are still some things that we’re cooking behind the scenes, which affect the timing, so we don’t have a fixed release date just yet - but we’ll let you know when we do!
But for now, we hope you’ll have fun checking out the Tunnels Update! Thanks for all your support <3
Cheers!
Quite OK Team
Main changes:
Tunnel Entrance building introduced
Scenario on Snowfury Summit added
43 achievements added
Added “last-chance mechanism” preventing from unexpected game over screens
Placing deformed bridges or shafts going through cliffs is no longer possible
Added a shortcut for manually enabling/disabling buildings (TAB by default)
Added a lookup button to cycle over source buildings of markets
Marking scenarios as completed on the scenario selection screen
Summit Temple’s objectives now also require a positive money balance!
Manually disabled buildings no longer get enabled if hit by an avalanche - they get destroyed!
Tweaks:
Buildings no longer get unselected when entering far camera mode
Better visualisation when demolishing shafts and bridges
New warning building status: using a lot of carriers (Artisans or Yaks)
New icon with tooltip on Food Market’s UI panel signalling a situation where foods that are being delivered in the theoretically right numbers can’t compensate for the ones that are missing
The monetary penalty for an overloaded Lift Station Base increased from 50 to 150 AGAIN - last time we did this, it didn’t actually change anything…
Camera rotation is now being saved in non-standard camera modes
Clarification in the weather breakdown objective’s text that you may need to get new inhabitants into the town to meet the requirement
If a building is disabled, no resources will be sent to it
In the money tooltip, Artisan will no longer complain about not taking donations if there’s no possibility to build the Donation Spot building (some challenges)
Some cleaning up in Photo Mode UI
Map info panel: not showing info about import/export resources when Trading Post is disabled (some challenges)
Added a few new loading screen tips
Some unnecessary buildings blocked in the Ultimate Insight challenge
Salt icon filtering fixed
Bugfixes:
Resources are now being properly sent to Trading Posts over a chain of Post buildings
Houses are no longer trying to get need’s effects from manually disabled buildings
Rounding error in Food Market’s UI panel fixed
If you rebind the toggling of far camera to another key than MMB, holding LMB/RMB is no longer required to move in far camera mode
Fixed a rare bug with shaft’s footbridge sometimes being too short
Fixed a rare bug with “Continue” button on objectives panel being shown twice after
Fixed a rare bug with Post buildings incorrectly dividing resources into target buildings
Shafts are now properly restoring their enabled state after load
Fixed a rare bug with resource icon on Trading Post’s board being invalid
Fixed a rare bug when the game assumed it was a loaded game after starting a new game
Fixed snow caps showing their UI panel when they shouldn’t in a few places
Fixed a rare bug when UI panel will close when clicking on it’s decorative elements