Substrate: Emergence Alpha Playtest · published

Hey everyone! Playtesting feedback still mostly has been falling into the "how do I play?" category, which I mostly expected. Making a proper tutorial that integrates well into the game is important to me, and it's also one of the biggest design challenges that I've faced. I added some more obvious control hints that float on the cursor now, to indicate exactly which controls are available when hovering over cells. I am going to continue to iterate on this. Right now I'm thinking about locking some features behind progression to make it a bit less overwhelming to drop in to a new lab. It's a bit excessive having so many options immediately available. Also, I streamlined the biomarket to be more straightforward and less confusing, and worked on some various bugs. Here is the full changelog: v0.2.9:
* Renamed "Stock" to "Cryobank" (lab inventory of cells)
* Reworked tutorial hints (WIP):
- Hints merged into "Guide" section of objective panel. Panel can now be expanded to show hints for how to complete objectives (expanded by default)
- Keybinding hints added to Controls section of objective panel. Changes depending on context
- Added "verb" indicator next to cursor to explain what commands are available when hovering over cells
* Added a control to place harvested cells back into a culture from the Cryobank
* Streamlined Biomarket loop (WIP):
- Streamlined selling directly from the Cryobank. Easier to sell individual specimens or bulk sell multiples
- Reordering individual specimens in the Cryobank controls the order they are sold when bulk selling. Drag in the list to re-order
- Removed clunky reordering UI within biomarket
- Individual specimens are now non-fungible (bug fix)
- Biomarket should no longer be blank or fail to open (bug fix)
* Fixed cells being repositioned on save/load. Only applies to new saves
* Fixed unclear UI button name for Biomarket (was called "Exchange" on Lab Home)
* Various bug fixes I also have a bunch of new features planned that I am excited to start working on, and will be fleshing out contracts a lot more in the next few days. I finally got around to adding a proper SFX framework too so expect some sounds to make their way into the game soon.