Hello again everyone! First I would like to thank everyone who has stopped by the stream and kept me company while I worked on this release. If you haven't already, follow me on Twitch if you want to watch me work on the game!
Early Access
Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1384030/Boppio/
Boppio is now available in Early Access! I am happy with the state of the game and I think it is ready to be experienced by a broader audience. The game is also launching with a 15% discount!
Content Creators
Hello! Are you a Twitch streamer or YouTuber who wants to create content on Boppio? Check out the press kit! The press kit should provide you with some basic assets that you can use for thumbnail or overlay creation. Also, if there is something not included in the press kit that you would like (extra screenshots, etc.) please message me on discord and I will do my best to improve the press kit.
Small note: You can press the G key on the keyboard to toggle the UI in the game. This is useful for creating thumbnails or screenshots :)
I have had many requests for free keys for content creators. I have tried to be as fair as possible to all content creators and up until now I have only given out free access through the playtest. Now that the game is publicly available content creators are buying game keys to create content on the game. I think it is most fair to everyone if I don't give out free game keys to content creators (this includes Steam curators). If you have concerns about this please send me a DM on discord or send me an email to our support email address.
Playtest Access
I will continue to let people in for playtest access. However, the playtest branch will likely be deprecated before the August 1st release. If you are waiting for access and want to play now, please consider buying the game (especially since the game is on sale). However, if you have signed up you will receive access over the next 2 months. The main way I plan to use the playtest is post-release when the influx of new users slows down a bit. Thank you everyone for your patience :)
Rebalancing
Since I have not written an update post in over a month, there are a massive amount of changes here. I will quickly do an overview of the biggest changes:
- Buildings that produce items (miners, assembly machines) will only construct ~3-8 items and then stop until the output slot is emptied. This preserves resources so that they can be used elsewhere.
- Buildings that consume items will only request a certain amount of input items, instead of requesting the maximum stack size.
- The fuel burn time for coal has been increased from 12 seconds to 20 seconds (wood is unchanged)
- The mining speed of miners has been substantially reduced
- The crafting speed of the assembly machines has been substantially reduced
- Water pumps produce substantially less water per building
- Transport Tubes now require copper to build and have a maximum length
- Fluid pipes now require iron plates to build and have a maximum length.
New Items
There have been a substantial amount of changes to the current late game. There are 6 new items:
- Valve
- Valves are an early game item, these build into many other items including pumps and motors.
The Portal
This building is replacing the Space Elevator for the release. This building's functionality is hidden for now, but will be unlocked for the Technology Tier 2 release which is coming at the end of July.
All that is known about the portal for now is its clear that items are able to move in and out of the portal. The portal will unlock on August 1st.
Multiplayer
There are two options for multiplayer right now, playing through LAN (connecting to an IP and port) or just playing through Steam, which is what I think most players will use. You can also invite people from your steam friends list and play with LAN players at the same time.
The new multiplayer lobby can be found in the menu by pressing "host game"
You can also control the lobby through the in game menu. Just press "Network Settings" and you will get this screen:
In the Network Settings menu you can kick players and change the permissions of your Steam lobby.
This will allow you to kick members who are acting malicious
Controller Support
We recently polished up the controller support and it is now available for players to test. If you want to give the game a try using a controller, you should just be able to plug in an xbox or PS4 controller when the game starts up. You should then be able to navigate most menus by just using the controller.
On the Steam page, the controller support is listed as "Partial" because some aspects like entering text still need to be done with a keyboard. We will gradually work towards full controller support over the next few months.
Controller Remapping
I think its likely people will want to try out other types of controllers that we don't officially support, so I thought it was important to allow controller button remappings. This is very similar to the keyboard + mouse remappings.
There are now some controller remapping options as well, these are separate from the keyboard mappings so you can customize your mappings for keyboard + mouse/gamepad separately.
Conclusion
Holy smokes has it been a long month. I would like to give a special thanks to everyone in the community who has helped test Boppio and has supported me.
I have tried to compile a list of the people who have made the largest impact on the game and it was surprisingly difficult because there are so many of you. And a very special thanks to the following people (in no particular order):
- sirblacksoul
- PkMinch
- Tassido
- Glidercat
- franzfritzmusic
- jbeck3d
- Warski
- Feidry
- crazy_pete79
- Frazzz
- DragonLoon
- zaemz
- SeminixDev
- DjohnnyBeck
- phanxgames
- DanField
- M0eeb
- FrostedLink20
- PackerB
- cakenotcake
And thank you to jordan for testing my patience :)
I would also like to thank everyone for their patience as I was very ill the 2 days before the release. The release would have been much buggier had it not been for everyone testing the game in the final few hours, so thank you :)