Over the last two years, I’ve been relentlessly focused on clarifying and polishing Adaptory’s design and its unique identity. In today’s feature preview, I’d like to chat about my approach to Adaptory and what you can expect to play with in Early Access.
(Spoilers ahead!)
Explorers
Creating your unique team at the start of the game
One of the key things that makes Adaptory unique are your explorers! In Adaptory, you start out with four explorers, and you will always be limited in the number of explorers you’ll have (maximum eight, ever). This is an intentional game design decision for Adaptory, because we want explorers to always feel important and meaningful, and we want players to feel emotionally connected with them. It seems in every other base-building game, once I hit a dozen or so characters, they seem to merge into a blob of I-don’t-care-anymore.
Our goal has been to make explorers varied and unique, but conceptually coherent and enjoyable, with traits and effects that matter. Each explorer is procedurally generated, with custom skins, clothing, hair styles, voices, personality types, backstory, and more – and in Early Access, we’ve massively expanded all the possibilities you’ll be able to play with. We’ve also tripled the number of (human!) voice actors that have given them their adorable squeaks 😊
Traits
We've implemented explorer traits and fleshed out their impacts
The explorer trait system is now fully implemented, with a total of 44 different traits in Early Access. Each explorer generates with 4-6 of these traits – two from their personality type, of which there are nine – and these are a mix of positive and negative effects that affect every aspect of your playthrough. For example:
Fit: Runs faster than others.
Loves digging: Becomes happier and works faster after doing a lot of digging over the previous day.
Frazzled: -10% happiness when there are more than 20 pending tile errands to do.
Night owl: +10% happiness during the night (0h-6h).
Smug: Sad explorers become more sad when this explorer is happy.
There are also interesting interactions between traits to play with; for example, annoying explorers slightly decrease the mood of everyone around them, but empathetic explorers are unaffected. Chatty explorers are more eager to start conversations with others, but gruff explorers don’t like being near them.
Buffs and tantrums
Marsi is not having a good day
Explorers now experience a wider range of effects – some from their traits, some from the world, some from their crew mates, and some from their environment. These buffs and debuffs may only last an instant, or they may last days.
Explorers who are particularly upset now also have the chance to throw a tantrum, where they’ll refuse to work while they express their feelings – so it’s best to keep your team happy and healthy! (Self-preservation will still kick in if they end up in danger while throwing a tantrum though.)
Smarter explorers
Explorer AI has been massively improved:
Explorers no longer insist on using far-away resources for building and supplying errands
Explorers will start doing their target errands as soon as they’re in range
Non-urgent personal errands (such as sleeping or eating) are now a lower default priority than other work
Exhausted and starving explorers will now urgently want to look after themselves, rather than work themselves to exhaustion
Lots of other tweaks and polish to make explorers slightly more intelligent
Explorers will still happily dig themselves into a hole or lock themselves outside in space though, so make sure to keep an eye on them!
More random events
Experience beautiful aurora or discover crash-landed cargo pods
Adaptory also increases the challenge for experienced players with new random world events. Inspired by Rimworld, these events challenge your crew and the design of your base. Events are triggered by playtime, by artefacts uncovered, and by the number of tiles you’ve dug out – so you’re able to control the game’s difficulty while you play.
In Early Access, you’ll be able to experience seven new random events, including:
Aurora: The natural electromagnetic environment is creating a beautiful aurora tonight, improving the moods of anyone who sees it.
Cargo pod: Valuable resources await in this crash-landed pod.
Seed self planted: A seed has managed to plant itself in the ground and start growing.
Solar eclipse: A small moon is blocking all incoming light, which may shut down solar power production.
Two days to go!
I’m trying to make the game that I want to play, and I’d love you to join me! Make sure that you come and follow Adaptory on our socials (Bluesky, Instagram, Mastodon, and others), wishlist and follow the game on Steam, or join us in our Discord. It’s getting very exciting in there :D