Hello Chefs!
Just over two weeks since the game released now, and the kitchen seems to finally be settling down. Several players have got to W4 + W5 already, with one player even having 86'd the entire game and got every star! I'm extremely impressed (and a little shocked) - I'm glad you've all been enjoying the game <3
I'll be going on a small break next week, the first I've had in a very long time and very much needed (especially for my poor wrists) - so, here is the deal! After this break I need to go and give my other children (APICO, Mudborne) some love, as they are both overdue their yearly maintenance patches. During this time I will still fix any urgent / breaking bugs in Snacktorio, but it'll be a much less frequent, delivery cannon fire rate of patches (speaking of, small patch coming later today lol)
When I'm done with both of those, I have a larger patch I'd like to do for Snacktorio, with a few features that have been requested that require more time + localisation than small stuff, plus some stuff I just think would be fun to do. The main three things are:
1. More 'infinite' ranked levels!
Currently there's only 1 of these, and it's in W5. If you don't know what it is, this 'infinite' level has a set of specific orders, you meet them all, get 'Rank #1' then all order rates are increased for the next rank (repeat indefinitely until you run out of space in the world or your computer melts)
Seeing you all try min/maxing even the basic levels, I think you'd all enjoy this sort of large endless sandbox type level earlier on in the game, so I want to give each world it's own one to act as a little break between levels to tinker with at any point.
2. Prefabs/blueprints!
An often requested feature, and something I was considering early on in development but never happened is the ability to create larger prefabs/blueprints to re-use.
I'm going to modify the sandbox slightly to give you 8 specific areas you can build in, and make whatever you'd like inside that area (within reason, there'll be a specific space restriction, perhaps 7x7). You'll then be able to use these prefabs in any level (as long as you have the resources/are allowed those machines, no sneaky cubemakers for you!). I feel 8 is enough prefabs for now, i.e. a power setup, a sludge setup, void setup, pump setup etc, and I'll just add a third tab to the blueprint tool to select from your prefabs and place that entire 'thing' in one go.
More map stuff
There's a couple things I want to play with on the map, I think it'd be good to have an 'alt' mode to the map that lists every machine in the level to quickly inspect the status of all machines you have setup (or brag about how many mixers you have).
I also want to add sort of custom marker/waypoint system, and have a toggle to show any 'errored' machines on the main map so you can quickly see issues or bottlenecks. While I'm there i'll probably do some sort of layer visibility also so you can toggle on/off all layers (blocks/machines/pipes/wires) - realistically I'm not going to be able to have the map rendered at the same level of detail as the full size (and free-camera mode is better for that), but I'll also try seeing about improving that if possible.
There's a few other misc bits also, such as:
- I'd like to add an option for bigger mining sizes for the hammer (basically bigger 'brushes')
- A 'pc mode' option for docked steamdeck
- Russian language (if not already finished by then, they're about 40% done already though!)
- Options to toggle the speed + output of cubemakers to better emulate specific machines
I'll be honest the game hasn't sold as much as I'd have hoped, so I can't spend forever on it as this is my day job (though if things pick up I will gladly make more levels!) - but I think this will make a nice 2.0 of sorts and tie things up nicely for the time being. If some of you are keeping up on your Steam Festival events this year you might have an idea of when I'm aiming to have it done by...
So yeah, a short break for me, some patches needed for APICO/Mudborne and then I'll be back - but also I'll still be fixing urgent bugs or crashes, so still let me know if you run into issues!
If you have any additional ideas or thoughts on the above be sure to send them in either in the forums or through the form, as there's still a bit of time before I'll be making the new stuff, and you know I appreciate all of your feedback <3
~ Ell