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Developer Diaries: April 2021



Hey everyone! How have you been?

Us, we've been busy during March and April. Makine some awesome stuff for YOU, for one. If you want to know what exactly we've been doing, here's the latst version of our developer diaries:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Please watch our dev diaries and/or play the latest version of the game if you have questions. If you don't have questions, then go play the game until you reach that inevitable state of ultimate satisfaction. If that does not seem achievable - then probably you haven't played enough of that game yet.

See, that's all very simple. We're always open for questions, too. Have an awesome and liberated weekend! Glory to science! Glory to KOTOVOD.

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[h2]How to Get More Involved[/h2]

Going to Early Access is but the first step to glory (and eternal cat happiness). Wanna be part of what happens next? Head to this blog post and learn how to help make the game even more awesome!

[h2]Share Your Gameplay and Become Part of KOTOVOD History[/h2]
Learning Factory needs your help! Record a 10 or more minutes of you playing the game, share a video using any way you see fit, write your name into Learning Factory credits and get a promo cat! Make history here

Smart Martian Sale: Buy a Bundle Full of Cats, Solve Puzzles, Build Factories



You know, two things are definitely true: you can't get too smart and you can't have too much fun playing video games.

So don't restrain yourself, especially when you can do both!

Us at Luden.io, we're having an epic sale these days! You can buy Learning Factory with a 13% discount! You can buy while True: learn(), our previous game (also featuring machine learning and cats) is at a glorious 30% discount!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/619150/while_True_learn/

And you can grab them both in a bundle to get an additional 10% discount!

Oh, and all DLCs for while True: learn() and Learning Factory are also sold with a 10% discount.

Have fun, learn new stuff, May the 2nd be with you!

KOTOVOD Worker #27: Update Today, Live Stream Tomorrow!



TL;DR: We'll be live streaming Learning Factory again tomorrow, April 30, 8am PST / 11am EST / 5pm CET, and you are invited! Come to our Twitch or just check onto our Steam page at that time this Friday!

Give robot a fish and... it wouldn't know what to do with it.

Teach a robot to fish - and he will feed an unlimited amount of cats for a lifetime!

That's exactly what the I.L.L.U.M.I.N.A.T.I. brightest scientists had on their minds when they were conceiving the Fishing Pier, which is now available to research and build for all KOTOVOD engineers!

Of course, there is the magnificent Fish Maker to do that work, but... It also is an advanced piece of machinery, capable of producing fish out of thin air. The oceans of Mars, on the other hand, are already full of fish-imitating edible robots, which were dropped there during the early colonization stages. They resemble real fish in every way, except for they are not real fish... still delicious though.

As KOTOVOD administration (and, subsequently, everyone else) believes, the introduction of the Fishing Peer should help saturate the demand for Fish and Cat Food during the early stages of Learning Factory building.

Science is triumphant again today! Lives are improving and the future is bright! Glory to KOTOVOD!

[h2]Version 0.9.22 Released[/h2]
  • New building: Fishing Pier - allows harvesting Fish from the water. Pier's working speed depends on overall fish amount (is set up upon map generation) and the type of water it extracts fish from - Abundant water (see below) breeds fish faster
  • New mechanics: Abundant water can be researched, crafted and used in terraforming
  • Fish Maker machine is now placed further on the Research Tree
  • New hotkeys available
  • Slots in the Store can be emptied with one click
  • UI improved
  • Bugs fixed
  • Updated Chinese fonts and localization




Found some bugs? Or are you just beaming with excitement and want to share it with the world? Don't hesitate and leave a comment, or find us on Discord, or maybe even on Reddit or Twitter, we're always happy to chat!

----------------------

[h2]How to Get More Involved[/h2]

Going to Early Access is but the first step to glory (and eternal cat happiness). Wanna be part of what happens next? Head to this blog post and learn how to help make the game even more awesome!

[h2]Share Your Gameplay and Become Part of KOTOVOD History[/h2]
Learning Factory needs your help! Record a 10 or more minutes of you playing the game, share a video using any way you see fit, write your name into Learning Factory credits and get a promo cat! Make history here

KOTOVOD Worker #26: Terraforming, Hoverboarding, Map Generating!


It all started with a small rover.

Then, a bunch of other rovers joined the party.

Things have gone wild when Cat Warmth Amplifiers started turning feline cuteness energy for warming up Mars and bringing Earth-like atmosphere to the Red planet.



This process took time and KOTOVOD engineers were stuck on a small patch of land, building tiny factories for producing small parties of next generation goods for cats.

But today, we're going BIG! As Cat Warmth Amplifiers are operating at full capacity, Mars is now open for exploration, with thousands of square kilometers of land to be discovered and conquered, and turned into paradise for both humans and cats (mostly for cats though).



KOTOVOD engineers, as usual, are riding the crest of the wave of progress: all thanks to the new hoverboards, conceived at the I.L.L.U.M.I.N.A.T.I. headquarters. They are meant to skyrocket the productivity rates at Learning Factories. Although not tested for safety, they're guaranteed to ensure the safety of all cats riding them - all thanks to the living safety bag in the form of a meat bag which is a human engineer.

The future looks bright for KOTOVOD and the feline race! So let's rejoice for the moment and then get back to hard work. Or else!



[h2]Version 0.9.19 Released[/h2]
[h3]New Game Mode: Freeplay[/h3]
  • In this mode you're free to build your map without having to go through all the tutorials. But most importantly, you can fine tune your map using Map Generation Tool

[h3]Procedural Map generation[/h3]
  • There's now a mini-map (and a maxi-map) for easier navigation
  • Choose your map size: from 256*256 to glorious 512*512 tiles
  • Choose land coverage: from a huge continent to a tiny island
  • Choose land density: from one huge chunk of soil to an archipelago of islands
  • Choose land sharpness: from smooth to extra sharp shorelines
  • Choose land centralization: do you want more land in the center of the map, or maybe you would like to see some water there
  • New mechanics: Fertility. Soil (and water - reserved for future updates) can now be either fertile or infertile. Infertile soil spawns trees (regular and fir) and metal sources, fertile soils spawn Apple Trees and Cotton Plants. Those latter plants can be planted into infertile soil (see "Terraforming" section below), but will grow and multiply at a slower rate. If a plant is fully grown, not being harvested and has no place to multiply, it can increase the fertility of the tile under it (but cannot change the type of soil) for future plants
  • You can fine tune coverage, density and border sharpness of fertile/infertile soil in the editor, too
  • In the "Map details" section you can also tune coverage and density for resource types. Please note that metal/trees and cotton/apples are interconnected: in any of these pairs, both parameters can't be set to 100% simultaneously
  • "Randomize Seed" function allows you to create a whole new map using the same parameters you've selected
  • Finally, copy and paste the key from "Map Key" section and send it to your friends, so they could play the game on that same map

[h3]Hoverboard[/h3]
  • As seen in the movies! Reasearch it in the Monument and then press and hold "Shift" to glide around the factory like it's going out of style! Cannot glide over the water though (as seen in some movies, too)

[h3]Terraforming[/h3]
  • Research and use our brand new Shovel tool to lift tiles of map, take them somewhere else and replace some other tiles
  • You can now pull growing plants and trees from the ground and plant them elsewhere
  • Growing plants, water and soil can also be researched and crafted
  • Other Gameplay Changes
  • Turing Trees and Apple Trees can now be harvested for wood
  • Storage units can now store up to 40 items (grouped by quantities of up to 10)
  • New structure: Vertical Cable allows laying Optic Cables under the ground
  • Research Labs can now research stuff even without data from connected Stores, but they will do so at 25% of their normal speed
  • Research tree re-balanced
  • Resource harvesting re-balanced

[h3]Interface[/h3]
  • Available buildings and researches are now divided into categories; in addition to standard categories, you can also assign buildings and structures to your Favorites list
  • Check out what's currently inside a Splitter/Tunnel by hovering your mouse over them
  • The amount of an item picked from the ground is now visible
  • The amount of items on a Storage is now visible
  • Some keys from the mouse can be accessed from keyboard as well
  • Tutorials updated

[h3]Graphics[/h3]
  • New tiles for the map (obviously)
  • Cat Sharpeners are now animated
  • New character design (cat included!)
  • New icons for certain items

[h3]Misc[/h3]
  • Interface optimization
  • Performance optimization
  • Bug fixes
  • 5 new achievements


[h3]NB: Due to many structural changes to the game, saved game files from the previous versions won't work anymore. We're very sorry about that
[/h3]

Found some bugs? Or are you just beaming with excitement and want to share it with the world? Don't hesitate and leave a comment, or find us on Discord, or maybe even on Reddit or Twitter, we're always happy to chat!

----------------------

[h2]How to Get More Involved[/h2]

Going to Early Access is but the first step to glory (and eternal cat happiness). Wanna be part of what happens next? Head to this blog post and learn how to help make the game even more awesome!

[h2]Share Your Gameplay and Become Part of KOTOVOD History[/h2]
Learning Factory needs your help! Record a 10 or more minutes of you playing the game, share a video using any way you see fit, write your name into Learning Factory credits and get a promo cat! Make history here

LIVE Stream With Devs: Showing Off New Update Today!



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

UPDATE: Recording above!

Ahoy, engineers!

Just a friendly reminder: you can connect with us in less than an hour, when we will be showing beta version of our content update, which will be released on April 22!

The time is as usual: 8am PST / 11am EST / 5pm CET

Join us on the Steam page, or head to Twitch or YouTube, we'll be monitoring all 3 chat rooms.

See you on the air!