Learning Factory News

Hey engineers, in this update we continue to make Learning Factory shinier, and even more colorful (see below). That concerns both the overall game look and the UI/UX:

[h2]v0.90.189 Released![/h2]

• Improved biomes' visuals
  
• Improved visuals for connections between different biomes
  
• 2 new colors for Zeppelins
  
• Machine learning optimized (but more complicated models will be learning longer)
  
• Added an option to remove map pins upon picking up the entire factory
  
• Minor UI improvements all over the game
  
• Improved adaptive interface
  
• Improved Steam Deck interface
  
• Bug fixes (kudos to Calame, Alex, Nazura)
  

[h2]Re: Factory[/h2]

In this section of patch notes, we answer the questions from the community that were submitted via the in-game feedback form and/or seemed especially interesting to us.

Q: "unable to advance the item archiver upgrades"
-mike A: The progress required for upgrades is counted for arciving items, not for producing Archivers themselves.

A friendly reminder: don't forget about our collection of items in Steam Points Shop! Sergei the artist makes wonderful factory art to be observed from above, but his works' magic really shows at close-up perspective:




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

At Luden.io, we develop games while constantly listening to the feedback from our awesome players. If you feel proactive, you're very welcome to do one or more of the following:

• Subscribe to our newsletter, to get the latest info about the game's development, and a sneak peek of the upcoming features and events
  
• Record 10 minutes of you playing Learning Factory, and share it with us via this form. Your feedback is so helpful, that we'll include you in the game's credits for doing this
  
• Come say hi to our Discord server, or Twitter
• Check out some other games by us!
  

Hey engineers!

We have some bug fixes (kudos to S'Kleer for reporting), so don't forget to update to enjoy the most polished experience in Learning Factory, as of today! Happy factory building.

Hey engineers,

This update brings even more overall polishing, but most importantly: all buildings in the game that were supposed to have animations now have them! These machines were working all the time but now you can see all of them in action - another big step towards the upcoming v1.0 release:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]v0.90.188 Released![/h2]

• Animated Inventory Teleport
  
• Re-rendered Splitters
  
• Slightly improved connections between different biomes
  
• Slightly improved effect for items entering and exiting buildings
  
• Catopia Ark now has a visual exhaust when lifting off
  
• New tutorial: Research projects
  
• Milk pasteurization recipe buffed (suggested by S'Kleer)
  
• Improved art for Apple Trees
  
• Improved art for selected harvested plants
  
• Improved main menu interface
  
• Improved Wiki interface
  
• Improved Zeppelin Interface
  
• Improved UI for Steam Deck
  
• New animated avatars in Steam Points Shop
• UI/UX fixes
  
• Performance optimization
  
• Huge UI update to make it adaptive
  
• Bug fixes (kudos to S'Kleer)
  

[h2]Re: Factory[/h2]

In this section of patch notes, we answer the questions from the community that were submitted via the in-game feedback form and/or seemed especially interesting to us.

Q: "1)Привет. Или я не смог найти функцию зеркального отражения чертежа, или её нет.
Если действительно нет, было бы очень здорово, если бы она появилась.Спасибо за чудесную игру. " (Translated: "Hello. Either I couldn’t find the Blueprint scheme mirroring, or it doesn’t exist. If it really doesn’t exist, it would be great if it were added.")
A: Alas, we can't make it happen. We've been experimenting with it, but certain buildings can't be mirrored due to art limitations, and making twice as much art for the sole purpose of enabling building reflection would be too much time-consuming. This is something we should have considered at the very early stages of game development, which we haven't, unfortunately. We might consider adding it after the v1.0 release though.


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

At Luden.io, we develop games while constantly listening to the feedback from our awesome players. If you feel proactive, you're very welcome to do one or more of the following:

• Subscribe to our newsletter, to get the latest info about the game's development, and a sneak peek of the upcoming features and events
  
• Record 10 minutes of you playing Learning Factory, and share it with us via this form. Your feedback is so helpful, that we'll include you in the game's credits for doing this
  
• Come say hi to our Discord server, or Twitter
• Check out some other games by us!
  

We have to admit: in the upcoming few month,s these developer diaries will be progressively more boring, at least in terms of news. The game is basically finished in terms of gameplay. There's a lot of testing and polishing to be done still but nothing grand will probably happen to the game until we hit that big ‘release’ button.

And then there's some art to be added, too! This means our dev diaries will at least be entertaining to scroll through, even without new killer features. The remaining few months before the v1.0 release will fly by momentarily, as time always does, you'll see!

However, this time there's much to be told, too! For one, we released the biggest update for Learning Factory in September. It pushes the game so much closer to its final state, that we have jumped from v0.3 to v0.9

The main reason this update was delayed for a few weeks was the infamous summer vacation season (even the most passionate of the game devs must take some time away once in a while!). But it was also a great time to thoroughly study the feedback from our players, take a look at the game with rested eyes, and make some necessary improvements.

There were many upgrades and balance tweaks that came along with v0.9 that made the game more comfortable and flexible. The full (and rather long: 100+ points) list of changes can be found here.

We won't list everything here but we have something better: video highlights! Check out these newly animated buildings in Learning Factory:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Occasional new buildings still make it to the game once in a while. Here's another advertising building which promotes laser pointers and also served us a great excuse to make yet another pop culture reference:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And this new building is meant for logistics fanatics: the structure of our game does not allow making Transporters faster, so we created this machine for packing items into archives, and then unpacking them, when needed:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

A big part of our work is about many things around the game: the menus, the tutorials - things like that. We added over a dozen mini-guides explaining the trickier aspects of the game, and we’ll probably add some more (and likely accompany them with animated illustrations in the future).

As for the menus, they’re slowly coming into lighter, more modern form all over the game. Check out how the Research Tree changed a couple of weeks ago.

Old:



New:



Already existing structures get a lift up as well. Check out our more detailed redesigned Monument:



And the Trade Ports were upgraded with landing sites, with Zeppelins flying in and out to deliver the goods to the mysterious cat Guilds:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

But perhaps one of the most time-consuming tasks was re-rendering Learning Factory's innumerous variations of Transporters, Splitters, Mergers and such. While Sergei the artist was at it, he got so deep into his early work that he started finding creepy-ish objects that never made it to the game, like this magnificent lineup of Tunnels:



One day we will gather and share as many weird artifacts like that as we will find, but this will happen once Learning Factory is properly released. Until then, there is more excitingly boring work on polishing the game. More tutorials, more visual upgrades, and vital QoL changes, hooray!

The big day is coming. We’ll be in touch!

Hey engineers!

If you're following our news for some time, you might know that in our spare time from making games, we're also organizing an event that gathers games about programming, automation and engineering.

This year it is dedicated to Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating the first programmer in the world. We've got over 80 participants this year, and you might find some familiar names and hidden gems there:

[h2]Visit Ada Lovelace Day Sale[/h2]

And of course, all our games are discounted as well. Learning Factory is sold 38% off the price throughout this whole week, and the DLCs are 15% off as well:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150090/Learning_Factory/

Happy hunting, and happy Ada Lovelace Day!