Power to the People News

Hello everyone! Welcome to Development Update #8. It's been over a month since we last posted here, but that doesn't mean we haven't been hard at work. We have some very exciting news to share with you all.

[h2]Partnership with Crytivo[/h2]

We're thrilled to announce that we have entered a partnership with the indie publisher Crytivo to bring Power to the People to Steam and beyond. We are confident that this cooperation will help us elevate the quality of the game and make sure that more people learn about it.



[h2]New level selection screen[/h2]

Behold the brand new level selection screen! It looks beautiful, if we might say so ourselves. By dragging this gorgeous globe around you'll be able to decide where in the world you'd like to play.



[h2]Perks and challenges[/h2]

Each level in the game will now feature a set of perks and challenges to make things more interesting. They are different from level to level and they also change depending on which difficulty setting you choose. These reflect economic and cultural traits from different parts of the world, making the experience of playing each level unique!



[h2]More levels[/h2]

We've started working on adding several new levels to the game! Right now we're fine tuning Sydney and Siem Reap and soon we'll start on Agra and Abuja. There will be a few more to come during the following weeks, so stay tuned!

[h3]Click here to join our Discord channel[/h3]



Don't forget to wishlist and follow the game here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1413370/Power_to_the_People/


✉️ 👉 Sign Up for closed tests here

[h2]Power lines VFX[/h2]

We're super proud to announce that, after working for some time on a brand new custom shader, Power to the People now features some very cool visual effects on power lines. You can now see the power flowing through your cables, so you can understand how your power grid is working with just a quick glance.



Also, it looks cool, doesn't it? But if you don't like it, no worries, you can still turn it off in the settings window. Which brings us to our next point

[h2]New settings window[/h2]

The old settings window was getting crowded, so we decided to proceed with a full redesign, grouping options under different tabs. We've also added settings to turn antialiasing and VSync on and off, and key bindings are now customizable! Overall, nothing too exciting, but a set of tweaks to make players' lives better.





[h2]Autosave[/h2]

Speaking of making players' lives better, we've also now added an autosave feature. If you turn on the autosave setting, your game will be saved automatically at the end of each day. Once again, not a very thrilling feature, but once that improves the overall user experience.

[h2]Improved usability[/h2]

As part of our plans to improve UX, we've also added a few explanatory tooltips to the End of Day window, tried to make it more clear that the number in brackets after a city name is its population, made the Research Points indicator pulse if you have enough of them to unlock a new tech and rewrote some of the texts in the tutorials. Small changes that add up to a more pleasurable experience for our players!



[h3]Click here to join our Discord channel[/h3]
Don't forget to wishlist and follow the game here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1413370/Power_to_the_People/

[h2]Switching stations[/h2]

By far, the most exciting new feature we've added to the game in recent history are the "switching stations". They are a new building type that allows players to turn the flow of power on or off. You can choose to do so manually, on a timer at specific times of the day or based on the results of monitoring some other power building. In this way, you can use them to bring some backup generators online when the lithium battery farm is running out of juice or to connect an autonomous portion of your grid into the main grid when demand spikes. So many possibilities!



[h2]Full gamepad support[/h2]

We have finished the implementation of gamepad support, after reworking the whole "input layer" from the ground up. All UI elements have been redesigned and tested both using keyboard+mouse and different types of gamepads to ensure that players can get a good experience. This will also allow us to port the game to consoles more easily in the future if we decide to go down that road!



[h2]New ambient light system[/h2]

A brand new ambient light system has been implemented. This massive visual improvement simulates the color of ambient lighting coming from up in the sky and from the horizon independently based on the position of the sun on the sky. The result is a much more realistic and immersive lighting simulation that provides gorgeous sunsets, deep nighttime and blueish shadows on bright sunny days!

In the middle of the night:


Moments before sunrise:


[h3]Click here to join our Discord channel[/h3]
Don't forget to wishlist and follow the game here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1413370/Power_to_the_People/

[h2]First steps towards gamepad support[/h2]

We have been working hard on reimplementing the whole "input layer" in order to support different control methods. For the time being, the game is only playable using mouse and keyboard, but all this work will be the foundation to be able to add gamepad support in the future. And, well, if things go well and we decide to do a Switch version of the game... This foundation will come in handy!

You can see a quick test we've made to allow players to control the camera movement using a gamepad here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Star scores[/h2]

Thanks to some changes to the "end of day" report, players will now have a more accurate idea on how well their power company is performing. A 1 to 5 stars rating will be given for each category, in order to help players identify possible problems with their electrical infrastructure.



[h2]New buildings[/h2]

We've also added a couple of new buildings to the game: a redesigned petrol station and a new variant for the high rise apartment buildings. In addition, we've also created lightmaps for every single building in the game, providing more realistic lighting effects at night.



[h2]Performance improvements[/h2]

After lots of time spent profiling our code, we have identified a couple of issues in the way that the power grid was being simulated. When there are many large cities in a map with tons of power lines and power plants, performance used to decrease significantly. We still have some work to do, but we're in a much better position than before! Under some specific circumstances frame rates have increased by 200%!

Finally, the official trailer for Power to the People is now live! Check it out on the Steam store page or right here via YouTube:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]