Techtonica News

Hello Groundbreakers.

We’ve heard you. We’re bringing the Techtonica demo back.

Here are the key details before we get into the meat of what we’re doing. First, the demo will go live in the next week-ish; we’ll be sure to update you here and on Discord. Second, the demo will not be updated as we focus on the main game.

[h3]Okay, here’s how we got here.[/h3]

We launched the Techtonica demo immediately after the invite-only Alpha finished in September. The purpose of the demo was two-fold:

• Open the Alpha experience up to everyone
  
• Stand as our demo during Steam Next Fest
  

We left the demo up for an entire month after Next Fest, but the plan was always to remove the demo once the Steam festival ended.

The demo does have its bugs and performance issues. Moreover, every day, the demo gets less and less like the game that will launch into Early Access in 2023. Eventually, the demo won’t represent what players will get when they buy the game.

[h3]The demo returns next week.[/h3]

With all of that said, we’ve heard folks would rather have the snapshot, unsupported demo than nothing at all. So, we’re making minor changes (like removing the references to Next Fest) and relaunching the demo for free on Steam next week.

Remember, we won’t be updating the demo at all. We’re focused on building the Early Access version of Techtonica, and we don’t want to spare the developer time to update the demo.

Because the demo is getting less and less like the actual game every day, we plan to remove it once we get close to launch (probably within the month of launch). We don’t want players to download the demo and think that’s the version of Techtonica they can expect at release. The Early Access version of the game features more polish and more content.

Thank you for being such a great community. We wouldn’t have reached this decision without your feedback.

See you on Calyx!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

We’ve talked about this before in our Discord AMAs and across a few interviews, but we’re going for something special with Techtonica. Internally, we refer to it as flow or flow state.

It’s not something we made up! Flow is a real thing, it even has its own Wikipedia page, which is the standard for when a thing becomes real.

Essentially, entering a flow state means you’re in the zone, totally immersed in and energized by the thing you’re doing. As you can probably imagine, this is a super common thing in video games, especially in genres like factory automation, city sim, base building, and colony building.

We’re striving to build an experience that helps players achieve that flow state of energized and relaxed focus, and we feel that a huge part of getting there lies in the music players hear.

Techtonica’s soundtrack (and audio design) is being done by Cityfires. If you played the demo or were part of the Alpha, you’ve experienced the music firsthand. It’s super critical to the game, and we’re working hard on making it feel great.

Today, we’re sharing two new songs from Techtonica. These are both still in progress, so you’ll likely hear something different once the launch rolls around, but we like them enough to share them with you today!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The first song, above, is meant to drive home that flow feeling, and it packs a methodical pace alongside a dark and mysterious tone.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The second is much more up-tempo than the first, and we think it works well against a factory building backdrop.

We hope you enjoyed this preview of the tunes to come. If you did, we'll probably share more between now and launch.

Techtonica’s due for release in 2023. The soundtrack will be available for purchase here on Steam, too! Drop us a Wishlist to stay informed.

Thanks for reading, Groundbreaker. See you soon.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

If you follow Techtonica here on Steam, this likely won’t come as a surprise. Factory automation games like Techtonica have a narrow, dedicated following, especially when compared to other marquee genres like the typical action, adventure, or FPS fare.

That’s why we were pleasantly surprised to see such a positive reaction from a wealth of players completely new to the genre at Day of the Devs.

Double Fine (of Psychonauts fame) partnered with iam8bit (purveyor of great video game merchandise, including vinyl that we adore) in order to host Day of the Devs, a one-day-event aimed at providing select indie studios a place to showcase their upcoming games. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the show and the first in-person event since before the pandemic.

We were picked to join the event, along with more than 70 other devs, and we took the trip to San Francisco with the demo in hand to show some new folks the wild world of factory automation and black hole gun-wielding.

It was a ton of fun!

Over the span of five hours, the show floor was open to players of all kinds as they listened to live music, wandered from station to station, and played some great indie games. Joey (that’s me!) ran the demo for the event, and Techtonica never sat unplayed as folks were treated to the very beginning of the demo and jumped to a later save with the M.O.L.E. built and ready to eat through some of Calyx’s walls.

What did we learn? Factory automation is an up-and-coming genre, people love wielding a black hole gun, and the voice performance for Sparks is really good.

We did catch a few factory automation fans, of course, with each of them super eager to share how many hours they’ve spent building factories across games. They took to Techtonica right away, laying belts, building machines, and upgrading tech.

This was a super cool event, and we were thrilled to showcase Techtonica to folks who would have never otherwise had a chance to play it.

If you were there and found us on Steam, say hello! Also, join our Discord!

Don’t forget to Wishlist Techtonica!

The Containers you’ve grown used to in Techtonica feature four ports, one on each side of a 3x3x3 box.

Containers with ports are super helpful for factory automation games. Coupled with the right combination of Inserters and Belts, Containers can serve as hubs for complex layouts or temporary sinks for starter spaces.

But, the large Containers on display during the Alpha and Demo were not meant to be around forever.

3x3x3 is a lot of space to consume on a factory floor, especially when Groundbreakers grapple with optimizing layouts for maximum efficiency. We’re talking about 27 voxels occupied by a machine with only four ports.

Oh, sure, we loved them for how ridiculous they were! One early playtester dubbed their first Container a block of cheese. As a team, we affectionately refer to the Container as Chonkin’ Charles.

Chonkin’ Charles? He’s going away before the game releases into Early Access.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Jokes aside, the Container players found and either loved or loathed in the Techtonica Demo was always placeholder. We’ve had alternate, permanent iterations in our backlog for a while now.

So, what’s replacing the 3x3x3 Container we called Chonkin’ Charles?

[h3]It’s a 2x2x2 wonder.[/h3]

Yep! When Groundbreakers delve below the surface of Calyx in Techtonica as it launches into Early Access, they’ll find a smaller, more efficient Container waiting for them.

Gone is the massive box with only one port per side. In its place comes a Container that occupies only eight precious voxels in your factory. Even better, it comes with double the port count, featuring two on each side.



Check out a sample of the concept process done by our art team above. Below, you’ll see a screenshot of the new Container at work in our in-development build of Techtonica.



The new ports and smaller space requirements will allow players to squeeze out way more efficiency for their factories, and we can’t wait to see how Groundbreakers put them to use.

As for its internal name? Obviously, we call it Medium Melvin.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

If you haven’t heard the news, the Techtonica demo will leave Steam on November 8th, 2022, as we shift our focus to building the Early Access version of the game.

We’ll fill the gap left by the demo’s departure with lots of behind-the-scenes and in-development news for Techtonica. That includes posts like this one.

Thanks for reading, Groundbreaker! We have so much planned for Techtonica, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

Hello Groundbreakers!

This will be the last Next Fest recap post from us for Techtonica. Thank you so much for playing, providing feedback, and, we hope, dropping us a Wishlist. It's awesome to have so many of you along for the ride with us.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1457320/Techtonica/

Folks have asked that we keep the demo up after Next Fest. We will. In the meantime, we're working on removing the Next Fest language from the demo and figuring out how we're going to list it on Steam. It may not be a "demo" forever; but, it'll stay free, and we intend to keep it up for a while.

The demo is just, of course, a sample of what's to come with Techtonica.

The focus for us now is on our Early Access release. With that comes multiplayer and more unannounced features that we'll share as we get closer to launch. That focus means that we will not update the demo once it's set after Next Fest.

Thank you for being here!

-Fire Hose