Techtonica News

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We’ve got some big news - we'll be launching Techtonica out of Early Access on Nov 7 for Steam, Xbox Game Pass, and newly announced PlayStation 5!

The Going Up update (previously 0.6) has grown and morphed into full launch with a massive content release that's over a year in the making! We’re introducing a new desert biome, a world map revision and expansion, access to the elevator, the jetpack upgrade for the hoverpack, as well as new machines, production loops, intermediates, resources, and much more. And most importantly, a complete narrative with an exciting ending!

The dev team have been pouring their hearts into Going Up and we're truly excited to get this into your hands. In particular we want to thank our community for all their feedback during the Early Access period - the suggestions we’ve received have been the basis for much of the content we’ve added, and we wouldn’t have been able to make Techtonica without you. We’d also like to thank our secret cabal of experimental testers for trialing all these changes early and helping us fine tune everything for the general population.

And with that let’s dive right into the 1.0 Road Map and Preview Video so you can see what’s new!


Please note: there is a LOT of additional content and bug fixes included in this update that we aren’t listing here. We don’t want to spoil all the details for you so you can experience the new content organically. Additionally, we’re sorry to say that 1.0 will break saves from Early Access - you’ll need to start a new save file for 1.0 content.

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We’ll be coming out with a lot more detail about 1.0 in the coming weeks leading up to launch. If you’re excited and want more information join our Discord where you can talk directly to our development team!

We all know that the heart of Techtonica belongs to sprawling factories and clever logistics chains, but what happens when we step back from our creations and think “Why does this look like a pile of spaghetti that’s been barfed up by the dog and then covered in rivets and rusty paint?” Well Groundbreakers, we’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Here are 9 helpful tips on how to build aesthetically pleasing structures in your very own playthrough!



[h2]Build Bigger[/h2]
Nothing is worse than building out a whole structure and realizing that you’re a few spaces short of the perfect machine layout. They say measure twice, cut once, but really, who has time for measuring? Just build huge instead! We promise that once you’ve fit all of the embellishments, decorations, lights, and supports your bases need to look beautiful, that factory floor isn’t going to be quite as big as you thought it would be. Just throw down a few more of those 5x5 Floor pieces and you won’t regret it. Make that ceiling just a bit higher than you think, and your bases will start feeling airy and effective, rather than cramped and oppressive. We might be living in a cave, but we’re not dwarves, we’re Groundbreakers!

[h2]Mixing Materials[/h2]
Now you may have noticed that the majority of base building pieces in Techtonica are made of two distinct materials, concrete and steel. That doesn’t mean that you’re stuck making bland boxes of gray walls with brown lines all over them! By mixing up your ratios of concrete pillars and metal beams, or pairing concrete walls with metal catwalks, you can create interesting patterns that outline your machine layouts in visually pleasing ways. In the Oops All Concrete! Pack we’ve even given you the ability to forgo metal supports altogether, allowing you the flexibility to frame your factories the way you want, where you want.



[h2]Lots of Layers[/h2]
If there’s a single word that defines beautiful base building in Techtonica, it’s “layers”. What’s that? What does that even mean? Why do you keep saying it over and over while I’m just trying to build my main bus in peace? Well, it’s because that main bus could be a beautiful bus if you just listen! The key to crafting truly attractive outposts is all about creating patterns on top of patterns, supports in front of walls, beams under walkways, and wallplants overtop those very same beams. This is the reason you should be building bigger because that 1-voxel thick wall suddenly balloons into a 3-voxel thick facade that also somehow looks even better with a 5-voxel thick matrix of pillars and angled supports in front of it.

[h2]Repetition Repetition[/h2]
The architectural assets in Techtonica are largely inspired by the design sensibilities of the Brutalist movement in the 1950s and 60s. The style is characterized by raw concrete, simple geometric shapes, and repeated patterns. The same holds true for building in Techtonica, and each base building piece lends itself to being used in large quantities. Why use 6 walls when 24 will look more imposing? Why design a 2-floor structure when you can build 8? Repeating patterns by spacing the same piece out over and over can not only help your buildings look sharp but also help you expand your buildings quickly and easily when it comes time to grow your factory.

[h2]Mesmerizing Motifs[/h2]
Repeating one type of piece can boost your look, but what should you do when you want to enhance your architectural aesthetics even further? Try creating small designs out of multiple pieces, keeping in mind the previous tips about mixing materials and layering pieces, and using that design in different parts of your buildings. Build a 10x10 facade using walls, pillars, beams, and angled pieces, then repeat that design over an entire 20x50 building for a cohesive and pleasing look.



[h2]Level Up Your Lighting[/h2]
While the bioluminescent flora is enough to illuminate much of the wilderness of Calyx, it’s often not enough to illuminate your more industrialized sectors. Using the various light assets in Techtonica is a great way to not only show off your factories and bases but also enhance them with bright points of interest. Hiding colored lights behind walls or in recessed pockets between pillars is also a great way to direct yourself or other Groundbreakers through your factories with subtle cues. Try rotating your lights using the Variants feature to create dramatic uplighting along your walls, or downlighting to highlight your machines! And remember that vast factory floors will require an equally vast number of lights, so don’t forget our tip about repetition!

[h2]Elevating Elevation[/h2]
With the release of the Factory Efficiency Update, it’s never been easier to build up, and up, and up. Why limit yourself to two dimensions when the possibility of creating a towering city of steel spires is so enticing? And while your factories don’t necessarily need proper support structures to hold them up, you can elevate your designs by reinforcing your floors with a variety of pillars and brackets. While a concrete cube may not look compelling on its own, two concrete boxes stacked on top of each other with some pillars in between starts to look like a deliberate design choice, and in the design world, intent is half the battle.



[h2]Don’t Forget Decorations[/h2]
Don’t forget to festune your factories with the many decorative pieces available to you in Techtonica, from angled support struts, to wall planters, to tiny bonsai versions of the flora that appears naturally on Calyx. Tired of bare metal girders? Try adding some hanging plants to cozy them up! Bored of concrete? Checkerboard your vast walls with the various living wall pieces to add some plush plantification! And don’t forget to throw some lights above your bonsai to let them really shine.

[h2]Break the Rules[/h2]
Last but certainly not least is the tip that overrides all of the others, but only after you’ve learned them! While the previous guidelines can point you in the right direction, we’ve tried to design the base building pieces in Techtonica to allow you to express your industrialist architectural self in ways we couldn’t have anticipated!



We hope that by following these tips help you to realize your full potential when it comes to building bases in Techtonica. Feel free to drop by our Discord and show off your creations in the #show-off-your-factory or #base-showcase channels! We look forward to seeing what you come up with, Groundbreaker! Now, let’s get to work.

Hello, Groundbreakers! My name is Will O’Neill. I’m credited as ‘Narrative’ on Techtonica, and that is more precise than you might think.

Unlike a larger (AA / AAA / AAA / AAAA / AAAAA?) studio with a dedicated team of writers in addition to specialists in story structure, quest design, casting, worldbuilding, voiceover production and beyond, my responsibility at Fire Hose Games is to wear all of those hats while collaborating closely with other many-hatted individuals. This kind of role isn’t for everyone, but I like it.

Best of all is that it affords me the credibility to walk you through one of the most exciting processes we go through: Adding a new character to the game!



A slice of the briefing provided to performers auditioning for MIRAGE

To ensure that we recruit the right performer, our process begins by utilizing an online platform built exclusively for connecting talent with a wide variety of voiceover jobs. As a small indie studio, it isn’t realistic for us to hire celebrities, hold live auditions, or spend months making decisions, so doing everything efficiently and online is crucial.

For performers, auditioning for a new role is fairly straightforward - we ask them to record a brief monologue from the script for their character. However, this audition script is often a slightly altered version of what the actual lines will be, as we are also using the audition process to ascertain how a performer approaches specific challenges related to the role.

For example, because our new character (MIRAGE) for 0.5 was French, we inserted several extra lines into the audition that required them to utilize a French accent while speaking both French and English, as well as make use of several English expressions where it would sound natural for the character to ‘drop’ the accent somewhat. We’ll also move bits and pieces of a script around to get a feel for how performers transition between different tones and emotions that we know they’ll need for future character developments.

Once all of the auditions are received, we typically compose a shortlist of around five performers to discuss internally before making our final decision. In the case of a character like MIRAGE, part of that evaluation also involves consulting with a native French speaker to evaluate the authenticity of the accent.

One additional thing I will say about casting is that it is extremely competitive not only from a performance standpoint but from a baseline equipment perspective as well. Because we record our sessions remotely, the performer we hire must have access to professional gear - this often includes a high-quality microphone, preamp, isolation booth, and the software and hardware that puts it all together.



Excerpt from the September 2022 recording session script for SPARKS

Once a new performer has been selected and the script finalized, we are ready to begin! Typically, we record in sessions between one and two hours, as we are only doing incremental additions and revisions to our narrative throughout Early Access. Another nice thing about Techtonica is that it doesn’t require our performers to repeatedly undertake melodramatic reactions to various forms of violence, so our sessions are pretty light on vocal fatigue.

As a voiceover director, my background is more in corporate voiceover stuff, so I probably wasn’t raised right as a voiceover director for games. That said, I’d say my general principles are to always take things all the way through on the first go, trust the performers to find interesting possibilities that I hadn’t considered, and to be thankful that we are living in a digital age where it is easy to record as many options for a given line or scene as we want. There used to be people with razor blades and glue and gigantic reels of tape! I’m sure there still are.

I’ll say as well that performers also do a ton to prepare their minds, bodies and voices for a recording session, and that I appreciate it.



Raw waveform from a section of the October 2023 Recording Session with PALADIN

A few hours after recording, the performers will send us a single file that contains the entire session. From here, we go straight into editing - splitting things up as needed, choosing the best takes, splicing them all together, and then implementing them into the game itself.

Making careful selections and determining which individual reading of a line is the best one is, in my opinion, the most important part of this entire process. I think being both the writer and director makes a big difference here, as I have a seamless understanding of what a line sounded like in my mind as I wrote it, where to go looking for it while directing a performer, and how to bring those things together in an intangible kind of synthesis that makes my ears perk up at one tiny but meaningful variation of a line read over another. I know which takes to choose because I know what it should be, if that makes sense. Anyway, my point is that AI is trash and cannot do this.

Finally, rather than being ‘added’ to the game at this stage, the finished files replace existing placeholders that you may have listened to if you've ever played on our PTC branch. These synthesized ‘robovoice’ files allow us to put new narrative events into the game for testing and feedback before the final voice files are ready. It’s important to get a feel for the pacing and flow of the narrative events themselves - especially when they coincide with gameplay elements - so these placeholders are invaluable!

My final step is to hand the baton over to our musician / audio overlord / sound-hat-guy Brandon to ensure that everything vibes and sits right in the game. Post-processing and stuff like that is done in FMOD, which is that thing with the logo you see everywhere.

At that point, I’m done! I don’t have to work anymore! Until I have to start all over again!

Thanks!

Techtonica is 34% off on Steam for the next two weeks!

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

Grab our factory automation game today for only $19.79 and start building your own – or build with friends (up to 4-player co-op)

Be sure to stay tuned for new Tectonica announcements coming later this month as well, until then Groundbreakers!

Techtonica launched into Early Access 1 year ago, and what a year it’s been. With 5 major updates and 4 minor updates, we’ve been chugging along with development as fast as we can. We truly appreciate the support of all our Groundbreakers!

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In honor of that, I’m pleased to announce our largest update thus far, Going Up. Let’s check out the Roadmap.



Over the coming months, we will start peeling back the curtain on what this update entails, but we’ll leave you to speculate for now. We mentioned previously that we’re switching to a longer development cycle for this one, so blogs will also slow down. As soon as we can show you the new content, we will!