Philosophy, automation and buildings - Devlog #3

In this week’s devlog, we are going to show you some in-progress stuff! As you may know, we are a small team and we’re chugging along at a steady pace, so you’ll see a lot of WIP things in this devlog. We’re just really happy showing you our progress!

In any case, today we will cover part 1 of Aloft’s design philosophy and two things we hinted at in previous devlogs: automation and buildings!

[h2]The philosophy of Aloft (part 1)[/h2]
We have a strong design philosophy behind Aloft, something driving every design choice we make. Today, we will cover two of our core principles and will do more later, as it becomes relevant.

Aloft aims to be a relaxing experience where you get to heal an ecosystem and not reproduce the mistakes of humankind. For these reasons, fossil fuels, non-renewable energy and pollutants are not a part of the gameplay, which means that smelting is not part of the game either. Fortunately, it creates an opportunity for creative ways of creating tools and technologies. This includes bone-based weapons, and glass-forging techniques powered by lightning strikes, for example.

Creativity is also core to our game experience. In the context of construction, we feel the islands provide construction limitations to the players. To balance this and allow you to be as creative as you’d like, we have made the construction system in a very sandboxy way. Players will be able to build all over their islands with smaller building pieces, to create the structure they want to make.

[h2]Power and Automation[/h2]
In the previous devlog, we talked about crafting machines and resource transformation. All integral parts of the building/survival game genre. But maneuvering those machines can be rather time consuming. So you know, why not automate it?

Using the cutting edge technology of Wind Power, players will be able to hook windmills and wind turbines to their crafting machine and automatically transform those resources into sweet-sweet high-tier materials.


You can build power-generating structures near your crafting machines and simply link them together to automate the work.


The windmills and turbines aren’t modeled yet, but you can see our awesome concept art for them below. Players will have several models to choose from, to suit their aesthetic.

[h2]Building system[/h2]

Another important part of any building/survival game is… building things! Starting next week, we’ll get on producing 3D assets for the building parts, but the construction system is already implemented in our game build.

We take pride in having a great UI and better UX. We constantly strive to improve both and make the game as easy to pick up as possible and hopefully, you’ll never want to put it down ;) As you can see below, the building management screen is implemented and we can actually build things!


And for the building pieces, we have the whole package: turf roofs, walls, floors, windows and doors! You can see the roof and doors down here, but for more kickass concepts, join the discord using the link down below!


[h2]What’s next?[/h2]
Next week, we’re welcoming a new 3D artist to start working on all the many building parts you will be having fun with! We are also hard at work on combat and monsters. The design is well on its way and we already have concepts for our first monster. Of course, you will have more information in the next devlog.

If you want more Aloft or would like to give feedback, be sure to wishlist the game on steam here and join the Discord server using the image below