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Retro Gadgets News

Spring Sales!



Hello Gadgeteers! Spring is coming, flowers are blooming, and the long-awaited Steam Spring Sale is finally here!
We're happy to announce that Retro Gadgets is currently 15% off.

Be sure to grab a copy for you and your friends!

We are working hard to bring you a very big update in the near future,
so stick around for more amazing features! (Check our previous post for our current roadmap)

Remember, you can always join our Discord community to share gadgets, ask for help, showcase your creations!

Update 0.1.5 and Roadmap!

Hello fellow Gadgeteers! You have been with us for a long, long time, especially during our release in Early Access in November.
Now it's time to talk about the future and what we have in store for you, so here's a little roadmap to illustrate what you can look forward to, and what to expect throughout the year.



Bear in mind that there are no visible timeframes: that's because we don't want to set anything in stone for now, especially since our development team closely follows
community feedback and suggestions, and for that reason some features may get priority over others, or get scrapped completely.

If you read correctly (which we know you did), you realized new content is dropping TODAY and it's part of a big series of updates that aim to improve the core of the game.
We want to give you new parts, new components, and tools at your disposal to unleash your creativity and coding capabilities, sandbox-style.
But, we are also aiming to improve the gameplay aspects of Retro Gadgets, and ease new players into the intricacies of gadget-making with a brand-new story mode/tutorial mode.

Update 0.1.5 Coming NOW™️

This is what you get with today's update:
[h2]NEW CODE EDITOR[/h2]
  • A new Code Editor, rebuilt from scratch
  • Much faster and simpler to use
  • A new, more advanced debugger

We heard your feedback, and this is going to be a big game-changer for all of you.
Coding will be faster and less cumbersome, in every possible way (even on lower-spec machines).
We implemented a slew of new features which include:
  • The editor now supports nearly infinite lines without slowing down, it will be more reliable and future-proof.
  • The debugger can now display the value of local variables and allows you to step through the stack-trace. This is also possible for runtime exceptions.
  • For the nostalgic, an optional VIM editing mode has been added.

[h2]MULTITOOL UPGRADES[/h2]
  • It is now possible to export PNG and Lua assets.
  • When importing assets, it is now possible to directly replace any pre-existing ones with the same name, provided that confirmation is given.
  • Error, Warning and Info messages now will appear in a brand new bar.

[h2]SPRITE EDITOR[/h2]

We added several functions to the sprite editor. Our main goal for this update was to improve and simplify the creation of custom fonts and sprites.
  • The sprite grid now supports non-power-of-two values This allows non-square, 100% custom for font sizes.
  • The editor can now display the pixel coordinates, cell coordinates and font index under your mouse cursor.
  • Using the selection tool you can now flip pixel areas horizontally or vertically.
  • When an area is selected, the selection button is now highlighted in the interface.

[h2]MOTHERBOARD VISIBLE IN LUA[/h2]
Motherboards have been exposed in Lua code:
  • Introduced the new Motherboard type, it is a table containing the modules of a specific motherboard. Like gdt, the key is the module name and the value is the Module itself.
  • gdt.Motherboards contain the array of all Motherboards.
  • All Modules contain a Type property of type string which contains the name of the type ("CPU", "LedButton", ...)
  • All Modules contain a Motherboard property of type Motherboard which represents the motherboard they are on.

[h2]ENHANCED MAGNETIC CONNECTOR:[/h2]
  • MagneticConnector contains a new property AttachedConnector of type MagneticConnector which contains the connector it is connected to.
  • MagneticConnector raises a new MagneticConnectorEvent when the connection state changes.

[h2]FIXES[/h2]
  • Images that contained transparency but were not imported correctly have now been fixed.
  • Several annoying bugs were fixed in the sprite editor.
  • When the Steam connection is lost an Error message is displayed, while an Info message appears when the connection is back.

Update 0.1.4

We just released a hotfix update, this is what we changed:

  • Fixed a bug that caused utf8 strings to be truncated truncated in web requests
  • Fixed a bug that caused missed events in input modules at low TPS
  • Fixed the "attempt to yield across metamethod/C-call boundary" issue which made it difficult to use metatables or table.sort
  • Fixed a crash caused by setting the grid height to a number that exceeded the sprite-sheet height in the sprite editor
  • Fixed the apply button alignment in the sprite editor grid

Holiday Season Challenge!

Happy Holidays Gadgeteers!
We know the 25th is coming and we all wish you the best holidays possible, but more importantly, it's time for a new year and a new beginning!
That's why we are inviting you to our Discord Server for this year's last challenge!

Once you join, check the 🏅themed-challenges section for the complete rules!

"It's the final COUNTDOWN"
and we want to end the year with a Bang!

Yes, we want you to make a gadget that can count down. Pretty easy for sure, but what happens at the end. Fireworks? A banner? Music? Apocalyptic Doom? We don't know, but you for sure do!

The prize for 1st place will be a Retro-Gadgety one!

So get to your workbench friends, and may the best contraption win!

Don't feel particularly tech/scripting/welding/or anything Lua related -savy? Don't worry you can still participate with a Customized Mat / or a sticker pack but beware, the quality will have to be plus-ultra.

Update 0.1.3

Hello Gadgeteers! We just released Retro Gadgets Update 0.1.3, also know as Workbench Update.
In this update we added a bunch of workbench-related features, implemented a couple of advanced drawing options for the Video Chip, fixed some bugs and hopefully improved the performances a bit.

New Features:
  • DrawCustomSprite() and RasterCustomSprite() added to VideoChip.
    These new methods allow the user to draw a part of the sprite-sheet ignoring the standard grid.

  • You can now control the color of the desktop lamp using: `desk.SetLampColor(color:color)`

  • Recorder Tool:
    A video recorder tool has been added to the top-left part of your Workshop. By pressing the record button you can start recording right away. right now the recorder has two modes:
    Automatic portrait and fullscreen landscape.
    Fullscreen landscape simply records the entire screen, while Automatic Portrait mode tries to follow your mouse cursor and focuses on essential parts of the screen. This should generate interesting videos that are ready to use for popular portrait-mode social networks.

  • Minitool:
    We added a pager-like tool to display small text messages. The mini-tool will deliver important game hints. Custom messages can be triggered directly by the user from the desk table.
    desk.ShowMessage(message:string, persistent:boolean) desk.ShowWarning(message:string, persistent:boolean) desk.ShowError(message:string, persistent:boolean) desk.HideMessage()
    Messages last a standard amount of time, or can be made persistent by setting the "persistent" argument to true. HideMessage() Clears the last displayed message.

  • Cutting Mats can now be changed real time when you have no gadget active on your Workbench. A small tab pops up in the lower right of the cutting mat that allows you to cycle through all the mats available in your cuttingmats/active folder.

  • In the game options, we added an option to disable the bloom effect.


Bug Fixes and improvements:
  • Reworked many buttons and IU elements in the Multitool
  • Updated and repositioned a few visual elements in the workshop to reduce visual clutter
  • We reworked the 2D lights on the game desktop to slightly improve performance on older computers.
  • Fixed a bug that caused an error when turning on a Gadget with a CPU without a code asset assigned
  • Fixed a bug that always could return 0 when accessing the AudioChip "ChannelsCount" property
  • Fixed a bug that caused variables returned by require() to be duplicated. This could cause TypeMismatch errors even if the actual type was the same.
  • Fixed a bug that displayed the "downloaded gadget" post-it during widget mode.