Retro Gadgets News

Hello Gadgeteers! We are proud to present to you another mini-update for Retro Gadgets, this time focused on adding support for different case types for the Gadgets.



In the motherboards drawer you can now select between transparent and opaque plastic for your gadget cases.

Transparent cases can be painted with the airbrush and will maintain their transparency while stickers remain opaque. You can achieve some really cool aesthetics by combining the two effects!

Right now we only have two types of cases, but we have a bunch of ideas to add more if you like this feature.

But that's not all! We also:

• Added a new motherboard shape that acts as a Y junction for 1x1 elements
  
• Tweaked the art of the multitool port module in a way that is less visible and looks better when using the transparent shells
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when the cell size of the pixel editor was set to 0
  

Thank you all for your continued support of Retro Gadgets! We will be back soon with another mini update and Story Mode previews!

Hello everyone! We are thrilled to release our first mini-update featuring the rotary encoder mode for our knob components. This is the first of a series of small updates we will be releasing while the big Story Mode patch is in the works (check previous news for info).

With this update, any knob can now be set to have infinite rotation by setting its the hardware parameters. Setting a knob to infinite changes the behavior of the knob by removing the rotation limits of the default version.

We also added the knob.DeltaValue to all knob modules. This property returns the variation of knob.Value since the previous frame.

This update also:

1. Fixes a minor code completion bug.
   
2. Solves an issue that prevented CPU event channels to be set to nil.
   

Have fun with the rotary encoders! See you in a few weeks for another mini-update!

Hello Gadgeteers,
We hope you all are doing great! Update 0.1.6 has been out there for a while so.... It's time for a roadmap update!

Since we released the Launcher Update, we have been working tirelessly on laying the groundwork for one of the biggest new features coming to the game: the story mode.
This update will add an optional mission-based gameplay loop to Retro Gadgets that will function as a much needed introduction to the game. We are working on new systems for jobs (think quests but in Retro Gadgets), complete with messages, funny characters, time-slots, money, components to buy, unlockables, magazines. It's a ton of work and it's going to take some time before it's ready for release. We are aiming to release the story mode during the first quarter of 2024 but nothing is set in stone.

The good news is, game updates will come while we work on the story mode. However, we have to finish building the core systems for the narrative layer before we can get back to adding features to the existing "sandbox mode".
Our plan is to have the core for the story mode ready by the end of October, and then split up and have the content-focused people in the team work on the content for the story, while the tech-people team returns to its rightful mission to provide you regular, awesome, updates for retro gadgets "classic" mode.

Why story mode? - you might ask - Was making the sandbox mode not complex enough already?

Well... Yes. But in order to be able to realize our grand vision for the game, we need more people playing the game.
While our current approach has been good enough for you bunch of beautiful and awesome nerds (we will never be thankful enough for all your love and support to the game and its community!), we really need to get the game out there to a lot more people if we want this project to thrive in the future years.

Right now there are two things we believe are keeping people away from the game:

1. To have fun playing Retro Gadgets, some knowledge of coding/Lua is mandatory
   
2. Retro Gadgets has no tutorial whatsoever and the only solution to learn how to play the game is "reading the fucking manual"
   

Providing an intro and a compelling narrative is also something we think has great potential not only to attract a larger audience, but also to improve the overall charm of the game by adding game-like rules, resources and systems that later could end up in the sandbox as well.

We are really proud of the launcher update, so we decided its release was the right time to commit several months to the development of an awesome story.

We are working around the clock to get a demo of the story mode ready to play at The Tokyo Game Show 2023 in late September. Retro Gadgets has been nominated for the "Selected Indie 80" portion of the exhibit so we will have our own booth there!

Can't wait to show you more of what we are building for Retro Gadgets!

A new🏅Themed Challenge is live on our Discord Server!
We wanted to give you more time to explore the new patch and now it's your time to shine:

The theme of this challenge is:


Your creation needs to be a functional Desktop Widget!
Think of all the creations of the past: MP3 players, stock market trackers, audio visualizers, dancing gifs, small tower defense games. We want you to create something that is neat and functional, something that's missing from the Desktop experience!

This challenge ends July 31 2023
So get to Gadgeting, and may the best creation win!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Ready to bring back the desktop widgets? Here comes Retro Gadgets 0.1.6!
Build the most awesome gadget, add it to the launcher and BAM! It's 200X all over again!

This new release is our first step in making gadgets exist outside the game itself.
If you have at least one Gadget selected for the Launcher, you can open it directly from you system tray without having to launch the game first. Your amazing creations will always be just a couple of clicks away!

But there is more! We also added a serial port component, the ability to read files from your system, touch screens, access to render buffers and game localization.

This is a comprehensive list of everything that is new in RG version 0.1.6

• New Launcher that allows you to add Gadgets to your Windows desktop without opening the game. It is also possible to flag them to start at Windows startup
  
• New Serial module to communicate through the PC serial port
  
• The VideoChip now contains an array of RenderBuffers that can be set as a render target
  
• Lua access to RenderBuffers and SpriteSheets content
  
• AudioChip event sent when playback is finished to allow better management of audio channels
  
• AudioSample now contains the metadata of the imported file
  
• The RealityChip can now access files in the My Games/Retro/UserData folder allowing you to load AudioSamples and SpriteSheets at runtime
  
• New RealityChip methods for reading date and time
  
• Screens are now touch, interactions can be read from the connected VideoChip
  
• The game interface is now translated in several languages (check the setting) and better supports different alphabets.
  
• We added new gadgets for you to discover in the tutorials section of the game. These new gadgets are great widgets that you can use out of the box .
  
• Several bug fixes and UI improvements
  

Check the Official Documentation for more info or join our Discord to talk about these new features with the community and the Dev-team!