Astronimo News

Embark on an interstellar journey with Astronimo 1.0, a construction platform puzzler that transports you and your friends beyond the realms of reality into an expansive solar system playground.

Unleash your creativity with some cracking contraption creation tools, enabling the construction of the wildest vehicles, doohickeys and thingamabobs you can imagine within the confines of a cosmic workshop. Explore, experiment, and revel in the joy of collaborative chaos as you and your crew imaginatively tinker your way to success through hilarious failure!

With the launching of this 1.0 release, we're unleashing an astronomical trove of fresh content for you to enjoy and a huge set of updates for many current systems to further improve the experience. Buckle up crew, we are coming in for landing!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808640/Astronimo/

[h2]New Worlds![/h2]
We are proudly introducing two new huge planets to the solar system. Each one brimming with new zany challenges, veiled mysteries and bountiful bounty.



These new planets should let you really test your crew's construction prowess, and we have every faith in you that all will unfold as intended! Let's take a squiz!

[h3]Zaroth IV[/h3]

The Frozen tundra Zaroth IV. Brave relentless gusting winds and perilously slippery ice as you navigate some seriously formidable challenges. Here might be a good use for the plunger component to hold on tight.

[h3]Nixnillon[/h3]


The marshy quagmire of Nixnillon. This swampy planet looks to be filled with noxious gas and perhaps some type of spongy mucus. Yuck! Seems like the corporation went a little nuts around here too, producing all manner of strange contraptions. I’m sure you can make use of them though!

[h3]The Subverse![/h3]


The huge aforementioned planets would not be complete without their alternate dimensional counterparts, containing every possible hurdle the solar system can throw at you. To truly test your technical tinkerer talents of course!

[h3]Yule Moon[/h3]

Now we couldn’t help but embrace the festive spirit with a Christmas themed ‘Yule Moon’ hiding a selection of jolly gubbins with which to adorn yourself and friends. Any astronaut wouldn’t be prepared without their Santa hat, reindeer compatriots and rocket powered sled!

[h2] Even More Content and Improvements![/h2]

In response to rousing acclaim for the Trumpet. We've introduced a symphony of new musical taunts, allowing you to dish out even more ear-offending discord for you and your friends' displeasure.


Steam Achievements have been implemented for the collectors amongst the crew. Your friend can now excitedly exclaim they were awarded an achievement after ruthlessly punching you into the grinder.

We have packed in a series of improvements for the following areas of the game based on feedback and suggestions. These are just some of the highlights.

• Player Avatar
  
  
  
  • Improved character physics handling
    
  • Character Creator improvements
    
• Vehicle Construction
  
  • Improved flow for loading and recalling vehicles
    
  • Rework of Vehicle Connection Mode
    
• Party Lobby
  
  • Better feedback for players joining / leaving
    
  • Ability to kick unwanted crew members
    
• Cutscenes sequences
  
  • Added an End Game Sequence
    
  • Polished and improved cutscene transitions
    
  • Added joyous ending credits song
    
• Tutorials
  
  • Improved tutorial flow
    
  • Added bubbling how-to
    
• Community World Editor
  
  • End screen stats & medals
    
  • Improvements / tweaks to many UI elements

We have also improved the stability and quality of the game by fixing hundreds of bugs, many of which were submitted by players. You can read the Patch notes for Astronimo's launch here. Thank you all for your submissions, we stand in formation and salute you!


We really hope you enjoy this update and we eagerly await your showcase of stupendous construction skills and ensuing shenanigans. Share them with us in the Steam Forums, Discord or on Social Media like Twitter, Instagram & TikTok! Set course, crew – adventure awaits!

~ The Astronimo Team!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808640/Astronimo/

Astronimo, a fun Construction platform puzzler, best played with friends will be exiting Early Access to launch on PC on December 15th! Embark on an interstellar adventure with friends in the creativity-fuelled world that invites you to explore a vast and colourful solar system.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Chart A Whole Galaxy[/h3]
A fun-filled 20+ hour campaign featuring different planets, each with a unique environment and unique challenges. Additionally there will be various mini moons and discoveries aplenty.

[h3]Endless Fun with Friends[/h3]
Play co-op with up to three others locally or online and work out how to get back home together with wacky builds, secrets to discover and planets to explore.

[h3]Compose Cosmos[/h3]
The World Editor provides elaborate tools to build and populate your own planets to an incredible level of detail and share your creations through Steam Workshop.

[h3]Join the Community[/h3]
We can't wait to see and try out all of your creations that you'll share on the Steam Workshop. And whether you're looking for others to play with, some world creation tips, or want to stay up-to-date with Astronimo News. There is no better place to get started than the Steam Forums, the official Discord or Twitter!

Take care and we'll see you in space!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808640/Astronimo/

Hey Astronauts,

We've joined forces with the Yogscast and Astronimo is a part of the 2023 Jingle Jam. The Jingle Jam is an annual gaming extravaganza that combines the joy of gaming with the spirit of giving to charity.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You can get the Jingle Jam Charity Games Bundle with 70+ games (Worth £1,100+) over at jinglejam.tiltify.com if you donate at least £35 pounds to charity!

We look forward to welcoming the new Astronauts into the universe and can't wait to see what the Yogscast will get up to... We might even have a little treat for the Yogscast (and you) coming in the near future.

We'll see you in the Astronimo Universe and talk to you on the Official Discord!

~ The Astronimo Team

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808640/Astronimo/

Turilia
Biome: Grass Climate: Airy Size: Moon

There is not a more welcoming planet to crash land on than Turilia. With its airy climate and grassy plains, Turilia is the perfect planet to learn how to play Astronimo in the conveniently abandoned debris left behind by mega-corporation Hypergiant. Scattered in the grassy and autumnal landscape are signs of life - but where are the residents now? QA have pondered the potentially sinister history of this moon for years. Be sure to keep an eye out for the beloved statues - the Ox is a favourite of the devs. Turilia is also home to the notorious Captain Croc and his beloved paddling pool - do be sure to drop by when you collect antimatter, maybe it’ll motivate him to actually fix that Nova Gateway.




Acara
Biome: Desert Climate: Hot Size: Sub-Earth

Through the science of teleportation, the next step on your journey is Acara. We love a Desert Biome, and yet this Planet is far from barren with over 20 challenges to solve and many caves to explore. There are plenty of juicy secrets to uncover on this planet including one area the devs secretly called Swinger’s Den - and no I’m not kidding. It’s a den with lots of rod-vines you swing on. Completely innocent. It doesn't have this moniker in game, but when you find it… you'll know.




Oasis Moon
Biome: Lush Climate: Hot Size: Mini Moon

Like their name suggests, Mini Moons are tiny satellite planets that can be found orbiting bigger planets or the sun. Use your PING in space to help locate these small harbors. A nice one to vacation to is Oasis Moon but don’t be fooled by the name. Paths around the planet offer more hazard than haven - when there’s this much lava, you’re sure to relax.



Ore Moon
Biome: Desert Climate: Humid Size: Mini Moon

Do you want to make as much money as possible to get more prizes from the Gumball machine? Do you want to play with chainsaws and break stuff? Find Ore Moon, the closest thing to a wreck room in Astronimo. This mini moon is brimming with gold ore and the most inventive contraptions you’ll see in game. If you can make it the whole way round you will be richer for it.




Lava Moon
Biome: Lava Climate: Hot Size: Mini Moon

Lava Moon is the fastest ball in the galaxy and located closest to the sun. If you’re able to land on it and not immediately hit lava, this fiery planet is full of lava jet skis and a skeletal pirate ship made out of rods. Do not fear, you can jump in lava to your heart's content and respawn safely at a checkpoint or workshop. In a future update we might even actively encourage you to fly into the sun (👀) because death is temporary here.




Don’t forget to visit the Steam Workshop where you, the community, can add to the universe by uploading your own worlds - be a part of our ever-expanding galaxy! And while you’re floating around in space contemplating the meaning of life, have you noticed those ethereal planets? There are more planets out there to discover. What kind of world would you like to explore next?

Welcome back crew! And welcome to another blog post, this time it's me again! Senior Lead Designer Jorden and on this week's blog i’ll be taking you on a journey through the Astronimo’s Workshop! Or as it’s better known internally, the Garage! Your one stop place to build whatever comes to your mind and solve Astronimos many challenges and reach those precious recon rockets!



But that’s not how the garage started in life, it’s similar for sure! But the evolution of the garage can be pretty much chart exactly alongside the evolution of the game! Building and how you do so is at the core of the Astrionimo and each change we made to the garage influenced every part of the game and in turn every part we adjusted in outside the game equally had some effect on the components of the garage and how you built your contraption. They are inseparable and it became easily the biggest challenge I faced as a designer to date to make them work together and make it fun!

So lets go take a peak at where we started, the problems we encountered and how we solved them.

As mentioned in my last blog, the roots of Astronimo can be traced to games like Little Big Planet and Factorio. Combing elements from them ended with this early loop: You had to go around the planet, find and then mine different types of resources which allowed you to manufacture and build the components and combine them into vehicles in special “garage zones”. You then used those vehicle contraptions to solve the environmental challenges in the world and ultimately progress on through it. Need a bridge? Explore and collect bronze, silver or gold ores and with enough of each you could construct that bridge and open up a new path in the world for you and your friends. The reward for completing these challenges was more often Research Ore’s! Minable pieces of progression that you could use to unlock newer and better components to use in the garage.


Complete and solve enough problems via your exploring, mining, construction and problem solving and you’d earn your way off the planet onto the next area.



What this all meant was that the problems/challenges you faced on your journey around the world had to be balanced against your potential resource gathering, how much you’d already spent trying to solve a problem, what you spent your research on unlocks and what parts we expect/required you to have to solve some the tricky challenges further along in the world.






If you read my previous blog post, you probably saw towards the end i mentioned how we followed the fun, and how it led to us abandoning our original “Outrun the sun” timed concept of hopping from planet to planet and just focused on making the moment to moment gameplay as fun as possible. As we developed the game and improving the usability of the garage, we kept bumping into some fundamental problems we found that were often at odds with each other.



You know what doesn’t gel very well? Trying to herd Cats to the same goal. On the same screen. Try to imagine yourself in a group of Mario Party players, each running around, each wanting to do there own thing in the world. Suddenly a huge part of the game can’t be accessed or enjoyed, you can’t do X or Y or even progress to the next area because the group have ran out of money! They don’t have some resource all of a sudden and now you and players now have to leave the place where the fun was happening. Now the group had to organise themselves on a new sub goal on top of all the other stimuli, where now you all have to trod back to some mining area, collect new resources and then go back and rebuild the contraption because you couldn’t afford that one of 2 components you might have actually not needed!

We came across a real sticking point, players were great at recognising problems, but utterly awful solving them, and when you combined that with a group that now has to mentally manage resources, goofy physic characters and complicated creations in a shared sofa setting, we had one sticky problem.





So began adjusting the numbers! We reduced prices of the components, remove reliance on mining, remove silver and gold combination requirements, removed options of individually unlocking select parts yourself and made it work like you were permanently leveling up your character, brought back silver again, improved what unlocked and where and then ultimately removed science ores and silver. Each changed was playtested against in attempt to make the garage and resource building a fun experience for our shared party game.



Whilst we kept working the problem, I noticed something during the playtests. To save them the fath of collecting the resources, i would give players an motherlode of money to play with and just let them go buck wild when attempting to solve the latest challenge. That’s when i began to notice players had the most amount of fun messing around with all the different parts and creations when they didn’t have to worry about the costs. The playtest led to some really memorable moments where their try and try again with all kinds of daft creations using everything they had.




So that got me thinking, what if we just never charge for parts? What if we never make you run around for science to unlock them? What if we could simplify all these complexities thats preventing players from just jumping in and getting to the fun part? And prompting all these…well not fun or engaging activities? Just because we want resources to play this big part in the game? Is collecting and spending and managing money really that fun when mixed in with out 4 players running about the place like headless chickens?




Enter…Inventory! Now,when players come to a challenge, we, designers can set what parts they have access to front the list of all components in the game and they’d have unlimited parts! Now they can build freely and as with much as they have access too. It provided to be way easier to explain and, as a bonus, we’d combat a troubling behaviour we kept noticing, where players would build the same contraption over and over to solve problems and be super cost effective, now we could make it so you DON’T have access to this component or that one and you’d have to get creative from the get go with what puzzle pieces you were given!


The pivot was big success! Players respond really well to the change! they even collected all that ore we still had left around. Despite the fact though it really didn’t do anything anymore! It reminded was useless right up until we introduce spending the collected ore on cosmetics!


And so inventory worked and made its way all the way into the final release of the game this year! Did we make the right call? Could we have worked the problem some more and gotten a solution that achieved both desires? Collect resources and build solutions to challenge? Maybe. But ultimately i’m really still happy with what we have in the final product. The amount of crazy vehicles i’ve seen in the playtests i think proves it was a good shout in the end and i can’t wait to see what you end up making soon!

Until next time Crew!