Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure News

Explorers, Map-makers and Spark-Wanderers

We’re counting the days! Our August update is at the moment going through some final tests and bug fixing so that you can play it on the 26th! We’re really looking forward to sharing it with you and seeing all of your amazing bases.

We do have room to quickly talk about one of our new features before it’s out. It’s... Biome Variations!

Although, Spoiler Alert. It’s not a very big feature and we will end up basically spoiling almost everything about this feature. But if you want a non-spoilery quick version, we’re adding a little more land after the mountains for you to use in three ways:

1. Flat land for base building that has both Ancient Bases and Ancient Supports.
   
2. Combat areas so you don’t have to chase enemies and wait for them to respawn.
   
3. Big resource-dense areas that encourages using the train.
   

Now, of course, we will add new biomes later in development, but our focus for this update was on filling out the existing tiers and biomes. Alright, let’s get into the details!

[h2]Biome Variations[/h2]

So for our first big update, we wanted to focus on adding the new features in but without necessarily adding more progression tiers. We knew that some of the features, like the Train, had to be implemented into the current progression - if you had to wait until you’re done with the Mountain to get access to the Trains (read our previous devlog about it), it would take too long!

But we know that the space that we have in the game at the moment isn’t that exciting to play around with stuff like the trains, so that’s what this feature is about.

[h2]A Glimpse of What’s Next[/h2]
Basically, we wanted to prepare you for what’s going to be in our future updates, give you more space for you to play around with and provide some distinct play areas.

It’s not a huge amount of new land, but we think it’s enough for you to play around with and get a better feel for what the gameplay is “post-mountain”. In general, we’re planning to have it more open and really give you the space to manage exploring and building in a huge area. With tools coming in August like the Trains and Buildable Waypoints, you have a lot more ways to transport yourself and items through places.

But let’s talk about what will be in the update!
Here’s an example so you can see exactly how much space has been added.


We’ve internally called these new areas Woodland 2 and Mountain 2 and they take what’s in Woodland and Mountains and shuffle them up a bit. There’s three specific use cases that we’ve made them for.

[h3]Megabase Heart[/h3]
So while you can finish Oddsparks with only small bases and production lines, we know that people will want to make absolutely sprawling megabases with tens of thousands of Sparks. At the moment this pretty difficult with Ancient Bases and Ancient Supports in very separate areas, but we’ll have some mostly flat land which both of these so you can easily make the Sparks you want.


It’s not quite enough for you to put everything there, but as we add new biomes in future updates and expand this central area a bit more, you’ll have the space to create a sprawling base if that’s what you desire.

[h3]Combat Areas[/h3]
When you need to do a little grinding to get enemy drops to expand your base, it can be a little annoying to go from spawn point to spawn point. That’s why part of the biome variation is also combat areas!


These areas are absolutely filled with creatures. You’re going to not just find two Mantis Stags, but more like six or even eight in a small area. These aren’t just for the woodland enemies but also mountain enemies. Instead of needing to chase Squilicans or Pengi when you need to build a few alchemy labs or a few looms, the combat areas are there to help you while giving you a bit of a new challenge.


We also squeezed in one enemy variant, the Juvenile Beelephant. These young beelephants are still growing and their softer shells mean that they have fewer hit points. However, to make up for it, they are aggressive and can swing their trunks to hit multiple targets at the same time. They also stick together in herds to protect each other!

In general, the idea is to provide “riskier” fights where you might lose more Sparks but you’ll get rewarded with more from a single fight.

[h3]Big Resource Areas[/h3]
Last but not least, we heard a few times that there could be more giant trees, especially from a few of you that are building huge bases. There’s actually a new way in the update to create infinite wood sources (but you’ll have to figure that one out yourself!) but we wanted to make it easy for you to get more wood by creating these dense forests with lots of giant trees.



This also makes it a little easier for you to transport wood to areas that are more at the far end of the mountains and a nice place for a train stop!

Hope this clears up the new play areas! Maybe you're already planning for how you want to expand your new base or how you want to tackle your new base in a new save.

Also did you know that we have a new singleplayer console demo out on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S? We won’t be doing Early Access on there, but we have always had in mind that Oddsparks was going to be on consoles. If you have a friend who only plays on consoles, you can pass the news along and maybe after enjoying the demo, they won’t be able to wait and play it on Steam with you!

You can also tell them that they can join our Discord for more news. See you very soon for our August update!

In just a week, on the 26th of August, you can grab your conductor hats and get on the hype-train!
Until then, enjoy our updated roadmap, more information for the next updates will follow soon.

HandyGames is thrilled to announce the first-ever AI-powered HandyGames Showcase 2024, which will be part of the THQ Nordic Digital Showcase 2024. The event will kick off on August 2nd, 2024, at 8:45 PM CEST. Gaming enthusiasts can tune in to watch the full showcase on the THQ Nordic Showcase Page, YouTube, and Twitch, or view the HandyGames Showcase separately on the official HandyGames YouTube channel. Prepare for a showcase crafted with the precision of an AI-driven algorithm versus the creativity of a caffeinated game dev.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Join us as we reveal more about our exciting titles and celebrate the creativity and innovation in gaming. We have programmed our AI to ensure it's an unforgettable experience. So, sit back, relax, and let our artificial intelligence entertain you like never before.

Stay tuned for more updates and be prepared to welcome our new AI Overlords!

Engineers, Conductors, and Spark Ticketers,

We’re currently finishing up our big August update (our roadmap is here), and we wanted to finally show off one of our big new features. As one part of the name for the update, trains are very important to us (and the update too). It’s time to talk about the pinnacle of transportation!

However, setting up your first train can be a little complex, so we wanted to go step by step and talk to you how you can set up the most basic network in August!

[h3]Train Basics[/h3]

To have a train, you first need the Train Tracks! You can build tracks on elevated 1x1 poles, which means that you can very easily build on the mountains. These poles are also height adjustable, so you can have them go up and down, including over each other. You can even build a corkscrew to take your Sparks and items on a rollercoaster adventure.


Each pole can handle up to three connections - One “front” connection to the next pole, one "back" connection to the previous pole and one “to the side” connection to a third pole. The side connection is how you make junctions but we’ll talk properly about junctions later.

So once you have the tracks, you go back to the Build Menu and build a Locomotive onto the tracks! Each locomotive needs a driver and fuel. Once it’s fueled, you can assign a Spark and it’ll just go forward. You can also manually drive it yourself! When you’re driving, it can go forwards, backwards, and take any arbitrary junctions you want.


One more important thing to know is that each locomotive can have identifiers. A locomotive can handle up to four different items, and those are for using junctions automatically. But again, we’ll talk properly about that after the basics.


Now that you have a locomotive on tracks, it’s not really a train yet. You can attach Wagons onto a locomotive to make a full train. You can have as many as you want and even attach them in front of the locomotive, if you want!

The wagons can hold a number of items. They also have two seats in them, so if you want to just ride on the train (instead of driving the train) you can hop in one of the wagons and journey along with it.


Now you have a proper train! You can put as many trains as you want onto a network - they don’t crash, but they do block each other.

What you need now is a Train Stop. A train stop, as the name suggests, stops the train.


A train stop has lots of different modes and that changes when the train leaves. All you need to know for now is that the default is a “Timer Mode”. So the train will stop, wait for as many seconds as you want and then leave! There’s other modes that we’ll talk about at the end.

You can also manually override all of these modes and just tell the train stop to not let any train leave. Maybe you need to fix whatever problem you have on the tracks, maybe you just want to pause the network. Either way you can just temporarily stop all trains from leaving the station with a press of a button.


However, the train stop only stops the train. It doesn’t do anything to the wagons. For that, you need the Wagon Loader. The wagon loader allows you to load and unload a wagon using Sparks when it stops in the wagon loader.

The Sparks can load the wagon on one end, and unload the wagon on the other end. You might want to be careful though. The Sparks don’t really know what they’re supposed to load and unload, so if you try to use both at the same time without any logic, they might end up unloading the things you wanted to load!


In the beginning, especially if you want to avoid messing with the logic for now, you probably want to just have dedicated “loading” and “unloading” stations. That way the Sparks won’t get confused.

And now you have a basic train network! Choo choo!

[h3]Train Stop Modes[/h3]

You know about the default mode of the train stop, but there’s actually four different modes in total, so you can set up different kinds of train stations.

• Timer Mode - A train will stop for a number of seconds and then leave.
  
• Loading Mode - A train will stop and only leave when its wagons are full.
  
• Unloading Mode - A train will stop and only leave when its wagons are empty.
  
• Custom Mode - The train stop is connected via logic, and the train will leave if the train stop is currently receiving a signal.
  

The first three modes should cover the basic use cases and when you want to start introducing logic, you can do more complex things! You can use the Capacity Sensor on the wagon loader to see if the wagon on it is empty or full to have a train station that actually unloads and then loads. You can use the Counter Gate to only fill up every second train. With path system, the logic wires, and the trains, you'll be able to have three different spaghetti networks overlaid on top of each other!

[h3]Junction Basics[/h3]

The junctions are pretty simple. Each train pole can handle up to three connections - One “front” connection to the next pole, one "back" connection to the previous pole and one “to the side” connection to a third pole.


You can open up a pole to add identifiers to the junctions. They interact with the train identifiers! Let’s say you have two trains. Train 1 has a log as an identifier and Train 2 has a stone. When they come to the junction, if one of the junction identifiers is a stone, then Train 2 with the stone will take the side route, while Train 1 with the log will take the straight route.


The identifiers are separate from each other, not additive. So if you have a stone and a log as a junction identifier, then both Train 1 with only a log and Train 2 with only a stone will take the side junction.

You can also do more complex constructions by attaching train poles and junctions to logic, but we’ll let you figure that one out.

We're looking forward to you playing with the trains when we release our Trains and Trains update, which should be around latter half of August! We've already been showing off parts of our train over at our Discord if you want to see WIPs.

After reading all of this about the trains, you might be thinking, hm, I don't know if we really need the trains with the biomes and the overall space that's in the current version. Well, next devlog, we'll talk about a smaller feature that's on our roadmap for August - "Biome Variations". What does that actually mean? How will it play? What do we want to encourage with it? Well, we'll talk to you about it very soon. See you next month!