Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure News

Explorers, Automators, and Spark-Petters

Now that there’s we're counting the days before our Early Access release (April 24th!!), let’s talk a bit about what has changed between the demo and the Early Access and also talk a little bit about the roadmap for the future! You know that we’re adding more content, but we’ve changed a lot more since the demo, and we want you to be updated so you know what to expect.

Something important to note is that we will be taking down the demo when we release!

[h3]Spark Traffic[/h3]

Something really big and important is that we’ve changed how Sparks interact with buildings. Instead of being able to interact with buildings on their left- and right-hand side, we’ve changed it so that Sparks can now only interact with the right hand side of the path.



We’ve seen some of our players already talk about how to build The Perfect Base and this will change things a lot. The Spark Traffic system is not set in stone! We’ll continue balancing and figuring out what kind of late game builds we want to encourage and discourage.

With this change and other tools that you haven’t seen yet, we’re sure that it’ll change how you think about building. We can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

[h3]Send Feedback Directly From Game[/h3]

Previously, you could send us feedback via our Discord, the steam forums, or even by email at [email protected]. We’ve added a new way, and now you can now send us feedback and bugs directly from the game! You can open it via the in-game menu, or directly by pressing F8.



[h3]The Tutorial[/h3]

We’ve ripped out a lot of the tutorial and streamlined it. We want to try out something a little less intrusive than our previous tutorial setup, so that means fewer tutorial quests and in general, leading you towards the gameplay glossary.

[h3]World Generation[/h3]

We’ve been squashing world generation bugs and making it better. We’ve changed how waypoints are placed so it should be always useful and there isn’t two that are too close to each other, and there’s more ancient bases and now they spawn in a grid!



It might sound like a small change, but this will make a difference on how you look at the map and how you build your bases! The aim is to create something that you can replay a lot without giving you bad seeds, and still have lots of very interesting challenges each time you start a new save.

[h3]The Spark Keys[/h3]

The Spark Keys are out! So it was always a very temporary thing. We realized as we were finalizing the demo that the game wasn’t really telling you just how much future content we were thinking of having in the final game, or how we were planning to pace the game. That’s why we very quickly implemented the Spark Keys! We have a lot of content in mind and we wanted you to know that what you’ve seen in the demo is only a small amount of the game.

So now, they’ve been replaced with a new feature, Monument Quests! The monument now handles a lot of things related to the player and related to the shrines. So for example, instead of unlocking the Spark shrines individually, you’ll be unlocking them in the Monument. With the villager quests and the monument quests, we hope to create a more open ended progression that’s a lot of fun to go through and explore.



[h3]Build Mode[/h3]

Instead of opening the build menu every single time, we’ve streamlined the build mode so that it’s much nicer to build the same type of building over and over. Basically, you now have a history of the 5 previously built buildings that you can quick access, and you open that history first before you open the buildings menu. It's not perfect, but it's better and we'll continue working on the UX to make sure it's as good as it can be.

The current changes are a bit hard to imagine via text, but we feel like it’s a lot smoother now to build things repeatedly! You’ll thank us when you explore the mountains.

[h3]Mouse & Keyboard Inventory Shortcuts[/h3]

We heard that some of you find the mouse & keyboard inventory shortcuts annoying, so we went back to the drawing board. To be honest, designing the controls for this game has been pretty difficult. As a genre mix, we have different conventions pushing and pulling us towards different directions. It’s very clear to see which genre people like when they give us feedback!

We’ve made inventory management easier by adding two more shortcuts and overhauling the design. We’ve also made the shortcuts a bit more obvious, so you can get used to it a little faster.



[h3]Minimap, Map Marker & Controls[/h3]

You asked for a minimap and we now have a minimap! We had a lot of internal discussions about it because we wanted navigating and exploring the world to be part of the game, but we ended up seeing that it was more annoying than we wanted it to be.



We also added a lot of quality of life features to the map itself. We changed the map controls to some player feedback and have made the map marker much better. You can now mark important landmarks on the map!

[h3]Single Spark Callback[/h3]

The callback has gotten a round of improvement so it’s easier to call back a single Spark. Maybe you accidentally threw a Crafty on a path when you didn’t mean to. Or you just want to micromanage combat more and call back a particular Stumpy before the Beelephant attacks it? Well, either way, it’s now much easier and smoother.



[h3]Better Button Remapping[/h3]

We’ve worked on the button remapping and have made more buttons available so you can play your own way. As we said before, juggling the genre mix of controls is not easy, so this way, you can set the controls to how you like it! This feature is definitely something that only gets better by player feedback, so if you have them, please reach out to us!

[h3]More Languages[/h3]

We already mentioned this, but yes, Oddsparks is being translated! Our Early Access release will have English, German, French, and Japanese. We’ll have all of our gameplay texts (e.g. Building and Item names, UI, quest instructions, tutorials) and our quest descriptions texts ready but likely not all of the dialogues will be completed at release.

That means that when you are playing in a language other than English, some quests will only have its description texts and no dialogue. We’ve tried to make sure that these are quests later in the game, so you will have a smooth early game experience, whichever language you’re playing in.

If you want to see the English dialogues in places where there isn’t a translation, there will be an option made available in the settings menu!

[h3]And even more![/h3]

This list is getting too long! We’ve also worked on balancing and quest progression and have done some big changes from the the demo. We’ve added in-game achievements (no steam achievements until we’re 100% sure that the achievements are staying how they are) and a lot more customization options, that are unlocked by the in-game achievements! A multiplayer room code system for crossplay between Steam and Epic. We now have UI Scaling!

Okay, that’s enough. Let’s talk about the future.

[h2]The Early Access Plan[/h2]

We're sorting out our roadmap and will reveal to you very soon. We want to keep things a bit more secret for now - after all, you have the whole Woodlands and Mountains to explore first! We’re still planning to update you at least once a month with a devlog so you know what’s happening with the development.

In general, we're planning for lots of room to not just build what we want but to listen to feedback and work with the community to make the game the best it can be. We have a big list of features you've already requested, we're already sorting them by priority and figuring out where they fit into our production plan.

Of course, you can also get more frequent updates by joining us at our Discord!

We’re all looking forward to you finally joining us on this Oddsparks journey properly with the Early Access release. We can’t wait to see your sprawling bases, your cool outfits, your surprise and joy at what the game holds.

So please tell your friends about us and we’ll see you for the Early Access Release on April 24th!

As we are moving ever closer to the Early Access release of Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure on April 24th, we’ve got some exciting news for you. We’ve always wanted to ensure Oddsparks can be enjoyed by as many players around the world as possible when the full release comes around, and we are starting this path now.

With the beginning of Early Access, Oddsparks will support English, German, French, and Japanese. A big thank you goes out to all the players from those countries who have expressed their interest and wishlisted the game.

We are currently on track to finish all the general texts, including building and item names, tutorials, and quest texts for the Early Access release, so hopefully, everyone will be able to get into the flow of the game quickly, understand what is going on, and how to play the game.

As the inhabitants of the world of Oddsparks are quite the talkative bunch, work on the dialogues will take a while longer and will not be completed in time for the Early Access release. While the dialogues do add a lot of flair to the game, most of them are not required to play the game or understand what is going on. This means that at launch, only English will include all of them, but we are planning to deliver a language patch soon after release.

So, if you are playing in a language other than English, some quests will only have the description and no dialogue. If you want to see English dialogues in places where there is no translation available yet, you’ll have the option to do so in the settings menu.

We can’t wait to have you all playing and enjoying the Early Access version of Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure! Join the Oddsparks community on Discord and stay tuned for more updates on the official Early Access start.

Friends and Soon-to-be-Friends,

We love to watch folks play our game, since everyone plays so differently and we figured you might too! Every few weeks, we showcase a lovely streamer or content creator that's showcased us and show off all the ways to approach the game and how different people build!

Today, we wanted to show off Avarenity, a streamer from Singapore who has been a part of our community since August 2023.

Avarenity has an amazingly diverse and fun library of games, from cute and cosy to straight-up Warframe! In their streams, they are wonderfully curious, silly and very engaged with their audience. It’s always a joy to catch their streams.

They were also the first to stream Oddsparks, you can still catch a part of it here:


We’re so fortunate to have them in our community. Their upbeat demeanour always makes us smile, and lately, they've helped us catch some nasty bots, too!
Thank you, Avarenity, for sticking with us these past months!

That's it for now! Wishlist us, tell your friends, come hang out and tell us who we should watch next at our Discord!

If you're interested in streaming or creating a video of Oddsparks, check out the Oddsparks presskit for logos, transparent promotional images for all your banner needs, and more.

Hikers, Engineers, and Spark-throwers,

Let’s go straight into a deep-dive into our second biome: The Mountains!

We’re going to first talk about the design intent and showing off a few cool things. However, we’ll be revealing even more things on our Discord! Twice a week, we’ll be showing some new screenshots (both in-game screenshots but also things that give you a peek into the development process) in our Discord for you to collectively speculate over, so please look forward to that!

[h2]Why Mountains?[/h2]
We always knew that we wanted to add vertical logistics. We didn’t want Oddsparks to play in a flat world! It makes the building puzzle more interesting if you have blockers and then tools to deal with that, so we built the game with verticality in mind.

We start with having a simple 1 height level difference in the woodlands, but we were always going to ramp it up to larger height difference. From there, it made sense for it to be a “mountain” area. Our original vertical slice had four core resources (wood, stone, secret and redacted), so we knew that stone was a safe bet and it fits with the mountain concept.

And of course, that means Stone Sparks!

[h2]What do you do in the Mountain biome?[/h2]
The core is still the same. You’re going to find shrines, solve quests and build your workshop. However, things will be a lot more difficult in various ways. The mountain biome is:

• hard to traverse through, you’ll need to figure out your routes.
  
• full of aggressive enemies, you’ll need to be ready for combat.
  
• big, finding shrines is difficult and the distances between buildings that you need to connect is larger.

There’s genuinely a lot of new things, so we’ll break it down into three categories: Traversal, Logistics, Combat. They intersect with each other a bit, but it's just a nice way to think about the things we're about to showcase.

[h2]Traversal[/h2]
Unfortunately, the player’s scrawny noodle arms can’t climb up more than one height level. However, we have a few things for you. First of all, an incredible new invention: The Ladder.



The Ladder allows you to climb up TWO height levels. This does mean you might need a few to travel to the actual plateaus of the mountains, but this is only your first and starting tool.

The mountains also have some unusual traversal tools built into it. You can ride air vents from one plateau to another, exploring the tops of the mountains. However, be careful as you explore, you might end up in the territory of some rather mean looking creatures! We’ll talk about those later though.



As you explore, you’ll find shrines that unlock new stone-based sparks. They unfortunately cannot be built in the Spark Workbench, you’ll get a new, bigger, Spark Workstation which you’ll need to build in the mountains. This means you’ll need to get your Sparks to bring items from the woodlands to the mountains and vice versa. You’ll use three new tools:

• The Zipline
  
• The Elevator
  
• The Cannon

We’ve actually already talked about the Zipline a little in an earlier devlog! These three different tools have their own awkward restrictions, but with them in combination, you can easily build your production line and bring not only items up and down the mountain, but also yourself!

You can use the zipline, elevator and cannons for traversal too!

[h2]Logistics[/h2]
Sure, we now have cool logistics tools that bring items up and down things. We even have ramps so you can finally tidy up your woodlands base! However, those won’t help when you have long distances to travel.

In the woodlands, you have the Carry Spark, which we didn’t show off in the demo. The Carry Spark can carry multiple items on the path and allows for a higher throughput. With this and the new and better stone path type, suddenly, the amount of items a path network can carry is much higher than before!



With new path addons that force Sparks to wait a certain length of time, Filters for item type, spark type and number of items, you can control your throughput and manage your Sparks better! While these sorts of things don’t matter when your paths are short, they become incredibly important when your paths are long.

But that’s not all. Sure, you’ll have new bigger crates and chests, but we’ll also provide you Delivery Chests, a container for you or your Spark to store items to that villagers can access remotely! No more carrying stuff back and forth to the village. You can now give the items the villagers want directly from your production line, if that’s how you want to build it.



The last thing we’ll talk about is an unusual and we think, exciting, Spark management tool.

Sometimes the items that you need to get from one place to another is actually just another Spark. Instead of having a dedicated team of Sparks to haul spark tokens from the woodlands to the mountains, we thought, what if the Sparks can turn themselves back into a spark token?



Well, with the Spark Itemizer and Spawner (name not final), you can create a network where Stumpy Sparks that will become Crafty Sparks can carry their own ingredients!

[h2]Combat[/h2]

So traversing through the mountains, getting the resources and building a production line won’t be easy due to a few things. In the mountains, most enemies are aggressive. Running away is a good idea, but not always easy, especially with a thick fog slowing you and your Sparks down.



Even unassuming creatures that aren’t aggressive, like the Pengus, have defense mechanism that makes them difficult to fight! A pengus will protect itself by shooting out a Miasma, a poisonous type of gas.



Miasma is not very fun to run through. They deal damage to you and can stun your Sparks! You’ll need to quickly call them back, or else your Sparks might die.

But of course, these gases aren’t just there to annoy you. There’s a lot of ways to use them, both for combat and even in the production line! But for now, we’ll talk about how they’re useful in combat.

Presenting... The Puffy Spark!



This guy is able to pull in lighter enemies (possibly even stunning them), pull in a bunch of items into one spot, and they can pull in and carry fog and miasma. Once filled, you’ll be able to bring fog and miasma to other enemies and make some fights easier or use it as a way to damage enemies!

[h2]So many things![/h2]
And we haven’t even talked to you about everything!

We haven’t talked to you about a very special type of Spark. We haven’t talked to you about other special enemy abilities. We haven’t talked about the challenges you’ll face when you’re able to finally be able to create an infinite source of Aether Shards.

However, we do want to keep a few things a surprise. We look forward to showing you it all on April 24th! If you want even more things to look and speculate at, join our discord where we'll be showing off a few things twice a week as a little countdown to our release.

So tell your friends about us, hang out with us at our Discord, and tell us any demo feedback and thoughts over at the Steam Discussions, or even email us at [email protected].

Friends and Soon-to-be-Friends,

We’re in the Steam Women’s Day Sale event! If you haven’t seen it, it’s a showcase of games from teams led by women and other gender-marginalised developers. You should check it out!

If you’ve found us via the event, or maybe you don’t know much about us…
Hi! We’re Massive Miniteam and we’re making Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure.

We consist of 26 people, and 12 of those human beings are women! From Animator, to Art Lead, to Software Engineer, they have a wide range of seniorities and titles and are not just part of the team but have lead the team to where we are now.

It's not an overstatement to say that Oddsparks (and Massive Miniteam) would be much poorer without their incredible skills and talents, their hard work and creativity, and their joy and existence. Unfortunately, the games industry in general can be very hostile to women and we’d like to take this occasion to actually celebrate these wonderful human beings and uplift their voices.

We’ve asked a few of them three questions: What do you do, what’s your favorite part about the job, and what advice would they give other women seeking to enter their role. From these little interviews, we hope you gain a new appreciation for the hard work of making games and of the women in the industry.

[h2]Tori, Animator[/h2]

[h3]What do you do?[/h3]
I am an animator and rigger.

That means I put the skeleton into the puppets and make them move!

[h3]What’s your favorite part about the job?[/h3]
I think it's to think about what personality each character has, and then putting that personality into the movement. I also enjoy having little chats with my co-workers about funny things the Sparks could be doing and then secretly adding those into the game.

[h3]Any advice for other women seeking to enter your role?[/h3]
Listen to yourself, think about what you enjoy about it, and follow that intuition.

For example I really like animating animals and I had the most fun doing this. And by doing it, I improved. That's what brought me here!

Understand that there are lots of opinions, because everyone is a critic and that you don’t have to take all of them to heart.

Learn to understand which feedback is reasonable and use that to improve yourself. It’s hard to find the right balance here, because especially women tend to be brought up to become people-pleasers, but learning to overcome this urge will help you to grow beyond and not force yourself to always only find a happy medium as the only solution.

[h2]Christiane, Art Lead[/h2]

[h3]What do you do?[/h3]
I am a coach for my art department.

And even though I'm called an Art Lead, I do less “arting” than “leading”. It enables me to support my artists to the best of my abilities and have them out up the best work that they can, in an environment they're comfortable in, and their voices are being heard.

[h3]What’s your favorite part about the job?[/h3]
About this job, here… It’s the team. I've never worked with such nice, open minded, and diverse team. It just makes working much much easier. When I said that I enable my artists to be heard, I'm also being heard here, which is relatively rare for a woman of my position and that’s very nice.

Of course, I tremendously enjoy all the different ideas my artists come up with. All the different solutions they come up with their mind. Especially when they surprise me, it's always fun. I was once told that I should embrace solutions I don't expect, or even don't want. Because putting them out there will give me a new perspective on things that I will not have anticipated because I'm just one person.

And I'm now here in the very privileged position of having many many creative people around with great ideas, great impulses. This helps me to grow and appreciate my everyday work-life.

[h3]Any advice for other women seeking to enter your role?[/h3]
Sadly, being a woman (and in general, being a non-cishet white man) in Game Development and in a Leadership role requires you to have a thick skin. It's gotten better, but it's still really hard. The most important thing for everybody out there is to just network.

You will not get a job if people don't know your name. Because our industry is really small, we want to work with people we like, and people we know. I think that's valid, but it does mean that just because you're incredibly talented or very very skilled, people will not just pick you up from the street and put you on a role where you can actually do some cool work.

You have to put yourself out there.

Find the people you want to work with. Find your peers. Because not only will they help you find opportunities, but they will also be a support net if things going down.

It's never been easier to make games. It's never been harder to join this industry.

[h2]Layal, Software Engineer[/h2]

[h3]What do you do?[/h3]
I’m a game programmer.

I currently work on Oddsparks, previously I worked on porting games (in Massive Miniteam). So what I’m doing right now is dealing with UI, implementing features related to UI... I’ve worked on the notebook, video options, the keybindings. Accessibility is something I’m a big part of, which I’m very happy about!

[h3]What’s your favorite part about the job?[/h3]
My favorite part about the job is that my colleagues are mostly down to earth. There’s no barrier to communicate with my colleagues. We’re all very easy to talk to. And what I like about is that there is this diversity - we have people from different countries. We sometimes cook for each other and share our country’s food. I like the openness about this stuff.

And it’s not very serious, (but we’re still serious about deadlines). So these things are what I really like about work. People are very nice, very openminded and communicative.

[h3]Any advice for other women seeking to enter your role?[/h3]
My advice for women who are seeking to enter this role is first focus on your skills, on what you would like to work on and to create. Always try. Even if you think it’s impossible to join this space because “I’m a woman” or whatever gender you are. So think above this gender, even if it’s hard. But like, follow what you want to do and just do it. Take care of your portfolio, and apply.

My advice is: Don’t put a barrier on yourself.

[h2]That's all for now![/h2]
Thanks so much for reading, and if you haven't tried it yet, we hope you enjoy the demo! We're coming out in Early Access on April and are busy working on creating and polishing up the content. Some of you might have noticed a previously unseen building in Layal's image!

We'll talk more with another devlog soon, a much deeper dive into the mountains! We're looking forward to showing you some unusual logistics tools, some fun enemies and some very special Sparks. So tell your friends about us, and tell us your feedback and thoughts over at the Steam Discussions, our Discord, or even email us at [email protected].