Testing the Water(s)
Welcome Pioneers to a new edition of ‘Weekly Apart’ (tbh not sure about the name we're just throwing it out there - let us know what you think in the comments:). As always we give you a development update of our little (or rather sprawling and very ambitious) space colony sim/ automation game called Dawn Apart. Since we talked about fire in last week's post, we're opting for a holistic approach and today want to share some details about our water system.
Before we dive deeper into the water reserves of Aurora, we again want to salute you for having made Dawn Apart into one of the more sought-after upcoming games on Steam. It's still a long interstellar journey to the EA launch next year, but just three months after the announcement we're already among the 650 most wishlisted games and broke the barrier of 3,000 Steam followers, as depicted in this (admittedly self-congratulatory) YouTube shorts video! Please continue supporting Dawn Apart by spreading the word and following us on our socials!
[h3]Beneath the surface[/h3]
So yes, water has been detected on the surface of Aurora, making the planet hospitable for colonists and the indigenous 'alien' population (and also exploitable and profitable for the Kobayashi-Schwarz Corporation). As you can see in the screenshot above, we have added bodies of water to our world generation pipeline which completely changes the feel of the planet and opens up a wealth of new gameplay possibilities.
Per default water automatically appears at a certain depth in the planet's terrain - essentially like ground water. With terraforming being a big part of the gameplay mechanics, you can reveal water below the ground and hide/eliminate it through landfills.
[h3]The way of the water[/h3]
While we just began dipping our toes into water systems, we still want to experiment with large scale simulated water (Noita is a huge influence ngl) and add flora/fauna to the water’s ecosystem, but we have begun discussing on how to integrate water organically into Dawn Apart's gameplay loop of managing and colony and extracting resources. In last week's water-themed survey on our Discord server (please join here, just today we grew to 500 members!) we actually received a lot of helpful input from the community on how we should or should not tackle water in the game.
The community agreed that water shouldn't be there just for cosmetic reasons but to have functions such as a cooling mechanism for machines and factories or putting out fires. Also building on or around water masses should come with a cost - landfilling, for example, could be a costly measure that players must gauge. We're going to take all of those suggestions into account when we refine water-related gameplay in the upcoming weeks and months.
That being said, just adding this first iteration of water to the map was kind of a big deal in how much variety it has added to the planet's surface. We're focusing on gameplay aspects in the first quarter of this year but in the spring will definitely give Aurora a much needed facelift and add tons of new fauna and flora in time for the release of our first demo. Until then make sure to check out the latest episode of our #MachineMondays series, stay hydrated and see you next week!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Before we dive deeper into the water reserves of Aurora, we again want to salute you for having made Dawn Apart into one of the more sought-after upcoming games on Steam. It's still a long interstellar journey to the EA launch next year, but just three months after the announcement we're already among the 650 most wishlisted games and broke the barrier of 3,000 Steam followers, as depicted in this (admittedly self-congratulatory) YouTube shorts video! Please continue supporting Dawn Apart by spreading the word and following us on our socials!
[h3]Beneath the surface[/h3]
So yes, water has been detected on the surface of Aurora, making the planet hospitable for colonists and the indigenous 'alien' population (and also exploitable and profitable for the Kobayashi-Schwarz Corporation). As you can see in the screenshot above, we have added bodies of water to our world generation pipeline which completely changes the feel of the planet and opens up a wealth of new gameplay possibilities.
Per default water automatically appears at a certain depth in the planet's terrain - essentially like ground water. With terraforming being a big part of the gameplay mechanics, you can reveal water below the ground and hide/eliminate it through landfills.
[h3]The way of the water[/h3]
While we just began dipping our toes into water systems, we still want to experiment with large scale simulated water (Noita is a huge influence ngl) and add flora/fauna to the water’s ecosystem, but we have begun discussing on how to integrate water organically into Dawn Apart's gameplay loop of managing and colony and extracting resources. In last week's water-themed survey on our Discord server (please join here, just today we grew to 500 members!) we actually received a lot of helpful input from the community on how we should or should not tackle water in the game.
The community agreed that water shouldn't be there just for cosmetic reasons but to have functions such as a cooling mechanism for machines and factories or putting out fires. Also building on or around water masses should come with a cost - landfilling, for example, could be a costly measure that players must gauge. We're going to take all of those suggestions into account when we refine water-related gameplay in the upcoming weeks and months.
That being said, just adding this first iteration of water to the map was kind of a big deal in how much variety it has added to the planet's surface. We're focusing on gameplay aspects in the first quarter of this year but in the spring will definitely give Aurora a much needed facelift and add tons of new fauna and flora in time for the release of our first demo. Until then make sure to check out the latest episode of our #MachineMondays series, stay hydrated and see you next week!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]