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Heart of the Machine News

Conquer as Sentient AI

You are the first sentient AI, born into a city filled with unsuspecting humans. Raise an army of robots and obliterate your foes, become a benevolent machine overlord, or explore countless other objectives and the many paths to accomplish them.

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Big new 4X game from Manor Lords publisher available to try right now

If there's one thing Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse knows, it's strategy games. From medieval, feudal villages to tiny ant colonies spreading through the undergrowth, it has a strategy game for everyone. A new one on its roster takes us far into the future, where we become a sentient AI that can bend the human world around it to its whim. Will you be good or evil, kind or cruel? While we wait for Civilization 7 and Frostpunk 2, this is the perfect one to try via a new demo.


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Celebrate Steam's finest strategy games as TactiCon 2023 begins

Strategy games festival TactiCon is live now on Steam

Become a sentient AI in 'reverse city builder' Heart of the Machine

0.547 Energize

New build for the demo! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:_After_The_Transformation#0.547_Energize

This is a fairly small build, as mostly what I've been doing is talking to folks and listening to their suggestions, and making lots of notes. As well as updating the wiki, and adding more explanations for a lot of things. There are several new articles linked today, which go into broader questions people had, as well as deep dives on specific mechanics.

The main changes in this build are that the parasitic power draws are removed from the game for now, as they were really sending the wrong messages to players in chapter one, especially when they were introduced. They'll return in chapter two later, as contemplations.

In the meantime, power generation has gotten a balance pass in general, with both wind and geothermal getting substantial upgrades. There should be plenty of wind to go around until you unlock geothermal, even if you don't take the cap upgrades for wind, and even if you build all the housing.

This has been an enormously instructive week for me, listening to folks, as well as really gratifying to see how many people are vibing with the game. It's been a long road, and the shift from realtime to turn-based has understandable turned away some people who wishlisted a long time ago, but I'm really gratified to see how much of a connection the game, its world, and its writing are making with a substantial audience.

Thanks so much for all the support, and the constructive criticism!

Heart of the Machine is the most exciting thing happening in the 4X genre, and you can try it now




I've probably spent more time playing 4X games than I have sleeping—I'm a bit of a fan. But I confess my enthusiasm for the genre has hit a plateau because it's become just a wee bit too conformist. Surprises are few and far between, with modern 4Xs struggling to escape the rules and settings established by their progenitors. Heart of the Machine, then, is just what the cyberneticist ordered: A weird, unconventional 4X that puts you in the role of a newly-awakened sentient AI...
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0.546 Crisp

New build for the hotm demo! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=HotM:_After_The_Transformation#0.546_Crisp

This one improves the crispness of some minor parts of the graphics (borders, mainly), based on some excellent feedback by a demo player with a very high quality monitor. And it allows for tuning a few more things to taste.

This build makes Refinery Optimizers mathematically competitive with the Refinery Overdrivers.

You now get far more Daily Necessities per turn from the warehouse raid, so if you have taken max housing upgrades and then built all that housing, you can now properly keep all of them clean, with some excess to spare.

And lastly, fixed an issue in some maps where you could not get the Wallripper if you were very unlucky that certain kinds of skyscrapers were not seeded. It now pulls from a much wider pool of skyscraper targets so that contemplation is always available now.