New Cycle News

Heyho everyone,

"Please move along - there's nothing to see" - this is just a PSA for our chinese community members.

As you maybe know their access to the steam forums or communication tools is heavily restricted, which is why we set up an external platform for them on "QQ" a service similar to discord.

Looking forward to all your comments and feedback when we start our Early Access Journey tomorrow!

Hello from the New Cycle team!


As some of you know, we trialed a Beta version of AI NPCs with in-game knowledge in our past playable demo to both test out its performance and receive your impressions. We want to try and convey the current situation and roadmap for this gameplay component.

First of all, while we believe that AI-based interactions are an appropriate side mechanic for our genre, as we mentioned before, we have a design approach that is opposed to including this component too prominently in the game so as to affect the core gameplay experience to an excessive degree.

After our first test release alongside the demo, we have determined a roadmap based on your feedback and some external signs, including the global positioning of AI. We believe that concentrating on the core gameplay mechanics and tackling this not-to-be-underestimated topic in the future, would be a more respectful approach to the wishes of the entire community.

There are three main factors influencing this decision:

• To be able to serve consumers who want AI integration and those who don't under the same conditions and not to take any approach that impedes their right to choose.
  
  
• The fact that Steam has just determined and announced its roadmap regarding AI content and the policies it will follow against them at the beginning of last week, in addition to our desire to focus on the main backbone of the game rather than devoting a lot of effort to a side mechanic before this legal ground is clarified.
  
  
• The extra cost - both in work hours as well as financially - naturally incurred by game-specific AI NPCs that are raised with unique data inputs and long training periods on a closed server built specifically for New Cycle. As long as these NPCs are used, they would create expenditures such as server service, maintenance, developers that have to maintain those servers, NPCs etc - and this having an effect on the development of the game or even the base price of the game, affecting you as a player, directly, is a solution that we were absolutely opposed to.
  

What Are These Game-Specific AI NPCs?

This component, which has a very different operational and technical presentation model than ChatGPT or its derivatives, is a game-specific service from 'Inworld', a developer that has developed and specialized in this field over the past two years.
How Is It Different from ChatGPT etc.?

Inworld AI allows you to build a database of your game directly on its servers. Thanks to this closed private environment, you place the rules, background stories and all the data that defines your game world as a set of information to be learned by the AI on these servers.


You can then create unique characters and define background stories, traits, characteristics, motives, goals or objectives for them. These characters can be integrated and used in your game for specific purposes, acting only in this pseudo-reality in light of the data sets that define your game’s world.

This technological infrastructure is well suited for multi-layered data processing and original content presentation beyond a standard chat bot infrastructure. As a team that has realized one of the first in-engine integrations of this component, we believe that this technique can make a rich contribution to our gameplay experiences with the right positioning in the future.


Since we released our second demo last June, the tremendous advancement in this technology has made it much more feasible to experience this infrastructure in a way that is more concrete, pursue more interactive goals through it, and gain access to a wider range of possibilities.

Conclusion - TL;DR;

With the intention of providing a full and healthy Early Access period, for the time being we will focus on the core components and efficient functioning of our game. You can expect an announcement with further information about the integration of AI NPCs into New Cycle in the coming months.


Thank you for reading and for your continued interest in New Cycle.
Best,
Core Engage

Dieselpunk city builder New Cycle will release this week on January 18, 2024, challenging you as the leader of a band of survivors trying to rebuild Earth's civilization following a series of devastating solar storms that obliterate our societal and technological infrastructure...
Read more.

New Cycle is set against the backdrop of the planet being subjected to a series of very serious damages, whose effects increase and decrease over the course of the game.

Life-threatening and global events, especially atmospheric anomalies, will cause situations that a community sometimes cannot cope with. In addition to these, you will also face the problems of crowded life in a narrow space and other related impossibilities.



You will be able to intervene against all possible disaster scenarios or choose new measures according to your development over time. While these disasters occur, you can lose buildings and people, and experience negative outcomes that can affect the settlement as a whole.



All disasters work as VFX-driven technical components with simultaneous unique Shader interactions and a series of streams that can help shape and bolster the game world.

In the first Early Access build:

• Fires
  
• Lightning strikes
  
• Sandstorms
  
• Collapse due to lack of maintenance
  
• Workplace accidents
  
• Extreme weather conditions
  

Can each take place, prompting you to act in response. Multi-causal events such as fires are also variable systems that have the ability to spread and can produce more permanent damages when not dealt with correctly, showing behavioral changes depending on whether they’re affecting wooden or concrete structures.

Disasters currently on our road map are:

• Cyclones
  
• Static discharge anomalies
  
• Oil Fires.
  

Cyclones is still in early production, its integration into the physics of the universe and its visual effects do not reflect the final form.

All images were recorded in-game.

Alp Geven/Dev

Core Engage and Daedalic Entertainment have released a new overview trailer for New Cycle, their post-apocalyptic "dieselpunk" city management game. "New Cycle" is obviously a bit of a self-contradiction, and I suspect that's deliberate - one of the questions the video leaves you with is whether there is "a future beyond survival", or whether we are doomed to just repeat the processes of extraction and gradual building-up, resource overexploitation and encroaching disaster suggested by these 12 jam-packed minutes of in-game footage.

Read more