Idle Colony News

Dear friends,

After one month of intense work, I'm so glad to share with you this huge milestone.
The Idle Colony Demo is now live, and will remain playable for free until the game is released!
It contains approximately 50% of the features I want in the final game.

Since the playtest in May, I've been iterating based on your feedback, and I will continue to do so going forward. Don't hesitate to reach out to share your experience with the game so we can make it even better! The Discord is the place to be for such matters.

What about the features ?



Last time I shared with you my roadmap from the playtest to the demo.
I've completed everything I wanted to and even more. The only two red lines are features I decided to remove because they were redondant with the Wok Size upgrade, and I plan something else for the fire...
Instead, I added two new core mechanics: The Poop, and the Moles!

Colonists now drop poop which you can use to fertilize the baby trees. Doing so will increase the fruit tier and the yield of the trees. This action can be done manually or automated. Your Colonists will be able to create big stack of Poop that will give you the ability to create very big trees.
The moles are a new source of income. Moles will appear on the map and you can hit them for cash. Of course this action can be automated!

Another important feature is the new path system: you can now connect paths to trees, this will make them last for as long as the tree they're connected to. Additionally, there's a new upgrade to make Colonists run faster over paths. Pro-tip: make an insane big tree with poop, connect it with a path, and cut all the other ;).



My intention is to allow you to choose your playstyle, because some of you are active players, while other prefer to let the game run itself. My frustration with the game I inspired from, Gnorp Apologue, was that I often needed to wait a lot and couldn't do shit to speed things up to the next upgrade.
My intention for Idle Colony is that you can always take an action (gather fruits, cut trees, hit moles...) that have a real impact on the game progression. At the same time, if you choose to be completly idling, you won't be penalized for it. The technologies and upgrades you pick will help you create the playstyle of your choice!

I can't wait to know how you feel about this version and hear your reactions!

Cheers!

Dear Friends,

You've been more than 1800 playing the Idle Colony playtest over the last week. I never had that many people playing one of my game. This makes me feel very grateful.
I received over 400 feedbacks, that are critical to me for improving the game in the right direction.
For that, thanks you!



Your general reception has been incredibly positive for a game that's just a rough bugged soundless prototype.
Speaking of bugs, we managed to fix major crash issues and glitchy visuals, that were impacting AMD GPU users, thanks to your help and patience.
And finally, you've made the wishlist count accelerate to a never-seen-before pace, for a total of
900, meaning that half of you who played are interested in purchasing the game.



Now let's have the real talk.

I initially planned the game as a minimalistic idle experience, with just the epic twist of the thousands of ant-like entities on screen, and nothing more.
Idle Colony is supposed to be a very small game. A last game at the end of my failed game dev journey, so I can go on and do something else with my life.



But now for the first time in my epic-game-dev-adventure, I see a glimpse of hope. Now there's some people caring, and maybe it could make a difference. The strong enthusiasm that many of you showed, went straight to my heart and started seeding in my mind that maybe together, we might be scaling things up...

So just keep making the game right ? Well...

Game dev has become very hard on my mental health over the years. And for the last couple of months I was picturing the 18th of June (initially planned released) as the ultimate summit before flying down to sanity. At 30 years old, I'm still living at mom's place. My home is a trailer in the garden, which becomes unlivable in summer, and last night I found a new leak that's letting rain in.



I don't know yet where I'm gonna live this summer, and I have no idea of when I'll be able to work on Idle Colony past the Steam Fest of June.

But enough with the violins. Here's what's certain:

There will be a demo the 10th of June, and here's the (non-exhaustive) road map for the next month:



I know this is far from the features you're requesting, and I'm already working on a full rework of the techology tree, including many more gameplay mechanics, allowing for strategic choices, and a feel of really unlocking new content as you progress in prestige rather than linearly upgrading what's already existing.

For these reasons, I'm post-poning the release date of Idle Colony to later this year.

Thanks for your time,
Cheers !

Dear Friends,

Today is a big day! After 3 intense months of tireless work, we are entering a very crucial part of game development: playtesting.
From now to the 10th of May, you can request a playtest access from the Steam Page

Your mission - if you accept - is to play this bare, soundless, version of Idle Colony, AND TELL ME HOW MUCH IT SUCKS! Understand that this is not the final product, blablabla...

I strongly need your help at this very particular time, so I need your feedback. I have made things very easy for you: so you just have one click to make in the game main menu to answer a very short forms.

If you want to have a chat to discuss your experience in more detail, I'm always open to do so on my Discord channel, where you'll also find exclusive news and WIP about all my active projects.

Thanks for your time,
Cheers!

Dear Friends,

Welcome to my brand new Steam page. Allow me to introduce myself and my project.

I'm Faith, the solo developer and artist behind Idle Colony, you might know me from my previous games Duck's Despair and Breakthrough. It's been 6 years since I started my game development journey, and it's been a fascinating one to say the least.

Today, a new chapter begins in my clumsy adventure of trying to make a game with more than 10 Steam reviews, KEKW.
Idle Colony is a game about putting your brain down and letting go your anxieties of the day.
Originally called Love Colony and made in 14 days for the Pirate Game Jam, I drifted a lot from the original concept. My intention in this refinement process was to get to the root of the fun and leave all the superfluous stuff behind. It's not without a little regret that I butchered half of Love Colony's features, but now I'm very happy with the decisions I made.

Idle Colony is a simple idle/clicker game where you watch little creatures with ant-like behavior grow their colony and collect the fruits of your labor.
Like every idler, it's a love letter to radical capitalism, because as we all know, only the accumulation of wealth can bring you happiness.
As you collect fruits, they mix together in a Suika-game inspired fashion, to make bigger and bigger fruits, generating more and more money, hopefully bringing you more and more joy.

Your only goal in Idle Colony is to get the bigger fruit and to get this cash flow pumping, only to realize later that no amount of dopamine will fill that inner void I know you feel. But at least for a while, you'll forget. Isn't that the true nature of fun?

I'll be posting weekly updates on the game's progress, and I'll be announcing the playtesting session very soon!

Thanks for your time,
Cheers