Nubby's Number Factory News

Sup nubheads. Welcome to Weekly Nubby News #5!


It's been a while! As I established in WNN #4, I've been on a bit of a burnout break. Thus, there hasn't been too much to share because progress was slow in that period. But, now that I'm revitalized and fresh as a cucumber, we're back!

In this edition of WNN I'm going to be talking about the specifics of patch V1.3.1 and then sharing out some exciting news...



Patch V1.3.1:
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For the most part, my plans for upcoming updates have not changed in terms of content. As for release dates, those are being pushed back a bit because I was on burnout-break for a while longer than I initially thought I would.

Patch V1.3.1 is going to have a number of quality of life changes as the main addition. See the picture below to view nubby's new (and toggleable) assist mode.





But what is assist mode, you might ask? Well, assist mode is a toggleable extension of the normal gui. Heres what it does:

1. It records and displays stats from the current/previous turn.
2. For items, you can view how many times each one has triggered in the current/previous turn.
3. You may have noticed a crosshair-target-thingy over the juicy 128 peg in the picture. This is not an auto-aim feature. This is simply an indicator of the highest peg on the board. It highlights all of the highest pegs on the board, so if you had two 128 pegs, they would both get a crosshair-target-thingy.

Basically, it's a package of small things to assist you - hence the name. I might add more features to it in the future, but that's what it's going to be for now.

Aside from assist mode, patch V1.3.1 makes some miscellaneous changes and additions. I'll list a few here:

(note that specifics here are subject to change, have not play tested this patch yet)

-2 new items. One is the very special food pictured below, the other is a surprise.
-Glass tony reworked to fit the "glass cannon" archetype. You are limited to 2 lives, and every time an item triggers, it triggers twice. Glass cannon tony!
-Multiples of perks stack on top of each other in the gui, for organizational purposes.
-Adjusted nubby physics to fit between V1.2's physics and V1.3's physics. I don't think I'm going to change it again.
-Fixed various major bugs.
-A couple buffs and changes to some items and perks: Alien, trophy perk, croissant perk, and fishman.
-Added voice overs for supervisors...



As for a release date, I'm planning for May 16. Now, on to some exciting news...


Exciting News #1
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I'm excited to announce that Nubby's Number Factory is officially getting a mobile port! Nubby is going to be coming to apple and google devices.

I'm not going to be talking about specific dates for the release now, because it's a bit too early for that. Though, we have officially started the porting process. It's happening! You'll be able to bring nubby with you, wherever you go. Even at work!

Over the coming months, you will be getting more updates on the progress of the mobile version, and details about the release date and pricing.

Also, I want to put this next piece of information out there before any rumors start: The mobile version will not have ads. The mobile version will not have microtransactions. Our plans for right now is to have the game sold as a free version from the appstore/playstore. The free version will have about as much content as the current demo on steam (Though, I'm looking to give it a makeover to make it look more like the full version, just with less content). You can choose to play the free version, or you can pay once to purchase the full version that has full content. That's the only form of monetization I'm going to allow in my game.

I also want to announce that I am not porting this by myself. I'm working alongside the very respectable company, PolyCrunch Games to make nubby mobile the highest quality product we can produce. I'm very excited to get this out in the world!


Exciting News #2
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I'm going to PAX East in Boston! I'll be there May 9 and May 10th. I'm going there as a video game enthusiast, not a demo exhibitor or anything.

Just wanted to throw that out there, in case any nubby enthusiasts are going. If you see irl Tony walking around the expo hall, come up and say hi! I might be cosplaying Tony...

=========


That's it for this week's edition of WNN. I'll hopefully be sticking to the weekly schedule for a while, but if I don't post just know that the reason is because nothing note-worthy is happening. I'm still alive!

As always, thank you for reading, and thank you for playing! Peace out to the coolest gaming community I've ever been a part of.

~Mog

Hello nub heads!


If you haven't met me yet, I go by MogDog and I'm the creator of Nubby's Number Factory!

Welcome to the 4th edition of Weekly Nubby News! The focal point of this weeks newsletter is to cover the specifics of upcoming patches to give you an idea of what to expect in each patch leading up to V1.4.

=================

But first, a brief statement:

Before I start talking about patches, I want to briefly discuss where I'm at personally in my life, and be completely transparent about the development of Nubby.

To give context, I am a full time student in college, and a full time game developer in my free time (and a boyfriend, and an athlete). Needless to say, I'm a busy guy.

I have worked on Nubby's Number Factory for 1.5-2 years now, usually 5-8 hours every single day. I love the project and it's 100% my passion to make games, but holy heck I'm burnt out. This is why I've been taking it slow these past couple days on the development side.

I'm simply giving myself some time to heal from burnout. I take artistic burnout very seriously, because it can completely kill projects for me. This has happened to me before with previous games, though I've learned from my mistakes and I'm much better at giving myself room to heal. I will absolutely not let artistic burnout ruin Nubby for me. I plan on getting back into full-time development in about a week from now. I apologize for the slow development, but if I plan on continuing work with Nubby, this is 100% necessary for continued growth and success. It's all part of the process!

Thank you to those who have been sending kind words my way. I love the Nubby community and it always brightens my day to meet and converse with you wonderful people. So... thank you!


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News on upcoming patches:

To begin, there will be two patches between now, and the release of V1.4.

Patch V1.3.1:
The first patch is primarily focused on fixing annoying bugs, and improving GUI stuff (see screenshot below). You will also be seeing a total rework to the "Glass Tony" supervisor, to fit the "glass cannon" trope. Additionally, this patch will introduce the "pop-o-meter", which gathers data on pops per round, halves/doubles per round, and item activations per round (specified for each slot). This feature is meant to give you an in-depth look at your factory's performance per round, which gives number nerds an extra opportunity to improve efficiency




Patch V1.3.2
The second patch will be primarily focused on implementing an autosave / load system, which would allow you to exit a run, walk your dog, then come back and finish it. This has been requested by many players, and to be honest I've always known it was necessary and I've been putting it off because its a total pain to implement. Nonetheless, a friend of mine helped me out with some of the technical stuff, and that gave me the motivation to get this one over with. Autosaves are a small change that will improve the quality of the game immensely, so I'm excited to implement this.


Update V1.4:

Update 1.4 will be top priority once both patches are finished. There is info about V1.4 on weekly nubby news #3, but basically this update is going to be focused on adding more meta progression, unlocks, and steam achievements. Probably a good handful of new items and perks too. I'm really excited to work on this one!

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That's it for this week's Nubby News! Thank you for continuing to support me in my creative endeavors! It's a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs, but I'm really grateful and happy with where I'm at in my indie dev journey.

Cheers to more nubby!!!
-Mog

Greetings Nubheads.



Welcome to Weekly Nubby News #3!

In this edition, I'm looking mostly to inform nubby enthusiasts of where Nubby's at in terms of updates and talk about the next big update (V1.4).


So, V1.3 came out last Sunday and so far, things have been going pretty well. For the most part, people seem to be happy with the changes made. Obviously nerfing items isn't something I like doing, but in order for the game to meet my final vision, adjustments must be made. To be frank, the game is in a bit of awkward stage right now. I have some top secret documents that describe "phases" that I'm putting Nubby through. These phases are all working towards my final vision for Nubby, where I could finally be satisfied with the game.

Right now, Nubby is sort of in between phases. While some people are happy with NNF in it's current state, I'm striving for something more. All you need to know is that Nubby hasn't taken its final form yet. We're gonna get there one day.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about the near future of Nubby, address some criticisms I've been receiving, then finally finish off with what's to come for the next big update.


Near future of nubby (patches):
===

I have a patch planned for Nubby to fix up some bugs/crashes, and rebalance some things. I assume this will most likely be out some time next week. It's not going to be a big content update, just some tweaks.


Criticisms of V1.3:
===

The biggest criticism I've been receiving from V1.3 is that the Nubby physics feel bad. This one actually surprised me a lot. To understand why this surprised me, I'll explain the context of Nubby physics, and why I changed it.

So basically, one of the biggest complaints pre-V1.2 was that Nubby's physics felt too random. I found myself agreeing. Nubby's physics do actually have a small amount of RNG involved. Pre-V1.3, every time nubby bounces, his degree of reflection was offset by (-2 degrees, -1 degrees, 0 degrees, 1 degree, or 2 degrees). I thought, well in that case if its too random, I'll just reduce the maximum offset.

The reason why the large blowback from this surprised me, is that the physics were only changed by 1 degree! In V1.3, Nubby's physics are offset by (-1 degree, 0 degree, or 1 degree). That was the ONLY change made to the physics and I'm astounded that so many players noticed a degree change of just 1! Maybe I just don't play my game enough to notice, but I just cannot, for the life of me, notice a difference.

Usually, I'd listen to my heart and do what I think is right, but considering I can't notice a difference, and the player base is split 50/50 on this, I'm going to provide a compromise. I'm not going to explain exactly how I will compromise, mostly because I haven't figured out a compromise yet. I will eventually stumble upon a solution that pays respect to both opinions. That will be for the next patch. You are heard in the nubby community.




The future / Looking ahead at V1.4
===




There's still plenty of work to be done with Nubby! I've got big plans for the next update.

In V1.4, I'm choosing to emphasize QOL systems and progression.

I will divide these two topics and talk about each one separately to give you a vague idea of what to expect in the next update.

V1.4 Quality of Life:
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-Implementing a stat tracker that would allow the true nubheads to closely monitor data such as: Item activations per round, pops/halves/doubles per round, and total activations/pops/doubles/etc. throughout the whole game. If there is a chunk of data that YOU would like to see visually displayed on the stat tracker, leave it in the comments below! (this was originally a feature meant to come out in V1.3, but I didn't think it was comprehensive enough, so I didn't add it in yet)

-Perk stacking (clumps similar perks together so you can actually see what perks you have in the late game instead of seeing a mess)

-Various GUI / UX / visibility improvements

-More explanatory item effects. People often get confused between peg popping and peg halving, and I'd like to explain concepts like these more thoroughly in the game. This is just an example of one of the places that I want to be more descriptive.

-POSSIBLY: The warehouse! This is going to be accessible from the title screen and is adjacent to a "bestiary" or "collections" tab in other games. This is a MAYBE for this update. I'd like to have it done soon because it works with game progression.


V1.4 Progression:
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-The biggest change to progression that I want to make is implementing a game mode called "Promotion mode or Overtime mode" where you will ascend to higher levels upon beating the game, and each level has increased difficulty, maxing out at ~20-30 levels, where you'd beat the final challenge. Ideally, after each level there would be some sort of item/perk unlock. I want to add this mode because I feel like after beating the challenges, there's not much left to do.

-As for steam achievements, I think this is the update that will bring those into the game. They will most likely be scattered throughout the game, rather than focusing on one specific aspect of the game. For example, I will NOT be centering all the achievements on beating challenges.

Additional notes for V1.4
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As for new items/perks, there might be a few, or there might be a lot. I'm more focused on adding new ways to interact with the systems already at play, rather than bloating up the item pool. Though, I think we still have a long way to go before I would consider the item pool "bloated". V1.3 was an improvement on build variety, but I still think we can do more. It will not be the focal point of V1.4, but you will definitely see more items coming in future updates.

===


Also, the soundtrack for Nubby is out on bandcamp! Go check it out and support Vinegart. All moneys go directly to him!


That's all for Weekly Nubby News! Thanks for reading and thanks for playing!


-Mog



(Unrelated, but here's a free screenshot of the beta version of Nubby, if you're interested!)

V1.3.1 Patch Notes:


Hello! There was too many issues with the update put out yesterday to ignore, so I just put out a patch that fixed some really inconvenient things. Apologies for all that.


These are not all the changes that need to be made, but I wanted to fix some big ones and non-time-consuming ones quickly so you can enjoy the update sooner. I will be putting out more patches in the days to come to address some more balance concerns. THANKS FOR NUBBIN' IT UP TONYSTYLE DAWWG!

Bug fixes:
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-Fixed springy perk's trigger name visual bug
-Fixed "mimimal" typo
-Fixed save file issues (issues with stars, supervisors, challenges, and high score saving)
-Fixed fava bean incorrect item labeling
-Fixed charity perk adding points instead of subtracting points
-Fixed crash caused by toy fish and toy fish+
-Jake no longer appears in mystery box because hes a black market item
-Croissant cant be found in "Pol's Bane" challenge
-Fixed item pool issues with criminal tony


Re-balances:
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-Hunter tony gives +6 coins instead of +3 when hitting bullseye
-Buffed E-Block additional force-trigger odds
-Dupe mystery box doesn't show up as often in amnesiac
-Donut costs 5 less coins
-Fixed pointer's trigger (that was an accident, my bad)
-It is now "peg fully popped ->"
-Mollusk is ultrarare (probably will be revisiting this item)

Welcome to version 1.3 of Nubby's Number Factory - "The Everyman's Update"

This update is called "The Everyman's Update" because it fixes, tweaks, and adds things all across the board! There are multiple focus points of this update.

The main focuses of this update are as follows:

-To add content to parts of the game that are lacking in variety,
-To rework some challenges to reduce frustration and improve fairness
-To rework the supervisor unlock system
-To adjust endless mode scaling
-To fix bugs, crashes, imbalances, etc.


*Below is the full changelog. The points stated above are basically the TL:DR.




NNF V1.3 Changelog:
========


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Minor tweaks:
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-Fixed bug where "first peg popped ->" items won't activate when the first peg is popped in a round after the previous round is force-ended via the red button.
-Trophy perk will not proc if its odds dont hit (similar to how springy perk does - just so it doesn't take so much time)
-Adjusted Jake the Snake+ sound fx volume
-Fixed bug where "nubby dies ->" perks trigger after clicking the force end button
-Fixed crash with abort button in pause menu
-Fixed the softlock bug where if you've had more than 1 black market key, the second black market you opened wouldn't let you proceed.
-Fixed bug where pausing the game in claw machine / nubby mart / black market / cafe nubby makes it so you can jumble and aim during the shop.
-Fixed plain jane crash when opening loot.
-Skip button in open-capsule sequence is now push and hold.
-Evil goose now actually gives double the points of lowest # peg, like it was originally supposed to.
-Buffed Evil goose+ (4x # of lowest peg instead of 3x)
-When a laser pointer electron-beam / hyper-beam hits a negative peg from the "pessimism" boss, it will give a negative amount of points.
-Added new sfx to pause menu / settings
-Sea cucumber costs 1 less coin
-Added a push-and-hold "End Game" button to endless mode. It causes a game over when activated.
-Fixed ton of feathers crash (maybe)
-The "Dave" food item is now free.
-Added counters to UI that display how many peg pops, doubles, and halves occurred in a round.
-Slight nerf to claymanguy and claymanguy+ - summons 2 clay balls instead of 3
-Reworked mollusk effect
-Buffed wingless fly
-Claymanguy now triggers every half second instead of on 12 pegs popped
-Reworked trophy perk effect - it requires nubby to be alive to trigger now.
-Moved trophy perk out of rare
-Buffed drainer perk. It now drains 3% total points instead of 5%
-Fixed bug where if you paused on loot screen, you could launch nubby after unpausing and softlock the game
-Kebab costs 10 coins instead of 9 now.
-Lentil re-sprited
-Laser-pointer now triggers on "2 pegs halved ->" instead of "2 pegs doubled ->"
-Blood rains spawns 30% faster in the "apocalypse" final boss
-Tony shoots lasers 50% faster in in the "tony!??!" final boss
-Buffed "Speedy Perk". Will trigger if round started less than 1.5 seconds ago, rather than 1 second ago.
-Reworked croissant: Croissant now gives a croissant perk when eaten.
-Slight nubby physics change. Less random angle offset when hitting a peg. Maximum is 1 degree is a negative or positive direction.
-Completely reworked charity perk.... I'll let you guys be the judge of the new charity perk..
-Buffed jake the snake odds, but made him a corrupted black market item (common)
-You can now see what round you died on during gameover
-Made pregnancy test rare (queue sad violin)
-Buffed broken socket, and increased its price by 2 coins. (Now triggers on "Pass round goal")
-Flaming skull is now a common item.
-Minor UX touch ups to challenges screen
-Rearranged challenge order in challenge screen to roughly align with the generally agreed upon difficulty of the challenges.
-Fixed bug where the backers of corrupted items covered up the corrupted item in nubby mart after returning from cafe nubby when playing on criminal tony.
-Burglar peg now sells the item in slot #2 instead of slot #1, so that there is no conflict with mystery box perk
-Rebalanced pricing and max coins from strawberry (7 max)

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Major changes:
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Reworks to board clears:
-Getting a board clear ends the round and clears all item/perk activation queues.
-Same for if you cleared the board, but didn't beat the round goal.
-You now get a 2X bonus to your total points instead of +5 coins.
-Whether you passed the round goal or not, getting a board clear will always double points.
-Endless mode round goals now scale exponentially.
-You can now adjust particle levels in advanced settings
-You can now disable item/perk sound fx in advanced settings
-You can now choose to enter the black market OR save your key and go to nubby mart instead.
-Implemented zone-specific theme songs (2 for each) (HUGE SHOUTOUT TO VINEGART. HE NAILED IT!)
-Sound track is coming very soon, all proceeds from soundtrack go directly to Vinegart. Show the man some love.
-You can now press and hold "R" during a game to quickly restart.
-You can resize the game window now.
-Challenges no longer unlock supervisors. Instead, they're purchased with stars.
-Stars are a currency. They are obtained by doing well in-game.
-In a game, 1 star is granted per boss round defeated in that game. For example, a game over on round 65 would grant 3 stars.
-The exception: winning a non-challenge game grants 5 stars, and beating any challenge grants 10 stars.
-If you already have supervisors unlocked from beating challenges, they will still be unlocked for you.





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New (or reworked) items:
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-"Toy Fish" (black market, common)
-"Pointer" (black market, common)
-"Happy seal" (nubby-mart, common)
-"Two-headed" turtle (nubby-mart, common)
-"Ouroboros" (black market, common)
-"Poop Butt" (nubby-mart, common)
-"Alien" (black market, common)
-"E-Block" (nubby-mart, common)
-"Chip" (cafe nubby, common)
-"Fava bean" (cafe nubby, rare)
-"Avocado" (cafe nubby, rare)
-"Starfruit" (cafe nubby, ultra-rare)

-Reworked Crazy Straw
-Reworked Croissant
-Reworked Mollusk




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New (or reworked) perks:
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-"Tornado perk" (rare)
-"Warlock perk" (common)
-"Gourmet perk" (common)
-"Lunar perk" (common)
-"Croissant perk" (common, obtained from croissant)

-Reworked charity perk






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Changes to challenges:
=====

"Expiration Date":
-Items last 15 rounds instead of 10
-Added alarm sound effect for "Expiration Date" when an item has 1 round remaining

"Nubbelocke":
-Instead of deleting a random item, deletes the left-most item

"Times up!":
-When nubby explodes by the hands of the C-4, it causes a big explosion that pops a large radius of pegs

"Amnesiac":
-There are now 4 types of mystery boxes
-Common item mystery box: Contains a random common item
-Duplicate item mystery box: Contains a copy of an item in your inventory
-Rare item mystery box: Contains a random rare item.
-Ultra rare item mystery box: Contains an ultra-rare item.
-Each type of mystery box has a unique color, name, and description, so you can tell them apart.
-Common mystery boxes cost 4 coins.
-Duplicate mystery boxes cost 6 coins.
-Rare and ultra-rare mystery boxes cost 6 coins.

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Changes to supervisors:
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Balogna Tony:
-No longer randomizes Nubby's size, physics, etc.
-No longer randomizes the round timeline
-Primary effect is that he randomizes item and perk triggers at the start of a run.



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Things that didn't make it into this version:
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-The stat tracker didn't quite make it into this version because it wasn't very comprehensive and I didn't want to put something incomplete into the game.
-Grouping together similar perks didn't make it into this version either for a similar reason as above. Next update, I promise!

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ENJOY THE UPDATE!
Live. Laugh. Nub.