Neongarten News

On April 22nd, Neongarten will be released! I know a lot of players have been looking forward to the new buildings and factions and seeing what crazy combos can be pulled off. Here's my top five things to look forward to in the new version.

1) New factions. The Cult of Volt and the Government factions have their own unique mechanics (or mechanical themes) that really set them apart from normal, illegal, and corporate buildings. The Cult of Volt buildings should be placed in a "chain", or orthogonally connected to another Volt building. (So it's like "neighboring" but without any diagonals allowed.) The longer the chain, the more powerful they get! They also have several buildings that power up other buildings based on lighting levels. A Government build is harder to get going - governance is rare in the dystopian future, haha - but they can provide powerful bonuses to other government buildings. One of my favorites is the Nanoeconomics lab, a 2x1 industrial building that provides a _negative_ x2 multiplier bonus to everything in the same stack. (Think on that one.)

2) New powerhouse buildings. The Hacker Shack gets all the love in the demo, but there are many more 'keystone' buildings in the full version that are worth building a strategy around. The Underground Rave, the Organ Harvester, the Corporate Incubator, and the Ministry of Profit have all powered multi-million dollar games for me.

3) New maps! The standard game has a 4 x 4 layer. 3 x 3 and 5 x 5 layers are also ready to explore. It doesn't seem like it'd be a whole lot, but it really seems to change the feel of the game - and the relative value of different buildings and powers.

4) Saving and Loading. The full version has an autosave. No longer are you forced to commit 45 minutes to a playthrough! After a game is over (win or lose), you can save your city and take a look at it later. You could even send the file for a high-scoring city to a friend for them to gawk over, and they can see exactly how you broke a billion.

5) Photo Mode. You can take screenshots of your city from a free-floating camera, watch a timelapse of your city grow from Day 1 to Day 64, and change day to night as desired.

There's going to be a lot to dig into! Stay tuned here for more updates!

Cheers,
Josh

[h3]Neongarten is releasing on April 22nd![/h3]

Check out the release date trailer:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Key Features:

• Turn-based Strategy: Plan your moves carefully, with each decision shaping the future of your neon garden.
  
• Procedural Generation: No two runs are the same, offering endless replayability and new challenges every time.
  
• Minimalist, Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Dive into a stunning retro-futuristic world, where glowing lights meet strategic depth.
  
• Inspired by Islanders and Luck be a Landlord: Combine the simplicity of city-building with the thrill of roguelike progression.

WISHLIST NOW:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211750/Neongarten/

After a pretty drastic graphical rework, the brand-new demo of Neongarten is now available, just in time for the Steam Next Fest! ✨

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Key Features:

• Turn-based Strategy: Plan your moves carefully, with each decision shaping the future of your neon garden.
  
• Procedural Generation: No two runs are the same, offering endless replayability and new challenges every time.
  
• Minimalist, Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Dive into a stunning retro-futuristic world, where glowing lights meet strategic depth.
  
• Inspired by Islanders and Luck be a Landlord: Combine the simplicity of city-building with the thrill of roguelike progression.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211880/Neongarten_Demo/

We hope you'll like it! If you do, don't forget that a positive review helps a lot, especially during Steam Next Fest, and that wishlisting the full game also makes a big difference!

Have fun! 🎉

Neongarten Prologue has been released! It's been a really fun game dev journey so far, and I'm not finished yet! I'd like to thank everyone who has supported the project in ways big and small, whether that's posting a Youtube video, leaving a review, joining the Discord, or reaching out with a bug report or an encouraging word. Y'all are awesome.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2691050/Neongarten__Prologue/
   
    I'm also thrilled to announce that I've picked up a publisher! I'll be working with Goblinz Studios, an excellent publisher of strategy games like Hero's Hour and Shogun Showdown. We're working together to make the best Neongarten possible. Since they're based in France, it also gives me some small opportunities to practice my (extremely rusty) French, haha.
   
    After signing up with them, the release schedule is only slightly modified. I'm still planning to release the full version of Neongarten at the end of this year (December 2024). We're releasing this prologue now, and the full version now has a page up at https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211750! (Wishlist, s'il vous plait!)
   
    With the additional backing of a publisher, I'm happy to say I can expand the scope for Neongarten. We're going to be localizing to a number of different languages, adding additional factions, buildings, and perks, improving the UI, and adding additional game modes. Stay tuned for more details, but I think the new factions provide some really cool twists on the mechanics. I'm halfway through implementation and playtesting the new factions right now, and I'm having a blast coming up with absolutely wrecked combos.
   
    The current version of the prologue (released today!) has some additional bug fixes and UI updates from the Next Fest version. There's some snazzy UI updates in the works, but I have to finish squashing stubborn UI bugs before I release that version of the prologue. But that version will be coming soon!
   
    Thanks again for your support! Means the world to me.
   
    Cheers,
    Josh