Megaquarium News

The major addition this update is Japanese language support. But for all the existing players there's a neat package of bug fixes and small improvements. See below for all the details.


I've mentioned this a few times in the forums, but I can officially confirm that new content is in the works.

I would love to share certain details about the theme of the new content, and what the exact format will be, but as things are still changing from week to week as I explore ideas, I've decided to wait until I have something concrete. Thank you for your patience. ːsteamhappyː

• Japanese localisation.
  
• Place staff doors directly over walls.
  
• Slightly reduced memory footprint.
  
• Fixed bug where floor tiles in maps with default paint were not being automatically painted.
  
• Fixed bugs where painted objects were not appearing correctly when being moved/placed.
  
• Fixed 'silent sound bug' which occured when you held shift in first person mode.
  
• Fixed positions of shark hat and copperband toy gift shop items.
  
• Fixed bug where not all water quality icons (skimming, uv sterilising, heating, chilling etc.) were appearing in the context bar when placing an object.
  
• Fixed hard and brutal difficulty strings which had some incorrect figures.
  
• Fixed bug where tank point value was updating before animal health, leading the out of date tank point values (until updated again, which happened regularly).
  
• Fixed bug where pump could connect to same tank twice.
  
• Fixed bug where you could switch to the pipe connecting tool when already using it, caused extra connections to stay on screen permanently.
  
• Fixed bug where staff did not return their item when they were fired.
  
• Fixed bug where staff did not resume their work animations when game was loaded.
  
• Fixed various bugs where item accessibility was not being updated correctly for use in tasks.
  
• Fixed bug where music label disappeared when at a value of 0.
  
• Fixed bug where guide book shelf was not lit correctly.
  
• Fixed bug where supplements were not causing animals to lose health correctly.
  
• Centred "Let's Go" button on rank up screen.
  
• Expanding, filling in, walls, platforms and stairs all vary in cost based on difficulty.
  
• Guests now switch to standing animation when they view a tank or use an object.
  
• Tweaked Megalopolis final objective to remove the angelfish and surgeonfish requirement. Too restrictive.
  
• Tweaked Napalos level so that you need 24 animals to win. The level lasts slightly longer and forces you to use some of the animals you unlock at rank 7 which is fun.
  
• Reworked podium code to be more robust and deal with interruptions, saving/loading etc. mid-talk.
  
• Fixed bug where dispensers for non-consumable items were being refilled at the beginning of the day.
  
• Fixed bug where if you moved a wall when it was 'dropped' then it would not drop in the new position.
  
• Increased size of text in drop down list items.
  

• Tanks no longer
• need* PointGenerator.
  
• Expanding, filling in, walls, platforms and stairs costs are set in data file so can be overriden within mods.
  
• Doubled bonus Ecology and Science from cheat hotkeys for faster testing.
  

Hey guys, v1.5.2 is now live and comes with lots of nice goodies.


Since the addition of Workshop support for Megaquarium, players are building bigger and better aquariums than ever! One piece of feedback that came back to me as a result was that there were not enough staff in sandbox mode to cope with all the extra animals available via the Workshop.

I communicated the various options available to increase the staff numbers and asked for additional feedback on the preferred option. The results were unanimous: adding fully randomised staff to sandbox mode - thus removing the staff cap completely. Just in case you're not aware. Before this change, all the staff were hand-designed by me which, to avoid duplication, lead to a hard cap on the total staff available.

One of the things I liked about this solution was that it also has the potential to add a new gameplay dynamic to sandbox games. Due to the randomisation, there's a larger variety in the type of staff that are available.



While testing, I found there were often times where I had to compromise on one talent. Like "this person has some fixing skill and decent precision but they have 1 for fitness! Do I really want to hire this slowcoach?" or "Nice, a 7 for fitness, and actually a decent amount of Empathy for feeding but they currently have no feeding skill and a 2 for Memory so they are going to learn really slow!".

During the time that this update spent in beta I received additional feedback that people were missing the predesigned staff, so as of v1.5.2 you have the best of both worlds: unlimited randomised staff with a sprinkling of your favourites from the campaign missions. All hail Dante - the divine comic!

Personally I've really enjoyed playing with this new feature and I hope you do too!


It took several weeks but I think the results are worth it! This is part 1 of a large rewrite of the entire graphics pipeline for Megaquarium in an effort to improve performance.

The increase in FPS that you see will depend on the size of the aquarium and PC specs but I've recorded an increase of 75% (!) when zoomed out on a large map where the CPU is the limiting factor.



I've also slightly reduced the maximum zoom-out level. The reason for this is that the number of objects onscreen is a major factor when it comes to performance. Off-screen objects contribute a lot less. My goal is to reach a point where the engine can run at 60fps, on a PC with the recommended specs, with an aquarium of *any* size. This is much more likely to be achievable with this new max zoom level. The alternative would be a cap on total game objects which I believe would be much more restrictive for players.


Based on yet more player feedback, I've made a few tweaks to the sandbox generation code.

1. Trades and merchants are generated even with animal availability set to 'everything unlocked'.
2. With animal availability set to 'standard', Trades and merchants generally try to offer the player animals that can't be unlocked with research points. Previously, when these ran out, no further trades or merchants would be generated. With the update, they will still be generated but will offer animals from a rank above instead, so they are still valuable.
3. Some side-objectives will offer base prestige as a reward instead of money.

There are few other subtle changes but overall I think the play between the various trades, merchants and side-objectives now feels better than ever!


Megaquarium can now be played in Italian! :)

• Tweaked staff speed algorithm to make increase between fitness levels more linear. Speed now increases by 8% for each level of fitness. These values are exposed for modding in simulation.data.
  
• Added staff salary to staff window.
  
• Fixed bug where game would not load when a mod had a corrupted info.data file
  
• Added Italian localisation.
  
• Smoothed out 'freeze' on new day in large aquariums.
  
• Removed freeze during autosave when entering the menu.
  
• Improved animal swimming animations.
  
• Tweaked fixing animation so that toolkit sits on the floor next to staff.
  
• Fixed bug where an object could be not "in game world" but still occupying the floor.
  
• Reduced cap for zoom level.
  
• Fixed darkening of rounded corners of tanks when viewed from behind.
  
• Improved visual look of animals with transparent meshes like the Volitans Lionfish.
  
• Added minimum work animation speed for staff.
  
• Fixed purple plume fan and leopard clam icons.
  

This update has been live on the beta for a little over a week so it should be pretty stable, but if you notice any bugs or graphical glitches, don't hesitate to let me know.

If you'd like to gain early access to the next update while also helping me test the game, then consider switching to the [beta] branch of Megaquarium as described here. Make sure you subscribe to the discussion so you know when a new beta is available.

Tim

I'm thrilled to announce the Megaquarium is now available to play on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PS4!

If you're reading this then you probably already own the game on PC and that's great, there's certainly no need to buy the game on another console unless you want to - although I know a few people are excited to play the Switch version on the go!



However, perhaps you have a friend who doesn't have a gaming PC or a partner who's in love with their Switch, and up until now you've been unable to share your enthusiasm for the game with these people, well now you can! :D

Put simply, more platforms means more access, more people playing and hopefully, more fun for everyone involved!

Here's the links to the various store pages for those that are interested:

Switch
Xbox One PS4

I'll finish by repeating something I've said before. Megaquarium on console is a collaboration between myself and a company called Auroch Digital.

The fantastic thing about this is I've been able to continue working full-time on the desktop version throughout the development of the console one.

With that in mind I have a big update just around the corner which will improve game performance and upgrade the sandbox game mode with unlimited randomised staff and better trader and merchant generation!

In fact, it's currently available to try in the new beta branch.

Today's Deal: Save 20% on INDIE TYCOON BUNDLE!*

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Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time

Small patch with a few bug fixes and improvements.

• Added ultra widescreen support.
  
• The pause hotkey (spacebar by default) now brings up the next message that's stopping progress.
  
• Fixed bug where the game could unpause when completing an objective in the first scenario even when a message should be blocking progress.
  
• Tweaked numbers for detail settings (determines when animations are disabled/hidden based on zoom level).
  
• Entrance is now paintable.
  
• You can select rubbish that's on the floor at the entrance.
  
• When disabled, cloud save does not sync with the local copy of the save files in the Steam folders.