Industrial Petting News

[h2]What happened in 2021?[/h2]

This last year did not have any major content releases, which was the result of some failed prototyping, and makes it seem like nothing was happening behind the scenes. A lot of time was spent prototyping some higher level automation gameplay, involving managing factories on a planet and hooking those larger factories together. While that could potentially be interesting in the far future, there aren't enough pets and lower level mechanics right now to justify adding those extra layers of meta-gameplay. Additionally, I took on some contract work to help pay the bills and build up enough funds to only work on Industrial Petting for 2022.

[h2] What's next in 2022?[/h2]

All is not lost from that failed prototype, however. We now can support multiple disconnected areas, as well as players having visually pleasing transitions between those areas. Using that, I'm going to spend this upcoming year focusing on just adding more content to the current design, rather than redesigining everything.

TL;DR What's in store for this year? More pets, more areas, more behavior.

If you have feedback/ideas for what to add in the future, join the discord!

[h3]0.2.3[/h3]
[h3]Features[/h3]

• New Muuse Pets
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fix VR Teleport not working
  
• Fix missing/broken animations on some pets
  
• Fix occasional broken material on deconstructor
  
• Fix broken material on sploofer
  
• Fix broken missing cosmetic hookup on SizeableSploofer
  
• Fix destruction tool not showing correct numbers
  
• Fix missing description on Gem Hat
  
• Better Audio/Animation Sync on pets
  
• Add missing pumpkin description
  
• Pets don't stop just outside Industrial Petter range
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Wood planks a little chunkier looking
  
• Hungry pets no longer follow player
  
• Add flashlight at night
  

Artist's Depiction

The moose is the largest herbivore in the forests of most pet-producing planets, living on a steady diet of tree bark and underwater plants. Moose are bipedal, but they have vestigial forelegs which are sometimes used to convey happiness or threaten others in the forest. Moose grow additional heads as they age to confuse predators. Remember the old phrase -- "With more heads, the faster it treads!"

Happy October, everyone! I've been hiding in the mountains and watching the real world moose eat some very colorful aspen trunks. The Orbital Drop update is still being developed, and is getting to the point where new pets need to be added for some new areas being introduced. The current plan is to also make those pets available in the live version of the game, wandering around current areas. The first of these will be the Moose, which will require somewhat more complicated factory layouts to produce.

With a whole bunch of new players this last week, I thought I would take some time to back port some fixes which are coming to the future update.

Today's patch adds some of the work that's been done for VR players, as well as a whole bunch of fixes for later game content. Thanks especially to those on the discord helping test this release!

If you have feedback/ideas for what to add in the future, join the discord!

[h3]0.2.2[/h3]
[h3]Changes[/h3]

• VR Tool Selection now spawns in arc around player at constant offset from head
  
• VR Movement style changed to per-joystick/pad options
  
• VR Teleport changed to a more standard arc style
  
• Click and drag UIs no longer need pixel-perfect aiming in VR
  
• Add tooltips to VR inspection tool
  
• Can use VR inspection tool to flip pipe directions
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fix Gemwolf rotation and heart position
  
• Gatherbots no longer use sightlines when looking for nearby items
  
• Gatherbots can now set filter to any item
  
• Growing pumpkins now use correct material
  
• Discourage pets from running at the same piece of food they can't reach
  
• Fix main menu not working at narrow aspect ratios
  
• Fix incorrect list of items for pipe filters and gatherbots
  
• Fix missing materials on a few items
  
• Increase size of Crystal Chop
  
• Gatherbots no longer get stuck if too close to item
  
• Fix Gemwolf not eating enough
  

With a whole bunch of new players this last week, I thought I would take some time to back port some fixes which are coming to the future update.

Today's patch adds some of the work that's been done for VR players, as well as a whole bunch of fixes for later game content. Thanks especially to those on the discord helping test this release!

If you have feedback/ideas for what to add in the future, join the discord!

[h3]0.2.2[/h3]
[h3]Changes[/h3]

• VR Tool Selection now spawns in arc around player at constant offset from head
  
• VR Movement style changed to per-joystick/pad options
  
• VR Teleport changed to a more standard arc style
  
• Click and drag UIs no longer need pixel-perfect aiming in VR
  
• Add tooltips to VR inspection tool
  
• Can use VR inspection tool to flip pipe directions
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fix Gemwolf rotation and heart position
  
• Gatherbots no longer use sightlines when looking for nearby items
  
• Gatherbots can now set filter to any item
  
• Growing pumpkins now use correct material
  
• Discourage pets from running at the same piece of food they can't reach
  
• Fix main menu not working at narrow aspect ratios
  
• Fix incorrect list of items for pipe filters and gatherbots
  
• Fix missing materials on a few items
  
• Increase size of Crystal Chop
  
• Gatherbots no longer get stuck if too close to item
  
• Fix Gemwolf not eating enough
  

It's been a little bit of time without news, and I'd like to let everyone know what's being cooked up in the background.

[h3]Cities, Land and Pipelines[/h3]
Using planetary-scale factories, you'll be building thousands of pets, but where will they go? Pet shops, of course! There are cities on-planet, which will be able to sell all the pets you throw at them. Have a variety available in a particular town, and you'll be able to sell them for a higher price.

You'll need all that cash, because land is expensive. Especially in the areas with new biomes, like the deep forest and overgrown mushroom lands.

Thousands and thousands of pets are hard to transport, and not all of them can be moved around by space elevator. Factories next to a city can sell directly to that city, but ones further away will need a pipeline to move those pets towards the people.

[h3]Orbital Design, New Pets and Balancing[/h3]
The code for those features above is currently in-game and tested, but the balance and art does not exist yet. There are a lot more design parameters which need setting now, and it's been difficult figuring out the overall pacing. The last thing I want is to push this update and have people feel like they're just sitting and waiting for pets to be sold in order to purchase the next upgrade.

[h3]How long until the new update?[/h3]
The beta should be Soon™. This is mostly a one-man studio, and design development like this can be hard to predict. The goal is to have the ugly but functional prototype of this be available on a beta branch once I have the first few hours of the new design balanced.

[h3]Are old saves going to be supported?[/h3]
Things are changing enough that older saves won't be supported. I'll be creating a steam branch for people who still want to play the older version of the game. Start a game now, and practice your factory building! The core gameplay of finding pets and building pet factories isn't changing very much, so all those skills will still be useful.

[h3]What about that VR update?[/h3]

Right now, the VR movement redesign is working! Per-joystick movement options, along with some other requested features. The redesign also was an opportunity to clean up some of the code, which has currently broken the non-VR game. I need to do some cleanup on that, and then I'll be shipping it out.

Today's thumbnail is an image of some typical development windows: art definitions for areas, a database entry for a new pet, a list of passing unit tests.


TL;DR Update is still coming, work is slow, feeling good about the update.