Occupy Mars: The Game News

[h2]Greetings, Martians![/h2]

In celebration of launching Occupy Mars and Dinosaur Fossil Hunter Beta Signups a discount has been applied to our previous games on Steam and you can get both the base game Rover Mechanic Simulator and Perseverance DLC for half the price!

50% off both titles from 21 February until 28 February! Become a mechanic today, repair Mars Rovers and learn more about these fascinating vehicles!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/864680/Rover_Mechanic_Simulator/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1512110/Rover_Mechanic_Simulator__Perseverance_Rover_DLC/


Best Regards,
Rover Mechanic Simulator Team

[h2]Hello, Martians![/h2]

Let's start with the most imporant information: 🚀 the day has come and today we are finally opening signups for the Beta Playtest version of our game! In the beta you will be able to play the sandbox mode with many more buildings and features than was available in the Demo/Prologue!

To sign up, you just need to click that button on the game's store page:


Our Demo and Prologue were released in 2020 so in the beta you will be able to see how much the game has changed since that time! Our game will also be featured in the upcoming Steam Next Festival.

The Festival will feature our 2020 demo as we didn't want to divide our time into preparing new Demo. Instead we've beenn focused on the Beta, which is a very important step on our way to the Early Access version. During the festival we will be doing live streams showing the new beta version here on Steam, as well as on our Twitch and YouTube. Of course the beta is still only a sneak-peek of the full version, without the campaign mode and some other features.



We will first collect signups for the beta. Registration will be open until 20 March, after that we'll contact our playtesters by email and announce further details here, on Steam. Number of playtesters who can participate is limited, but over time, we will start granting access to more and more players.

The most important thing for us is to gather feedback from you after playing the beta so we've prepared a special Beta Survey, you can access it here: https://forms.gle/GhnUszERMjpDDrNy5



Thank you for taking the time to read this devlog and we hope you will enjoy the playtests. Please remember to fill the Beta Survey after playing the Beta. As always, we invite you to our Discord server if you’d like to hang out with fellow Occupy Mars enthusiasts.



Best Regards,
Occupy Mars Team

[h2]Hello, Martians![/h2]

First of all, our apologies for not publishing anything in December. With Christmas, New Year’s Eve and all the accompanying preparations, things have been busy for our team in work and outside of it. As a result, it was difficult to fit in a devlog during that time. We’ll make sure to let you know about any such delays in the future.

We need more time to wrap up our preparations for upcoming Beta. As much as we initially wanted to make this devlog an announcement for beta tests, we don’t want to make the delay any longer. Today, we’d like to tell you about our progress on the game. As soon as we have everything ready, we’ll make a separate announcement regarding the Beta.

[h3]What have we been working on during these past 2 months?[/h3]

Our main focus has been shaping up the Tech Tree. You may recall this tab being present on the tablet in the Prologue, but being otherwise inaccessible.

We’re been intensively working on it – both on its functionality and aesthetics. At first, Technologies were unlocked by fulfilling certain conditions such as building 10 objects of a specific type.

Now, unlocking a Technology will require a specific amount of points, which are acquired for gaining experience. You will gain experience corresponding with every field of the Tech Tree (Botany, Electricity etc.) depending on your actions. For example, planting seeds will allow you to raise Botany experience, while mining will improve your experience in Materials field.

Additionally, we want to include a laboratory desks, which will allow you to develop more advanced Technologies and examine your finds from abandoned bases. We’re also working on a new visual design of the menu, which will be much clearer and adjusted to the new experience system.



Speaking of abandoned bases, our team has added a loot system to make sure that exploring abandoned bases gives you enough finds to make those trips worth it.

Before you start stripping down the base, it’s a good idea to search it first, as you can find many useful items left behind by your predecessors, such as packages with food, seed magazines or upgrades for your vehicles. Sometimes, you can even find items that are only available at a later stage of the game!

Searching scattered bases will come in handy in Freeplay mode as it will allow you to build your first robot! Another thing that we’d like to include in abandoned bases are decorational objects, which you can use to add some personality to your own hab!



You’ll be able to explore new areas – Gusev Crater, Ares Vallis, Echus Montes, Elysium Planitia, Argentea Planum, Arsia Mons.

If new finds in abandoned bases were not enough, you will also be able to spot famous rovers while exploring the Red Planet! Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance have been added and they can all be found during your adventure! Pickup Truck has been implemented in the game and can now drive through Martian landscapes! There is also another Easter Egg, but we’d like you to discover it yourself in the game. 🙂



If you’ve been following our other social media, you could have seen a post with a new design of the tablet’s minimap. This is how it looks like in the game now, but keep it mind some changes can still be made:



We are also redesigning some of the other menu panels in the player's tablet as well, for example the new build screen looks much better🙂

There are also some other improvements leaning more on a technical side of things.

In one of our previous devlog we mentioned that some of our team members were in charge of reworking the translations system. This system is now finished and it will help us greatly while applying translations to the game! Sure, some translations have been present in the Prologue, but there is quite a lot of new content to translate. 😉

We have also improved loading time to make sure you can swiftly boot up the game and start your adventure. We are also implementing new achievements in the game, in total there will be close to 50 of them!

Thank you for taking the time to read this devlog and we hope you like what’s in store for you. We're also working on a more detailed roadmap to present to you in future devlogs. As always, we invite you to our Discord server if you’d like to hang out with fellow Occupy Mars enthusiasts.

We hope to share more exciting news with you in the next devlog!

Best Regards,
Occupy Mars Team

[h2]The special live stream on Train Station Renovation and Gas Station Simulator steam site has already started. Don't miss the in-game gameplay by the Gas Station Simulator team & Live Motion Games team! [/h2]



[h3]Check out special bundle[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/22709/The_Stations_Bundle/

Best regards,
Pyramid Games Team

[h2]Greetings, Martians![/h2]

To all of you who have been frequently checking out Occupy Mars: The Game’s development progress – thank you. It’s time for another update – number 40!

Let’s dive in! We have made a thorough interview with Occupy Mars development team to gather all the juicy details regarding our development progress – both huge achievements and small things! So what has been going on for the last month?

Let’s start with a Pickup Truck, which one of our dev team members introduced to you in the last devlog! Model has been completed and we can now show the truck in its full glory alongside other vehicles!



As you can see, Early Access version will include 5 unique vehicles providing you with a different traveling experience! From left to right, there is a Heavy Rover you all know and (hopefully) love, ATV (quad), motorcycle, Pickup Truck and automatic Drone Rover, which you can see below.



Which one are you looking forward to the most? 🤩

Other than 3D models, the team has been making adjustments related to various in game mechanics. That includes working on physics, improving vehicle controlling mechanics and also modifying ground’s properties, so different types of ground would affect speed and fluidity of vehicles’ movements. That also required input from our sound designer as he had to prepare sounds that would reflect the types of ground vehicles would move on.



A different team member had wrapped up their work on the flying drone and remote controller and moved onto improving translations system. Thanks to that, applying translations will be much quicker and more effective. Work on an electricity system is being wrapped up as well.



Another one of our members has been continuously working on Spotty. Our best robotic buddy required the same amounts of attention. After thorough testing, we have added sounds, reworked his animations and included gearbox system, which allows Spotty to traverse through Mars’ landscapes, at different speed and with different movements, depending on the ground type.



To make you feel at home in Occupy Mars, we have included a neat and quite simple feature. Depending on a costume colour chosen by the player during character creation, the same colour can now be applied to every building that this player builds! It adds a layer of personalisation that – we hope – may be appreciated.



Another improvement has been made to the Terrain system. Before, it was only possible to destroy certain rocks in the area. This mechanic is being expanded to include more types of rocks. With the system’s graphics overhaul and this change, we hope that the terrain will feel much more natural and that rocks will nicely blend in the Mars’ landscape.

The last mechanic we’d like to mention is the brand new recycling mechanic. With this mechanic, you’ll be able to destroy – for example – unneeded Steel Plates and retrieve materials that were used to create them – with a little loss. For the sake of convenience, you will also be able to recycle big amounts of resources at once by gathering them all in the Heavy Rover’s container and then pouring them all into the shredder, which will handle the rest.

More complex changes were made to the Freeplay’s beginning phase of the game, in order to serve as a more intuitive and interesting introduction to Occupy Mars. Certain objects have been moved and new missions have been added.

Do you recall the spaceship that made its debut back in Devlog #36? 😉 This is how it looks now – feeling old yet?



Jokes aside, this is real scenery that awaits you in the game, but you will get to see this rocket in a better state as well!

Lastly, one of our dev team members is working on the game’s compatibility with distribution platforms as Occupy Mars: The Game will be available not only on Steam. They are also working on integrating the RichPresence Discord feature with Occupy Mars: The Game.

That concludes last month’s progress on the game. As you can see, most of these features are approaching their finish lines, bringing overall Early Access development closer to the finish line as well.

Before that, we promised you some news regarding Beta and we will deliver – just give us some more time to wrap up what we need. We hope to share more with you then. 😀

One thing we’d like to emphasize, as we have noticed that one of our messages calling the game “completely different” from the Prologue caused some confusion on Steam forums – Occupy Mars: The Game, despite being a major leap from the Prologue in terms of graphics, optimization, content and mechanics improvements, doesn’t stray from the premise of the Prologue. It shares its gameplay basics with the Prologue and is very much the same game, just in vastly improved form with additional content.

Here is a little comparison between Prologue and upcoming Early Access version.


With that little side note, this devlog comes to a close, but you can expect something special in the next few weeks.

Also, if you have any questions about Occupy Mars: The Game or any of our games – be it released or upcoming ones – make sure to leave them for us during the AMA (Ask Me Anything) event that will take place today, on November 19 at 3 PM CEST (2 PM CET). At this time, we’ll open a special Reddit thread dedicated to the event and we’ll be waiting for your questions! Once the AMA starts, we’ll provide you with a link in the comments section of this devlog's discussion thread – stay tuned!

Link to AMA



Best Regards,
Occupy Mars Team