Occupy Mars: The Game News

[h2]Hello, Martians![/h2]

Steam Fest is already here, which means there are hundreds of great games to check out! Occupy Mars: The Game is also featured during this event. The Festival will feature our 2020 Demo, so if you haven't played it before, we'd love it if you gave it a try!



Even if you're already a veteran Martian and you know entire Demo by heart, we also have something for you! The registration for the Beta Playtests version of our game is now open and we're looking for brave astronauts ready to help us improve the game for the Early Access release!

If you'd like to be a part of it, make sure to check out the recent devlog #42 for more detailed information about playtests, sign up by clicking Request Access button on the game's store page and wait for playtests to start!



Moreover, we'd like to encourage you to check out a stream that will be available on Occupy Mars: The Game store page at 5 PM CET. It'll be a new stream, different from the one you could watch on February 23. Development team is streaming Occupy Mars: The Game Beta in 4K resolution, meaning that we'll be showing you a gameplay of Occupy Mars: The Game in its current, much more polished state! It's a great chance to take a look at the game before you dive in yourself! :)

Enjoy the event and take care!
Occupy Mars Team

[h2]Hello, Martians![/h2]

Steam Fest is already here, which means there are hundreds of great games to check out! Occupy Mars: The Game is also featured during this event. The Festival will feature our 2020 Demo, so if you haven't played it before, we'd love it if you gave it a try!



Even if you're already a veteran Martian and you know entire Demo by heart, we also have something for you! The registration for the Beta Playtests version of our game is now open and we're looking for brave astronauts ready to help us improve the game for the Early Access release!

If you'd like to be a part of it, make sure to check out the recent devlog #42 for more detailed information about playtests, sign up by clicking Request Access button on the game's store page and wait for playtests to start!

Moreover, we'd like to encourage you to check out a new stream that has been made available on Occupy Mars: The Game store page. Development team is streaming Occupy Mars: The Game Beta in 4K resolution, meaning that we'll be showing you a gameplay of Occupy Mars: The Game in its current, much more polished state! It's a great chance to take a look at the game before you dive in yourself! :)

Enjoy the event and take care!
Occupy Mars Team

[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