We’ve got a cool announcement for you, don’t forget to unwrap it!
Automators, Adventurers and Spark-Decorators,
It’s the holiday season! Most of the office has already started taking their winter break, resting after wrapping up some work on something special…
Oddsparks Demo!
That’s right, you’ll be able to try out Oddsparks before we go into Early Access!
Unfortunately, we can’t mention anything more specific in public. Rest assured that we’re working (and resting) hard to get something in your hands very soon!
We also updated our Steam page with a new Gameplay Teaser. We wanted to really focus on showing that yes, this an automation game and you get to build expansive and cool bases, and give you an even bigger glimpse on our second biome. This game isn’t just set in the Woodlands, you know!
As usual, we asked what you wanted us to talk about and the poll in our Discord showed that you wanted to hear about our recent Recipes Rebalancing and now have our Creative Director, Michael, to quickly talk about it.
Spark Recipes Rebalancing
Recently we have been making big changes on Spark recipes.
Here’s why:
For a long time we have been designing the Sparks based on their functionality in gameplay only. When we needed a Spark to carry items for instance, we made a Carry Spark. How a Spark looked and what it was made of was determined by its specific needs. That means we had Sparks that were made from multiple items, some were made from other Sparks and items. Sometimes the item informed the ability of the Spark, sometimes it didn’t.
This led to a roster of Sparks that were mostly disconnected. They were missing a logical and visible inheritance.
But why is that bad?
- If new Sparks are always a surprise it is difficult to anticipate what future Sparks might be like
- It is hard to remember Spark recipes if there is no logic and inheritance
- You build a lot of smaller disconnected factories every time you produce new Sparks
So what did we change?
- Spark recipes now always contain a former Spark (or a live giving magical element in the case of the very first one and some exceptions)
- The other part of the recipe is an item that informs the ability of the new Spark (e.g. Wooden Blade for Choppy Spark)
- We changed some of the Spark designs to reflect their relationship to Sparks they inherit from
There are some fun exceptions where we combine multiple Sparks to improve on existing abilities or add more parts to the recipe, but in general the formula is quite simple to understand. This means if you find or produce a new item you can imagine what kind of Spark you might make with it. In reverse you can remember recipes better, because you see it in the Spark itself. And because almost all Sparks are related, you build a sprawling and branching factory that always grows.
What’s next?
As we said up top, we’ve been super busy taking care of the demo and that mostly means a lot of little polish that isn’t super interesting to talk about. But we do have lots of stuff we’d love to talk about and give you the chance to get to know us and how we make games.
To that end, here’s some topics for the next Dev Log! If the one you’re interested in isn’t picked for the next dev log, it’ll stay on the list and you can vote again for it next time.
So, what would you like to know about?
- Handling Display Settings by Layal, Software Engineer
- Making a Workstation by Anastasia, 3D Artist
- Spark Animations by Tori, Animator
Before we say goodbye, we also sometimes talk about dev stuff in our social media. Our Audio Designer, Olivier, made a series of posts about his favourite sounds in the game! Here’s part one and part two.
Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure is work-in-progress, and of course, not everything we show might make it into the game. There’s always a lot happening behind the scenes, feel free to come hang out with us at our Discord and make sure to wishlist and share us with your friends!
