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Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

1157 points by iliketrains 4y ago

I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Industry/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Indust... I am still not sure if this was a good decision financially, but unlike in a corporate environment, I am so much happier working on a product that I can put my love into and see people enjoy it, see my direct impact, and be able to make big decisions (although this also adds a lot of stress). I also quite enjoy the added SWE challenges. I had to write so many complex algorithms (path-finding, logistics, serialization, ...) and optimize things down to bits (shaders, compression of in-memory data, ...) that were rarely required by my corp job. Anyhow, this is getting a little long, feel free to ask any questions, I will do my best to answer them.

michaelrpeskin 4y ago
Looks really fun! Any hope of multiplayer (even just LAN) coming soon? My son and I can easily waste a weekend on the couch playing Factorio together. This could be another bonding/time waster for us.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  I've replied in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31590353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31590353
UberFly 4y ago
Why does everyone now have to drop F-bombs in everything, even if beeped. The main promo video: "Those f*king pirates!". Makes me not want to support the game. I know it's petty or prude but it's just not edgy anymore, just kinda dumb.
- goldenkey 4y ago
  We've advanced past the point of caring about expletives. Thinking curses are gonna somehow screw people up, especially kids, is akin to thinking shooting games create school shooters. Victorian thinking is a bygone. Censorship and fragility go hand in hand. If we don't want the newer generations to be fragile, then we need to let them get with the fucking program! ;-) I for one, love a good fuck bomb. Come to think of it, bomb is a worse word than fuck - for anyone who has been injured by one or been in combat. If we avoid all triggers, we'd be left with no words in our vocabulary. Trigger itself is a trigger word for those who've been in traumatic shooting scenarios. Sigh.
  - pfarrell 4y ago
    Maybe it's a demographic thing, and I don't think I'm a fuddy-duddy (though, just this morning, I was horrified by the lyrics of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" while dropping the kids off at school), but the bleeped-expletive made think "They're trying to be edgy. Why not spend an extra few minutes finding the mot juste rather than the lazy f-bomb? Everything else seems really thought out and put together."
  - UberFly 4y ago
    Who mentioned it was going to screw up kids? It's just that like your comment, it's tacky and classless.
    - goldenkey 4y ago
      It's implied. What other reason is there to restrict our vocabulary? Classless is pretending to be a puritan. I suppose if I put on a suit and tie and use proper etiquette while monopolizing the country, I'm a high-class monopoly man. But curse and do good and I'm a dreg of society. Yeah, that's great boomer logic, we're moving past that. Good fucking riddens.
- 1shooner 4y ago
  Many people consider 'dumb' more offensive to use as an epithet than than fuck is.
DeathArrow 4y ago
Congratulations! Which game engine have you chosen and why?
fnordpiglet 4y ago
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Industry/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Indust...
rdubs333 4y ago
IT looks really fun!
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  I dunno, I've talked to a lot of IT people, and IT doesn't sound fun at all. ;-)
fnordpiglet 4y ago
I’m a sad. No Mac. :-( Looks really good. Congrats man. 84% overwhelmingly positive isn’t anything to sneeze at too. The experience must have been amazing. I learned more about computers in developing games that were 1% of what you’ve done. No matter the financial outcome you are winning at nerd life, which is the only life that matters (other than to your spouse your family and friends).
- YSK_TECH 4y ago
  +1 would defenitely pick up a copy with Mac support. It looks awesome!
  - taejavu 4y ago
    Just adding another vote here, if there was mac support I'd buy it today. Without it I'm gonna add it to my wish list and wait for it to be 75% off.
- aasasd 4y ago
  I thought that by now game engines just have two extra checkboxes to ’build for Mac’ and ‘build for Linux’. Perhaps the signing requirements changed that, though. Notably also, plenty of games work fine under Wine, but Steam client itself doesn't—on Mac.
  - Operyl 4y ago
    It’s not a matter of just having a build, it’s also about being able to support the users who use that build.
  - iliketrains 4y ago
    We do use Unity that does lots of heavy lifting for you regarding porting to other platforms. However, it's not always that easy as checking a box. For example some shader optimizations may be specific to DirectX. File system works differently (no "User/Documents" on Mac). Or issues with native libraries. Our game does work on Linux Proton though, that was a surprise to us.
cableshaft 4y ago
Congrats on the release. It looks really solid from the video, I'll probably pick up a copy soonish. I hope it does end up being a good financial decision for you. I used to be in the game industry a long time ago, and while I'm no longer in it I still try to work on game in Unity (turn based strategy game right now) with my very limited energy in my spare time. I've been out of the whole industry long enough I don't really even know where to chat and bounce ideas off of other indie devs, or find people to work with. Some Discord channels? Itch.io forums? About how much did you have saved up to take that year leap to work on it full time? How far along were you? At some point I'd like to make a similar leap but I don't think I have enough cushion built up to do that yet. Also at one point did you decide the game was good enough to put up on Early Access? Core game loop? Core game loop plus certain nice to have features?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! I haven't found any good game-dev-related Discord servers. You could try r/gamedev. Retarding "the leap", I was around 5 years in before quitting (crazy, I know!). I've had saved up enough for 2-3 years without salary. I have only considered quitting once we had a solid vision for the end-product and a working prototype that is "playable", although lacking content, balance, and some features. Before this stage, we were pivoting every quarter and that was not a good time to make the leap. The decision on where to stop and call it Early Access was very hard. We were adding things till the last moment, but what helped us was our Kickstarter where we promised a deadline. From that point it was basically "what can we possibly put in given a fixed release date" and it was just a lot of prioritization to include only the most important features. Feedback from beta players helped with this a lot! The trouble with release is that now any changes must be backwards-compatible, making all coding 3x harder and slower. Any new features now are much more costly. Good luck to you and I hope to read similar post from you some time in the future :)
  - gridspy 4y ago
    Really? You should join our gamedev discord then - https://discord.gg/tRCuSNH https://discord.gg/tRCuSNH - Several game-devs, definitely automation themed. Congrats on your release!
koala_man 4y ago
What's the elevator pitch for this game? "Factorio meets Civilization"?
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  "Factorio meets Banished" would be more accurate. It's a factory builder with a dash of colony sim.
intrepidhero 4y ago
Wow! Looks super well polished. Did you create the art assets in house or contract them out? What 3D engine are you using? PS. I think I could just watch the excavator digging holes all day.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thank you! Answers in a sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31588018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31588018 PS: There is a time-lapse recording functionality in the game, I am hoping as players get more comfortable, they will make some awesome timelapses of mining operations!
CaptainJustin 4y ago
Congratulations and all the best for your venture! One of my favorite aspects of Factorio was that the environment constrained your scaling. Grow out too fast and your tech won't be able to hold back the evolved hordes. Build too far away before you can defend it and it you'll be defending too far and wide before you even know it. @iliketrains May I ask if this game will have an environmental component/conflict to constrain the player scaling various concerns and prevent it from becoming a uneventful sim?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thank you! I think that our game is way more "constraining" your growth than Factorio. Let me explain. First, you need people to man your machines and vehicles. You need to first get your workers somewhere (takes time) and also take care of them (food, water, trash, etc). If you scale too fast, you might run out of food and people will starve. Another aspect is maintenance. Unlike in Factorio, you cannot just spam buildings to scale, because you need to spend materials to maintain your buildings. If you scale too fast, your things will start breaking down (later you can recycle spend products in maintenance to recoup the costs). Finally, there are a many potential dependency "traps". Scaling too fast and ran out of coal => no steam => steam turbines shut down => no electricity => you built backup diesel generators, fine => now they drained all diesel reserves, oops => trucks cannot deliver food => starvation. There are many ways how to prevent such death spirals, but my point is that in Factorio (or similar sim games), you cannot loose by scaling too fast. But in COI will. :) PS: There is air/water pollution too! People will get sick and may die.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    Doesn't the physical size of your island also limit the scale? Sure, you can literally move mountains, but there's still a finite amount of material.
    - iliketrains 4y ago
      That is true, but I am not even sure you can cover it all with factory before you computer melts down (and the FPS goes to single-digits). We need to invest a lot more work to optimizations before making larger maps. You can actually increase the ocean size in settings, making way more space if you decide to move mountains and make new space by landfilling oceans.
bamazizi 4y ago
Oh man, yet another Windows only game! I haven't owned or used a Windows system. I would love to play/pay for this game or Anno-1800 and few others. Is the Mac/Linux community still so small that no one cares about it? I'd think with all the noise & competition for Windows gamers, surely there's an untapped market of other OS gamers! The reason I love a similar style game, Factorio, is that it runs on Mac and other platforms!
- Dachande663 4y ago
  According to Steam hardware survey, MacOS and Linux account for 2.55% and 1.14% respectively. Anecdotally a lot of game devs report a higher percentage of error reports from these users too. So no, not worth it yet but Proton May be changing that. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
  - baq 4y ago
    Steam deck is the game changer here.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Yeah, hopefully will work out better than the SteamOS consoles...
  - ivolimmen 4y ago
    That higher report of errors from Linux users is most likely to be because we are more used to reporting errors not because the game is often buggier under Linux
  - shagie 4y ago
    While the hardware is as the survey says... what is the likelihood that a MacOS customer will buy a MacOS game? Likewise for linux. As a Mac gamer, I find I buy a good number of the "new release" games that show up for my platform if for no other reason that there aren't other games out.
MikeDelta 4y ago
Ha, I saw this in my queue on Steam yesterday, it definitly drew my attention. Congratulations on your achievement!
pragmaticalien8 4y ago
Things have come a long way from the days of Taipan[0]. If any of you remember it? [0]https://taipangame.com/ https://taipangame.com/
beeks10 4y ago
I will buy if MacOS support!
krisoft 4y ago
Congrats on the release. This might sound harsh: You had my undivided attention for 6 paragraphs and I have zero clue what your game is like, or why I should care to find out.
- necovek 4y ago
  Link to a game page with more details on the game itself is in the 3rd paragraph. While I get your criticism on not clearly describing the game, they are not selling the game on HN, but are instead sharing the experience of developing a side project. To me, those are the clues that tell you if you should check it out. It definitely got my interest ("hey, what could 2 developers achieve with only 1 year of full time development, and 5 years of part-time tinkering" — apparently, they can produce a great game!).
ushakov 4y ago
i'll checkout the game! don't worry too much about making money, else you'll lose your focus consider this: you produced an asset which is more valuable than just money: 1) IP for the game 2) knowledge from building the game 3) happiness from working on a product people really care about nobody can take it away from you, nobody can reduce the worth of that asset what you put into the game is still in the game also a tip: if you have more ideas, do them now, because later you may not be able to
miej 4y ago
Looks cool, purchased.
fishtoaster 4y ago
Well that looks like a pretty variant on a factory-builder! I quite enjoyed the intro video. If you eventually end up with a Mac version I'd happy buy a copy. Either way, though, congrats on your progress! Releasing a full game that people enjoy is a great accomplishment!
Thaxll 4y ago
Good for you and your friend to actually release a game after 6years, it's a long journey.
drakonka 4y ago
Congratulations on the release! Building a game to some often elusive sense of completion is harder than some think. You should feel proud and take some time to bask in the nice feeling of finally having it out there.
aasasd 4y ago
Question. Can I make a crane lift a crane? In the spirit of: https://i.imgur.com/HDG6mdB.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HDG6mdB.jpg
- zeristor 4y ago
  Thanks for making me find out more and turning this up: The promotional video of Crane, lifting Crane, lifting Crane: https://youtu.be/gYpMz63WAjM https://youtu.be/gYpMz63WAjM
  - aidenn0 4y ago
    I always assumed that picture was photoshopped...
    - aasasd 4y ago
      Now get a load of a ship shipping ships shipping shipping ships: https://i.imgur.com/agDf1B0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/agDf1B0.jpg
      - aidenn0 4y ago
        See, I can easily think of reasons to ship ships on other ships. I couldn't think of any practical reason for cranes to lift cranes, and indeed it was a publicity stunt.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Haha, not really. But there is mod support, so technically yes!
pg5 4y ago
It reminds me a bit of Warzone 2100, which I wasted too many hours on as a kid :)
Meowringer 4y ago
Great job and everything to get so far! I like that you actually mine the stuff in the style of mines you use and the stuff is getting removed visually. What i find disappointing is the trucks/vehicles not needing any streets. I'm not sure if it would make the game more interesting or not though but that i have to build a bridge over a pipe for the trucks but the trucks just drive through each other... not liking it :D
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thank you! Trucks not needing roads was actually our "feature". You just build things and logistics network will figure things out. This goes hand-in-hand with the free-form mining (also our big feature), since that would be impossible to do with roads. However, we do hear many people wanting roads, especially later on, it is on our list of potential additions. Vehicles having no collisions is a technical limitation. Path-finding on dynamic terrain on a large grid, with constraints on vehicle size (small trucks fit under some buildings, large excavators wont) is just too hard to solve with vehicle avoidance. Even with local avoidance vehicles would get stuck too much. One-way roads are probably the answer. Maybe some best-effort local avoidance could be done to minimize it. PS: I have rewritten the path-finding code 3 times. It's quite complex...
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    One-way roads bring closer... something that you like !
thelastinuit 4y ago
Seems to be the shit!!! Awesome, congrats!! And bought it already!
cinntaile 4y ago
How far along with the game were you when you decided to quit your jobs? The video's had no sound, correct?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Answer in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31587686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31587686 The trailer does have a sound, it's narrated. You need to enable it or just watch in on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U0d7z2sBr-4 https://youtu.be/U0d7z2sBr-4
geuis 4y ago
That's exciting. I've been seeing a number of people streaming the game on twitch.
derpthinker 4y ago
Very nice! Which language the game is written in?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! We use C#. The game simulation is running in a custom engine and rendering is done by Unity3D (they are completely decoupled, sim has no Unity dependencies).
japhib 4y ago
Looks awesome! Congrats on the release, and it seems like you're getting a pretty good reception so far as well. A few questions: 1. How did you get all the assets for your game? Did you make them yourselves? I also work on games as a hobby, but I'm no artist so I struggle to get things looking as good as this game. 2. How did you decide to use Unity for your game engine? Did you consider any others, and if so, what was the deciding factor? 3. How did you organize your code in Unity, especially on a big, multi-year project like this? I find Unity scenes and prefabs get messy really fast. The only way around this I've found is to avoid using the scene/prefab stuff as much as possible and just focus on doing stuff with code instead. But I'd love to hear any strategies you have. 4. (Probably most related to the art question) How did you decide to make the game 3d? It just seems a lot more difficult than 2d so it seems like indies tend to avoid 3d when possible. And it definitely seems possible for a top-dow-view strategy game.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thank you! 1. All 3D assets and music was done by our contractors. All paid work. On average, one model is probably around $500. 2. C#. We both were familiar with it and it is a great language. Lots of nice features, easy to work with, lots of tools, less error prone (looking at you C++), has reflection (very helpful for serialization and code gen), and if you know what you are doing, it can be very performant (avoid allocations, use structs, etc). 3. Great question, yeah, our project is separated to code and graphics. All code is in separate project completely decoupled from Unity. Unity just gets a compiled DLL. Unity has only assets that are referenced by string paths. We also have a separate projects for "data", where all the game entities are instantiated and filled with data. Core project has just functionality with no data. The entire game is one "scene" in Unity, we manage everything internally (like main menu vs. game). 4. We started in 2D, but it seemed "lame", not good looking. Very quickly we started prototyping in 3D and that felt better. Especially the dynamic terrain and mining.
  - hoten 4y ago
    So what exactly is the utility of Unity in this setup then?
bcjordan 4y ago
This looks super fun! Congrats on the release and hope you continue to grow the game though early access. Just for fun took a stab at rewording the game description following some tips I saw in a GDC talk on Steam store pages years ago, feel free to use any pieces if helpful. I'll try to find that talk link when I'm at a computer, it had some nice tips around not leading with a game category but rather very specific flavor hooks. > Colonize, then mechanize! Land your crew of sea-stranded survivors in an exciting natural paradise... and survive! Build, explore and exploit the local environment to truly thrive. Can you automate your way to a space-faring industrial civilization? Or will every last settler perish at your hands...
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Nice! I will definitely watch the talk and take a look at your example! Thanks!
- stevage 4y ago
  Good call, I also thought the description was a bit weak, and not super enticing.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    I think this kind of game sells by the word of mouth. When I saw trailers of Factorio it didn't look attractive to me at all. I'm not sure how I decided to try it (maybe even I read recommendations here, on HN?), but then hundreds of hours of fun.
mtnygard 4y ago
Congratulations! I've seen some Factorio and Satisfactory players' videos about this game. Looks really impressive for such a small team.
colpabar 4y ago
Awesome! It's so cool seeing you post this here, because I've been excited about this game since I learned about it a few days ago. I hope it's successful! As a question, what games inspired this one? How many hours have you put into factorio?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! The inspiration is a complex topic, I am sure that many games affected my decisions but it was more like making a game that I want to play that does not exist. I wanted to mine ore with excavators and see the land disappear. Also, reality and real industrial processes was a source of inspirations. I have probably watched all episodes of How it's made! But just for the record, I have probably a few hundred hours in Factorio and ~60 hours in Satisfactory. I also enjoyed Anno series, DSP, Tropico series, W&R: Soviet republic, Factory town, Oxygen not included, Frostpunk, and OpenTTD :)
cvhashim 4y ago
That’s dope
TradingPlaces 4y ago
Looks very cool, but I’ll have to wait for a Mac version. Good luck.
Seriomino 4y ago
Cool! How did you handle it between money, work and your spare time? Are you happy with your work work life balance? Have you tried a publisher? What financial expectations do you have for being able to keep on it? How do you balance family and friends?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  > How did you handle it between money, work and your spare time? That was hard, basically nearly no spare time. For some time I was also working part-time. > Are you happy with your work work life balance? Until now there was unfortunately no balance, all work. I am hoping that things improve from now. > Have you tried a publisher? No, we have got many enquiries and emails but we were not compelled by them. > What financial expectations do you have for being able to keep on it? The hope is to earn a similar or slightly lower amount compared to a SWE job (on average). If this game won't provide enough to pay my bills long term, then things will need to be changed. > How do you balance family and friends? This is also hard to balance, and pandemic made it only worse. Lots of online calling and rare visits.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I bought it last night and played for about 5 hours and can't wait for my work day to end today to get back into it. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Factory building with a dash of colony sim mechanics. My only criticism is that the tutorial is a bit lacking and basically info-dumps a lot of "what" without a lot of "why". If I didn't have experience with other factory building games, I'd probably be completely lost. It'd be nice if the game guided you more through the first couple tech tiers. It was also a bit frustrating at first with how expensive conveyer belts are, but then I had a light-bulb moment where I accepted that this is not Factorio/DSP/Satisfactory, and that I don't NEED conveyer belts everywhere. In the early game, trucks are cheap and can easily handle the load until I've got steady production of Construction Parts II. The Recipe window is REALLY nice. I love it! It makes planning so easy! My only request would be to make it so you can click on a product and have it take you to the recipes involving it. I also really like the design choice to not have to lay power lines everywhere. In other factory games, it's such a chore and not at all a fun mechanic. Looking forward to seeing how the game evolves over time.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Aww, thanks! We heard lots of feedback about tutorials and it is our priority to improve them. > My only request would be to make it so you can click on a product and have it take you to the recipes involving it. Try right-click! > I also really like the design choice to not have to lay power lines everywhere. Haha, this was removed due to time constraints. We were thinking to have it introduced in some lightweight fashion, like substations that cover large area, but this is still in "thinking" phase.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    Power tends to be interesting when it can be used for logic control - having some trigger that causes a portion of the industry to go dark to focus on some rarely used portion - too many games throw power in just because it's everywhere in factory sims. As you continue to develop the game I'd suggest you make sure the features you add are always accompanying some interesting feature expansion - one thing that always struck me as odd in Satisfactory was the inclusion of combat - you, the player, interact with enemies only when exploring the world and it adds relatively boring stress - it isn't and doesn't try to be combat focused (like factorio where the factory exists, for a long time, solely to better defend the factory) instead it's a smattering of FPS gameplay in an otherwise unrelated feeling game. So, you need to sort of choose between gameplay or simulation focused - EU4 might be an example you're familiar with where the earliest iterations were strongly focused on simulation with flavor events driving most of the gameplay... and, over time, it has shifted to focus more and more on fair mechanisms - it still has very rich feeling flavor, but the flavor is always secondary to the gameplay. Choosing to focus on either mechanics or flavor and seeing the other as a bonus that will enrich the experience is extremely valuable. Congrats on the game! I've played maybe five hours of it last night and look forward to learning more of it.
pbronez 4y ago
Neat game, looks fun. Congratulations on launching! It made me sad to see the island torn up by polluting industries. I would be more excited about the game if there was a sustainability angle... maybe that could be an expansion pack? You use current-gen tech to survive and get moving, you trash the place, then you rebuild and transition to something sustainable.
the_lonely_road 4y ago
Huge factorio/satisfactory fan so I can’t wait to get home and try this. Would you mind sharing a high level number on how much it cost to buy all of the art for the game? I saw you mention around $500 per model in another comment but I’m having trouble deciding how many models went into a project like this.
dsclough 4y ago
Congratulations! I've had my eye on this game for a while this post + your story motivated me to buy it. I'd be interested to hear what kinds of resources you found most helpful in getting something like this to a shipped state. I've never worked on a game before but having played factorio, DSP, and satisfactory I've had a lot of ideas / my own views on the genre. There's definitely room in the market still and I think you will be able to find success, especially as a two person shop. Congrats again.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! I'd say that the most important "resource" is dedication. Anything else is just matter of doing it until it works. We've been chipping away for so many years without an end in sight and if just one of us gave up, that would be probably the end of it. Of course my degree in computer science and computer graphics helps, but with dedication and you can just search your way through most problems. I'd also recommend to limit the scope as much as possible. We might have been a little too ambitious. Don't design features that you cant make. For example, in one iteration we had a vision of global economy where you can buy/sell materials, competing with AI players. On paper, that's great. When we started coding, we had no idea how to make this all work, and after a few months of failed attempts we completely scratched it.
sethx 4y ago
Honest question: how much did prison architect and their work inspire you, in terms of solutions to engineering problems?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Honest answer: I have never played Prison architect. Do you see any similarities?
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    The only similarity I'd see is that trucks play a somewhat similar role to handymen in Prison Architect, except in CoI, they only deliver cargo, while in PA, they do the actual building. It does make me wonder...internally, how do trucks decide which deliveries to make? Is there a list of deliveries that need to be made and they just pick the top one based on priority, or does their location get factored in at all?
kodah 4y ago
I'm going to buy this game after work. I'm a big fan of these kind of games combined with trading and a paradigm for competition/cooperation with ally regions. Thanks for sharing!
ankaAr 4y ago
Hey! Nice game, I Will buy it after work!! Congrats! Now, some question about steam: How they fix the price based on each country (here I can see the price at u$ 3.5). how is the deal with them?, that is the price for all the countries or you fix a global price and they make the cut? I'm asking because I'm moving to USA and I'm staking games here in Argentina because the prices are, sometimes, 10 times cheaper.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Steam has regional pricing and we can set a price in local currency for each country separately. They also provide price suggestions. Argentina is one of the cheapest regions so you can definitely pickup cheaper games there. Note that not all publishers have the same discounts. Check SteamDB for a price overview: https://steamdb.info/app/1594320/ https://steamdb.info/app/1594320/
- 0des 4y ago
  3.50 USD?? Luxembourg is 30 bucks :/
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    His country median income is likely 10 times lower too... (if not more)
  - ankaAr 4y ago
    "Laughs in third world prices"
gfosco 4y ago
Phenomenal job on the video. Loved it, buying the game. Best of luck!
654gy345v 4y ago
- Kiro 4y ago
  Then don't buy it until it's fully released. I love early access games. I love being part of the development and being able to return to a completely different game down the line. It adds a lot of replay value.
tijuco 4y ago
It reminds me Age of Empires... I think I'll give it a try
willis936 4y ago
Is there nuclear power?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Yes! Nuclear reactor needs enriched fuel and produces heat. You connect water and it will turn it to steam that you can pipe to do what you want. Usually you want to use it in turbines for electricity production, but you can also use it for desalination, or in oil refinery. If you don't supply water to the operational reactor, it overheats, and you know what that means... Just kidding, no explosions (yet), it just gets damaged and you loose all loaded fuel.
peteforde 4y ago
I purchased a copy of your supporter edition before I even finished reading. Part poor impulse control, part believing in the HN filter, part doing my part to support idealistic founders putting their time and opportunity where their mouth is. I hope that you find great success.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks for your support! I hope you will enjoy the game!
iLoveOncall 4y ago
I didn't really look into the game itself yet, but if you allow me a suggestion, it would be to hire a translator for the description of the game in French, because the Google Translate is quite obvious :D
nlh 4y ago
Real, solid, genuine, wonderful heartfelt congrats on shipping. I know how totally and deeply to-the-core satisfying it is to put a labor of love out into the world (and a bonus for it to get a positive reception), so I wish you all the best. I've followed on Steam to keep track of progress! (And when/if a Mac version emerges, I shall acquire). Best of luck and rock on!
Crono 4y ago
Looks nice! Would buy if it was on GoG or Itch. Do you plan to release the game outside of Steam?
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! We don't have imminent plans to release on different stores, sorry! Each store comes with non-trivial overhead of management, different build system, community interaction, update posting, patch notes, etc, and currently we are just too small team for that.
FredPret 4y ago
Any chance you'll release outside of Steam? Add one vote for Mac as well.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
>I also quite enjoy the added SWE challenges. I had to write so many complex algorithms (path-finding, logistics, serialization, ...) and optimize things down to bits (shaders, compression of in-memory data, ...) that were rarely required by my corp job. If you ever need a reprieve or change of pace and want to write some words instead of code, do consider writing an engineering blog about how you designed and built it. Factorio's blog has been an enjoyable read, seems like a similar one by you guys would be as well.
- TruthWillHurt 4y ago
  Second!
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thank you for suggesting this! I think that there are some gems in the code that are worth sharing with the world. I hope to be able to find some free time to do so!
  - paufernandez 4y ago
    If well written these would be very good for selling the game.
- randtrain34 4y ago
  +1
pooloo 4y ago
Just noting that I have interest in multiplayer support similar to Factorio or Satisfactory where players work towards a common goal, and also have purchased with that not being a feature per the road map. These types of games make for good time passers while conversating with distant friends.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Multiplayer is a big topic and it is obviously on our minds. The big questions is what type of multiplayer would be the best for this kind of game? Would it be coop where each player would start on their corner of the map? Or would it be shared factory? Of maybe each player with its own island + trading? Also, it is technically very challenging, since the entire simulation must be perfectly deterministic. We actually have most of the things deterministic, maybe like 95%, fixing the last 5% is a lot of work.
  - paraph1n 4y ago
    Leave it up to the player. If they want to build a shared factory, so be it. If they want to build on separate corners of the map, that's cool too. Just place the players in the same game world. With regards to trickiness of determinism and what not, just make it so there's an authoritative server running the simulation, and the other players/clients just get their source of truth from the server. The server could be an actual dedicated server program that has no frontend, or it could be one of the clients in the game.
  - culopatin 4y ago
    I always wanted to try a game where you join an economy and your supply impacts the demand of others and changes the price, etc. When playing Minecraft as a kid I always envisioned getting specialized in finding certain minerals or making certain items and selling them but I guess it was too early in the game and that wasn’t an option. There might be a mod now that allows for thag
  - ialexpw 4y ago
    Own island + trading would be great. You could end up having an island that "specialises" on a certain comodity and trading with other players.
brightball 4y ago
This looks great!
Aachen 4y ago
Any plans for a Linux build? Made the mistake of watching the trailer before looking if I can even run it. One of the best trailers I've seen on Steam! They're usually only about backstory with concept art and zero idea about what the game will actually be like to play. This could still have shown more UI, but at least the game itself was there the whole time and I feel like I have a good idea whether I'd like it :)
- commandertso 4y ago
  In a later comment, the poster noted that the game works via Proton.
  - Aachen 4y ago
    Saw that, but then why not mark it as supported on Linux? For me, €30 is fairly steep for something that's bound to give me problems that I have no reason to expect they'll feel like solving.
    - BlueTemplar 4y ago
      Because, aside even the «not native» issue, they can't provide actual support, and there are no guarantees that it would keep working in the future ?
- herodoturtle 4y ago
  I’m in the exact same boat as you. Watched the Steam trailer and instantly fell in love. As a Linux user I’m delighted to hear that this will run with Proton. Such a gorgeous game, can’t wait to give it a bash.
wly_cdgr 4y ago
Congrats on a huge achievement! The game looks highly legit And now you're set to get a good job in the game industry, working on these kinds of more interesting challenges, if you decide you are tired of the indie life
gnulinux 4y ago
I'm loving this huge wave of indie factorio-likes! Keep up the great work. Your game looks great!
loxias 4y ago
Hey, This looks super cool from the videos, and exactly the sort of thing I'd love to play. Would love a Linux build so I can play it though, haven't needed a Windows VM in ages. Added to wish list for whenever you release that! (I thought modern game development was cross platform these days?)
- iliketrains 4y ago
  Thanks! I have heard that it works on Proton just fine, but your mileage may vary. We just didn't have time to test things. We need to get Linux and Mac machines and test things thoroughly before claiming official support.
  - SicSemperUranus 4y ago
    +1 Linux here. Game looks great! Exactly my kind of game, hope I get to play it some day.
  - alwe 4y ago
    +1 Linux here too, have a longer train-ride on the weekend and wished I could play this on the train. Then ONI or Factorio it will be. Added this game to my wishlist, will buy it when Linux support is available.
Guthur 4y ago
Oh yes please, I love economy game, big fan of Capitalism II way back when. Will be giving this a spin for sure. Great work getting this out to a steam release.
mikebonnell 4y ago
Looks amazing, would love a port to Nintendo Switch, though I understand that might be very unrealistic.
JamesonKing 4y ago
This is exactly my kind of game, thank you for making this!
mrcartmeneses 4y ago
One comment on your website copy: consider changing “farm” to “grow crops” as it might confuse some people into thinking it has some kind of horrible FarmVille-like mechanic to the game.
akomtu 4y ago
Maybe you've done this already, but here's an idea. A factory consists of units that follow simple, or not so simple, instructions. For example, a truck unit does the truck thing: once let into the wild, it starts transporting stuff from A to B. You don't neef to direct it manually, you only give it a direction and keeps doing that forever. Some units are programmable: you can change their instructions, and they'll follow them. You can make units of hostile nature: trucks that steal stuff, builders that are reprogrammed to disassemble your neighbor's factory, units that are tasked with destroying hostile trucks amd so on. The goal is to get intetesting emergent behavior. Instructions are executed one step at a time, at fixed pace, so a poorly programmed unit would appear stuck. To simplify the ramp up for beginners, there are a few pre-fab factories with a stable crew of units.
needz 4y ago
Looks awesome. I wish it weren’t Windows only.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
I'm not really a gamer. You are here and I saw the video. I have been yearning to start some strategy game. Bought it, and will try to play. I hope you have a little happy dance for my tiny purchase too. I know the feeling. Best of luck. Edit: Well, it says it is not available on my Platform!
tintor 4y ago
Mac OS release?
Ziggy_Zaggy 4y ago
Great work! An inspiration to be certain.
cjpb 4y ago
After spending literally months playing Satisfactory and RimWorld with friends over the past few years, if this had a coop element, we would be all over it.
number6 4y ago
I don't have access to a Windows PC. Is it possible to compile it to Linux or have it accessible on GeforceNow? It really looks like my kind of game.
billconan 4y ago
Congratulations! This looks awesome! I think this is very inspiring. I have always wanted to have an impactful side project. But every time I ran into some technical difficulties, I seek for an alternative idea. I ended up having many prototypes, instead of a single solid implementation that can be called a product. I often see other smarter people can stick to an idea for years to deliver something really awesome. This is what I should do. I need to calm down and be patient. I only have one question, for indie game development, how to get high quality game assets cost effectively? Did you learn to diy everything, or you purchase/outsource the work? Thanks.
hutattedonmyarm 4y ago
Looks good, that type of game is right up my alley! I'm adding another vote for GOG and macOs support though :)
LilBytes 4y ago
Literally bought with the bonus pack a moment ago, looks great, the reviews on here and Steam are compelling. Looking forward to seeing how it goes! Congrats on the launch <3
rieTohgh6 4y ago
The difficulty is nicely balanced. I mean I had to restart 3 times and new issues keep blowing up when you just solve the previous ones. Exactly why I expect from highest difficulty setting.
cristea 4y ago
Looks great, I would love to test it out. Is an iOS/iPadOS release scheduled for the near future?
romanhotsiy 4y ago
Reminds me a little bit of Ostriv game: https://store.steampowered.com https://store.steampowered.com
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  Just an FYI, you linked the Steam front page, not Ostriv specifically.
nspattak 4y ago
That looks awsome, kudoz :)
ainiriand 4y ago
I am in love with this game. As a hardcore Factorio user, I see this as a refreshing change in my addiction. Also I am an amateur game dev and I plan to have some sort of MVP by Q2 2023, at least something that shows the key aspects of the game.
DaveSapien 4y ago
Just came here to say congratulations! Releasing a game is a real accomplishment and you should be very proud. Well done!!!
stuchl4n3k 4y ago
Oh the Czechs, also know as the factory game makers from now on. Just kidding. Great game. Congratulations for successful release! It is tough sometimes quitting a well paid job and making what you love. Been there. Wish you success!
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  > Marek & Filip are 2 indie game developers based in US and UK ?
  - Hitton 4y ago
    "Based in" indicates where one lives now, not where they are from. I've found reference to MaFi games as Czech game company, Marek is easily googlable as Czech too, I would be surprised if Filip was English - Filip isn't English name but it is commonly used in Czechia.
Paul_S 4y ago
When do you plan to release the final (non early access) version?
wiz21c 4y ago
Although I'm really impressed by your work (I know what it is to spend so many years on a "side" project), I can't help but feel that in this day and age of global climate/environmental crisis, making the apology of "10000 tons of diplomacy", "resource consumption" and overall expansion at any price is a bit, well, unfortunate. I think nowadays indie games are strong enough to carry a message....
- kqr 4y ago
  This sounds to me a bit like saying it's unfortunate that shooter games are violent, or some forms of music satanistic. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all about sustainability -- not in make-believe worlds but in real life. I like exploring the awesome power of mechanisation at grand scales in a safe way, inside make-believe worlds. It's a way to learn about it without wrecking this one.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  > "10000 tons of diplomacy" I found it funny. > I think nowadays indie games are strong enough to carry a message... Certainly, but not every game has to carry a message. Sometimes people just want to have fun without a game being preachy. If you want a game that carries a message about climate change, I suggest Fate of the World [0]. Its message is about as subtle as a jackhammer. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/Fate_of_the_World/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/Fate_of_the_World/
DecoPerson 4y ago
Hey! I have a bug report, related to downloading via Steam. I just purchased the game, but it won't finish downloading. It says "Missing downloaded files". I have retried multiple times. My drives are not full. Here's a screenshot: https://thatsne.at/file/buipxq.png https://thatsne.at/file/buipxq.png The game looks great by the way. Really good promotional material! My friends and I can't wait to try it.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  That sounds like a Steam issue, not a game issue. In Steam's Download options, there's a button to clear your download cache. Have you tried that? It usually fixes download issues.
birracerveza 4y ago
This is very good! It's Factorio, but even better because... it has trucks!! :D My son loves trucks so it's fun to see the little trucks going around and doing stuff. Good game, although a bit pricey.
Mortiffer 4y ago
Congrats on release, legit game. My initial reaction is negative. I have really bad vibes with oil/gas industry mining and pollution. So now i'm wondering if there is a market for this same kinda game but its all renewable industries. Sustainable crop rotating farms, fog collection water source, planted forest for wood construction, public transport for workers, wind/solar power everywhere.
- nprateem 4y ago
  That's a good idea to inspire kids.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Pollution does have an adverse effect in the game... though not as much as in Factorio it looks like ?
thescholarlyowl 4y ago
Thanks for sharing this, very refreshing to see a new contender in the simulation space, rather than just another Tropico, anno, civilisation, etc. I purchased immediately! I also look forward to seeing the changes over time like how I have watched Factorio evolve over the last many many years.
jiggawatts 4y ago
There are some basic things broken in the graphics engine: 1) Turning vsync "on" doesn't have the intended effect. There's still very visible tearing half way down the screen. 2) Turning vsync on in combination with full-screen mode results in a hideous stuttering when turning the viewport with the mouse. It looks like you got the swap chain sequence.. backwards? As in... swapping the "most recent" frame.. and then an older frame!? Or something like that. It's literally stuttering back-and-forth making my eyes bleed. It is also inconsistent: switching in and out of borderless windowed mode changes the behaviour. 3) The GUI scale setting is weird by default (140%!?), and is ignored for some UI elements. Do you test with 4K monitors? 4) Lots of GUI glitches. E.g.: clicking the tabs in the settings window will make it disappear for a moment and reappear. 5) The game continues to use 100% GPU even when I alt-tab out to the desktop 6) I have a 60 Hz monitor. The game generates more GPU load (75% vs 60%) with vsync enabled than if I use the "limit to 60 fps" mode, which confirms that the vsync setting is doing something very wrong. These two modes should produce identical GPU load. 7) Hovering the cursor over some in-game UI elements causes alternating-frame flicker. E.g. the "Right click & drag to remove existing designations" orange mouse icon thing. As a former game engine developer, my advice is that with both DirectX and OpenGL there is generally only "one right way" to do certain things such as managing a swap chain. Yet, somehow, game developers manage to get this consistently wrong and never seem to test/fix it. Test, test, test! Plug in multiple monitors. With different resolutions. Drag your game around between them. Try laptops with hybrid (NVIDIA+Intel) GPUs. Use a HDR monitor. Use one of those laptops with a hybrid card and unplug the power while your game is running. Plug the power back in. Change your desktop resolution while your game is running. Try to get 10-bit working. Try to get the game to look identical even on wide-gamut monitors. Etc... Iron out these bugs through acid tests. You will never notice real bugs otherwise, because it's too easy to get stuck in some "happy path" rut, such as testing with a single 1080p monitor. Non-graphics related feedback: "Unsaved progress will be lost!" "What year is this!? Am I stuck in 1990 again?"
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  What games even do continuous saving ?? Otherwise I've noticed annoying flickering of far away molten metal, but that was on a Twitch stream, which might be the cause ?
paufernandez 4y ago
Unbelievable that two guys can do such a huge thing. I can't wait to try it.
nprateem 4y ago
This looks great and I'll probably buy it. Well done! I've dabbled with games in the past. I'd be interested in a course about how you structured your code, got assets created, lessons you learnt, etc. While I could write a game I don't have time to learn how to write a game (i.e. I don't want to spend 6 years learning the lessons you learnt along the way).
- pddpro 4y ago
  +1
bovermyer 4y ago
I'm on a work trip and can't play until I get back, but I added it to my wishlist as a reminder to get it. I love this kind of game.
effnorwood 4y ago
jason_slack 4y ago
I am currently on break from playing video games, but I will buy your game today and save it for when my digital detox is over. You learned more by writing those algos than your corporate job would have done you :-) Congrats on releasing your baby!
francis-io 4y ago
Looks great. I don't play games much, but when I do it's things like Factorio and Rimworld, so this looks really fun to me. Does it run on Linux?
butz 4y ago
Congratulations on release. Are there any plans to release a demo?
journey_16162 4y ago
Congrats on the release! 6 years is a lot of time, but such is life for bootstrappers. I'm working on a desktop app, it may take some 4 - 5 years total to launch it, 4 - 5 years to get some 5,000h put into it - (I could probably do better but my self funding strategy was inefficient - part-time freelancing, now working to change it to get a full-time job and similarly live off savings for 1 year before the launch). I never did game development but kinda wish that I started my career with that rather than apps. It must be really exciting to build words and implement all that complex algorithmic stuff, but I got too much momentum with apps, maybe in another life :) Did you track your time? Can you share how much hours more or less you put into it, or at least how it changed when you went full time? Did you do more than 50% of the work in the last year of going full time?
Arrath 4y ago
Picked CoI up last night after reading this post and played it for a good few hours. I'm quite enjoying it so far! I'm barely into making my own electronics and I'm already planning out how I'll bench my open pit mines. My only real gripe so far is pipes, and how they can be fiddly about adding junctions or expanding them. E.G. you must install pipes in the correct sequence to be able to get junctions and elevation changes the way you want. Otherwise, trying to splice a pipe onto an existing one at the beginning of an elevation change will not work due to the existing pipe beginning to ramp. Yet if you do the junction first, and then tee-off for the ramp, it'll work fine. E: Coal seems over-subscribed, at least early on. Needed for smelting, to make cement, to make diesel, and again to make rubber from diesel?
f4ncyp4ntz 4y ago
LOL Windows only. No thanks.

1157 points by iliketrains 4y ago

michaelrpeskin 4y ago

Looks really fun! Any hope of multiplayer (even just LAN) coming soon? My son and I can easily waste a weekend on the couch playing Factorio together. This could be another bonding/time waster for us.

iliketrains 4y ago
I've replied in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31590353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31590353

UberFly 4y ago

Why does everyone now have to drop F-bombs in everything, even if beeped. The main promo video: "Those f*king pirates!". Makes me not want to support the game. I know it's petty or prude but it's just not edgy anymore, just kinda dumb.

goldenkey 4y ago
We've advanced past the point of caring about expletives. Thinking curses are gonna somehow screw people up, especially kids, is akin to thinking shooting games create school shooters. Victorian thinking is a bygone. Censorship and fragility go hand in hand. If we don't want the newer generations to be fragile, then we need to let them get with the fucking program! ;-) I for one, love a good fuck bomb. Come to think of it, bomb is a worse word than fuck - for anyone who has been injured by one or been in combat. If we avoid all triggers, we'd be left with no words in our vocabulary. Trigger itself is a trigger word for those who've been in traumatic shooting scenarios. Sigh.
- pfarrell 4y ago
  Maybe it's a demographic thing, and I don't think I'm a fuddy-duddy (though, just this morning, I was horrified by the lyrics of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" while dropping the kids off at school), but the bleeped-expletive made think "They're trying to be edgy. Why not spend an extra few minutes finding the mot juste rather than the lazy f-bomb? Everything else seems really thought out and put together."
- UberFly 4y ago
  Who mentioned it was going to screw up kids? It's just that like your comment, it's tacky and classless.
  - goldenkey 4y ago
    It's implied. What other reason is there to restrict our vocabulary? Classless is pretending to be a puritan. I suppose if I put on a suit and tie and use proper etiquette while monopolizing the country, I'm a high-class monopoly man. But curse and do good and I'm a dreg of society. Yeah, that's great boomer logic, we're moving past that. Good fucking riddens.
1shooner 4y ago
Many people consider 'dumb' more offensive to use as an epithet than than fuck is.

DeathArrow 4y ago

Congratulations! Which game engine have you chosen and why?

fnordpiglet 4y ago

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Industry/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1594320/Captain_of_Indust...

rdubs333 4y ago

IT looks really fun!

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I dunno, I've talked to a lot of IT people, and IT doesn't sound fun at all. ;-)

fnordpiglet 4y ago

I’m a sad. No Mac. :-( Looks really good. Congrats man. 84% overwhelmingly positive isn’t anything to sneeze at too. The experience must have been amazing. I learned more about computers in developing games that were 1% of what you’ve done. No matter the financial outcome you are winning at nerd life, which is the only life that matters (other than to your spouse your family and friends).

YSK_TECH 4y ago
+1 would defenitely pick up a copy with Mac support. It looks awesome!
- taejavu 4y ago
  Just adding another vote here, if there was mac support I'd buy it today. Without it I'm gonna add it to my wish list and wait for it to be 75% off.
aasasd 4y ago
I thought that by now game engines just have two extra checkboxes to ’build for Mac’ and ‘build for Linux’. Perhaps the signing requirements changed that, though. Notably also, plenty of games work fine under Wine, but Steam client itself doesn't—on Mac.
- Operyl 4y ago
  It’s not a matter of just having a build, it’s also about being able to support the users who use that build.
- iliketrains 4y ago
  We do use Unity that does lots of heavy lifting for you regarding porting to other platforms. However, it's not always that easy as checking a box. For example some shader optimizations may be specific to DirectX. File system works differently (no "User/Documents" on Mac). Or issues with native libraries. Our game does work on Linux Proton though, that was a surprise to us.

cableshaft 4y ago

Congrats on the release. It looks really solid from the video, I'll probably pick up a copy soonish. I hope it does end up being a good financial decision for you. I used to be in the game industry a long time ago, and while I'm no longer in it I still try to work on game in Unity (turn based strategy game right now) with my very limited energy in my spare time. I've been out of the whole industry long enough I don't really even know where to chat and bounce ideas off of other indie devs, or find people to work with. Some Discord channels? Itch.io forums? About how much did you have saved up to take that year leap to work on it full time? How far along were you? At some point I'd like to make a similar leap but I don't think I have enough cushion built up to do that yet. Also at one point did you decide the game was good enough to put up on Early Access? Core game loop? Core game loop plus certain nice to have features?

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! I haven't found any good game-dev-related Discord servers. You could try r/gamedev. Retarding "the leap", I was around 5 years in before quitting (crazy, I know!). I've had saved up enough for 2-3 years without salary. I have only considered quitting once we had a solid vision for the end-product and a working prototype that is "playable", although lacking content, balance, and some features. Before this stage, we were pivoting every quarter and that was not a good time to make the leap. The decision on where to stop and call it Early Access was very hard. We were adding things till the last moment, but what helped us was our Kickstarter where we promised a deadline. From that point it was basically "what can we possibly put in given a fixed release date" and it was just a lot of prioritization to include only the most important features. Feedback from beta players helped with this a lot! The trouble with release is that now any changes must be backwards-compatible, making all coding 3x harder and slower. Any new features now are much more costly. Good luck to you and I hope to read similar post from you some time in the future :)
- gridspy 4y ago
  Really? You should join our gamedev discord then - https://discord.gg/tRCuSNH https://discord.gg/tRCuSNH - Several game-devs, definitely automation themed. Congrats on your release!

koala_man 4y ago

What's the elevator pitch for this game? "Factorio meets Civilization"?

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
"Factorio meets Banished" would be more accurate. It's a factory builder with a dash of colony sim.

intrepidhero 4y ago

Wow! Looks super well polished. Did you create the art assets in house or contract them out? What 3D engine are you using? PS. I think I could just watch the excavator digging holes all day.

iliketrains 4y ago
Thank you! Answers in a sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31588018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31588018 PS: There is a time-lapse recording functionality in the game, I am hoping as players get more comfortable, they will make some awesome timelapses of mining operations!

CaptainJustin 4y ago

Congratulations and all the best for your venture! One of my favorite aspects of Factorio was that the environment constrained your scaling. Grow out too fast and your tech won't be able to hold back the evolved hordes. Build too far away before you can defend it and it you'll be defending too far and wide before you even know it. @iliketrains May I ask if this game will have an environmental component/conflict to constrain the player scaling various concerns and prevent it from becoming a uneventful sim?

iliketrains 4y ago
Thank you! I think that our game is way more "constraining" your growth than Factorio. Let me explain. First, you need people to man your machines and vehicles. You need to first get your workers somewhere (takes time) and also take care of them (food, water, trash, etc). If you scale too fast, you might run out of food and people will starve. Another aspect is maintenance. Unlike in Factorio, you cannot just spam buildings to scale, because you need to spend materials to maintain your buildings. If you scale too fast, your things will start breaking down (later you can recycle spend products in maintenance to recoup the costs). Finally, there are a many potential dependency "traps". Scaling too fast and ran out of coal => no steam => steam turbines shut down => no electricity => you built backup diesel generators, fine => now they drained all diesel reserves, oops => trucks cannot deliver food => starvation. There are many ways how to prevent such death spirals, but my point is that in Factorio (or similar sim games), you cannot loose by scaling too fast. But in COI will. :) PS: There is air/water pollution too! People will get sick and may die.
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  Doesn't the physical size of your island also limit the scale? Sure, you can literally move mountains, but there's still a finite amount of material.
  - iliketrains 4y ago
    That is true, but I am not even sure you can cover it all with factory before you computer melts down (and the FPS goes to single-digits). We need to invest a lot more work to optimizations before making larger maps. You can actually increase the ocean size in settings, making way more space if you decide to move mountains and make new space by landfilling oceans.

bamazizi 4y ago

Oh man, yet another Windows only game! I haven't owned or used a Windows system. I would love to play/pay for this game or Anno-1800 and few others. Is the Mac/Linux community still so small that no one cares about it? I'd think with all the noise & competition for Windows gamers, surely there's an untapped market of other OS gamers! The reason I love a similar style game, Factorio, is that it runs on Mac and other platforms!

Dachande663 4y ago
According to Steam hardware survey, MacOS and Linux account for 2.55% and 1.14% respectively. Anecdotally a lot of game devs report a higher percentage of error reports from these users too. So no, not worth it yet but Proton May be changing that. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
- baq 4y ago
  Steam deck is the game changer here.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Yeah, hopefully will work out better than the SteamOS consoles...
- ivolimmen 4y ago
  That higher report of errors from Linux users is most likely to be because we are more used to reporting errors not because the game is often buggier under Linux
- shagie 4y ago
  While the hardware is as the survey says... what is the likelihood that a MacOS customer will buy a MacOS game? Likewise for linux. As a Mac gamer, I find I buy a good number of the "new release" games that show up for my platform if for no other reason that there aren't other games out.

MikeDelta 4y ago

Ha, I saw this in my queue on Steam yesterday, it definitly drew my attention. Congratulations on your achievement!

pragmaticalien8 4y ago

Things have come a long way from the days of Taipan[0]. If any of you remember it? [0]https://taipangame.com/ https://taipangame.com/

beeks10 4y ago

I will buy if MacOS support!

krisoft 4y ago

Congrats on the release. This might sound harsh: You had my undivided attention for 6 paragraphs and I have zero clue what your game is like, or why I should care to find out.

necovek 4y ago
Link to a game page with more details on the game itself is in the 3rd paragraph. While I get your criticism on not clearly describing the game, they are not selling the game on HN, but are instead sharing the experience of developing a side project. To me, those are the clues that tell you if you should check it out. It definitely got my interest ("hey, what could 2 developers achieve with only 1 year of full time development, and 5 years of part-time tinkering" — apparently, they can produce a great game!).

ushakov 4y ago

i'll checkout the game! don't worry too much about making money, else you'll lose your focus consider this: you produced an asset which is more valuable than just money: 1) IP for the game 2) knowledge from building the game 3) happiness from working on a product people really care about nobody can take it away from you, nobody can reduce the worth of that asset what you put into the game is still in the game also a tip: if you have more ideas, do them now, because later you may not be able to

miej 4y ago

Looks cool, purchased.

fishtoaster 4y ago

Well that looks like a pretty variant on a factory-builder! I quite enjoyed the intro video. If you eventually end up with a Mac version I'd happy buy a copy. Either way, though, congrats on your progress! Releasing a full game that people enjoy is a great accomplishment!

Thaxll 4y ago

Good for you and your friend to actually release a game after 6years, it's a long journey.

drakonka 4y ago

Congratulations on the release! Building a game to some often elusive sense of completion is harder than some think. You should feel proud and take some time to bask in the nice feeling of finally having it out there.

aasasd 4y ago

Question. Can I make a crane lift a crane? In the spirit of: https://i.imgur.com/HDG6mdB.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HDG6mdB.jpg

zeristor 4y ago
Thanks for making me find out more and turning this up: The promotional video of Crane, lifting Crane, lifting Crane: https://youtu.be/gYpMz63WAjM https://youtu.be/gYpMz63WAjM
- aidenn0 4y ago
  I always assumed that picture was photoshopped...
  - aasasd 4y ago
    Now get a load of a ship shipping ships shipping shipping ships: https://i.imgur.com/agDf1B0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/agDf1B0.jpg
    - aidenn0 4y ago
      See, I can easily think of reasons to ship ships on other ships. I couldn't think of any practical reason for cranes to lift cranes, and indeed it was a publicity stunt.
iliketrains 4y ago
Haha, not really. But there is mod support, so technically yes!

pg5 4y ago

It reminds me a bit of Warzone 2100, which I wasted too many hours on as a kid :)

Meowringer 4y ago

Great job and everything to get so far! I like that you actually mine the stuff in the style of mines you use and the stuff is getting removed visually. What i find disappointing is the trucks/vehicles not needing any streets. I'm not sure if it would make the game more interesting or not though but that i have to build a bridge over a pipe for the trucks but the trucks just drive through each other... not liking it :D

iliketrains 4y ago
Thank you! Trucks not needing roads was actually our "feature". You just build things and logistics network will figure things out. This goes hand-in-hand with the free-form mining (also our big feature), since that would be impossible to do with roads. However, we do hear many people wanting roads, especially later on, it is on our list of potential additions. Vehicles having no collisions is a technical limitation. Path-finding on dynamic terrain on a large grid, with constraints on vehicle size (small trucks fit under some buildings, large excavators wont) is just too hard to solve with vehicle avoidance. Even with local avoidance vehicles would get stuck too much. One-way roads are probably the answer. Maybe some best-effort local avoidance could be done to minimize it. PS: I have rewritten the path-finding code 3 times. It's quite complex...
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  One-way roads bring closer... something that you like !

thelastinuit 4y ago

Seems to be the shit!!! Awesome, congrats!! And bought it already!

cinntaile 4y ago

How far along with the game were you when you decided to quit your jobs? The video's had no sound, correct?

iliketrains 4y ago
Answer in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31587686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31587686 The trailer does have a sound, it's narrated. You need to enable it or just watch in on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U0d7z2sBr-4 https://youtu.be/U0d7z2sBr-4

geuis 4y ago

That's exciting. I've been seeing a number of people streaming the game on twitch.

derpthinker 4y ago

Very nice! Which language the game is written in?

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! We use C#. The game simulation is running in a custom engine and rendering is done by Unity3D (they are completely decoupled, sim has no Unity dependencies).

japhib 4y ago

Looks awesome! Congrats on the release, and it seems like you're getting a pretty good reception so far as well. A few questions: 1. How did you get all the assets for your game? Did you make them yourselves? I also work on games as a hobby, but I'm no artist so I struggle to get things looking as good as this game. 2. How did you decide to use Unity for your game engine? Did you consider any others, and if so, what was the deciding factor? 3. How did you organize your code in Unity, especially on a big, multi-year project like this? I find Unity scenes and prefabs get messy really fast. The only way around this I've found is to avoid using the scene/prefab stuff as much as possible and just focus on doing stuff with code instead. But I'd love to hear any strategies you have. 4. (Probably most related to the art question) How did you decide to make the game 3d? It just seems a lot more difficult than 2d so it seems like indies tend to avoid 3d when possible. And it definitely seems possible for a top-dow-view strategy game.

iliketrains 4y ago
Thank you! 1. All 3D assets and music was done by our contractors. All paid work. On average, one model is probably around $500. 2. C#. We both were familiar with it and it is a great language. Lots of nice features, easy to work with, lots of tools, less error prone (looking at you C++), has reflection (very helpful for serialization and code gen), and if you know what you are doing, it can be very performant (avoid allocations, use structs, etc). 3. Great question, yeah, our project is separated to code and graphics. All code is in separate project completely decoupled from Unity. Unity just gets a compiled DLL. Unity has only assets that are referenced by string paths. We also have a separate projects for "data", where all the game entities are instantiated and filled with data. Core project has just functionality with no data. The entire game is one "scene" in Unity, we manage everything internally (like main menu vs. game). 4. We started in 2D, but it seemed "lame", not good looking. Very quickly we started prototyping in 3D and that felt better. Especially the dynamic terrain and mining.
- hoten 4y ago
  So what exactly is the utility of Unity in this setup then?

bcjordan 4y ago

This looks super fun! Congrats on the release and hope you continue to grow the game though early access. Just for fun took a stab at rewording the game description following some tips I saw in a GDC talk on Steam store pages years ago, feel free to use any pieces if helpful. I'll try to find that talk link when I'm at a computer, it had some nice tips around not leading with a game category but rather very specific flavor hooks. > Colonize, then mechanize! Land your crew of sea-stranded survivors in an exciting natural paradise... and survive! Build, explore and exploit the local environment to truly thrive. Can you automate your way to a space-faring industrial civilization? Or will every last settler perish at your hands...

iliketrains 4y ago
Nice! I will definitely watch the talk and take a look at your example! Thanks!
stevage 4y ago
Good call, I also thought the description was a bit weak, and not super enticing.
- scotty79 4y ago
  I think this kind of game sells by the word of mouth. When I saw trailers of Factorio it didn't look attractive to me at all. I'm not sure how I decided to try it (maybe even I read recommendations here, on HN?), but then hundreds of hours of fun.

mtnygard 4y ago

Congratulations! I've seen some Factorio and Satisfactory players' videos about this game. Looks really impressive for such a small team.

colpabar 4y ago

Awesome! It's so cool seeing you post this here, because I've been excited about this game since I learned about it a few days ago. I hope it's successful! As a question, what games inspired this one? How many hours have you put into factorio?

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! The inspiration is a complex topic, I am sure that many games affected my decisions but it was more like making a game that I want to play that does not exist. I wanted to mine ore with excavators and see the land disappear. Also, reality and real industrial processes was a source of inspirations. I have probably watched all episodes of How it's made! But just for the record, I have probably a few hundred hours in Factorio and ~60 hours in Satisfactory. I also enjoyed Anno series, DSP, Tropico series, W&R: Soviet republic, Factory town, Oxygen not included, Frostpunk, and OpenTTD :)

cvhashim 4y ago

That’s dope

TradingPlaces 4y ago

Looks very cool, but I’ll have to wait for a Mac version. Good luck.

Seriomino 4y ago

Cool! How did you handle it between money, work and your spare time? Are you happy with your work work life balance? Have you tried a publisher? What financial expectations do you have for being able to keep on it? How do you balance family and friends?

iliketrains 4y ago
> How did you handle it between money, work and your spare time? That was hard, basically nearly no spare time. For some time I was also working part-time. > Are you happy with your work work life balance? Until now there was unfortunately no balance, all work. I am hoping that things improve from now. > Have you tried a publisher? No, we have got many enquiries and emails but we were not compelled by them. > What financial expectations do you have for being able to keep on it? The hope is to earn a similar or slightly lower amount compared to a SWE job (on average). If this game won't provide enough to pay my bills long term, then things will need to be changed. > How do you balance family and friends? This is also hard to balance, and pandemic made it only worse. Lots of online calling and rare visits.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

I bought it last night and played for about 5 hours and can't wait for my work day to end today to get back into it. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. Factory building with a dash of colony sim mechanics. My only criticism is that the tutorial is a bit lacking and basically info-dumps a lot of "what" without a lot of "why". If I didn't have experience with other factory building games, I'd probably be completely lost. It'd be nice if the game guided you more through the first couple tech tiers. It was also a bit frustrating at first with how expensive conveyer belts are, but then I had a light-bulb moment where I accepted that this is not Factorio/DSP/Satisfactory, and that I don't NEED conveyer belts everywhere. In the early game, trucks are cheap and can easily handle the load until I've got steady production of Construction Parts II. The Recipe window is REALLY nice. I love it! It makes planning so easy! My only request would be to make it so you can click on a product and have it take you to the recipes involving it. I also really like the design choice to not have to lay power lines everywhere. In other factory games, it's such a chore and not at all a fun mechanic. Looking forward to seeing how the game evolves over time.

iliketrains 4y ago
Aww, thanks! We heard lots of feedback about tutorials and it is our priority to improve them. > My only request would be to make it so you can click on a product and have it take you to the recipes involving it. Try right-click! > I also really like the design choice to not have to lay power lines everywhere. Haha, this was removed due to time constraints. We were thinking to have it introduced in some lightweight fashion, like substations that cover large area, but this is still in "thinking" phase.
- munk-a 4y ago
  Power tends to be interesting when it can be used for logic control - having some trigger that causes a portion of the industry to go dark to focus on some rarely used portion - too many games throw power in just because it's everywhere in factory sims. As you continue to develop the game I'd suggest you make sure the features you add are always accompanying some interesting feature expansion - one thing that always struck me as odd in Satisfactory was the inclusion of combat - you, the player, interact with enemies only when exploring the world and it adds relatively boring stress - it isn't and doesn't try to be combat focused (like factorio where the factory exists, for a long time, solely to better defend the factory) instead it's a smattering of FPS gameplay in an otherwise unrelated feeling game. So, you need to sort of choose between gameplay or simulation focused - EU4 might be an example you're familiar with where the earliest iterations were strongly focused on simulation with flavor events driving most of the gameplay... and, over time, it has shifted to focus more and more on fair mechanisms - it still has very rich feeling flavor, but the flavor is always secondary to the gameplay. Choosing to focus on either mechanics or flavor and seeing the other as a bonus that will enrich the experience is extremely valuable. Congrats on the game! I've played maybe five hours of it last night and look forward to learning more of it.

pbronez 4y ago

Neat game, looks fun. Congratulations on launching! It made me sad to see the island torn up by polluting industries. I would be more excited about the game if there was a sustainability angle... maybe that could be an expansion pack? You use current-gen tech to survive and get moving, you trash the place, then you rebuild and transition to something sustainable.

the_lonely_road 4y ago

Huge factorio/satisfactory fan so I can’t wait to get home and try this. Would you mind sharing a high level number on how much it cost to buy all of the art for the game? I saw you mention around $500 per model in another comment but I’m having trouble deciding how many models went into a project like this.

dsclough 4y ago

Congratulations! I've had my eye on this game for a while this post + your story motivated me to buy it. I'd be interested to hear what kinds of resources you found most helpful in getting something like this to a shipped state. I've never worked on a game before but having played factorio, DSP, and satisfactory I've had a lot of ideas / my own views on the genre. There's definitely room in the market still and I think you will be able to find success, especially as a two person shop. Congrats again.

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! I'd say that the most important "resource" is dedication. Anything else is just matter of doing it until it works. We've been chipping away for so many years without an end in sight and if just one of us gave up, that would be probably the end of it. Of course my degree in computer science and computer graphics helps, but with dedication and you can just search your way through most problems. I'd also recommend to limit the scope as much as possible. We might have been a little too ambitious. Don't design features that you cant make. For example, in one iteration we had a vision of global economy where you can buy/sell materials, competing with AI players. On paper, that's great. When we started coding, we had no idea how to make this all work, and after a few months of failed attempts we completely scratched it.

sethx 4y ago

Honest question: how much did prison architect and their work inspire you, in terms of solutions to engineering problems?

iliketrains 4y ago
Honest answer: I have never played Prison architect. Do you see any similarities?
- Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
  The only similarity I'd see is that trucks play a somewhat similar role to handymen in Prison Architect, except in CoI, they only deliver cargo, while in PA, they do the actual building. It does make me wonder...internally, how do trucks decide which deliveries to make? Is there a list of deliveries that need to be made and they just pick the top one based on priority, or does their location get factored in at all?

kodah 4y ago

I'm going to buy this game after work. I'm a big fan of these kind of games combined with trading and a paradigm for competition/cooperation with ally regions. Thanks for sharing!

ankaAr 4y ago

Hey! Nice game, I Will buy it after work!! Congrats! Now, some question about steam: How they fix the price based on each country (here I can see the price at u$ 3.5). how is the deal with them?, that is the price for all the countries or you fix a global price and they make the cut? I'm asking because I'm moving to USA and I'm staking games here in Argentina because the prices are, sometimes, 10 times cheaper.

iliketrains 4y ago
Steam has regional pricing and we can set a price in local currency for each country separately. They also provide price suggestions. Argentina is one of the cheapest regions so you can definitely pickup cheaper games there. Note that not all publishers have the same discounts. Check SteamDB for a price overview: https://steamdb.info/app/1594320/ https://steamdb.info/app/1594320/
0des 4y ago
3.50 USD?? Luxembourg is 30 bucks :/
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  His country median income is likely 10 times lower too... (if not more)
- ankaAr 4y ago
  "Laughs in third world prices"

gfosco 4y ago

Phenomenal job on the video. Loved it, buying the game. Best of luck!

654gy345v 4y ago

Kiro 4y ago
Then don't buy it until it's fully released. I love early access games. I love being part of the development and being able to return to a completely different game down the line. It adds a lot of replay value.

tijuco 4y ago

It reminds me Age of Empires... I think I'll give it a try

willis936 4y ago

Is there nuclear power?

iliketrains 4y ago
Yes! Nuclear reactor needs enriched fuel and produces heat. You connect water and it will turn it to steam that you can pipe to do what you want. Usually you want to use it in turbines for electricity production, but you can also use it for desalination, or in oil refinery. If you don't supply water to the operational reactor, it overheats, and you know what that means... Just kidding, no explosions (yet), it just gets damaged and you loose all loaded fuel.

peteforde 4y ago

I purchased a copy of your supporter edition before I even finished reading. Part poor impulse control, part believing in the HN filter, part doing my part to support idealistic founders putting their time and opportunity where their mouth is. I hope that you find great success.

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks for your support! I hope you will enjoy the game!

iLoveOncall 4y ago

I didn't really look into the game itself yet, but if you allow me a suggestion, it would be to hire a translator for the description of the game in French, because the Google Translate is quite obvious :D

nlh 4y ago

Real, solid, genuine, wonderful heartfelt congrats on shipping. I know how totally and deeply to-the-core satisfying it is to put a labor of love out into the world (and a bonus for it to get a positive reception), so I wish you all the best. I've followed on Steam to keep track of progress! (And when/if a Mac version emerges, I shall acquire). Best of luck and rock on!

Crono 4y ago

Looks nice! Would buy if it was on GoG or Itch. Do you plan to release the game outside of Steam?

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! We don't have imminent plans to release on different stores, sorry! Each store comes with non-trivial overhead of management, different build system, community interaction, update posting, patch notes, etc, and currently we are just too small team for that.

FredPret 4y ago

Any chance you'll release outside of Steam? Add one vote for Mac as well.

SkyMarshal 4y ago

>I also quite enjoy the added SWE challenges. I had to write so many complex algorithms (path-finding, logistics, serialization, ...) and optimize things down to bits (shaders, compression of in-memory data, ...) that were rarely required by my corp job. If you ever need a reprieve or change of pace and want to write some words instead of code, do consider writing an engineering blog about how you designed and built it. Factorio's blog has been an enjoyable read, seems like a similar one by you guys would be as well.

TruthWillHurt 4y ago
Second!
iliketrains 4y ago
Thank you for suggesting this! I think that there are some gems in the code that are worth sharing with the world. I hope to be able to find some free time to do so!
- paufernandez 4y ago
  If well written these would be very good for selling the game.
randtrain34 4y ago
+1

pooloo 4y ago

Just noting that I have interest in multiplayer support similar to Factorio or Satisfactory where players work towards a common goal, and also have purchased with that not being a feature per the road map. These types of games make for good time passers while conversating with distant friends.

iliketrains 4y ago
Multiplayer is a big topic and it is obviously on our minds. The big questions is what type of multiplayer would be the best for this kind of game? Would it be coop where each player would start on their corner of the map? Or would it be shared factory? Of maybe each player with its own island + trading? Also, it is technically very challenging, since the entire simulation must be perfectly deterministic. We actually have most of the things deterministic, maybe like 95%, fixing the last 5% is a lot of work.
- paraph1n 4y ago
  Leave it up to the player. If they want to build a shared factory, so be it. If they want to build on separate corners of the map, that's cool too. Just place the players in the same game world. With regards to trickiness of determinism and what not, just make it so there's an authoritative server running the simulation, and the other players/clients just get their source of truth from the server. The server could be an actual dedicated server program that has no frontend, or it could be one of the clients in the game.
- culopatin 4y ago
  I always wanted to try a game where you join an economy and your supply impacts the demand of others and changes the price, etc. When playing Minecraft as a kid I always envisioned getting specialized in finding certain minerals or making certain items and selling them but I guess it was too early in the game and that wasn’t an option. There might be a mod now that allows for thag
- ialexpw 4y ago
  Own island + trading would be great. You could end up having an island that "specialises" on a certain comodity and trading with other players.

brightball 4y ago

This looks great!

Aachen 4y ago

Any plans for a Linux build? Made the mistake of watching the trailer before looking if I can even run it. One of the best trailers I've seen on Steam! They're usually only about backstory with concept art and zero idea about what the game will actually be like to play. This could still have shown more UI, but at least the game itself was there the whole time and I feel like I have a good idea whether I'd like it :)

commandertso 4y ago
In a later comment, the poster noted that the game works via Proton.
- Aachen 4y ago
  Saw that, but then why not mark it as supported on Linux? For me, €30 is fairly steep for something that's bound to give me problems that I have no reason to expect they'll feel like solving.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Because, aside even the «not native» issue, they can't provide actual support, and there are no guarantees that it would keep working in the future ?
herodoturtle 4y ago
I’m in the exact same boat as you. Watched the Steam trailer and instantly fell in love. As a Linux user I’m delighted to hear that this will run with Proton. Such a gorgeous game, can’t wait to give it a bash.

wly_cdgr 4y ago

Congrats on a huge achievement! The game looks highly legit And now you're set to get a good job in the game industry, working on these kinds of more interesting challenges, if you decide you are tired of the indie life

gnulinux 4y ago

I'm loving this huge wave of indie factorio-likes! Keep up the great work. Your game looks great!

loxias 4y ago

Hey, This looks super cool from the videos, and exactly the sort of thing I'd love to play. Would love a Linux build so I can play it though, haven't needed a Windows VM in ages. Added to wish list for whenever you release that! (I thought modern game development was cross platform these days?)

iliketrains 4y ago
Thanks! I have heard that it works on Proton just fine, but your mileage may vary. We just didn't have time to test things. We need to get Linux and Mac machines and test things thoroughly before claiming official support.
- SicSemperUranus 4y ago
  +1 Linux here. Game looks great! Exactly my kind of game, hope I get to play it some day.
- alwe 4y ago
  +1 Linux here too, have a longer train-ride on the weekend and wished I could play this on the train. Then ONI or Factorio it will be. Added this game to my wishlist, will buy it when Linux support is available.

Guthur 4y ago

Oh yes please, I love economy game, big fan of Capitalism II way back when. Will be giving this a spin for sure. Great work getting this out to a steam release.

mikebonnell 4y ago

Looks amazing, would love a port to Nintendo Switch, though I understand that might be very unrealistic.

JamesonKing 4y ago

This is exactly my kind of game, thank you for making this!

mrcartmeneses 4y ago

One comment on your website copy: consider changing “farm” to “grow crops” as it might confuse some people into thinking it has some kind of horrible FarmVille-like mechanic to the game.

akomtu 4y ago

Maybe you've done this already, but here's an idea. A factory consists of units that follow simple, or not so simple, instructions. For example, a truck unit does the truck thing: once let into the wild, it starts transporting stuff from A to B. You don't neef to direct it manually, you only give it a direction and keeps doing that forever. Some units are programmable: you can change their instructions, and they'll follow them. You can make units of hostile nature: trucks that steal stuff, builders that are reprogrammed to disassemble your neighbor's factory, units that are tasked with destroying hostile trucks amd so on. The goal is to get intetesting emergent behavior. Instructions are executed one step at a time, at fixed pace, so a poorly programmed unit would appear stuck. To simplify the ramp up for beginners, there are a few pre-fab factories with a stable crew of units.

needz 4y ago

Looks awesome. I wish it weren’t Windows only.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

I'm not really a gamer. You are here and I saw the video. I have been yearning to start some strategy game. Bought it, and will try to play. I hope you have a little happy dance for my tiny purchase too. I know the feeling. Best of luck. Edit: Well, it says it is not available on my Platform!

tintor 4y ago

Mac OS release?

Ziggy_Zaggy 4y ago

Great work! An inspiration to be certain.

cjpb 4y ago

After spending literally months playing Satisfactory and RimWorld with friends over the past few years, if this had a coop element, we would be all over it.

number6 4y ago

I don't have access to a Windows PC. Is it possible to compile it to Linux or have it accessible on GeforceNow? It really looks like my kind of game.

billconan 4y ago

Congratulations! This looks awesome! I think this is very inspiring. I have always wanted to have an impactful side project. But every time I ran into some technical difficulties, I seek for an alternative idea. I ended up having many prototypes, instead of a single solid implementation that can be called a product. I often see other smarter people can stick to an idea for years to deliver something really awesome. This is what I should do. I need to calm down and be patient. I only have one question, for indie game development, how to get high quality game assets cost effectively? Did you learn to diy everything, or you purchase/outsource the work? Thanks.

hutattedonmyarm 4y ago

Looks good, that type of game is right up my alley! I'm adding another vote for GOG and macOs support though :)

LilBytes 4y ago

Literally bought with the bonus pack a moment ago, looks great, the reviews on here and Steam are compelling. Looking forward to seeing how it goes! Congrats on the launch <3

rieTohgh6 4y ago

The difficulty is nicely balanced. I mean I had to restart 3 times and new issues keep blowing up when you just solve the previous ones. Exactly why I expect from highest difficulty setting.

cristea 4y ago

Looks great, I would love to test it out. Is an iOS/iPadOS release scheduled for the near future?

romanhotsiy 4y ago

Reminds me a little bit of Ostriv game: https://store.steampowered.com https://store.steampowered.com

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
Just an FYI, you linked the Steam front page, not Ostriv specifically.

nspattak 4y ago

That looks awsome, kudoz :)

ainiriand 4y ago

I am in love with this game. As a hardcore Factorio user, I see this as a refreshing change in my addiction. Also I am an amateur game dev and I plan to have some sort of MVP by Q2 2023, at least something that shows the key aspects of the game.

DaveSapien 4y ago

Just came here to say congratulations! Releasing a game is a real accomplishment and you should be very proud. Well done!!!

stuchl4n3k 4y ago

Oh the Czechs, also know as the factory game makers from now on. Just kidding. Great game. Congratulations for successful release! It is tough sometimes quitting a well paid job and making what you love. Been there. Wish you success!

BlueTemplar 4y ago
> Marek & Filip are 2 indie game developers based in US and UK ?
- Hitton 4y ago
  "Based in" indicates where one lives now, not where they are from. I've found reference to MaFi games as Czech game company, Marek is easily googlable as Czech too, I would be surprised if Filip was English - Filip isn't English name but it is commonly used in Czechia.

Paul_S 4y ago

When do you plan to release the final (non early access) version?

wiz21c 4y ago

Although I'm really impressed by your work (I know what it is to spend so many years on a "side" project), I can't help but feel that in this day and age of global climate/environmental crisis, making the apology of "10000 tons of diplomacy", "resource consumption" and overall expansion at any price is a bit, well, unfortunate. I think nowadays indie games are strong enough to carry a message....

kqr 4y ago
This sounds to me a bit like saying it's unfortunate that shooter games are violent, or some forms of music satanistic. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all about sustainability -- not in make-believe worlds but in real life. I like exploring the awesome power of mechanisation at grand scales in a safe way, inside make-believe worlds. It's a way to learn about it without wrecking this one.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> "10000 tons of diplomacy" I found it funny. > I think nowadays indie games are strong enough to carry a message... Certainly, but not every game has to carry a message. Sometimes people just want to have fun without a game being preachy. If you want a game that carries a message about climate change, I suggest Fate of the World [0]. Its message is about as subtle as a jackhammer. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/Fate_of_the_World/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/80200/Fate_of_the_World/

DecoPerson 4y ago

Hey! I have a bug report, related to downloading via Steam. I just purchased the game, but it won't finish downloading. It says "Missing downloaded files". I have retried multiple times. My drives are not full. Here's a screenshot: https://thatsne.at/file/buipxq.png https://thatsne.at/file/buipxq.png The game looks great by the way. Really good promotional material! My friends and I can't wait to try it.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
That sounds like a Steam issue, not a game issue. In Steam's Download options, there's a button to clear your download cache. Have you tried that? It usually fixes download issues.

birracerveza 4y ago

This is very good! It's Factorio, but even better because... it has trucks!! :D My son loves trucks so it's fun to see the little trucks going around and doing stuff. Good game, although a bit pricey.

Mortiffer 4y ago

Congrats on release, legit game. My initial reaction is negative. I have really bad vibes with oil/gas industry mining and pollution. So now i'm wondering if there is a market for this same kinda game but its all renewable industries. Sustainable crop rotating farms, fog collection water source, planted forest for wood construction, public transport for workers, wind/solar power everywhere.

nprateem 4y ago
That's a good idea to inspire kids.
BlueTemplar 4y ago
Pollution does have an adverse effect in the game... though not as much as in Factorio it looks like ?

thescholarlyowl 4y ago

Thanks for sharing this, very refreshing to see a new contender in the simulation space, rather than just another Tropico, anno, civilisation, etc. I purchased immediately! I also look forward to seeing the changes over time like how I have watched Factorio evolve over the last many many years.

jiggawatts 4y ago

There are some basic things broken in the graphics engine: 1) Turning vsync "on" doesn't have the intended effect. There's still very visible tearing half way down the screen. 2) Turning vsync on in combination with full-screen mode results in a hideous stuttering when turning the viewport with the mouse. It looks like you got the swap chain sequence.. backwards? As in... swapping the "most recent" frame.. and then an older frame!? Or something like that. It's literally stuttering back-and-forth making my eyes bleed. It is also inconsistent: switching in and out of borderless windowed mode changes the behaviour. 3) The GUI scale setting is weird by default (140%!?), and is ignored for some UI elements. Do you test with 4K monitors? 4) Lots of GUI glitches. E.g.: clicking the tabs in the settings window will make it disappear for a moment and reappear. 5) The game continues to use 100% GPU even when I alt-tab out to the desktop 6) I have a 60 Hz monitor. The game generates more GPU load (75% vs 60%) with vsync enabled than if I use the "limit to 60 fps" mode, which confirms that the vsync setting is doing something very wrong. These two modes should produce identical GPU load. 7) Hovering the cursor over some in-game UI elements causes alternating-frame flicker. E.g. the "Right click & drag to remove existing designations" orange mouse icon thing. As a former game engine developer, my advice is that with both DirectX and OpenGL there is generally only "one right way" to do certain things such as managing a swap chain. Yet, somehow, game developers manage to get this consistently wrong and never seem to test/fix it. Test, test, test! Plug in multiple monitors. With different resolutions. Drag your game around between them. Try laptops with hybrid (NVIDIA+Intel) GPUs. Use a HDR monitor. Use one of those laptops with a hybrid card and unplug the power while your game is running. Plug the power back in. Change your desktop resolution while your game is running. Try to get 10-bit working. Try to get the game to look identical even on wide-gamut monitors. Etc... Iron out these bugs through acid tests. You will never notice real bugs otherwise, because it's too easy to get stuck in some "happy path" rut, such as testing with a single 1080p monitor. Non-graphics related feedback: "Unsaved progress will be lost!" "What year is this!? Am I stuck in 1990 again?"

BlueTemplar 4y ago
What games even do continuous saving ?? Otherwise I've noticed annoying flickering of far away molten metal, but that was on a Twitch stream, which might be the cause ?

paufernandez 4y ago

Unbelievable that two guys can do such a huge thing. I can't wait to try it.

nprateem 4y ago

This looks great and I'll probably buy it. Well done! I've dabbled with games in the past. I'd be interested in a course about how you structured your code, got assets created, lessons you learnt, etc. While I could write a game I don't have time to learn how to write a game (i.e. I don't want to spend 6 years learning the lessons you learnt along the way).

pddpro 4y ago
+1

bovermyer 4y ago

I'm on a work trip and can't play until I get back, but I added it to my wishlist as a reminder to get it. I love this kind of game.

effnorwood 4y ago

jason_slack 4y ago

I am currently on break from playing video games, but I will buy your game today and save it for when my digital detox is over. You learned more by writing those algos than your corporate job would have done you :-) Congrats on releasing your baby!

francis-io 4y ago

Looks great. I don't play games much, but when I do it's things like Factorio and Rimworld, so this looks really fun to me. Does it run on Linux?

butz 4y ago

Congratulations on release. Are there any plans to release a demo?

journey_16162 4y ago

Congrats on the release! 6 years is a lot of time, but such is life for bootstrappers. I'm working on a desktop app, it may take some 4 - 5 years total to launch it, 4 - 5 years to get some 5,000h put into it - (I could probably do better but my self funding strategy was inefficient - part-time freelancing, now working to change it to get a full-time job and similarly live off savings for 1 year before the launch). I never did game development but kinda wish that I started my career with that rather than apps. It must be really exciting to build words and implement all that complex algorithmic stuff, but I got too much momentum with apps, maybe in another life :) Did you track your time? Can you share how much hours more or less you put into it, or at least how it changed when you went full time? Did you do more than 50% of the work in the last year of going full time?

Arrath 4y ago

Picked CoI up last night after reading this post and played it for a good few hours. I'm quite enjoying it so far! I'm barely into making my own electronics and I'm already planning out how I'll bench my open pit mines. My only real gripe so far is pipes, and how they can be fiddly about adding junctions or expanding them. E.G. you must install pipes in the correct sequence to be able to get junctions and elevation changes the way you want. Otherwise, trying to splice a pipe onto an existing one at the beginning of an elevation change will not work due to the existing pipe beginning to ramp. Yet if you do the junction first, and then tee-off for the ramp, it'll work fine. E: Coal seems over-subscribed, at least early on. Needed for smelting, to make cement, to make diesel, and again to make rubber from diesel?

f4ncyp4ntz 4y ago

LOL Windows only. No thanks.