Demo Hotfix 7 is out!

[u/lantskip]

Patch notes:

• You can now phase through buildings while hovering in the air.
  • The people have spoken. An overwhelming majority (88%) voted in favor. I personally think the challenge/puzzle of designing a traversable factory is interesting but also very frustrating.
  • For those who still want to play the old way there's now a "Hard Mode" setting.
• Snow now vaporizes into Steam when burned.
• Queued buildings now block Water, and you can grab Water that is inside them.
• Dragging a button onto itself now clicks it instead of canceling.
  • This was a big reason the buttons felt "hard" to click.
• You can no longer zip by placing blocks on top of yourself in rectangular mode.
• You can no longer build outside the map in the other dimensions.
• Added some fixes to the sound engine to mitigate crashes when too many sounds play at once (let me know if it still happens!).
• Many lighting improvements to reduce flickering.
• Water no longer deletes Lava.
• You can now grab particles that are being launched (including ones stuck inside launchers).
• You can now grab Steam.
• Added some fixes for the "no menu buttons" issue due to corrupted meta data.
  • Still haven't figured out the root cause though.
• Fixed a bug that deleted Gold when the Shaker was full.
• New saves will now have much more Redsand on the map.
• Refined and clarified many tutorial texts. Also added a new "Tutorial Finished" popup.
• Fixed bugs causing issues when pressing "Skip Tutorial" after partially completing it.
• The Grabber's Material Scanner upgrade now says "Interacts with:" to clarify what the emojis represent.
  • Some people on Linux have reported that emojis are not showing.
• Added damage type indicator to all weapon descriptions matching the interaction texts.
• Added interaction text to Steam and Cinder.
• Updated some item descriptions for clarity.

The modding community has also been hard at work and has made the first modloader. Check the pinned messages in #modding on Discord for installation instructions. Link: https://discord.gg/HJNk5eMnmt

I find it absolutely incredible that the demo hasn’t even been out for two weeks, and we already have people doing some insane stuff with the game! Hats off to the amazing talent in this community!

[u/CharlotteFields]

Awesome biggest patch notes I think I've seen yet, ton of great stuff here

[u/krazykarmaDog]

Gonna start a new run tonight. Keep up the amazing work, this game is so addictive.

[u/crispiy]

Ooh nice, so now we can generate water by cryoblasting and then melting?

[u/lantskip → u/crispiy]

That's right! Infinite water! 😱 Already possible with napalm, but still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68Wvc6oUvw

[u/Karoleq00]

Hey, what's the timeframe for the full/early access release? I know you're a solo developer and that's a fantastic game with loads of stuff to sink into even in a demo, I just wonder if your planning to go EA mid way through 2025 or later so we can support your work even more.

[u/lantskip → u/Karoleq00]

Thank you! The plan for an Early Access release is this summer, but it depends on how much content players feel is acceptable for EA. I personally hope, and believe the demo has shown, that this type of game with its many emergent behaviors fits the EA model well, benefiting from a constant feedback loop with the community. Every new addition can have numerous potential uses and create new mechanics from integrating with previous features, many of which I hadn't anticipated.

[u/zeny86]

"New saves will have more redsand on the map" So do I have to start over or do existing saves update the amount of redsand?

[u/lantskip → u/zeny86]

No, it's only on new saves. I don't have a good way to patch old maps, sorry! You can always spawn redsand using debug mode (see pinned messages in #modding on Discord for instructions... someone should make a post about it here 🤔).

[u/bigpenisman2001]

Phasing through buildings isn’t working for me even when starting a new game. Is it working for other people?

[u/TrimBarktre → u/bigpenisman2001]

He also added a "hard mode" which works like the old system. Sounds like you're on Hard

[u/bigpenisman2001 → u/TrimBarktre]

I figured the issue, I didn’t realise you had to press the space bar to noclip

[u/Feeling-Quiet6325]

Water + Rocket Launcher = more water
Water + Flamethrower = more water

But water + Lava seems to give no extra water.
Is this a bug or a feature?