Comments - BrickInventions

Thanks! Though I think you cannot really compare the game to Five Nights at Freddy's (if that's what you mean with FNAF) as it's a completely different genre :)

Beta will start in October, however there will be limited access to it. Besides that, there will be a (new) demo version on Steam to try the game out.

The idea behind the video was to explain how the multiplayer works so it wasn't really supposed to be a trailer. But you're right the video is maybe a bit too tutorial-like. (There will be a new trailer, probably next month)

Currently, I don't need help with the game models, but thanks for the offer :)

I'm working on several changes on the core system which will improve the gameplay (a new placement system and some other things I haven't talked about yet). Besides that, it seems as if Unity 5 will (finally) be released soon, which will give a huge performance boost and other improvements.
So to answer your question: there will be a new demo version after I completed the new systems and ported the game to Unity 5.

Quality has been very important for me since the beginning. Like you mentioned, I saw many indie games which had very interesting concepts but the quality of the games wasn't good in my opinion. That's why I waited over a year until I released a demo and I will stick to that in the future. The alpha demo far from being perfect and now, 6 months later, the game is much better than it was back then but that's okay for an alpha version.

I just noticed that the game got greenlit on Steam (if it's not just a bug as over 500 games got greenlit that day - I will probably wait a bit longer until I make an announcement) but that doesn't mean that I will just publish the game as it is now as it's not ready yet. I will continue to add content and improve the game until it reaches my expectations. That will take some more time but better to release it later than unfinished and full of bugs.

Regarding the fps view: That's something I get asked a lot recently. It's not in development at the moment and I want to distance the game from minecraft, etc. but if you guys want something like that, I could implement it in the sandbox mode (it wouldn't make much sense in singleplayer levels or multiplayer combats).

If the game makes it on Steam Greenlight, it will probably come to Early Access after I make sure that everything works and that the quality is good.

What do you mean?

Great to see that you can play the game!
The game will probably not be free but it won't be too much.

(Sorry for the late answer, I just overlooked your comment.)

Thanks for the feedback!
I've already altered level 2 so the platform at the end isn't as high as it is now. You also have more resources available now. I'll also have a look at the short-cut problem you described. New demo version with all fixes will be available tomorrow :)

I noticed that level 2 is a too difficult (especially if you have just begun to play). I will make it easier and will probably upload a new version soon. What's your experience so far?

There will of course be sounds in the game and that's something I will work on soon. The reason why there is no sound in the game yet is that there have been many changes in the last months and I wanted to add sound effects after everything is in place.

Today, just uploaded the files and I'm now waiting for admin authorization.

You can still build things in the inventor mode which is basically a small version of the sandbox with the feature that you can save and place you creations in other gamemodes. ;)

I may add another block material in future versions but I don't want to completely copy the materials from minecraft so it probably won't be a diamond block. I'd rather implement new ideas which I think is more interesting since there are already enough minecraft-clones out there.

I can't give you a specific date but it will probably take some more weeks.

Hi Stellaray!
I'm planning to release a demo version of the game but it's not quite ready yet. I know that the game would probably become more popular but I don't want to make the mistake of releasing it too early and get lots of negative reviews just because it has lots of bugs and isn't as fun to play as it could be.
The game is in development for almost a year now, just give me some more time to implement missing features and to polish it. I can't give a specific date when a demo will be released but as things looks now June would be my guess.

Thanks! It's great to see that people like the project :)

There is an article with a video on my blog about how resources are implemented in the game (It was an update some months ago): Brickinventions.net

At the beginning of each game only have wood and have to build producers, which create resource-blocks. You have to transport them to a warehouse by using conveyor-belts in order to be able to use the resource. You can upgrade the warehouse and the producers which then producer faster or have more capacity. Every producer and warehouse has an object at the top of the podium and if that object falls down, you lose all upgrades -> you have to protect them with walls,... .

There won't be units (like in AoE), but I plan to implement a research-centre or something like this where you can unlock different bonuses (for example 10% faster production) or new technologies.

I haven't made a final decision of how I will release the game and if there will be open/closed alpha and beta versions. There will be a way to test the game but it will take some time until then (probably spring/summer 2014).

The problem is that a system where you can rotate a block in every direction could easily get difficult to use. Currently you can rotate the block in 22.5 degree steps around the vertical axis and choose 3 different rotation types (normal, on the side face and vertical) which already gives a lot combinations, but you are right, sometimes I wish there were more possibilities and I will think about that :)

Currently there isn't a tool that allows the player to move a block after it is placed. If a block falls over and you want to move it, you have to delete it and place a new one. But I will probably implement a tool to move blocks after they are placed.

I can't believe I made that mistake. It's even worse because I just copied the sentence. I guess I should read the text more thorough before I publish it. Anyway, thanks :)

I'm doing my best to get the game ready to be played ;)

Thanks for your comments!

At the moment I don't need testers but I will give you more information before the first alpha version.

That would be nice but it is also very complicated to implement because blocks can have different rotations.
In most cases it works if you place your building so that one of the blocks is in the center (red point) of the plane in the inventor mode.

About the performance: It mainly depends on how many blocks are moving at a time because Unity "deactivates" the physics for objects that don't move. I haven't tested this but it shouldn't be a problem to have 5000+ (or even more) objects in one scene. I recently built a larger building (see latest screenshot or "Sandbox" video at the end), it consisted out of ~3000 blocks. The performance was good but when I let it explode I had a massive fps drop (>10fps).
I tried to optimize it as good as I can but the problem is basically the same as in Kerbal Space programm - the physics engine of Unity. It doesn't support multi-core systems and is relatively slow compared to newer versions. It is ok for now but a faster (or even GPU accelareted) physics engine would be nice.
I thought about implementing bullet physics because that would result in a huge performance increase (up to 100 000 moving objects or even more) but for that I would need Unity Pro and much time and it would be very hard to implement it into Unity.

I hope that answers your question ;)

The game isn't available for download yet, there are still many things to do before I can release the first version. I want to further improve the game so that players can really enjoy playing it :)

Yes, a sandbox mode is comming ;)