Greetings Mechanics!
What's that coming over the hill? Is it a dev blog? Why yes, it most certainly is!
Some time has passed since our last post and the team here has been extremely busy clanking our collective hammers at some exciting new content. Our super-powered new game engine has allowed us to accelerate forward at max speed and we're excited to share some of the results of that added torque in this update today!
As usual, we'd like to kick off by again thanking you, the incredible Scrap Mechanic community, for your amazing support. We're continuingly amazed to see your fantastic creations and can't wait to see what comes next!
Now, let's take a look together at some exciting new stuff...
Spud Guns!
When things get heated in Survival Mode, Mechanics need reach no further than the brand new, fully-loaded Spud Gun! In Survival Mode, your creations will always be the best form of defence against those pesky farmbots. However, when you're on foot and your creations are out of reach, the Spud Gun (aka Potato Gun) is an exciting new tool at Mechanics' disposal. Furthermore, right know we're testing a farming system (more on that later) where players will be able to harvest their own ammo! This opens up a lot of new and interesting gameplay that we're sure you'll find very a-peel-ing! We're also playing with ways of attaching potato guns on your creations, for example on bearings. How s-mashing is that? (We'll stop now).
Massive Warehouses!
If there's a more exciting wording pair than, 'massive warehouse', us Mechanics sure don't know about it! When we first started work on buildings for Survival Mode, our plan was to construct them out of building parts and to do our best to ensure that they were absolutely as huge as possible. During the process of creating these buildings we discovered that in order to make them as large as we originally imagined, it meant we wouldn't be able to introduce them with destructible exteriors due to technical limitations. Ultimately, this seemed like a fair compromise to achieve our main ambitions and we discovered that the decision actually enabled a lot of fun and tense gameplay! Inside these buildings, players no longer have the option of escaping through a hole in the wall when things go sour! To be clear, everything inside the warehouse can still be destroyed. We absolutely intend to have fully destructible building exteriors in the game, but on a slightly smaller scale. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the different gameplay these larger buildings introduce!
The Sound of Survival!
As many of you will know, here at Scrap Mechanic HQ we are currently very focussed on fleshing out and improving Survival Mode. One of the things we really wanted to enhance was the mood when exploring the Survival world. This was obviously less of a priority when experimenting in Creative mode, but in Survival we really wanted the music to play a larger role in creating a deeper atmosphere for players. Today we're delighted to share a snippet of one of the Survival night tunes, which we hope will evoke a feeling of loneliness and isolation. Spooky!
New Animation!
With new features comes new animation! Since the last dev blog we've been quietly working on fresh animations to improve the quality of Survival Mode. Included in our list of revamps is the completely rebuilt crouch walk animation, a revamped hammer swing animation and an awesome new sprint, which you can see above. Much better than the old 'fast walk', right?
As you can see, we also changed the standing pose to a slightly more heroic stance. Inspiring stuff, we're sure you'll agree!
Oh! and we will let this one be a hint.
Crafting System!
It took some time to get the Scrap Mechanic crafting system exactly how we wanted, but we're delighted to announce that it's finally in a place we're really happy with! It was very important to us that our take on this mechnaic wasn't just your regular loading bar crafting system. We wanted it to enable creativity where Mechanics could automate crafting chains and build their own crafting factories. We hope our Crafting System will be something a lot of you mechanics will really appreciate and use to light your creative spark. It's only code right now, but we should have some visuals to show you by the time the next dev blog rolls around. We're very excited!
Exo-Suit!
Since the Mechanic is stranded on a farming planet, it makes sense that he'd wear an Exo-Suit, right? Well that's what we were thinking, anyway, and so we went ahead and built a cool new outfit that will enable all kinds of fun improvements for player movement. We won't get into too much detail at the moment, since we're still experimenting, but the general concept behind the Exo-Suit is to offer small perks such as a higher jump, increased armour or the ability to demolish scrap faster. What do you think? Let us know!
And speaking of suits...
New Outfits!
What would a Scrap Mechanic devblog be without showing off a new set of threads for players to don? As many of you know, alongside Survival Mode we will be adding outfits for the new character customization feature; Hats, gloves, shoes and shirts can all be mixed and matched separately! We are super stoked to get this in to your hands (and on to your bodies) when Survival comes out. We've also made a ton of cringey t-shirts, which is just how we like 'em!
Wildlife!
God's beautiful creatures are about to invade the Survival world! Take our word for it: It really does make the environment feel more alive when mischievous birds flutter around and interact with your creations. It's perhaps not the most important feature in the game, but hopefully you'll agree these new critters add a meaningful layer of detail to the world. And if you disagree, you can always smack them with your hammer... Though we don't condone that.
When is Survival coming out?
When we released Scrap Mechanic we put the foundations in place. Now we're busily crafting the gameplay systems and features that will hopefully make our game an even more satisfying and unique experience for fans. Because we're determined to hit those quality goals, nailing down an exact release date for Survival Mode feels premature right now, but rest assured that we'll put it in your hands as soon as possible, once we're satisfied that it's up to our standards. We know a lot of Mechanics don't like to wait, but we're confident you'll be pleased with the results when you finally get to experience them for yourselves. Hang in there! It will be worth the wait.
Phew. And that's it for this time mechanics! Thanks for all the love and support and see you next time! We also have a really exciting announcment coming soon!
Stay tuned mechanics!