Atomic Society 
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Farewell to Atomic SocietyFeb 21, 2024 - Community AnnouncementsAtomic Society will be removed from sale at the end of this week. It's been a long, wild ride but the time has come to shut down our little studio and move on to new pastures. Don't worry, everybody who owns the game will still be able to play it. It will remain in your Steam library forever. However, the game barely sells anything these days, and there are still several costs involved in running a business (accountants, etc) so we have to start winding things up, starting by removing the game from sale. I guess it's an appropriate time to say goodbuye. 2024 marks 10 years since a friend and I (with the optimism of complete beginners) asked “why don't we make a game for fun?” 2014 was a boom period for wannabe developers with crazy dreams. Steam Greenlight (remember that?) had been running for 2 years, the indie market was opening up, and Unity had made it possible for beginners to test their luck, for better or worse. Our idea of a post-apocalyptic town building game was a brand new concept back then. When we revealed it in 2016 (via Kickstarter), no one had heard of Frostpunk, Endzone, or Surviving the Aftermath. That Kickstarter still failed, but luckily a random YouTuber made a video of our fledgling pre-alpha and suddenly thousands of players fell in love with the game's potential and were clamoring to play AS. After yet another 2 years of grueling work, we released the first ever Steam version in Early Access (one of the most stressful things I've ever done!) and it sold quite well, considering we were making things up as we went. For a year or two afterwards we even earned basic salaries from this passion project - not much but we did get the privilege of doing something we loved. However, it was really hard living up to everybody's expectations. A fully 3D town building/social sim game was a huge concept for a tiny group of hobbyists working around their day jobs! We could just about handle it, but we were slow, and the games industry moves fast. Richer competitors came along. Also, after 7 years of work on top of regular jobs, “burnout” was becoming a thing too. But we pressed on for 3 years in Early Access, getting the game to the best state, and finally let it go for good back in 2021 (during a real life post-apocalyptic event of Covid). Unfortunately a game only really gets one big launch, and Early Access had been it for us, so that final release didn't do much, but at least finished and I was done. I couldn't even look at Steam without having a weird panic attack after we released. Making and marketing a game had worn me down (several real life disasters didn't help either). You need a lot of business stamina to stick it out in indie dev, and a peaceful real life. After we launched, our American coder friend had to get a real job, our artist had to give up dev to look after their elderly parent, and main coder Nick started a new family. It was okay though as we had nothing more to add to the game, but life had called us all in new d...Updates from the 6th October 2021Oct 6, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsIncludes: Fixed a bug causing the overview camera to exit the map under certain conditions. Fixed a bug causing crashes when trying to load an invalid save file. Fixed bugs causing bad navigation problems on Forest Maps. Fixed a bug causing AI crashes after a completed construction. Hotfix Patch Released (Version 1.0.0.1)Aug 22, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsWhat a manic fortnight! Thanks to everybody’s who bought and supported the game since we left Early Access the other week. The launch turned out to be way more popular than anybody here expected and I’ve had so much feedback that I’m still sorting through it. We were used to be about 3 players a week and suddenly there's 1000s. Thank you to everybody who’s sent me an email or left a useful forum post. We are looking into everything. Here’s the first round of adjustments... Patch Notes 1.0.0.1 Added the ability to disable all messages that appear in the middle of the screen for players who don't want these reminders. Fixed a mining area that was out of bounds on the Forest map and mining areas not being visible on icy maps. Fixed an issue with the belief menu UI resetting when you tried to change options. Fixed an issue that could've potentially been causing saving the game to fail and possibly causing performance issues. We're still monitoring this one. Fixed a various typos. We are still investigating some occasional complaints of performance issues (which as far as I can tell seem to affect big towns) and we’re keeping an eye on that save problem. We don't intend to leave any big bugs unfixed. Please keep the bug reports coming. You can find out how to send me one here. Reviews Thanks to everybody who’s left us a review, positive or negative recently. We keep an eye on them all. Being part-time devs we have zero marketing budget and rely on word of mouth so if you did enjoy the game and would like to leave a few words, that would be awesome. Atomic Society - Leaves Early Access Today!Aug 9, 2021 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/0393d0df191ede9b85d3e6b88fb19be281066960.jpg Dev Blog #42 – The Last Dev Blog It’s finished! At long last, Atomic Society is ready to leave Early Access. It's been one long and difficult journey making our first ever game, around day jobs. The key ingredient was perseverance. I'm almost reluctant to release the game. It's been such a core part of my life since late 2014, I can't really remember my pre-game dev life. But it can't stay in Early Access forever. Time to let it go. Thanks to everyone who's been a part of our long and arduous game dev journey - and greetings to any new players who've been waiting for this moment! I hope you enjoy creating your own post-apocalyptic civilisation and deciding its laws, if your town survives... (Patch notes for this final version can be found here in my last blog, including the fixes and tweaks we made during the recent beta). The Beginner's Guide to Making a Video Game! I can't believe we've come to this point. In a sense, Atomic Society has been decades in the making. About 20 years ago, as a teenager, I pitched it to a British game developer, thinking that they would take ideas from a random person off the street. They didn’t of course, but they did give me a job as a tester instead. However, 3 years as a tester was enough to convince me I didn't want to work in the AAA games industry, so I moved on with my life, and Atomic Society stayed as a daydream. Then in 2014, a friend told me about this "free" game engine named Unity. I gave it a go and realised even an idiot like me could cobble something together that looked vaguely like a video game at home. This was only a year after Valve had introduced the Early Access system. Greenlight was still a thing back then. The indie game market was opening up and I wanted to ride the hype-train. Naturally, I had no idea how to code, so I naïvely went onto Reddit and asked does anybody want to make a game. The internet is full of horror stories about amateur game dev teams falling apart. Obviously we haven't, and the one thing that worked was just picking the person I liked the most (Nick), someone I could gel with. Without friendship and ease of communication, we would've never made it. Anything else can be learnt. The next hurdle was finding a 3D artist who would also work for free. Fortunately my wife saw what Nick and I were doing and thought it looked interesting. So she went and learnt Blender (a free modelling program) and taught herself 3D art, just like that. That was lucky. Afterwards I contacted an old guildmate from World of Warcraft who made music in his spare time and asked if he’d help us with the soundtrack, if I promised to pay him back later. Thankfully he said yes. It seemed we had all you needed to make a game: A designer/producer type person, a coder, a music guy, and an artist. And lots of spare time. What could go wrong? We foolishly pencilled in just 3 years dev time and set to work. We didn't realise it was goin...Version 1.0 Leaving Early AccessAug 9, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsGameplay Modifiers 85 Achievements Added New Building - Miner’s Shack New Building – Refinery New Reputation System Brand New In-Game Goals System Extended Goals Map Completion Progress The Leader’s Mansion can now be upgraded with electricity, letting your spouse(s) and children survive for longer Citizens no longer die when their morale is zero. They now pack up and leave town instead A new type of ruin (a burnt church) has been added on certain maps The “raiders are considering an attack” warning messages can now be disabled in the options Added a new message when a child becomes an adult worker Citizens now age up physically as they should, changing from children to elderly models Various menu/UI tweaks Various balance tweaks The AI navigation system has been upgraded, removing various oddities and bugs like citizens walking around the map Frame-rates have been improved greatly Fixed: A rare bug that could cause saving to freeze Fixed: Prison and Punishment Center was draining nearby morale far too quickly Fixed: A bug where the pause button didn’t behave correctly after pressing Escape to open and close the menu Fixed: The “would you like to save” message getting stuck on the screen if you were building at the time it popped up Fixed: Certain the hidden skeletons having incorrect text Fixed: A rare pathfinding issue that could cause citizens to stop moving for a while Fixed: A typo with the extended goals. The text now correctly shows 60% for the needs goal Fixed: Stats screen was not adding citizens who had come to the town because you encouraged a certain law Fixed: Certain status effects on citizens were not lasting as long as they should Fixed: An issue with the news feed where it played the "migrants with encouraged issues" more than it should if you encouraged multiple issues Tweaked: Certain social issues are now make less impact on the birth rate. This will however increase the odds of people having abortions (more pregnant people = higher possible abortion rate) Tweaked: The camera can be zoomed out further on the Summit map Tweaked: Reduced the chance for migrants with encouraged issues to occur, as it was happening a lot at maximum migration speed Tweaked: Increased the chance people will give birth in big, established towns Last Sale Before Leaving Early AccessJun 24, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsTo keep people updated, the final, finished version of Atomic Society is currently on the beta branch (you can play it now if you have the game). We're almost ready to do the final release and leave beta, but we’re going to wait for the summer sale to end first. It’s not ideal to do a big final release during a sale when people are distracted by so many other games so we better wait. Thanks to existing players who have tested the beta so far. We’ve got a couple of fixes for it coming up but nothing too serious. It all seems pretty solid so far. If you try the beta, your progress should roll over when we do the final release in 2-3 weeks. And welcome to any new players who check us during the summer sale! To Access The Beta... 1. Right click Atomic Society in your steam library and select properties. 2. Select the betas option on the left. Then choose the beta branch from the dropdown menu. 3. Close the window and in your library Atomic Society will automatically update to the beta (if it doesn't restart Steam). It should say version 1.0.0.0 when you start the game. I'll let you know as soon as we're ready to do the big final release. Enjoy the sale in the meantime.Final Early Access Version - Now On The Beta Branch!Jun 8, 2021 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/06c6ac36d9ab3d8fb3fa9707460ad6f90cd6ff7e.jpg Update 10 - Now On The Beta Branch After months of work the final content update to Atomic Society is now available to try on the beta branch for those who want to give it a road-test. This last major update is probably our biggest yet and contains new buildings, more than doubles the length of the game, and has as many player suggestions we could handle. As soon as the beta is over, Atomic Society will be ready to leave Early Access at last. The end is nigh! Then What? Atomic Society has been a labour of love from start to finish. It started 6 years ago as a hobby project which magically found a small yet loyal audience, even though I have no interest in marketing. We created it by working day jobs to pay for things and developed in the evenings & weekends (at home), all while dealing with those serious heath and personal issues that life loves to chuck your way. There's been a few times I've wanted to give up and walk away to be honest, but we hobbled on, and for the first time the game feels truly "finished", or as finished as any creative thing ever does (maybe I should move that tree 3 feet to the left...) It's just as well as the game engine we've been using hasn't been updated since 2017 (because updating would break everything) and it's starting to catch fire, so after a week or two of the beta, we’ll flip that scary button and leave Early Access after 10 big patches, countless new features, 2.5 years in Early Access, and a heap of learning. Of course we’ll continue to fix bugs, look into translations and make minor tweaks if necessary. I'll also write more about the process when I've had a chance to recover. We've definitely had a small but dedicated bunch of players over the Early Access years, so thanks to everybody who made it all worthwhile and took a gamble on ultra-indie games like this. I'm not saying Atomic Society is the best game evar!11!, but we're very proud of it, and it wouldn't exist without you. Hope you enjoy the new content. To Access The Beta... 1. Right click Atomic Society in your steam library and select properties. 2. Select the betas option on the left. Then choose the beta branch from the dropdown menu. 3. Close the window and in your library Atomic Society will automatically update to the beta (if it doesn't restart Steam). It should say version 1.0.0.0 when you start the game. Patch Notes Warning: Update 10 brings so many changes to the game that it makes any existing save games incompatible, so please don’t try the beta unless you want to start over. Achievements WILL carry over from the beta to full release however. Gameplay Modifiers: 18 game-changing modifiers have been added to the game, creating new challenges, goals and perks (see below). 6 modifiers are unlocked each time you beat the game until you’ve got them all. These mods essentially give the game levels or stages, and should test any veteran of the game (but some of them are ...Dev Blog #41: Nearly Done With Early AccessFeb 11, 2021 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/906c4d07776e6f85fd1343de8fdb91f2b604fbf0.jpg Here’s how the final version of Atomic Society is coming along before we leave Early Access. Christmas came and went with a few (more) personal tragedies which slowed us down unfortunately. It's been a rough winter, and being such a small team if one person can’t work, we have to limp on without them. But we're back together now, and started the New Year determined to get this project over the finishing line. Rather than breaking up the next version, we’ve decided to squeeze everything into one update before we leave Early Access! Next Version Is Everything The next big update is the last, but we’ll keep supporting the game afterwards with translations (when we can afford them), and by fixing bugs. However, content-wise, I think we’re done after 2 and a half years on Steam and 6 years of part-time development in total. Looking at how the game is ending up, I think we (like most devs) have been able to do about 70% of what we actually envisioned years ago. But sometimes you just need to say goodbye to a project and move on, and our time is nearly here. I’d always wondered when Atomic Society would be “done”, as this was our first ever attempt at making a game, and nobody on the team had any past experience to rely on. It turns out we’re done when we can’t go on any more, physically, mentally, financially or creatively. It's the old saying that "at work is art is never finished, only abandoned." But I’m still extremely proud of what we’ve achieved, or will be when I have time to reflect. Despite having no money and no clue, we actually made a pretty complex game that thousands of people have enjoyed, and that’s not a bad achievement. Next Version Content Here’s a look at the patch notes for the next update so you can see what we’ve squeezed into it. Unlockable Gameplay Modifiers. Now when you beat the goals on a map (which have also been improved) you will gradually unlock 18 gameplay changing modifiers. Some are beneficial, letting you cheat at the game, and others bring brand new challenges for replays, like radiation, trading a number of resources, or setting a number of laws in a specific way. The most complicated mod involves you building multiple town outposts on the same map and juggling 4 mini-towns instead of one central town. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/cceecfccebb1a1f1059a2d358f08284d38600e43.jpg New Improved Goals System. We’ve completely remade the goals, and they now appear on the screen like a list of objectives. They will now guide you through 4 stages or chapters of the game, so you always have an target to reach for. We’ve also mixed up the goals and added in brand new ones to keep things fresh. Extended Goals. After beating the normal goals mentioned above, committed players can now try extended bonus goals that require you to make a gigantic settlement that is completely perfect. These “master” goals effectively double the size of the average town and shoul...Dev Blog 40: Biggest Update Yet ProgressNov 26, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsHere's a little update on how we're doing with Update 10, which is probably the most content we've added to the game in one go. As I revealed in the last blog, this next update already includes 1) new mining and ore processing structures, 2) a brand new reputation system for migration that keeps the challenge going and lets you make bigger towns (see the new bar on the needs menu, in the pic below), 3) a completely new goals system - including some new goals - 4) and numerous tweaks and fixes. But over the past month, we've been working predominately on the version's biggest feature… {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/65599b193dd510f79b922a1c654634ac00db0de0.jpg Gameplay Modifiers In update 10, each time you beat a map by completing all the goals you'll unlock several new gameplay changing modifiers that can add replay value and extra challenge on future play-throughs, a bit like a mini campaign. We’ve made 18 mods in all, some which add new challenges and goals, and others which are basically "cheats" for those who just want to make a big town. It's up to you what to enable or disable. Here’s the full list (90% of these are finished): Challenge Mods: Bad Behaviour: Citizens are far more likely to commit social issues, making your town more chaotic. Bartertown: A new goal to trade a set number of resources in each stage before you can proceed. Storehouse Rats: Food and drink resources will begin to decay if you have too many in stock, making stockpiling tricky. Wanderer: Begin without any engineers or citizens, making the start somewhat harder. Slow Learner: Doubles the amount of time it takes to research new buildings, forcing you to plan ahead even further. Radiation Sickness: Radiation as an effect that can periodically cull a random percentage of your town, forcing you to adapt to an unexpected loss of people. This one is for expert players only. Tyrant: A new goal to set at least half your laws to flogging or execution. Progressive: Same as above, but you must encourage at least half the laws. Plague Outbreaks: Enable this and occasionally everybody in your entire town will catch the plague at once. Multiple Towns: A big new goal that requires you to build at least 3 small town outposts rather than just having one big town and manage them all together. Misery: Increases the rate which morale drains, making this need far more threatening than before (and people now also leave town when their morale runs out, rather than dying!) Cowboy Builders: Construction times will take much, much longer meaning you have to plan ahead again. Positive Modifiers: Resource Packages: Periodically spawn a bundle of essential resources in the storehouse. Bounty: Food and drink production buildings produce twice as much with this turned on. Reinforcements: Periodically spawn a group of citizens instantly, rather than waiting. Full Refunds: This will instantly give you back the resources you consumed making a new building. It should make perfecting your layout easier. As...Dev Blog #39: The End Is In SightOct 7, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/ba52519fda8a83e38a598ffc4b656c3f72589a68.jpg After a frantic summer trying to resurrect our little game dev business following a difficult start to the year, things quietened down while we focused on making one of the biggest updates so far. If all goes well, this next update could bring us to the end of our Early Access journey, if we manage to get it all done in a single update (if not, we'll break into two parts). Things are going reasonably well so far, given that it's been little more than 6 weeks since our last update. We haven't hit any big problems yet, as we did with the dreaded path system, and the business and teamwork tweaks we made (focusing on complaints, giving each other daily progress updates, etc) made working part-time from home around day jobs more productive, which is just as well, as lockdowns mean we can't get together as a team any more even to say hello. The core focus of the upcoming version will be addressing the last major complaint some people still have: that Atomic Society is too short and could use more depth. If our new ideas pan out, the upcoming changes should add a lot more value and interest, at least for those already enjoying the game. Here's what we've been working on so far (note: screenshots are from a work in progress dev version, so excuse any weirdness)… {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/692572329ee647058048c526c6d67840ea55acc0.jpg New Goals System In the top right of the above pic you should see the new goals tracker. For the next update, we've redone and expanded the goals aspect completely, making it more addictive and interesting. Goals are now pinned to the screen (you can minimise them) and divided up into stages or tiers. Each time you complete a stage you get a large wave of migrants to deal with. Each goal stage is different and bigger than the last, and some stages have unique goals. We've also added in some new goals to spice things up a bit. This should also make the game easier to learn. On top of that, we've also added new "extended goals" for hardcore players and those who really want to make a big settlement. You can activate these when you beat a map, and the reward will probably be an achievement (as we don't want to force players to go for them). At the moment an extended goal involves going for 800 citizens, double the current amount, among several other tasks. New Town Reputation System In the bottom left of the above pic, you may also notice a new vertical progress bar (ignore how it looks, we're trying out different styles). One of the problems I've been trying to solve is the old survival game problem of the game getting easier rather than harder as you craft stuff and get stronger. To help with this in Atomic Society we've added a new reputation feature. From now on, as your population grows, your town becomes more attractive, and migrants will start coming faster (there's levels of intensity) rather than migration being random, as it is now. On top of th...Update 9 now out fully on the main branchAug 24, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsUpdate 9 is now available on the main branch for all players to check out, featuring many small fixes and tweaks and general polish in order to keep the game as stable as possible before we carry on adding new content. We didn't receive any serious bug reports from players during the beta week (thanks to everybody who tried it out) so hopefully everything is running smoothly! But if you find anything, do let us know in the forum and we'll investigate. Coming Next Thanks to our dramatic summer (see previous dev blogs) we now have a little more financial breathing space and focus (and common sense!) to try and get this game to a place where we can be as proud of it as possible before we go broke. We're going to do all we can to give players what they generally want from Atomic Society, as best we can working day-jobs and with our tiny budget. We're now at the early planning stages for Update 10, which is going to be a big one, and will be our attempt to solve the last player complaint with the game, that it runs out of steam a bit (no pun intended), by adding more depth and more unique gameplay events and objectives. There will be new buildings coming and we're going to try and add some form of "campaign" in order to make replaying the game feel more compelling and rewarding. If all goes well, this might get us to "1.0" status, but we'll see. I'll have a lot more to say about this in the next dev blog. Hopefully we've learnt a few things about game development and won't get stuck in development hell as we did last winter, but as I always say, we'll get there in the end. Thanks to everybody for trying out the update and supplying feedback. We really appreciate it. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/35e4501a92ef9abbdd2eb60c18d7022587d38e29.jpg Update 9 Patch Notes (Final) Note: This version is compatible with existing save games. You shouldn't lose anything by downloading it. Bug Fixes We have tried to clean up as many bugs as possible in this version. Thanks to everybody who told us about a bug. There's no way we would've found all these on our own... Fixed: The Trader taking but not giving goods if your storehouse was full. Fixed: The murders in the last 30 days statistic becoming inaccurate after a while. Fixed: A bug where the UI option to salvage scrap mounds would not appear if you destroyed multiple buildings. Fixed: A rare bug where the UI could break after starting a custom game with a unique number of adults. Fixed: Inconsistent speeds when builders/engineers were helping the Town Leader construct something. Sometimes it would be too fast, sometimes too slow. Fixed: Disabled the ability to save and load when Raiders were making a demand, which allowed players to bypass the Raiders entirely! Fixed: A bug where the Raiders would forget to come at all if you saved and loaded at a certain point. Fixed: A bug where the timer on the belief menu appeared glitched after the time was up. Fixed: The belief menu now updates without you having to close and re...Update 9 on the beta branch / full patch notesAug 13, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsA new polish and bug-fixing update has just been released on the beta branch for players to try. This goal for this version was to tackle as many little complaints players had by going through bad reviews and forum threads, etc. We drew up a big list and went through as many as we possibly could. I'm kind of surprised how straightforward it's been. Making this game isn't usually this focused and efficient... (something must be about go wrong)! We’ve sorted some issues that had been hanging around for ages. My hope is this puts the game in a nicely semi-polished state for anybody checking it out on Early Access. This is more an update for brand new players than older ones, but we've got things in store for long-term supporters too... (Scroll down for full patch notes) To access the beta branch and the new update, here's all you need to do: Right click Atomic Society in your steam library and select properties. Select the betas tab and from the drop down menu select "beta - Public beta branch". You do not need to enter a code for this public beta. Just close the window and in your library Atomic Society will automatically update to the beta version (if it doesn't restart Steam). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/c45b403890552f4a6c6add6dec65d3772213a722.jpg This version IS save compatible. You won't lose anything hopefully. :) You can now play the Atomic Society Beta (or switch back to the main version anytime). You'll know you're on the new update if the version says 0.1.9.0 on the title screen. Do let us know on the forum, or in comments, or anywhere if you find any issues with the beta (that's why we're running it). The Next Big Challenge... Anybody who read the last dev blog will know what a whirlwind this summer has been. For months of stress, indecision and drudgery on a feature that was going nowhere, to a complete 180 and new focus as a first-time team trying to work out how the heck to make a game that pays the bills with tips from more experienced developers. Making your first ever game (with a day job to get by) is nothing if not educational. Shortly after writing that blog, thanks to players supporting indie teams, we were able to boost our review score just enough to get it over the dreaded "mostly positive" 70% line where we now dangle with a sigh of relief. It's been amazing and it helped us finanically, just as we hoped it would. We're still technically spending more than we're earning making this game, but the little sales boost has bought us enough time to go for broke and tackle the last remaining (fixable) complaint about Atomic Society... Making the game longer. It seems players generally like the game, they just wish there was a bit more of it. We know about all about this one but have so far focused on just getting the core of the game to be fun enough. Now we'll do what we can to expand the length. The downside is this won't be a bunch of quick fixes like this patch was. I’ll write more about the inevitable highs and low and proble...Dev Blog #38: A New HopeJul 21, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/62bbdcd0b31eab520d94d7d4425f853f5124facc.jpg What a roller coaster of emotion it's been since my last dev blog. At the very end of May I outlined all the difficulties we were having with Atomic Society. Should we put aside almost six months of work on the path/road system? The feature was way over-schedule but was close to being done. Well, things have changed a lot since then. This dev blog will cover everything. Honesty Works Firstly, some might think that my last dev blog, a 3000 word diary saying "we’re really struggling" wouldn't go down well on Steam, but it did. A lot of people read the whole thing. Lesson learnt: Bad news is better than no news! Early Access players don't seem to mind if you're having development problems as long as you explain them honestly. And these dev blogs are more important than I realized. Thanks to everyone for the support. Holding Out For A Hero But writing didn't fix my problems. I was still in the same situation, still stuck with an almost finished feature that was causing us to be massively behind schedule, and uncertain if it would make a difference even if we could finish it in time. Then the man behind successful indie game Judgment: Apocalypse Survival read my blog and contacted me out of the blue. As I mentioned, one problem I had was not knowing any other indie developers. We make Atomic Society from home in our spare-time, and live in a small town. Everything we did making Atomic Society felt like one long guessing game. Fortunately Tomer Barkan (the maker of Judgment) said I could ask him anything. And I certainly did! In fact, I sent him 5 years worth of pent-up queries and questions about making indie games. If something was worrying me, I turned it into a question. To my surprise, he replied with detailed answers almost immediately. It was the best business chat I've ever had. Here was a person who’s been down the road we’re walking on, and made a success of it. He knows how to run a good business - and that's required to make good games. Everything he was saying was causing light-bulbs to go off in my brain. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/2b56432f5868d61ce1fb8c0470055971506e798c.jpg The Main Lesson The number 1 thing I learnt from him was to stop guessing what features to add to the game and start focusing on our Steam review score. Use that as the guide rather than just guessing what to add. Listen to what players are unhappy about and start fixing their complaints before you get around addressing their requests. I hadn’t really understood this distinction before. In fact, I was completely ignoring bad reviews. "If they don't like it, the game's not for them" I used to think. But bad reviews drag down the game’s overall review score on Steam. This drastically decreases sales, especially if the game goes below 70%. And the lower it goes, the lower team morale goes, for all our hard work adding content seemed to be having a negative impact (because we weren't addressing spe...Update 8 Now Out On Main BranchJun 24, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsFollowing a successful week on the beta branch, Update 8 is now available on the main branch for all players to enjoy. As mentioned, this update bring the new Leader’s family system, for you to take on the challenge of having a spouse and heir, many vital bug fixes, and a lot of smaller improvements. Patch notes are repeated below. Thanks to everybody who took the time to try the game during the beta. We’re hopeful we’ve caught all the serious bugs, but we’ll continue to monitor bug reports and forum feedback of course. New Development Roadmap Our old feature roadmap was a bit out of date and I’ve now updated it to show what our core focus is for finishing Atomic Society: You can read it here, on the discussion forum. Comments, ideas and suggestions are welcome as always. We’re really trying to shape the core of Atomic Society around what players do and don’t enjoy (as best we can with our tiny team and day jobs) so the more we get the better! Thanks for helping to make the game better. Coming Next Work has already started on Update 9 with new little improvements already being added. The main goal of this update is polish and stability before we carry on adding major new content to make sure everything is working as intended. The good news is this means it shouldn’t take so long to get out (by our standards) as there isn’t any scary epic new feature for us to tear our (remaining) hair out over! I promise to keep in touch with dev blogs even if the blog is just me basically saying “everything is on fire” as one thing I learnt from my last blog is that players just want to know what’s going on, even if things aren’t going well, that's part of the Early Access journey. However we've really changed a lot about how we work this summer, so I'm hoping we can get better updates out faster. That's the plan. Update 8 - Family - Patch Notes (Final) New Content and Improvements: New Feature – Leader’s Mansion & Family After your town has survived 3 years, your people will award you the Leader’s Mansion structure. Building this impressive new structure lets you tackle a new goal – to have a life partner and pass on your unique genetic code to an heir. After choosing who to be with, you can see your spouse (you have up to 3 if that suits you) getting up to mischief in town as you play, and worry about whether or not your children will survive (or be murderers – family members can commit the same traits as ordinary citizens). You can choose to make your family immune from arrest, or let them be locked up like regular criminals but this makes people harder to convert. Laws you set will impact who you can be with in the first place. The Scavenger’s Hut now passively harvests lumber from any nearby trees at a slow rate. This change makes the placement of the Scavenger’s Hut a lot more strategic. You must now consider how close it is to ruins while trying to get the most from any nearby trees. This change also means forest maps play differently to desert and snow m...Update 8 on the beta branch / full patch notesJun 18, 2020 - Community AnnouncementsUpdate 8 for Atomic Society is now available to try on the beta branch, featuring the new family system! The family system unlocks at year 3. Citizens will award you the new post apocalyptic mansion structure to dominate the skyline of your settlement. Once constructed, it lets you tackle the new challenge of finding a life partner (or three) and raising an heir as your town expands. Survival and setting laws suddenly seem more impactful when they can have serious consequences for your loved ones. Spouses and kids can and will commit the same social issues as anybody else, which also creates some very darkly amusing stories of life in a post apocalyptic town (don't exile your wife). Apart from a new building and goal, and changes to scavenging that improve map differences, this version also comes with many bug fixes for all the serious issues players have told us about. Thanks to everyone who took the time to let us know about a bug, we couldn’t have found them all on our own. To access the beta branch and the new update, here's all you need to do. Right click Atomic Society in your steam library and select properties. Select the betas tab and from the drop down menu select "beta - Public beta branch". You do not need to enter a code for this public beta. Just close the window and in your library Atomic Society will automatically update to the beta version. You can now play the Atomic Society Beta (or switch back to the main version anytime)! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/c45b403890552f4a6c6add6dec65d3772213a722.jpg Please do let us know if you discover anything serious or have feedback. We're running a beta to be safe and we may be able to tweak it in the coming week. We've tried to catch everything but being just 3 people it's hard to say for certain. We'll update the main branch of the game as soon as everything looks solid. (And it sure does feel good to have an update out again…) {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/b3aab0188cc608421a62084bb3e1d788b444b6ab.jpg Update 8 - Family - Patch Notes (Beta) All the features are now available on the beta branch. New Content and Improvements: New Feature – Leader’s Mansion & Family After your town has survived 3 years, your people will award you the Leader’s Mansion structure. Building this impressive new structure lets you tackle a new goal – to have a life partner and pass on your unique genetic code to an heir. After choosing who to be with, you can see your spouse (you have up to 3 if that suits you) getting up to mischief in town as you play, and worry about whether or not your children will survive (or be murderers – family members can commit the same traits as ordinary citizens). You can choose to make your family immune from arrest, or let them be locked up like regular criminals but this makes people harder to convert. Laws you set will impact who you can be with in the first place. The Scavenger’s Hut now passively harvests lumber from any nearby trees at a slow rate. This change makes the placement of ...Dev Blog #37: Difficulties ExplainedMay 30, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/c4b46d050b719d8f040b4ace658e72164125cfce.jpg Hi everyone. I know the new version isn't ready yet but I thought I'd post a new update to keep everyone informed on what's happening. Hopefully the version won't be delayed much longer! Warning: This is going to be a long one... Update on the Delay Firstly, I'm sorry the new update still isn't ready. I had high hopes it would've been finished weeks ago and this delay is really frustrating. Nobody wants to see progress on the game more than the people making it, especially when the company is bleeding cash. This is not a conscious choice to sabotage our own success by working slowly. Instead, the delay is the usual nasty problem of us trying to add something cool to the game that players wanted, and which seemed pretty straightforward to code - a naturally forming path system under the feet of your citizens - only to find out it's a complete horror show to implement as we reached the halfway stage. But by that point, we'd spent so much work (and money) on the feature we didn't want to give up. We knew there would be a way to finish it, if only we kept banging away at the problem. And suddenly 6 months went by. Days can be a blur when you spend them staring at a computer screen. The reason this feature has been such a pain to add is because it connects to the AI navigation system, which is probably the most complex aspect of the game, and has given us numerous headaches in the past. Until this version we told our citizens to pick off-road routes, and they did so by calculating a line across the terrain and adapting on the fly as necessary. Now we want them to (sometimes) ignore that system and pick paths that another citizen formed, a path that possibly didn't exist 5 minutes ago. But not always. Sometimes following a long path doesn't make sense when you could just cut across a field, so we needed to add in decision making factors and give each route a "cost" which the citizen weighs up. And such tricky navigation issues come after all the graphical issues we've already (mostly) solved. For example, paths that form themselves underfoot also need to automatically form good looking intersections that still look good as more and more paths connect to them. And they need to look good on flat and mountainous terrain, and in snow, forest or desert biomes. Oh, and sometimes the player will want to slap down a huge building right in the middle of that complicated intersection just as 10 citizens were approaching it with urgent deliveries while being chased by enforcers. And all this has to work flawlessly. It hasn't been easy, and solving all these problems is the job of just one man, our main coder Nick, a guy making his first ever game (like the rest of us) and who’s working alone at home with no one to support or advise him on the technical issues. Don't get me wrong, I think Nick is a genius-level coder, and building something like AS as your first game is amazing. I can give...Dev Blog #36: Development ProgressMar 21, 2020 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/fd7f20853b843c85207687aa1194be25481e78d4.jpg It’s been a little while since I checked in, but progress is going nicely on the next update. Here’s some of the things we’ve been working on lately… Paths The next version of Atomic Society will feature paths at long last! We’re using an auto-pathing system that organically creates trails where the citizens walk most frequently, similar to other games. We're just ironing out the last technical tricks to it at the moment. One challenge has been making it play nicely with the scenery, which changes as you place buildings and likes to mess up the paths, but we're figuring it out bit by bit. The screenshot below is just a work in a progress shot (textures will change), but it definitely makes the settlements feel more like actual lived-in places. There will be a small speed bonus for citizens using a path, and trails will fade away if citizens stop using them. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/6daf0e93b495a7362e71fbf867cf615456153f4c.jpg Leader Family System The other big new feature we've been working on over the past couple of weeks is the Leader's House, a new building that will be awarded to player's after a certain period of time, if their town lasts that long. The Leader's House, aside from giving you a "trophy" building, also allows you to raise a family and pick 1-3 spouses (depending on your preference). Same-sex spouses will be allowed if you've legalised homosexuality. This is mostly just for fun, but it also adds a goal to the game, and creates fun stories as you see your spouse and/or children getting up to all kinds of bad behaviour around town, and meeting with cruel fates. We may expand its functions later. You can obviously procreate and raise a brood of kids, and you can choose whether or not your spouse(s) should work. You can even choose to make your family immune to prosecution, but this will make it harder to convert citizens as they'll see you as being hypocritical. This features is almost finished now, and we're just at the final testing phase. The UI elements you can see in the picture below are still placeholder elements at the moment. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/0ae08ff7bc38f80c96f3a49433a9a77bf91e4379.png Other Upcoming Changes Apart from these two big features (which have taken up most of our time so far) we're also continuing to monitor the bug situation, so thanks to anybody who's contacted me with a bug report lately. We investigate all the serious ones, if we can reproduce at our end. We're also continuing to make little tweaks to the UI and other parts of the game, as needed. There could be another morale-related building in the works as well, but we'll see how time goes as we want to get this update out as soon as possible. All being well, and that's a big "if" these days, I'm hoping the next version should be ready by early May. Slow But Steady It should be no surprise to anybody who's been following our game that the big updates can take us a quit...Version 0.1.7.0 – Courthouses, Prostitutes, Patriots, Cooking & MoreDec 24, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsThat's not the title of my autobiography, but another update for Atomic Society, featuring some new social issues, some new buildings, and a lot of polish and fixes. Thanks for your patience with us as we continue to take this game to the finish line. We hope you enjoy the latest features. More improvements are already in the works… Version 0.1.7.0 Patch Notes Note: Due to some big changes to the game’s code, this update will not be compatible with existing save games. You’ll need to start a new settlement once the update has been downloaded. New Content • New Social Issue added - Prostitution: Citizens may now act as prostitutes and take time off work to service clients at the nearest tavern (if available). This provides a shelter bonus to the client and prostitute, but decreases work productivity and it isn’t always safe being a prostitute in the post-apocalyptic world… • New Social Issue added – Patriotism: Certain citizens now feel very patriotic about your fledgling new town and want others to feel as they do. They will periodically attempt to “convert” others so that they feel patriotic too. If successful, their target will join the town’s belief system and gain some morale. If not, the target will be offended and leave town. You can decide how to handle the patriots, • New building added - Courthouse. You can now improve the justice system of your town by researching and building a Courthouse. The new Courthouse is used to prevent negative side-effects such as innocent people being executed, etc. You’ll need 3 of them if you want to block everything. • New building added - Canteen. Citizens can now cook their food and boil their water at the new Canteen structure. Once researched, the Canteen acts as a communal kitchen for the town. It must be built within walking distance of a storehouse. This building will improve the food/drink so it provides more sustenance. But this building does need a regular supply of wood to keep the stoves burning so you’ll have to handle that. • 2 new decorative buildings added. You can now add even more post-apocalyptic style to your shanty town with the new “gazebo” decorative building and the stylish new “tyre tree”. It almost feels like paradise… • New pathfinding (navigation) system added: Last but not least among the major changes (and one of the reasons why this update has taken so long), is the new pathfinding system we have added to the game, replacing an older/buggier one. This new system should cut out a lot of quirks/bugs and make people choose more sensible routes in general. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/6b4deec7de445d4f988d90fa3d3c92d4e54ee8c9.jpg {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/abe901735e185377ea3f4d3ead5c3b3907ef1df0.jpg Other Changes: • The game now gives you a reminder to save every year. This message can be disabled in the interface options. • Builders now have a max range radius and won’t construct anything that is too far away from their workplace. This will help players who like to build several...Dev Blog #35: New Content ProgressOct 28, 2019 - Community Announcements{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/acdf3c2b80dda085e729dde4b5a5e00a46a13217.jpg Here’s a look at what we’ve been working on for the next big update. Apologies it’s been a little quiet around here since we released the last patch. We’ve just been quietly working away on the new version and not paying much attention to the outside world or social media, but everything is going pretty well (if slowly) on the team. I’m always around on our Discord server if you want to ask me something about the game or development, or you can email us if you have any problems/questions. New Buildings In the Works At the moment we're working on more new buildings to add to your towns. Nani (artist) has made models for the new Courthouse and Canteen structures while Adam (coder) makes them work. The new Courthouse structure will let you deal with the negative side-effects of setting laws (like innocent people being educated) and the Canteen is a building that can improve the quality of the food and drink your settlement produces. It needs supplies of lumber to keep the stoves burning. The Canteen and Courthouse have been on the to-do list of potential buildings to add for years, so I’m glad to finally see them in the game. We’re also working on a building to upgrade your morale structures. It was a little challenging trying to think of a single building that can upgrade a theatre, a tavern and a chapel, but in the end we've gone for a Brewhouse type building where homemade “wine” can be made and then delivered to these structures so they work more effectively (I’ll word the text so you can imagine it’s non-alcoholic if your town's religion doesn’t allow booze!) I don’t think any of these buildings are particularly drop-dead exciting, but they do add a bit of extra depth and some end-game structures to think about. The goal is for everything to have a way to be upgraded. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/27205314/c0c3a25ef442bb5352366de55f49acdd7f351231.jpg New Social Issues We're overdue to add some new social issues so we intend to add at least a couple more to the next update. Social issues are probably the most fun thing to design for me. It’s more interesting working out how a citizen should morally behave than how a well makes water, for example. We have 3 new social issues in the works at the moment: prostitution, capitalism and patriotism. I won’t go into too much depth about how these actually affect your town yet (as the coding hasn’t started), but citizens will eventually be engaging in those 3 activities and you can encourage or discourage them in the usual manner. Achievements Steam achievements should be coming to the next update too. None of us have ever made a game before, so we had to do some homework on how these work first, but we've got them up and running now. It turns out to be pretty simple, when you know what you’re doing, it’s just a bit tedious inserting all the triggers for them. We have a long list of achievement ideas going right back to the start of the project...Version 1.0.1.6 Released!Aug 27, 2019 - Community AnnouncementsThe next big content update to Atomic Society has now been released, adding new features like a barter and trade system, research, building upgrades and a wind turbine, and a lot of fixes and general polish, including a brand new camera system. Full details can be found below in the patch notes. I’ll post a (much needed) dev blog soon when the dust has settled. We’re already preparing for another big update after this one. https://i.imgur.com/RyfdL9I.jpg Note: Due to the large changes in this version won't be compatible with existing save games. Players will need to make a new settlement. Latest Features: • Barter/Trade Feature Added. You can now build a new trade shack building to get rid of supplies you have too many of, or to find items you need without salvaging. Trade is done via a barter system so it’s down to you to work out the best price. Don't necessarily trust the trader's first offer! • Wind Turbine Building Added. The wind turbine has been added. The wind turbine is expensive to make but will produce charged batteries that can be used to upgrade various buildings around your town. • Research Centre Added. Several buildings in the game now need to be researched before you can construct them. This requires you to build the new Research Centre and unlock buildings via its menu. This adds an extra level of strategy as you go about expanding your town. • Structure Upgrades Feature Added. Players can now decide to upgrade buildings with electricity to improve their functionality by spending charged batteries. There are various types of upgrade to get, and it’s up to you what buildings should be upgraded first. The game has been rebalanced to make upgrading feel important. https://i.imgur.com/tPMrKaQ.png • Night Lighting Feature Added. When you upgrade a building with electricity, it switches on a light, allowing you bit by bit to visually restore electricity to your wasteland settlement. Is a cosmetic feature that lets your town really stand out at night. • Camera System Completely Redone. We have completely rebuilt the game’s camera, making it smoother and easier to control. We have fixed all bugs relating to the camera getting stuck in scenery and it now automatically adjusts if something obscures your view. A range of camera sensitivity options have been added and you can now scroll the camera by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. • Cloud Saving Feature Added. The game now uses Steam’s built-in cloud saving feature so your towns will travel with you Bug Fixes/Gameplay Tweaks: • The population goal has now been increased to 400 due to the extra content expanding the game. • Fixed a bug where sometimes you could not destroy the Punishment Centre manually. • Fixed some framerate issues on the title screen and when saving that might speed up save times for some people. • Fixed an issue where if you changed your scavenger loot focus while the leader was inside looking for something, they could get stuck. • Fixed a bug where the Town...
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