State of the project + Mod Tool release

Hi,

For tension-building reasons, I'll quickly showcase the brand-new Mod Tool before discussing Hardware Tycoon.

Mod Tool

The app was remade from the ground up, moving away from Construct 2. It's now less bloated while providing a significantly better user experience (no more clunky sliders!). Moreover, it makes modding easier by adding these features:

• R&D Preview to conveniently visualize your mod in the game,
• Sorting by package stats,
• Searching through your packages,
• More helpful tooltips,
• Generally streamlining the experience and squashing some bugs

You can download it on the project's itch.io page.
The app works best on Windows and I don't have the resources to test it on macOS - any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

The reason this tool exists is to test the waters with a new environment which I plan on using for future games. It was a neat and hopefully useful side project.

What happened to Hardware Tycoon?

I am aware that it's been two years since the last update and I said I would go until at least version 0.3.
What went wrong then?

There's the usual not having as much time as before, connected to running out of youthful motivation for this little passion project of mine. That's amplified by using a somewhat out-of-date tool that's been retired a couple of years ago. I simply don't enjoy feeling as if I'm wasting my time struggling to work around a very simple problem that's a non-issue in "real" work environments, which, if learned could actually land me a job. Seriously, the time I spent on making simple scrollbars work...
Staying on the topic, the project is nearly 8 years old at this point. I've never expected its scope to grow this much, Hardware Tycoon was always intended to be a free and simple web game, yet the features just kept creeping. And so, after all that the project is somewhat messy, having had to reimagine or stick new features on top a dozen times. Most projects can turn into infinite time sinks (a huge issue with indie games in general) and looking back to the early versions we've really come far - much farther than ever planned.

So why not get help for the project?
I've had a fair amount of people asking to join the project for a long time now, but I never decided to take them up. The reasons have mostly stayed the same, partly coming from Construct 2 not working great with version control systems (not saying it can't be done! still much less efficient than traditional code) plus the project being nearly 8 years old and not pleasant to work with.
There's also the fact that I'm not the best team player, especially with internet strangers where language barriers are common. Throwing more people at a project can often just slow it down and we aren't talking about hired professionals but volunteers from all over. Obviously, the community has helped me tons over the years. As much as listening to people point out all the different issues with the game sucks, you can't make anything awesome with just one fixed point of view. So to all helpful members of the community - big thank you! 

TL;DR

• Less time and will
• Dissatisfaction with the game-making tool
• Want to move on to things with better job prospects and start from scratch
• Infinitely growing scope - more features than I've ever wanted

Yes, that means I'm not adding any more features.
I'll still provide basic support on our Discord server, web page, and e-mail.

Thank you all for being a part of this great journey and see you next time! This isn't the end