itch.io

Thank you. o, ,o
I'm thinking of adding more species later down the line. I already have a few done, and they are easy enough to put in.

^--^ Thank you, I might revisit the concept at some later point with more features.
It was fun test of my ability.

Based on this, it looks like one of the pawns just walked off the map and then tried to get back from a grid cell that didn't exist. I'll look into it, thank you. :P

I'll look into any issues or bugs listed here to make sure everything is working as intended.

The hunger not restoring is very possible as I worked on that just before exporting this build.

Materials gathered from plants are their proper names. Gossypium, for example, is the name of the "cotton plant". Linseed is the name of the plant that produces flax, which is spun into fibers that make Linen.

Same goes for the totem sacrifice. I think there might be an issue with how often the objective is checked. Reloading the game checks all objectives on game start, so that might have done it. I'll modify the sacrifice objective check in the next build.

Many of the objectives are not "reasonable" to complete. As some are balanced to late game when a player has 60-100 fully upgraded pawns. The demo does not make it possible to complete many of the objectives.

NPC bathroom need is not yet coded in, I've been doing one need at a time. It will be the next one.

Shouldn't be too difficult to add it as a control option, I'll look into it.

Of course, I just don't want to work on and release a game that doesn't meet my own quality expectations.

I closed the discord because it wasn't really being used.
The current project in development is 
https://soaringmoon.itch.io/cosmic-construct
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3471640/Cosmic_Construct/

I'll pick up development on this eventually. However, Kindborne Kin is a very large scope game.

I'll respect the moderator when they respect me.

If they have having staffing or response queue issues, that's not really my problem.

• You mean like the game you published less than a week ago?
• Yes, as explained in the post you said you've read
• Both things I've just explained are mentioned in the unofficial FAQ you said you've read.

When they open with a condescending know it all tone making assumptions without reading they don't deserve my respect.

Just because the forum gets inundated by a bunch of people with the same wearily often problem that it becomes irritating. Does not mean you take it out on the people bringing up that issue.

Posted here to represent people like you.
Crazy how this keeps happening. Clearly their "algo" is broken in some strange way.

For the information of everyone else here.

3 of the aforementioned games are now showing up in search results. (Yes, that quickly after complaining about it right?)

I was motivated to check after a sudden unexplainable spike in traffic.

Cosmic Construct is still not listed (which makes sense as it doesn't have a download available currently).

>speed things up for you

Okay thank you. But what about everyone else on the platform?

>The last one might have been queued up again due to the recent changes.

It... has... never... been... indexed.

https://soaringmoon.itch.io/cosmic-connect - Updated Jul 06, 2024

https://soaringmoon.itch.io/facetfinal - Updated Dec 11, 2024

https://soaringmoon.itch.io/nandroid-generator - Updated Oct 30, 2024

https://soaringmoon.itch.io/cosmic-construct - Updated 5 days ago

The last of which has a steam page. I uploaded a playtesting build for a gamejam which was removed after that playtest period.

> is intended for players to easily locate games they already know about

Here is the quote that tipped me off to this.

> cant find it when searching so it should be
>https://itch.io/search?q=Cosmic+Construct

Firstly, if it isn't a marketing tool, then nobody should trust it to have sales for their game or generate itch revenue. Probably not a good thing to tell anyone in the community here. Why would I not use itch's game directory if it doesn't sell video games?

Secondly. People only have been finding my games through a direct link to my creator page.
Searches for my titles don't include the 4 above games.

> You mean like the game you published less than a week ago?

Are you trying to be intentionally disingenuous?

The page you are referencing was published in October.

https://soaringmoon.itch.io/cosmic-construct/devlog
Interesting that I have been writing devlogs for 14 weeks for a game 1 week old.

What about the other 3 pages you intentionally ignored my concerns for?
Some of which were posted around a year ago?

These are not "newly published".

That is my question. I just learned that 4 of my 6 games have never been indexed.

I read the quarantine topic, which is vague and only explains basic alchemy of how to not get delisted. Most of which I feel I have done. 

There is a list of quality guidelines, which are not explained to any user at any part of the page creation process. Publishing a page before it's deemed "finished" by an arbitrary algorithm will prevent your games from being shown on itch.

Would I post youtube videos if they didn't appear on the suggested feed?

Would I use bluesky if my posts didn't appear in those hashtags?

I makes no sense at all to delist games on this platform, for really any reason that isn't a TOS violation or crime. I want this to make sense but it doesn't.

> One takeaway that I remembered from the stream is - some "goal" would be nice, not necessarily a conflict

The game has no "story" because I haven't written one yet. I have to make a working game first, then I'll work worldbuilding into it. The response is that the game is not finished.

>One complaint though - I would prefer to have a bit more granularity for the management. Like - if I set the guy to mine ore - maybe I can tell him to mine iron specifically?

Unfortunately no. There are quite a few gameplay balance reasons for this. I considered doing it already, but it would cause a lot of issues. The jobs are the way they are because later buildings automate production. Pawns won't be roaming the map. If a Mine exists, a pawn assigned to mine ore would go there. The objects obtained by mining at a Mine structure have a random drop table. It would be like going to a boss in an MMO and telling it what loot to drop for you.

>Speaking of lumber mill - I would really like to see the list of recipes that I can use, and I really want to be able to pick which recipe I'm gonna use. Also - the progress bar starts even if I don't have enough resources, which is not very optimal, I think.

The crafting system is Cosmic Construct is mostly built for the pawns. The pawns really are doing the exact same thing the player is. They can't craft everything, and the player doesn't know everything. Currently, by design. I am going to include a recipe list, it will not be listed in one large chart for the player. I feel that would be overdesigning a simple merge mechanic. Instead I will be including it in the new objective system (which will require the player to make or acquire one of every item in the game during gameplay). I will make something that shows the player what object will be crafted when interacting with a device, and then autocraft the inventory.

(Also pawns can have their upcycle crafting toggle turned on, which expands what they craft into more complex recipes.)

I could also add a "less handholdy" version of game as an extra gamemode.

Still don't know how the to make the progression system "feel" right. Thought about just opening it to a large tree feed the beast style. Where completing any 10 objectives in any order would award a totem level. Let me know what you think about that.

You can craft anything you have the structures and materials for. A player for example can craft linseed oil from nearly the beginning of the game.

1.) Trees regenerate at a rate of 1 per 5 seconds, and can appear in any blank tile. Including within the base. Clearing trees on the edge of the map will make the appear at the center more often. (I also plan to add the ability to move trees.)

2.) That was requested by a few other people. I will add it.

3.) Pawns never leave chests open when leaving. If a chest is in use, it is by a distant pawn approaching the chests.

Thank you. It will be a whole different game 6 months from now. ^--^; Once all of the pawns actually have social interactions in.

Thank you. Yeah, the art style does take some time getting used to. Hopefully I can do things to iterate on making it more visually clear. Obviously this is experimental, and there isn't much I can use from previous work to learn from. Maybe Moonring would be the closest.

> Past a certain point the game kind of turns into an idle game where there is nothing interesting you can do outside of your base

Well, the game in its full form will be about managing the settlement. Some of those management tasks will have to leaving the main map to deal with issues. More it less it is a colony sim with idle production mechanics. I guess its "factorio-like" in that way with less automation. Unless you count the pawns as machines.

> Getting into nitpick territory here, but if there are 9 logs in a chest, shift clicking should just transfer all 9 even if there isnt a full stack of 10. 

That is fair and easy to implement. I'll do that sometime shortly.
> The tutorial is well done, though im imagining once more mechanics are in that there will be more to juggle rather than just hyperfocusing the objective. 

It will start to ramp up at rank 8 after the training wheels get taken off and pawns can leave the settlement. The player will be more or less playing discount "animal crossing x rimworld" managing relationships and pawn complaints (which you can see by pressing the L button). It teaches the basics of crafting, then you set up pawns to do the labor and growth.

> I ended up quitting right about the point where you need to wait on 10 wheats to grow and be harvested. I aint waiting that long again after the berries, I feel like having a tutorial much earlier to plant them all would alleviate that somewhat.

I am actually restructuring the objectives at the start. As it isn't quite clear that you don't have to wait for each objective. Pressing the "O" button shows all of the objectives for the current level. You can do all of the objectives for each rank simultaneously. IE you can plant 10 wheat, berries, cotton, and linseed, and have them all complete. You don't have to wait for one objective to finish before starting the next.

After 10 wheat is 10 cotton then 5 linseed harvests. However you can do the 5 linseed harvests before the berries if you want to. It just shows the objective at the top of the objectives list.

The music is AI generated. However, I did a lot of mastering to it after the fact to make it cohesive with the rest of the tracks. The cosmos effect was made adjustable for that reason. Most of the layers are editable now.

You can only move constructible objects, you can plant domesticated berry bushes that can be moved. Perhaps I should add the ability to move environment objects as well.

Fertilizer currently has no use, as plant health is not yet implemented. It will be required to keep linseed and other plants from dying.

> theres no real reason to leave your base as your busy crafting or building stuff

Not during ranks 1-5 which are effectively a tutorial. Most of the progression will occur in the base claim area which increases with each rank to cap out at the size of the map.

> i think it couldve been fun to go out and cooperate with the creatures maybe shoot down a big monster or something like that, or set up other camps with different resources available

There is a planned structure called the "Expeditioner". Where the pawns will leave the camp to get resources from outside of the map.
As for construction in other maps, you can walk outside of the main map. Building structures there, after an Auditor is assigned (which will happen much later into the game) will contribute to the economy of the main settlement.

> might be cool if they interacted a bit more socially maybe,  i really like the way they talked at the beginning of the game. eager to see where you take the game next

The pawns are meant to talk to each other, and the player. With voice, and bubbles over their heads. I'm just making the progression part of the game before the social management portion. I discussed this in a devlog post a couple of weeks back.

The issue was caused by attempting to load a legacy options file (from last demo day). The new build should replace the old file with the new one if it is detected.

If you played the game before, you will need to delete your older save files located at %appdata%/local/Cosmic_Construct

I will implement a fix, for this regardless.

I found myself pronouncing this as "Blinds n Binds" instinctively. Maybe consider swapping the words. Id be interested if others agree.

Thank you. After learning PlantUML this was the first thing I did with it. I considered making one for the crafting tree as well.

It's a complex game with a lot to teach the player. So the first 5 settlement levels are basically a 2 hour tutorial.

There's nothing stopping you from not following the instructions, but the build area is quite small in the lower tiers.

I'll watch the video.

The "Japanese VA" you are referring to is actually a constructed language specifically for the game. It is machine generated, but as with animal crossing, it was always going to be, as nobody can speak the language.

At this current stage, pawn needs are not implemented and the pawn manager is lacking. Pawns will play a progressively larger role as the gameplay progresses. The grinding in the first hour of the game is intentional, as it is meant to direct the player toward automating tasks. The new pawn manager which I will be working on today will better facilitate this transition.

Now let me go watch that video, I'll come back with a response.

Yes, I am in the process of designing the new pawn manager. The current one was just meant to be a placeholder. You should be able to see their inventories for example.

The "lack of resources" Tudi message appears when a pawn can't find the object they are trying to harvest. There are alot of reasons this can happen. Most of the time this is overharvesting. There are other corner case reasons, but for you this was not-overharvesting. Rather a complaint about their job being conflicting with their gathering target. This should be ignored. I have removed that Tudi message in its entirely, as its already in Logs [L].

The storage chest is visibly shown as open, if it is in use.

All storage is shared.

The same bug which caused aspirations to screw up, caused them to use the stonecutter to make Ashlars. I found that kind of funny. As it means one of the pawns was using the stonecutter while you weren't at the camp, using up all of the stone they were gathering.

Stress is not working, pawn needs are not implemented.

As for the "empty" Storage Crates. They are not empty. All storage from all sources is automatically combined into a single accessible inventory. You can only access this inventory from Chests. I admit is was painful to watch you check every chest in the camp not noticing they all contained the same items.

Pawns will always upcycle. So they will convert 9 logs to 3 lumber, then 3 lumber into 1 plank. I do plan to have the pawn manager give the option to not upcycle.

The spinning wheel questline will now check if you already have the cotton you need to make thread.

>It would be cool if I heard a low tone right now.

Sure, I can do that.

---

If you were playing this from a tiny ass window on a 4k monitor. The fullscreen button is F11.

Alright, I'm like half way through this video.

Some of the bugs were so bad, I've been programming while watching through the feedback. I have uploaded the first of probably a couple builds I'll be putting up today.

Here is part 1 of my response.

---

About audio adjusting in real time. The volume of an audio object in gamemaker is set at the time of play. So I reset all audio on menu close. I've been trying to find a good way around doing it this way for a while.

The save buttons shouldn't have been in the splash page options menu at all. It was an artifact from combining scripts. Fixed.

I'll give label boxes a white border instead of a cyan one.

For name input, it actually activates a toggle for custom name input mode. If the input in empty it generates a new name. I figured that the rainbow text was a good enough indicator of the edit mode being toggled. The edit button itself now also changes color.

Pressing enter actually confirms the name change. Nobody is doing this, but there is a catch for this when the characters are submitted. I have added this function to the edit button.

Sprint is now on by default. (Shift toggle sprint)

You cannot destroy objects while in the pay respects animation.

You can pay respects the totem at any time, but there was a bug where the totem was being targeted from the wrong square. Standing on the square south of the totem would have worked. There is no way you could have known that.

I have yet again reduced rain noise. XD

That weird thing with the job switching. Huh, I've never see that happen before. After quite a bit of testing. I've determined that it is the newly implemented aspirations system. This was happening, because while pawns can choose a different job to perform on their own. They were not checking other professions aspirations, before setting a new one. Scrolling through the list of professions caused them to accept all jobs, and all of those jobs aspirations. Going on a job fair.

Thank you for responding.

Since the time you've played the game, the following changes have been implemented.

• Trees now drop an extra log with a 50% chance (1.5 logs per tree).
• Quests now check if advancement tasks have already been completed. For example, the number of total constructed chests or structures. If there is a teaching quest to say, built a Lumber Mill; if a Lumber Mill has already been built, it will now be skipped. The same goes for housing structures.
• There were numerous other changes such as the addition of an indicator for which square was being targeted, and a reduction of the movement speed penalty for overencumberance. 

I have downloaded the video. So you are free to remove it. :P

• The music no longer resets in option if audio levels are not changed.
• Added a visual indicator to show what grid square the player is currently targeting.
• You can now destroy items from chests and your inventory.
• All controls are now listed in the options menu. (Although, they cannot be changed.)

This is intentional. The player is meant to feel the task that they are trying to automate, to give them incentive to automate the task. You can, if you want to set your pawns to gather wood right out of the gate.

>there doesn't seem to be an option to discard items

There is not, I'll try to add that today if I can. [[-- Done --]]

>The tutorial said that I can reassign pawns to different jobs but I can't figure out how to do that.

The game page lists all of the controls. [M] is the pawn manager button for now. You appear to have given up before the game teaches you this.

The controls are now listed in the options menu.

>I assume a "builder" job for the pawns is planned? 

The code for this job is written, just not implemented. It is meant to be unlocked.

>it's also not immediately clear what your character is lined up to interact with

In the middle top of the screen it tells you what you are interacting with. By default, you harvest from the square you stand on. If there is nothing there it takes from the square to your north instead. I considered swapping the two of these, as I make the same mistake myself.

There is now a flashing rainbow indicator showing which square you are locked on to.

>The music resets every time you pause the game.

Yes, I am well aware. It has been in my to do bugs for a month, I just have other priorities.   [[-- Fixed --]]

Also the pause button is [P], not [Esc].

Thank you.

>It would be cool if you friends had like a want/ need system that changed them, like if one likes to play instruments and you build them a guitar they sat and played it once in a while

Planned when the leisure need is added. The plan is to have personalities that prefer different leisure types.

Intellectuals that like reading.

Creatives that like painting and writing.

That sort of thing.

A minimap is planned.

On my todo list are buildings that provide a map, its status, and demographic information about the town.

Currently, none of the pawn needs are implemented. The player will be managing issues between them as well.

Each totem advancement rank increases the claim area, which will expand to the entire playable zone.

As for resources. The game is balanced around the pawns gathering resources. Not sure if you got to the part that teaches about assigning specific jobs to pawns.

I can add a new game button, no problem. :P

>overencumber

Sure, I can adjust that.

>rain is loud

Easy to fix.

>ten wood logs for every chest

Well, now the trees give more logs. However, the whole point of the game is to get others to do this work for you.

>text box on the right

It shows a history of all of the messages in the journal. They will contain important information.

Oops, left in 100 golems.

Fixed

• Tudi and Golem should no longer crash the game when shot.
• Doubled the interact distance to Tudi.
• The destroy keybind will now longer show in the build menu.
• Trees now have a 50% chance to drop another log.
• The capacity of all storage has increased by 75%
• Pawn AI can now partially deposit their inventory.
• Common objects constructed during advancement objectives are now checked before asking the player to build them.

I'm just really good at prompting suno. I do editing to the music after to remaster it, that way they have consistent levels.
You can assign professions with the [M] button. They will not do multiple jobs by design. They will be in profession categories.

Biggest complaint, no WASD movement. Easy enough to implement both control schemes simultaneously.

Short game. Basically it is as if tictactoe was built by a historically gladiatorial caste system. Collect the stars, get a high score style arcade game. I did the math and determined that there as a point at which the player cannot win because all liberties are covered by a projectile object; as the speed of the objects increases over the course of the gameplay.

Not sure if the frequency of objects appearing resets after each run. Found that if you sit on the game over screen, you can see how the randomly spawned obstacles progressed their spawn time delay. Not sure if this decreases all the way to zero.

Either way, not bad for a simple game. I would like to see a larger playfield at some point.