- Post Space Exploration Update - 11 September 2024
Hello Builders! I am excited to share a quick update following the Space Exploration Fest, incorporating some of your valuable feedback from the demo testing phase. Let’s dive into the latest improvements! New Intro Message I have added a brand-new introductory message that provides more context for starting a new game. This enhancement aims to give players a clearer understanding of the game’s first steps right from the beginning. Improved Spaceship Information The user interface displaying spaceship characteristics has undergone a major overhaul. The previous version was difficult to read, but the new has a more user-friendly design that greatly improve readability. The interface still requires some refinement, as many of the colours tend to blend together; however, it is already quite helpful in its current state! Quick Save and Quick Load Features I have implemented new keyboard sho…
- Demo out now & Space Exploration Fest - 3 September 2024
I am so happy to announce that Gate Builders first ever public demo is part of Steam Space Exploration Fest for a week! The demo will stay available after the fest so you have plenty time to test it! The Belt needs you! Togis
- November Update - 21 November 2023
Hello Builders! Brace yourselves for an update of epic proportions! Over the past month, I've poured my heart and soul into refining Gate Builders. I've brought to life numerous features that have long lingered in the backlog, and I've taken on the final challenges of the alpha phase. I hope that you'll find as much delight in playing this update as I found in crafting it! Multiplayer Behold the shiny new addition to the main menu: Multiplayer! Now, you can engage in asynchronous matches of Gate Builders with your friends through a Play-By-Email (PBEM) system. Host or join games, play alongside your peers, and put your strategic skills to the test. To initiate a new game, simply host it on the multiplayer lobby, wait for fellow players to join, and commence the action. Once the game is underway, the host will fine-tune the game settings (map size, etc.), and each player can tailor their…
- October Update - 29 October 2023
Hello Builders! I hope you've been enjoying your summer and early fall. Over the past few months, I've faced various challenges related to health, work, and hardware issues, which temporarily slowed down my work on Gate Builders. However, I'm back on track now, and I'm thrilled to present this feature-packed update for you. Gameplay and UI Steam achievements I'm excited to announce that all the achievements are now available on Steam! It's time to catch 'em all! Updated station shield and weapons Previously, station shields and weapons were using an older system. Now, they have been updated and will fire phasers and drones. Building a drone hub or a shield projector within your Station will finally make a difference! Updated invasion interface I've introduced an updated invasion interface to make it easier to follow combat. Additionally, you can now access the fighting stats of citizens…
- June Update - 26 June 2023
Hello Builders! It has been two months since the last update, and we've faced several hurdles here in the Studio that have limited my ability to work on Gate Builders as much as usual. However, despite the challenges, I'm excited to announce that there are still plenty of cool updates coming your way! Gameplay and UI Achievements We have a brand new game's achievement system, with a total of 60 achievements now available! Although they are not yet synchronized with Steam, I will explore how to implement that feature in the near future. You can track your achievements within the game and monitor your progress. As soon as you complete an achievement, it will pop up in-game. Can you complete them all? Recruit / Train UI In the past, explaining the difference between recruiting a citizen and hiring an expert in the home world was a challenge due to poor game design. To simplify this process…
- April Update - 21 April 2023
Hello Builders! This month was a bit slow as I took two weeks holiday to rest and relax. However, I come back to you with a bang and a lot of improvements to Gate Builders! Visuals: Station Map improvement: As part of an ongoing effort to improve the clarity of information displayed on the screen, I have made iterative improvements to various aspects of the game. In this update, I have focused on improving the Station Map. Important information related to the consumption of food by your citizens, the number of citizens in the station, and their level of freedom feeling are now more visible. These info are reflected around the Station Name, allowing you to easily track and manage them and make informed decisions about the management of your space station Additionally, the station badge in the Belt Map are now much more readable: New option to hide AI movement: A new option allow you to s…
- Massive March Update - 17 March 2023
Hello Builders! Last month was incredibly productive for Gate Builders. Some of you may have already enjoyed some of the new improvements, as I released a few mini updates along the way. In addition to implementing quality of life features that aim to make the game more enjoyable and user-friendly, this update introduces four exciting new gameplay features. I'm thrilled to showcase everything that's new and can't wait for you to try it out. Gameplay: Speaking with neutral outpost mayors: Exploring the map and meeting neutral outposts just got even more rewarding! You can now speak with the mayor of each outpost to uncover a wealth of information about the game world. They can share valuable details with you, such as the locations of your competitors, pirates, and secret space anomalies. This new feature adds a layer of depth to the game and gives you even more reason to venture out into…
- Massive February Update - 15 February 2023
Hello Builders! Happy Halloween, Christmas, end of years holidays and new year! Times fly so fast at the end of a year and even though I kept working on Gate Builders every week I didn't provide many update here on steam! If you are craving for weekly update, I will be happy to welcome you every Monday at 8 PM CET on https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis for live streams of the development process. I hope everyone had an amazing end of 2022 and that you are all ready for new adventures in the asteroid belt! During the last three months, I made a lot of improvement to the game. Unfortunately, they were sometimes so big that they prevented me to reach a version stable enough to update the alpha here on steam. The new version should be stable, but I will playtest more during the next week and make urgent update if need be. Savegame made from previous version are not compatible anymore So, what cha…
- Massive October Update - 29 October 2022
Hello Builders! Last month was a really busy month for us. We participated in a big game jam and streamed a lot about it. This prevented me to post blog posts update here. However, it did not prevent me to make great improvements to Gate Builders! Many of them are based on your feedback! Thanks a lot to everyone who took the time to test the game! You are amazing! There was a few sneaky update to the game during October, but this post will list and explain everything! (up to version a026b.281022) Graphical Update: New images: Every single images in the two intros, background, investor images, etc. is brand new. With the help of the community and stable diffusion, we created a large amount of very tailored pictures that will set the mood of the game. We would have loved to work with an artist, but due to the large amount of images required and our low budget, this was not possible in the…
- Alpha 23 & 24 - 24 September 2022
Hello Builders! This week has been great! I bring you a lot of improvements that I really wanted to include in Gate Builders since a long time. I hope to be on the last track to release the public early access in the coming months. WARNING: If you are playing Gate Builders, you may be confused by one of the feature update. The Cleaner Ship Interface is important to read. Don't worry, the interface to control the space ships is not visible by default anymore, it's not a bug, it's a feature! Cleaner Ship Interface Ships controls were sometimes in the way of targeting an enemy, or pickup up a floating cargos. The ship controls are now hidden by default. You can access them with a right click on a ship. As an added benefit, I was free to add more information without cluttering the screen. The ship attack, armor, attack range, speed, scan range and hp are now visible in the interface. Additi…
- Alpha Update 21 & 22 - 19 September 2022
Hello Builders! I had a longer weekend this week and decided to make big changes that were long overdue. New ship trails I wanted to add trail to the spaceships since a long time. I have very good childhood memories of the space ship trails in the original Homeworld. I took the time to create a first version. The Tutorial is out, long live the Academy As you know, I had a lot of problem on stream and online to make a good tutorial. I hated the one we had before and was reluctant to come back to it. With your help, we tried to fix it so much, simplify the verbose texts, but it was still not good. So, I decided to re-start from zero. Presenting the Academy: a list of very short lessons that explain the basics of the game. Currently about half of all the lesson are ready to be played. I really need feedback on this part! Gate Screen Redesign I redesigned the Gate screen to make it a bit mo…
- Alpha Update 20 - 16 September 2022
Hello Builders! Here is a small quality of life update from issue discovered during testing. Colored outline for asteroids It's not always easy to know who an asteroid belongs to from the map. An outline of the player color an asteroid belong to is now visible on mouse over. You can also toggle this outline for all the asteroid by pressing left control once Resizable outliner Resize the outliner to your liking. The outliner will also remember which element are open or folded between turns. New report: the Station List A new report is available in the navigation menu: the Station List. The station list will show you every stock and production of each of your space station in one grid. It's very bare-bone for now but a very good source of information Additional minor changes Update some Notifications to include more useful information in the title Reduce Notification blinking by three And…
- Alpha Update 19 - 12 September 2022
Hello Builders! As announced on stream tonight, here is the new update! https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis Improved message when a station can not be build It wasn't immediately apparent what the red circle around the colony ship meant when trying to build a settlement. This new text should clarify the situation. New "new game" intro images I started to work on the "new game" intro image. Before we only had a single still image. I plan to add a few more if the story needs it. New shiny recruit / train interface A big change in the interface! I re-build the recruit / train interface from scratch to make it much more clear! The interface to purchase a ship will be next. Old interface: New interface: Additional small changes Right click on a docked ship in the home world will now open he trade window Better load/save fade in/out Auto trade is still really in alpha, but it should not delete your…
- Alpha Update 18 - 8 September 2022
Hello Builders! As announced on stream, here is the important mid-week update with many improvements. Improved Zoom and Pan Moving around the map was a bit glitchy. Zooming in and out of the belt could be slow. All of this should be better now! Let me know your feedback. Drag and drop ship in Homeworld and Stations Undocking a ship from a station used to be done with a right click. This was a inconsistent and confusing user experience. There is now a better visualization of which ship is selected and a button to undock it. You can also drag and drop the ship on the button to undock. The same drag and drop interaction also work in the Homeworld trade screen. You can now drag a ship to the outgoing queue to send it back to the belt. Visual progress for lobbying A new progress bar in the top information bar of the belt map shows you the lobbying progress without opening the lobby screen. K…
- Alpha Update 17 - 6 September 2022
Hello Builders! I didn't publish a new version on Steam since a while due to summer holidays and Tobujam #1. However, coding continue, as well as the Monday Dev Stream on https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis If you want to join us live, the stream is at 8 PM GMT+1 (CEST) every Monday So? What is in this updated alpha? New Error Dialog A new error dialog give in game detail about exceptions. This should make it more clear when something goes wrong. If you see this dialog in-game, it may not prevent you to keep playing, but do let me know! New Random Number Generator This may seems technical and obscure but every game needs a way to generate random numbers. The previous random number generator used in Gate Builder was not very random. Tutorial improvement The tutorial will now remember the steps you already completed in case of save and reload. Step to implement AI The AI caused the game to free…
- Alpha Update 14 - 20 May 2022
Hello Builders! Since Monday Stream, I have been hard at work fixing some of your bug reports and trying to hunt them down Here is a list of all the changes in alpha 14: Music UI A new user interface show the current music name and allow you to skip to the next one I also modified how the next random music is selected. It will now play the full album before repeating a music a second time. No more 2 hours of the same music. Sponsor We have new in-game sponsor available early and giving access to a corvette. If you want to hunt pirates and neural transport early game, this one may be for you! Bug under investigation We have report of space ship breaking the law of physic! Long distance teleportation is a bug. If this is happening to you, please let me know. I am trying to understand why. One of the potential reason is a duplication / clone of a single ship. I encountered the issue a few…
- Post-Stream update - Audio Loop and Linux Build - 16 May 2022
Hello Builders! Following today's Playtest on Twitch here is a quick Alpha update: Fix the music constantly looping the same song Create a Linux Build (experimental)
- First Live Playtest of the pre-alpha on Twitch - 16 May 2022
Hello Fellow Builders! The alpha is almost ready to be sent to the first testers in the community. Tonight, I am going to playtest the game live on stream at 8 PM CET. Join me here: https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis and discover Gate Builders and how I hunt for bugs.
