This post was originally published on Steam
Devblog history
- 09/2023 - #1 - Who? What? Where? When?
- 10/2023 - #2 - Automation isn’t just about gameplay
- 12/2023 - #3 - Logistics
- 12/2023 - #4 - Events, events everywhere
- 02/2024 - #5 - Your mission for this week, should you choose to accept it… [/olist]
Hello, fellow future entrepreneurs!
As I explained on multiple occasions Discord, Bluesky, and Mastodon, I am currently renovating my house and participated to GDC, thus why I skipped March for a DevBlog and slowed down development during these months.
But here I am, back with a brand new Devblog! I will still work less than usual during the end of April and early May, but we will see my free time returning to a normal state during late spring and summer!
Working on this game in my free time is surely an unstable situation, but fortunately, I enjoy it a lot! :)
Let’s get back to this DevBlog subject now: Today, I will talk about an administrative tool I’ve been building for a few months now, which will help me to build the game, especially when creating new content updates during the early access phase and afterward!
Why build this tool?
You could wonder why I would need to build this tool since there are probably existing ones on the market or I could work without it. And this is a good question actually.
I am building this tool for multiple reasons:
- This is a game-specific tool so I can’t find something similar on the internet
- I like to automate and simplify lots of processes, the goal being to have a smooth and easy experience while creating content for my projects. I wanted to ditch the “boring stuff” and focus on creating more in an equivalent timespan.
- I wanted a tool that helped me to see the existing stuff (items, equipment, recipes, contracts,…) so I don’t create duplicate elements, can keep them coherent, and balance them without many issues.
So, this is why I created this tool! (WIP)
As you can see, it’s not as pretty as the game interface, but we don’t really care since the only user will probably be me. I will focus on some good user experience, such as this:
It is in active development along with another tool that can apply balancing to the game server live, and the game itself of course.
And for those who have followed me for a longer time, you know it’s not the only tool I’ve been creating for my games, since I also built a translation tool for my oldest games a few years ago
This is of course a time investment, but it helps me add new items/equipment metadata in a matter of minutes.
What’s left afterward when adding this kind of stuff are the graphics … and this is a whole other topic.
Using these tools, I will be able to focus on writing new features, improve the User Experience, and just improve the game itself.
If you’re curious about other things I use to improve my productivity on Manufactur’inc and my previous games, I suggest you read about Manufactur’inc 2nd DevBlog about automation.
If you liked this DevBlog, you can read the other ones and share them with your friends.
And one way to not miss the following ones is to follow the game Hub, using the “Follow” button on the Steam page.
And if you’re interested, I would also be happy if you wishlisted the game as well.
If you are interested to follow me elsewhere and get more than a monthly update about the game state, you can:
- Join Dysnomia’s Discord
- Follow me on Tiktok (I will try to post as much as I can here, but it takes a lot of time !)
- Follow me on Twitch where I sometimes do game development live
- Follow me on mastodon
- Follow me on Bluesky
Thanks for reading this DevBlog, and see you soon! Elanis