Dev Blog: 15 March 29, 2016

Our Alpha 4 build of Eco is making great progress, check out the work below.

We’ve come a long way on the visual components, but also the gameplay side. We’ll be putting together new trailers and videos as we come up to our alpha 4 launch to show you how new stuff like power, transport, taxes, and elections work.



Here’s the progress this week and as always you can pick up the game on our website here (our Steam launch is later this year, and all previous buyers will get a key).

Eric – eric@strangeloopgames.com If you have been following us on facebook you have probably seen a lot of the more recent work. Trees are basically done. I will be hooking up the art for the other 2 variations as well. Minimap improvements are ongoing. Tweaking the art, shaders, and whatnot. Mostly it is non stop bug fixing from here on out to alpha 4. Fixed the bow, fixing up the tools, etc. Check out the trees and minimap in the videos below:

John – john@strangeloopgames.com The past couple weeks I’ve been deep in the tech tree, creating the full set of items/skills/vehicles/craft tables/foods, etc in the game. It’s a giant amount of data, and the first step was moving it from a large number of code files into a single spreadsheet that can auto-generate all the objects needed in the code: We now have an easy process to create new suites of related items/skills/vehicles/foods, with all the requisite connections automatically hooked up. It also gives us a bird’s eye view of the game, which will be incredibly valuable as we tune and balance everything.

Modders will be able to use this same template system to large scale additions or modifications to the game. To handle this much data we needed some good tools, and we’re setup in a good spot now to start creating a huge amounts of content.

K – klim@strangeloopgames.com Whole Vehicle & Road system is ready to play around. Nature powered generators were added(windmill, waterwheel), and also motor to elec converter was added. Now MiniMap shows other players on it. Now character can step up(or climb) little bumps Store now have functionality of make and delete offer by authorized users.(deletion is not available unless you made that offer) Resizable container inventory UI. YEAH!

Keegan – keegan@strangeloopgames.com I’ve been dancing around working on lots of improvements to get us ready for the next big alpha release– it has been very rewarding to see all of Milenko and Eric’s hard work with trees and plants rejuvenate the look of the game, and I’ve been touching up what I can to get everything else up to the same speed. Mainly I’ve been helping make and implement new Power and Transportation assets including dirt and stone roads, a generator, a coal burner, a transmission line. I’ve also been updating effects for the first person tools to improve the feel of using them in the world with particle effects, and many other various improvements.

Milenko – milenko@strangeloopgames.com Working on all kinds of stuff as well. Going through the remaining icons, doing sickly versions of plants, and texturing our new assets.

Thanks for following us and as always email us if you have any questions!