I made kind of a "trailer" video, to show what's possible in the #game for now.
The last sequence shows a gantry crane, or at least what I can do with the currently available parts (missing the actual crane, hook, and something to lift). There is still no proper rail system, but somehow I got the frame to move reliably... the #contraptioneer way 😎
Après deux ans à laisser traîner une page d'accueil obsolète qui n'avait plus aucun lien avec le jeu actuel, j'ai finalement mis à jour le site web !
https://contraptioneer.org/
Le gros est fait, reste des détails à terminer (probablement 80% du travail reste à faire donc 😁). Et j'ai ajouté une roadmap qui devrait clarifier l'état du projet.
Désolé, tout est en anglais pour le moment, ce serait bien que je traduise, aussi bien le jeu que le site web !
I just updated the #contraptioneer #website!
https://contraptioneer.org/
A most needed update, since the main page content was obsolete for two years already 🫣
There are still a few things to finish and improve, but it's much more accurate now!
Next step: finishing the first playable version!
Feel free to boost!
I'm trying to bring my website up to date... There is quite some remaining work here, but for now I've added a new #blog post about skiing with fake wheels!
https://contraptioneer.org/devlog/2026/02/17/sliding-wheels.html
(actually a conversion of an old mastodon thread)
New feature in the #game! I've added the main menu, with sub menus to save/load, as well as the options menu.
The save system handles the player and machines that have been built, with their dynamic state.
Seems to work flawlessly so far 😁 Everything is written in text files (json format), for easier debugging.
I still need to implement saving of terrain chunks modified by the player (if any), and also the water simulation state.
Here it is, my current plan for the story mode of the game!
The game starts with a black screen, becomes overbright/blurry, then slowly focus. An artificial voice explains this is an emergency wake procedure (temperature rising, adrenaline injection, etc.) Vision stabilizes to a first-person view of the ceiling, then camera moves as the player character stands up from a cryogenic pod. Then the player gets control and can walk around
New feature added to the game!
It is now possible to move objects "by hand". Still some polishing to do, but this looks promising!
It's a most needed feature when constructing machines. Without this, you struggle to attach parts below you construction, or to move mechanisms in the right position. Also useful after a car crash to bring it upright! I should limit the force so it won't work for heavier vehicles (you'll need to to build a crane!)
Ok, so I thrown that monorail idea like that. But then I thought "wait, what if it it's already possible to do this in the game??"
Well... sort of 🤣
I think the graphics settings are complete enough for now. This allows to easily scale up to 30fps on my 10-years-old laptop.
One thing I still needed to do after the environment overhaul, was to optimize things a bit.
I've managed to make the game run at 30fps on my reference hardware (a 10 years old laptop with a GTX 850M)
I had to sacrifice some of the rendering quality though (second image)
Now I need to create an options menu so that you can adjust quality for your hardware.
youen
youen