Soup’s Done, Come & Get it! Nom Nom Galaxy out of Early Access!

4 August, 2015 by p0rk1ns

Well Astroworkers, the time has finally come for you to venture into the expanse of the Galaxy and feed the hungry masses! Nom Nom Galaxy ver. 1.00 is now open for business!

It’s been a long journey since we first released on Early Access almost a year and a half ago – even longer if you count our time as PixelJunk Inc when this blog first started. We’ve learned a lot along the way! Two PAX Prime attendances in the Indie MEGABOOTH, awards at Brazil’s Independent Games Festival and GDC China’s Independent Game Festival, appearances at SXSW 2015, Gamescom 2014, PSX 2014, BitSummit 2013 & 2014, Indiecade 2014 and EGX 2014… whew! We’ve been hoping all over letting people sample the soup! Add to that the huge contributions that all of our Early Access players have added and we fell like we’ve got a soup that’s been seasoned by the best Astroworkers on the planet.

The full release of Nom Nom Galaxy adds:

Complete campaign with 27 different worlds to explore
Improved online 4P co-op
Galactic Challenge Mode with rotating challenges that earn you Galactic Gum to use in Conquest and S.O.O.P Sim modes
Steam Leaderboards
Steam Trading Cards
Steam Backgrounds
Steam Emoticons
Steam Achievements

Of course, the work for an Astroworker is never done, so we’ll be continuing to improve Nom Nom Galaxy over the next few months. There are a lot of things still be requested in the forums that we’d like to address. I don’t want to get into details now, but we’re hoping to add a few modes to keep the soup flavors just as interesting as the first taste.

To celebrate the launch, we’ve got a week-long 20% discount on Nom Nom! Head over to Steam and check it out!

Online bug fixes, improvements

When invited to a NNG throught the Steam interface, you will now automatically join the session
Fixed the player kick function
The number of enemies will now increase based on the number of players in the game
In order to reduce lag during multiplayer sessions, the game will now automatically reduce frame rates to 30fps until all players are in sync

Other bug fixes, improvements

Mouse functionality in menus (prompts at bottom right, etc.) improved
Improved Japanese translation and added missing text
Players will no longer fall off of ladders at the start of a new day
The pause menu will now accurately display for the player that paused the game (if 2P paused the game, for example)
If you start a new company with a company name that already exists, an overwrite confirmation dialog will appear
Fixed a bug that occurred when switching from windowed to full screen mode
Another stage of growth has been added to grass, making it easier to understand when it is fully grown
Fixed a bug where defeated Resistance enemies were not added to totals
News flashes will now include the amount of market share that can be gained or lost because of trending ingredients
When using mouse and keyboard controls and opening the maintenance menu, players will no longer move when pressing “A” or “D”
Players with multiple save data files will no longer be able to select planets that haven’t been opened on that save file
Players with multiple save data files will now have their keybindings saved across all profiles
Increased the number of keys that can be rebound in the options menu
Fixed a bug preventing players from using left click to throw after changing the keybinding
Fixed an issue where having the left mouse button held down when a dialog appeared caused a choice to be selected when the button was released
Fixed a bug causing the game to crash if Jack was attacked by Pinapurana
Fixed a bug preventing players from zooming out for screenshots with keyboard controls

Robo Pals! Update (Ver 0.99a)

23 April, 2015 by p0rk1ns

Salutations, Astroworkers!

Last week we dropped a galactic bomb of an update that added a bunch of new content to Nom Nom Galaxy. We’re going to get into some more specifics of that update this week. We’ve also fixed some of the issues that our tireless Early Access Astroworkers helped uncover, and added key binding support!

You’ll notice that your robot minions have undergone a few upgrades in this update and there’s even a new face in the bunch. Freddy, Travis, and Ben have all been tweaked to improve your soup production.

Freddy & Travis
Freddy and Travis are your vertical movement robots in the soup production line, moving ingredients and soups up or down through the base. In previous versions, Freddy handled sending everything up, while Travis would move things down. We’ve now given both robots the functionality to pass ingredients or soup up and down, but separated which items they will handle. Freddy is now exclusively an ingredient robot and Travis will take care of the soup.

In earlier versions you’d often have Freddy or Travis throwing ingredients passed to them to your soup rocket yards, or towards factories that didn’t take those ingredients. With this change, you’ll have a greater degree of control over how soup production flows through the base.

Ben
Freddy and Travis got little tweaks, but Ben has had a full system overhaul! Ben 2.0 has gone back to doing what dogs do best – burying stuff! Place Ben around any ingredients and he’ll replant them. Ben’s original purpose was to find ingredients and bring them back to his doghouse. While we appreciate the pooch’s intentions, the system was a little cumbersome and wasn’t working quite as we had hoped.

Planting speed and Ben’s patrolling pathing are still being tweaked, so let us know how the Astroworker’s Best Friends is working in your bases.

Clarence
The newest addition to our robo-family is Clarence, a harvesting robo. In many ways, Clarence, paired with the new changes to Ben, is the the final piece in the soup automation puzzle. Place Clarence in your farms and he will harvest any plants that have grown to full height. Without having to come back and tend to your farms, this frees up your Astroworker to explore more of the planets.

Updates & Fixes

Bugs Fixes

Fixed bug causing game to crash accessing the Gum menu
Video setting should be saving correctly to profiles and there is a confirmation dialogue for changes.
S.O.O.P and Corporate Conquest bases can now be reset properly
Fixed bug preventing some players from progressing in Tutorial 2
For some strange reason, “Alt + Q“ and “Alt + PrintScreen” was mapped to quit the game. This has been removed.
Fix issue preventing data from saving properly
You can no longer toggle full screen with “Alt + Enter”

Controller Configs

Keybindings! You can now change your key configuration on keyboards.
NNG should now be better at recognizing which input you are using (controller vs. keyboard + mouse)

UI Fixes

Improved mouse functionality in construction and earnings menus

Graphic modification

Adjust the size of the Robo-Shacho’s test balloons.
Added version # to the main menu screen

As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, in our Steam Community forum, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

Nom Nom Galaxy (Ver. 0.99) – Chunky update that eats like a meal!

16 April, 2015 by p0rk1ns

Welcome back, Astroworkers!

It’s been quite a while since we last spoke! After the Christmas update we took some time away from the blog and our regular updates to put our heads down and work on a host of key features. We’ve had a lot cooking up and now we’re ready to unveil the merger between feedback from our dedicated early access supporters and the ingredients we’ve had on the shelf at Q.

And because we really want everyone to get a taste of this new flavor of Nom Nom, we’re reducing the price for the remainder of Early Access to $9.99 (Note: Price change will be reflected on Steam later today). If you’ve been waiting for a good sale to check it out, it’s the perfect time.

There have been sweeping changes and updates throughout the whole Galaxy. Because the scope of this update is pretty huge, we’ll just give an overview today and then give more details about the changes over the next couple of weeks. When you launch Nom Nom you’re going to see new robots, enemies, planets, building parts, optimization, new modes, new moves, and… gum!?!

The foremost issue on our plate was getting Nom Nom Galaxy optimized for better play on a wider variety of machines. It’s something that we hoped to be able to address earlier in the game’s development, so we’re really happy to put this new update out. Essentially, we’ve migrated Nom Nom Galaxy from our old PixelJunk Engine to an updated version that Double Eleven created when they were porting the other PixelJunk games to Steam. The original engine was beginning to show it’s age – it’s the engine we used to create all of our classic PlayStation 3 games. And while the ol’ girl served us well, Nom Nom was sometimes too much for her to handle. The game looks pretty simple on the surface, but there’s lots of stuff going on in the background, like how the planets are held together, fluid and gas dynamics, and calculating the “living parameters” of the plants and animals.

The update to the new engine, along with lots of code optimization on the team’s part, means that soup production for our Astroworkers should be a much better experience. There’s support for a wider variety of graphics cards, controllers, and monitor setups.

We don’t expect everything to be perfect straight off the bat, so make sure you jump on the forums and let us know how Nom Nom is running on your rig.

Okay, I know you’re eager to jump back into the soupy fray, but there’s something that we’ve got to do before we start. Because of the magnitude of the changes, old Nom
Nom save data is no longer compatible with the current version and you’ll need to start new games. When you start you’ll be greeted with a new screen for managing your game data. Name your company and you’re be ready to work.

One of our largest tasks was bringing together Yamamura’s quirky art and our soup theme into an entertaining story and campaign mode. We’ve hinting at the larger theme of galactic domination by means of soup, but now you’ll be able to dig into the background of the Galaxy. When you get to the new main menu, you’ll see the new campaign mode, Corporate Conquest, where you can start your hostile takeover of the galaxy.

Corporate Conquest starts you at the training facility and you’ll need to finish the two tutorials in order before you start exploring. After completing them you can go to any planet in the first sector of the galaxy. Each planet has two different play styles, a market battle vs. rival soup corporations and S.O.O.P, a sandbox mode for all those Astroworkers who want to make bases that are visible from space! You’ll need to complete the market share battle to unlock the S.O.O.P mode for each planet.

To move to other sectors of the galaxy Robo-shacho requires that you discover recipes available on those planets. When you’ve satisfied him, the gate will unlock and you can move on to new planets.

The new Corporate Conquest mode has changed the way research works in Nom Nom Galaxy, also. Conquering rivals in market share battles earns you research unlocks. Those unlocks will carry over to future planets. We’ve done away with unlock keys on the planet, but you’ll still need to earn enough gold by selling soup to buy research.

Well, I can imagine that by now the soup in your noggin is swimming with all of this new info that we’re dumping on you. This is just the beginning, but it should get you prepared to take on the mantle of Astroworker once more. We’ll be back later this week with more information on the new and improved Nom Nom Galaxy!

As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, in our Steam Community forum, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

South by South-Fresh

27 March, 2015 by p0rk1ns

Earlier this month we sent our new Soup Co. chef-in-training Roger Hicks to SXSW to give Texas a taste of Nom Nom. We were nominated for the Gamer’s Voice Award alongside many other great indie titles like Nova-111, Hyper Light Drifter, and Chroma Squad.

“Everyone seemed to really enjoy the game a lot,” Roger reported. “A lot of people instantly thought it was Terraria, and then they quickly realized it wasn’t. But they still really enjoyed it! A lot of people were asking about the Steam Early Access and when the full game was going to come out. They also wondered if it was multiplayer.

A lot of people also asked me about Tomorrow Children. I couldn’t really answer anything about that. A bunch of people also want another Pixel Junk Monster game!”

Thanks, Roger! Our soup didn’t take the top prize this time, but there were still plenty of future Astroworkers trying their hand at galactic soup conquest! We were proud to get yet another nomination for Nom Nom Galaxy.

We’re working hard on getting Nom Nom ready for our next update, which should be in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Nom Nom Galaxy Turns One!

14 March, 2015 by p0rk1ns

One year ago, we brought our first original PixelJunk game to Steam via Early Access. It’s been a unique experience for Q. We’ve earned our reputation as the quiet studio in Kyoto making the quirky PixelJunk games. The quirky gameplay mechanics of the series was born from engine experiments or re-imagining gaming genres in 1080p (That was a big deal in 2007!) . Nom Nom Galaxy was a big departure for our development style. Since entering Early Access, we’ve experienced first hand the merits and demerits of developing in public and learned a few lessons. But ultimately, we think that Nom Nom Galaxy is a better game, and us a better studio, for it.

You may have noticed that we’ve had our heads down since successful showings at GDC China (Best Music at IGFC) and the inaugural PlayStation Experience last year. We’ve spent the past few months working with Double Eleven, our partners in the UK, adding content and tweaking based on internal and community feedback. We’re happy to announce that we’ve got an update coming in the next couple of weeks with a host of improvements, including new enemies, new planets and some much-anticipated optimizations!

There are a lot of other changes and additions in the next update, so jump back in when it’s released and let us know what you think!

Nom Nom Galaxy Christmas Update! (Ver. 0.21)

18 December, 2014 by p0rk1ns

Merry Christmas, Astroworkers!

It’s been a little while since we’ve seen any updates for Nom Nom Galaxy, but we elves have been working hard behind the scenes. We’ve left a bounty of Nom Nom presents under our Cosmic Christmas Tree for everyone!

The first present under our tree is a new way for Astroworkers customize their bases. These nifty escalators will transport soup and ingredients up or down automatically and add some variety to base designs.

This is sure to make Astroworkers who construct huge bases happy. We’ve added a crystal generator that can supply additional power to your base. You’ll have to find crystals hidden on the planets in order to create one first though.

If you’ve ever dreamed about zipping around the planet quickly, the new Warp Gates are right up your alley. For the cost of a little matter, you can teleport to and from your office to different Warp Gates that you set up around the map.

Our last big present is something we’re cooking up for our PixelJunk Monsters and Tower Defense fans. Astroworkers can now build Stun Towers to stop fast moving enemies and give your Shot Towers time to attack them.

There’s a lot more under the tree, so check out details below.

Update Notes:

Added new research tiers to increase rocket speed. Speed can be increased 5 times, with a 10% increase each time. Key cost will increase by one with each upgrade.
Added Warp Gate to research. Costs 10 keys to unlock.The Office serves as the warp gate home. Multiple gates can be built and the Astroworker will travel round robin to each gate before returning back to the office. Warping costs matter that increases according to distance.
Added Escalator to research. Cost 3 keys to unlock.
Added Long Throw to research.
Added Stun Tower to research. Costs 4 keys to unlock. Stun Towers will temporarily stop enemy movement within their range.
Added Building Defense Up to research.
Added Crystal Generator to research. Crystal Generators supply additional power to base equal to the main office. Astroworkers must find a crystal on the planet in order to construct a generator. Crystals can be found on Iddil, Pomelyk, and Apoxus-67.
Added new in-game BGM some stages

Changes

Adjusted the timing of punches to make it easier to combo.
Added knockback to the shotgun when enemy gets hit
Added some knockback when you punch enemies
Astroworkers can now do a rapid fire punch at the expense of some of their oxygen.
Adjusted the action icons (Eat, Plant, Ladder, etc.)
Increased the damage on the Dash Punch from 10 to 15. You can’t cancel out of this attack now.
Added radar function to soup factories. Radar on the factory will now direct you to the closest ingredient. In 2P mode, the factory will find ingredients close to the last player to put an ingredient into the factory.
Added a day timer at the bottom of the screen.
With the Maintenance Menu open, you can now us L1 R2 (1, 2 on keyboard) to switch between buildings in the area.
Changed the unlock key icon.
Added button prompts to proceed on the Earnings Report and Research menus.
Collectables (matter, floppy disks) can now be transported via treadmills.
Charlie and Charles can now pick up items from the storage.
Oxygen will no longer block water.
You can no longer build a second base and must use Crystal Generators for additional base power.
Fixed players being able to put items into buildings that no longer have power.
Robots will no longer take damage from players.
Seasonal changes will now be determined on a planet basis, not galaxy-wide.
Added hint when placing blueprints (Corridor connection hints).
Astroworkers can no longer punch while grabbing ledges

Bug Fixes

Fixed building defense bug fix which would cause buildings destroyed using the maintenance menu to only deal damage to the building instead of destroying it.
Fixed a bug where picking up an ingredient at the last second of decay would cause it to become invisible.
Fixed a bug while climbing ladders underwater.
Fixed a bug where the character would not be placed properly on the ladders.
Fixed a bug where carrying a robot that carries a heavy object (soup) would not slow the player.
Fixed shotgun pellet fire start location.
Fixed a bug where you can achieve very high speed by punching while floating (In girdiers).
Fixed problem where wielding a robot would prompt Eat and Plant commands.
Fixed a bug where the player could climb into walls while getting hit by monsters.
Fixed a bug which would cause the Astroworker to stop mid-attack if touched by enemies

As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

Happy Halloween!

31 October, 2014 by p0rk1ns

Happy Halloween, Astroworkers!

There are lots of updates in the works for version 0.20 but for now we’re just reveling in galactic soup treats! Stay safe while celebrating the holiday but beware the pumpkins!

As I said, version 0.20 is just around the corner and there are a host of improvements in store. The community on Steam has been really active the past week, and we’re taking much of those suggestions to heart for future updates. So if you’ve got suggestions on how to improve Nom Nom Galaxy, join in the discussion on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

Death by Pumpkin! Nom Nom Galaxy Update (Ver. 0.19)

23 October, 2014 by p0rk1ns

Hey there, Astroworkers!

We’ve got a doozy of an update for you this week! Another often requested robot finally joins the team, a plant and planet make an appearance, and Nom Nom Galaxy wins another award!

Hungry soup connoisseurs!

One of my favorite things about developing Nom Nom Galaxy is taking the game to shows and getting to talk to people about the game and watch them play. We’ve been in Early Access for about six months now and talking with you all on Steam, and with the popularity of live streaming it’s easy to see people playing Nom Nom Galaxy online. But there’s nothing quite like seeing it in person and interacting with the players.

Excellence in Audio! This might be the Electric Bends first award!

This year we’ve been fortunate enough to take Nom Nom to three(!) shows, BIG in Brazil, PAX Prime, and GDC China last week as a finalist for the Independent Games Festival. Nom Nom took the top prize at BIG, was part of the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX Prime, and now we’ve been honored with an Excellence in Audio Award from IGF China!

We’d like to thank everyone at GDC China and IGF China for having us at the show and honoring us with the award. The audio in Nom Nom Galaxy was all done by our in-house jam band, The Electric Bends. This award is sure to push those guys back into the studio to cook up some more tunes for the Galaxy!

On to this week’s update!

Atomic Daawwwwwg!

A pooch with a greenthumb!

The latest addition to your robot army is sure to be a welcome one. Since Nom Nom hit Early Access, there’s been on element that’s been from factory automation: Harvesting ingredients! No matter how well you’ve designed your factory, your Astroworker has always had to do the dirty work of pulling up the plants. Soup Co. has sent some relief in the form of the Astroworker’s best friend: Ben!

Most dogs like to destroy gardens, but Ben is special case. You can unlock Ben for three keys in the research menu and at a cost of 150 gold per robot. After summoning Ben, hand him an ingredient to sniff and he’ll move to harvest plants that have fully grown and leave one ingredient behind for it the next plant to grow. Ben will deposit the ingredients in his doghouse, which can be connected to your factory from the sides or the bottom. He’ll also climb up one block terrain, giving you some more building options. Like all of the other robots, give him a punch and he’ll drop whatever he’s carrying. To change what Ben is harvesting, simply give him another ingredient.

Killer Pumpkins

The plant life in Nom Nom Galaxy is nothing to shake a stick, or buzzsaw, at! In the tradition of overly aggressive tomatys and mean mushrooms, we introduce the latest in pugilistic produce, the Killer Pumpkin! (That’s a temp name. If you have any ideas for another, let us know!)

This pumpkin grows from vines and drops down upon unsuspecting Astroworkers. If it misses, the pumpkin does a rolling attack to pummel its target!

Pumpkins only appear on Iddil now, but expect to find them on other planets soon!

Other Updates/Fixes

Added a VS screen at the start of the game
Rival company market share now appears in the planet percentage area
When playing co-op and holding an item, the factory will only blink for the player holding the item
New stage, Kakoi, added
We’ve removed the winter season because of a silly bug. It’ll be back once we’ve squashed it. But for now, enjoy a Game of Thrones style Summer.
Added an arrow to help you get back to your money and matter after dying.

As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

Nom Nom Galaxy Post-PAX Update #3 (Ver. 0.18)

15 October, 2014 by p0rk1ns

Salutations Astroworkers!

Our update this week that addresses some outstanding issues, including the tutorial, vehicles and combat – all things we talked to you guys about during PAX. We’ve also added a new robot that addresses one of the most requested additions to the factories: throwing ingredients down! Before we get into the update, Nom Nom Galaxy continued its tour of gaming events this last weekend by making its debut at IndieCade!

The latest build was available for would be soup entrepreneurs to try out. This build for the PS4 includes our new tutorial, which was debuted for the first time at the show. We’ve also been busy getting ready for yet another show, GDC China. Nom Nom Galaxy was nominated for Best Game in the Independent Games Festival there, wish us luck!

Okay, on to the meat and potatoes (soup)!

Down We Go!

This week we’d like to introduce a new robot to the team, Travis! Travis will add a new dimension to your factories by allowing you to finally send ingredients down.

Make Your Mark

While we love Soup Co., there’s nothing quite like owning your own company. From now on soup meisters can name their own company when starting their factory. The name will appear in the top right corner next to your rivals. We’re looking for ways to display this more prominently. How would you like to brand your company in Nom Nom Galaxy?

Learning the Ropes

There’s a brand new tutorial stage available at the stage select menu. This replaces the original tutorial we launched with at the beginning of Early Access. We think this new tutorial does a much better job of explaining just how to get your factory up and running. It’s still a little bit raw (keyboard and mouse prompts aren’t in just yet) so we’re looking for any feedback on how we can improve it.

That New Car Smell

There have been numerous adjustments to balance with the vehicles, including costs, and power duration. It will now be more apparent when a vehicle is running out of power. The Hoverboard was a little bit overpowered and has had it’s jumping toned down. And the Pogo, which wasn’t very useful before, has received a major update! Pressing the RB will now extend a drill that can remove blocks or attack enemies and animals! Finally, we’ve added a slightly localized Chinese version in the current update to assist (me) with showing NNG in the IGF Pavillion at GDC China this weekend. It’s still a work in progress.

As always, please let us know what you think in the comments here, on our Steam Community, Facebook, or Twitter! See you next time!

Teachable Moments

3 October, 2014 by p0rk1ns

What’s up Astroworkers!

Taking Nom Nom Galaxy to shows like PAX, Gamescom and EuroGamer Expo is an incredible way for us to learn just “how” people are playing the game. Even with us in Early Access, there’s no substitute for actually watching people starting their first soup empire from scratch.One of the things we learned, after copious amounts of water and what seemed like thousands of throat lozenges, is that the tutorial was painfully lacking in… just about everything! We did a lot – A LOT – of talking during those shows.

In a traditional sandbox game the player is usually free to explore the world and discover the scope of things they can do at their own pace. Nom Nom isn’t a pure sandbox though, and the player needs to understand how everything works very quickly in order to ship soup, make money, and defend themselves from attack.

But it’s difficult to throw that at the player at the same time. One of the things I learned when teaching people to play was to hold off on teaching them about the buzzsaw. Once the power to destroy is in players hands, all kinds of block-collapsing hell broke loose! It was like watching Nom Nom Tetris.

Thankfully, with the help of our partners at Double Eleven, we’re in the process of completely revamping the tutorial. The player will now crash land on the planet and gradually make their way to the first base, learning about the Astroworker abilities as they go. After arriving at the base, you’ll do some quick maintenance, ship your first can of soup, and start defending yourself form those pesky rival soup companies.

We’re still working on it, but we’re with the progress we’ve made thus far. Look for the new tutorial in the next update!