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!