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!