Techtonica is a factory automation game, in case this wasn’t abundantly clear yet.

This growing genre is relatively fresh, and one bit of fairly untrodden ground is narrative. That is, factory automation games don’t typically have stories at their center, letting players pull at plot threads as they expand their factories.

With Techtonica, that’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish.

If you’ve played the demo or watched the trailers, you likely already know that Techtonica features voice acting. That voice work is part of our broader narrative, and today we’d like to take a moment to look at another of our many narrative devices.

Facilities.

Before you split, take note: we won’t spoil anything in this post. We picked a facility that’s specifically spoiler-free. Have no fear and dig in.

Welcome to the Warehouse

Hidden west of Butterfly Cove is a gate. Behind that gate? A treasure trove. The Warehouse is a storage facility on Calyx, and it contains tech that you’ll need to scan to progress to the next tier of unlocks on your Tech Tree.

Facilities like the Warehouse also feature scannable objects that won’t yield an unlock, instead revealing tidbits of information about what happened on Calyx. This is one of the narrative devices in Techtonica that rewards curiosity and exploration with breadcrumbs of story.

The Warehouse is one of many facilities, and others will feature lots more lore and discovery. As I said, we picked the most spoiler-free facility for this showcase, so expect to unearth plenty of Techtonica’s tale in the others.

You’ll need a little more to unlock the doors, Groundbreaker

Some Facilities are going to require a little technological muscle to enter. For instance, the Warehouse demands a Crank Generator’s placement to power the gate. Once inside, there’s another door that requires some advanced tech to unlock.

Locking narrative and equipment scannables behind doors like these gives us a way to motivate players to iterate on their factories, make them more efficient, and yield specific products and components.

Farm fresh concepts

As always, we have a piece of concept art that I think is pretty cool. Andrii, our Game Designer, had a vision for the Warehouse that he sketched up before everything was made in-game. It wound up being pretty darn close to the playable version on the development build today.

There’s something intriguing about the isometric view of the Warehouse space. My favorite part? Andrii’s homage to Cranky, which is what we call the Crank Generator internally.

Thanks for reading, Groundbreakers!

We share these updates every week. If you’d like to receive them via email instead of having to check the official blog or Steam, we have a mailing list that you can sign up for, too.

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See you soon!