Did you know that the Conveyor Belts and Power Floors in Techtonica have been purely placeholder for the last year or so?

It’s true. And it was something we wanted to address before we hit our Early Access launch this summer.

The differences between the old and new Conveyor Belts are subtle, but the Power Floors have received a major overhaul that helps with legibility and gives us the option to let players customize them in the future.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start by comparing the old models to the new ones.

Dig in, Groundbreakers!

Compare and contrast

Right, let’s start with the Belts. The differences between the old Belts and the new Belts are relatively minimal. First, the old belts.

We played around with many changes to these before finding a happy middle-ground between adding new stuff and retaining the visual clarity we’d already established. Here are some of the concepts we toyed with.

Now for the new Belts, and then I’ll get to the subtle changes.

Okay, the new Belts have more grime and grit without sacrificing visual clarity. You can still tell they are belts, and the chevrons on top signal their direction. We’ve also retained the flowing lights on the side to help spell out direction when you’re viewing them from a distance, too. If you’re looking closely, you’ll also see that belts now have rails along the side to better fit into the Techtonica universe.

Like I said, subtle changes.

The Power Floors, then, are way more apparent. Let’s start with the old ones once more.

You’ll immediately notice that they are dark and hard to read. They also don’t really match the materials available to the player during the beginning of the game. They look too futuristic when they should, instead, match the grittier feel of ANEXCAL’s aging outfit on Calyx.

How about the new ones?

Much, much better.

The old Power Floors signal that they are powered by adding hard-to-see blue-ish lights to the top. The new Power Floors add bright lights to their corners, and being able to tell when they are on or off is way, way easier. We also opened the sides so that players could see through them and maintain sightlines when the Floors rise to higher levels in more vertical builds.

Plus, we’ve done a bit of future-proofing

When we were concepting the Power Floor updates, we wanted to ensure we were ready for eventual customization. Yes, some customization options will come to [i]Techtonica[/i]. This won’t be ready at Early Access launch, but down the line, we’ll be giving folks the ability to paint floors, and the new designs make that possible.

Here are some art mock-ups to give you an idea of what I mean.

The tops are free from significant design elements to allow for eventual painting. Again, this won’t be with us at Early Access, but it’s coming soon™.

That’s it for this week’s update. We’ll be back next week with, potentially, a longer developer commentary video.

Techtonica launches into Early Access this summer. We’ll see you then!