Neongarten

Neongarten 1.3 has been released! This update includes a new Endless Mode option from the Victory screen. If you win a game, you'll have the chance to push your luck even farther. Endless Mode was something that players have been asking for for a while, but I've resisted adding in for two reasons. The first thing to consider is performance. Unlike other games of its ilk, Neongarten has a permanent playing field. You add a building and it's there forever. Buildings and their 3D models have lights, textures, animations and so on, and the game (at least on my five-year-old laptop) can already chug a little bit once it gets to Day 64. Especially if I'm using lots of neon. I wasn't sure if the game's performance would suffer too much if any given player got to, say, day 128. The second thing was a game design conundrum. Neongartern is what I call a "broken build" game - discovering (and then building up to) building combos and synergies that make boatloads of cash. I didn't want a situation where the player is just waiting for their weekly rent to slowly increase past what their nightly income (based on some uber-combo) can sustain. Boring! I

Controllers, man. They can be tricky, especially switching between controller and keyboard / mouse input on the fly. When the game first was released, I tried to be clever with that switch. When the game is in "gamepad" mode, then Godot needs to display that particular button in "focused" mode, something that doesn't happen when you just hover over it (or even click it) with a mouse. When I detected mouse movement, I would remove the focus off of the focused UI control. This caused a bunch of headaches for some players. If a mouse was accidentally brushed (or a thumbpad on the Deck), then the focused element could disappear completely and make controllers difficult or even impossible to use. Sorry about that! My bad. This new update gets rid of that cleverness. If you ever use the controller buttons to move or select something, there should always be a focused element now, even if you switch to mouse / keyboard. It might look a little less clean, but it should always work.Other changes:On the default Steam Deck controller configuration, I set the right thumbpad to act as a joystick instead of a mouse. It worked well enough as a mouse, but the game still isn

The latest update, 1.2.whatever, is now out for public release! This content update adds a set of nine different Scenarios to choose from. Each scenario is designed to explore a certain synergy or build and give you a head start in that direction. They give you a specific game map, starting buildings, and initial perks. (To compensate for starting with perks up front, you won't be able to choose any perks at the end of the week.) With all those starting goodies, it only seems fair that the City Council is increasing how much rent they expect of you... There's also some small balance changes! The Corp Office gets a small upgrade, adding +1 income to any Corp building above it. I think this helps the Corp faction feel more vertically-inclined - ya know, build on the backs of the peasants sorta attitude. The Bar now gets +1 income from any residential building, not just Basic Apartments. It felt pretty underpowered compared to the Cafe, so I think this will bring it more in line. (The perk Cheap Booze used to expand the Bar's "range" from Basic Apartments to all residentials. Now it gives all bars a x2 multiplier.) Full change log:Nine scenarios: Office Park,

Neongarten 1.1.2 is now ready for everyone! This update rounds out the optional Black ICE challenge tags with four more options. - Inflation: At the beginning of each week, the rent due increases by your current nightly income * 7. So if rent would have been 263 for week 2 and you come in with an income of 30 per night, your new weekly rent due is 473 (= 263 + 30 * 7). - Balance: If any faction has 3 more buildings than another faction, then all buildings of that type get a -1 Multiplier. - Bad Neighbors: Buildings of the same type that neighbor each other give each other x0 Multipliers. - Power Multiplier: +Power effects are now +Multiplier bonuses instead. I've been able to win games with all four Black ICE challenges, and even with multiple ones enabled at the same time. I'm not sure that it's possible to win with every single one enabled, but I have had some fun trying to beat it with four different ones going at the same time. There's also a small bug fix with controller navigation for the Options menu. Enjoy!