Hi everyone, it’s been quite some time since the last “State of The Game” post. Well, we were doing some underground developing work for Pile Up! and wanted to wait until something worth talking about comes out.

But before, if you still haven't checked the last update in which we reworked the camera controls, added chill mode and fixed lots of building behaviors, please go check it out! You can reach the update log here.

So, in this SoTG post we will; talk about our communication with you, what happened since the release, why our updates take so long and -our main topic which is- how the game is doing and what our plans for future updates are. Time for us to state now.

(The existence of the last sentence was Zyve’s idea, he suggested adding a beginning sentence which is like what Mangakas use. I wrote the sentence though, so now we are both part of the sin.)

Communication

We have begun to think that we can improve our communication with you. So from now on there will be a pinned report in our discussions forum which we will keep updated all the time. It won’t be anything long, just a short and quick text about the things we are aware of -bugs, problems, other stuff etc.- and what we are currently working on. We believe that you can get informed way faster this way. So don't forget to check our discussion forum!

Also you may realize the old pinned posts for bugs and your questions are gone. We just want to add that those are archived, so none of your messages are gone, we can still see all of them. The reason why we archived them is that we don’t get notified whenever a new reply gets created in those posts. So you can just create a new post in the forum. This will be easier for both you and us.

What has happened since the Early Access release?

We've won the People's Choice and Most Anticipated Game Awards in Game Connection 2023 Paris, we’ve been nominated for lots of awards including Independent Games Festival's Best Student Game Award, reached over 500 reviews on Steam and 600 people on our Discord Server all thanks to you! We’re so happy for all your support and trying each day to make the game better for you all. Thank you!

Why do our updates take so long?

Okay, so what is taking so long and why didn't we post an update for a long time? Well, after the Above The Clouds update we've realized that we had to develop our systems for the game which are the scripts that work in the background while playing the game. So we were developing stuff which you wouldn't interact with directly but are crucial for the game.

And when we consider the fact that we are still in high school / college and we can’t work full-time on the game because of this, it becomes obvious. Also, don’t be confused. Us still being students won’t cause any problems. We will keep working on the game until we are really and I mean really satisfied with the state of the game. Show must go on.

What have we done in a couple of months?

Other than developing the back-end systems of the game, we updated the camera system and controls, fixed lots of bugs and building behavior problems, reworked sound effects and made some quality of life changes in the last winter update.
Now, other than getting prepared for the next MAJOR update, we are focusing on the feedback which you gave us from our Discord server, Steam discussions, reviews and our in-game feedback system to diagnose the problems of the game. We’ve updated our feedback list and planned what we need to do next.

How’s the game doing and what are we planning on next?

To begin with, we’ve updated the roadmap. In case you didn’t see, here it is:

You might realize that now the roadmap is sectioned based on major updates rather than seasons, literal seasons. We made this change to show you what each update will cover.

For our next MAJOR update we will work on gameplay. From buildings to new systems, we want to make the gameplay more meaningful. We know that the game is in a position that if you get a special building, you just win the game or if you don’t know anything about the game all it takes is a building to destroy your well earned progress currently. So our first plan is to fix Pile Up!’s difficulty curve and to balance everything.

After that we want to rework useless or overpowered buildings so everything can work great with each other. Because currently some buildings are really situational with really limited usages while some others are not viable choices at all.

The last thing that we will work on before the update will be adding brand new gameplay systems for you to have more freedom and strategy while playing. We want to keep them a secret until we get really sure about them, but we can say the book will have more usage. We will also update our tutorial, so that newer players have a smoother experience on their first few runs.

The next MAJOR update might be the last MAJOR update before our full release so it will be the biggest MAJOR update that we will be releasing since our early access release, which means with all this new stuff coming we may stay undercover for a couple months. But you can still easily contact us via our Discord server or Steam Discussions forums.

Next Update?

Lastly, we want to tell you what will be included with our next update which won’t be a major update. The next update will fix ALL of the achievement bugs, a couple problematic buildings which we talked about in the last update and rework some sound effects. QoL changes and more bug fixes will be in the update too. It will be released in a couple weeks.

Thank you for reading, see you in our next MAJOR update in a couple of months!
Oh and don’t forget to follow our social media accounts to be informed about everything as early as possible.
You can find all the links in our Discord Server[discord.gg].
-Fausta

Hello everyone, we are here with great news!

WE’RE NOMINATED FOR THE BEST STUDENT GAME AWARD AT THE;

Also, we need your help again for the Audience Award. Your votes were so crucial for us when we won the Peoples’ Choice Award at the last Game Connection Awards.

So if you like to game and want to help out please feel free to check the games and use your vote from the link below. The voting will remain open until January 31, 2024 at 11:59pm PT.

Audiance Award Voting Link: https://informa-tech.formstack.com/forms/26th_annual_independent_games_festival_audience_award


Being nominated for such a great award this early in our game development adventure really motivates us and brings us a smile. Also congratulations for all the other nominees, your games are awesome!

So, if you want to check out the award ceremony please keep an eye open for the GDC Twitch channel. See you soon!

Oh, by the way we just released a new update in which we reworked the camera system and control configurations. You can reach the update log here.

Hi everybody! We were not around here for a while so we could develop more technical systems for the game and now we are back with a big update!

Before going deeply over all new stuff let me give you a recap.

THE CAMERA AND CONTROL SCHEMES ARE FINALLY UPDATED!

Now you can select one of 3 control schemes for the camera -one being the old one- depending on which you like best. Since we changed the schemes we also changed the camera from orthographic to perspective, this can lead to more interesting angles and scenes. Also your top-down camera’s angle aligns with your normal camera angle now!

CHILL MODE IS HERE!

You don’t want lots to think about? That’s cool. That’s… chill. Bigger radiuses for all requirement buildings, a dump at the start of the game and less chaotic buildings are all in chill mode waiting for you.

WINTER IS COMING!

You will realize that it snows quite a lot in the main menu. Also there is a new winter themed music! Enjoy.

BUILDING BEHAVIORS ARE (MOSTLY) FIXED!

We know you’ve had at least one time where a building didn’t do what it should. Well, nearly all of the building behavior problems are fixed. For an example now the dump has its isolated effect so you can keep your buildings for the next rounds.
But please keep in mind that we still need to work on more complex building behaviors like balcony or tent.

MORE QoL, FEEL AND CLARITY UPDATES!

It’s not a Pile Up! update without these. Now you have;

• You can choose tondisable building columns now.
  
• Lot’s of new and reworked sound effects. SO PUMP UP THE VOLUME.
  
• Changed colors for the day loop to help you see better while playing.
  
• A “disable interactions” button for the sandbox.
  
• New visual effects to improve clarity.
  
• More QoL changes!

A NEW STATE OF THE GAME POST WILL DROP THIS WEEK!

If you want to take a peak for our future plans, just check the state of the game post we’ll release this week.

Also keep an eye out for a special announcement!

Now let’s get into detail for those who are curious!

• Changed the camera rendering from Orthographic to Perspective and edited certain parts of the game to fit this rendering style.
  
• With the rendering style update, zooming now "zooms in" the camera instead of reducing the orthographic size, which can create more interesting camera angles.
  
• The camera also has angular bounds now.
  
• The vertical camera bounds now change with your city's height. So from now on, you need to build higher if you want to see higher.
  
• Top Down camera now aligns to your camera direction.

2 New Control Schemes
Axis Cam (Classic)

• It is the camera control scheme in the older versions of the game
  
• Left Click -> Rotate the camera around target on X axis / Move the camera vertically.
  
• Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera on X/Z plane
  
• WASD -> Same as left click

Orbital Cam (New)

• It is our first new scheme. It is mostly same other than the fact that you can do 3d orbital rotation with right click
  
• Left Click -> Rotate the camera around target on X axis / Move the camera vertically.
  
• Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera on X/Z plane
  
• Right Click -> Rotate the cam around the center orbitally.
  
• WASD -> Same as the middle button.

Panned Orbital Cam (2. New)

• The concept is the same but the drag movement is related to the camera direction. So you can move related to the screen instead of the world.
  
• Left Click -> Rotate the cam around the center orbitally.
  
• Middle Button -> Drag the center of the camera, related to the screen.
  
• Right Click -> Drag the center of the camera, related to the screen.
  
• WASD -> Same as the middle button/right click.

Key binding for all of these control schemes will come in future updates.

CHILL MODE:

• You start each game with a dump in your hand.
  
• Completing each island needs less population.
  
• You get way less action and special buildings.
  
• You can pass any action factory or special building selections. If you pass an action factory selection you get a factoling, if you pass a special building selection you get a house factory.
  
• Requirement buildings’ provide radiuses are 2.5 units bigger and danger radiuses -like explosive or igniting- are 0.6 units smaller in chill mode.
  
  
• Chill mode will be available for every island you’ve unlocked.
  
• Completing an island in normal mode will unlock the next island’s both normal and chill mode but completing an island in chill mode will only unlock the next island’s chill mode. So you need to also complete the normal mode if you want to play the next island’s normal mode.
  
• Chill mode gives less scraps than normal mode in comparison.

WINTER IS COMING:

A new main menu with winter themes and music is waiting for you to launch the game!

BUILDING BEHAVIOR FIXES:

• Now action and support factory models are different.
  
• House Factory: Pools are changed.
  
• Hotel: Gives the right amount of population now.
  
• Dump: Isolated effect now works. So if you don’t place any buildings next to the last dump you’ve placed, the passed buildings will stay with you.
  
• Satellite: A little cooldown problem has been fixed.
  
• Satellite: Now gives Night Club rather than A Platform.
  
• Terrace: You will be able to place this on top of *any* roof building. But we are still working on it because it’s quite tricky to do. We just wanted to give a heads up.
  
• Fixed the problem which some buildings give 1 population.
  
• Coffin: Fixed a behavior issue where Coffin forgives a percantage of all of the deaths rather than forgiving a percantage of deaths that itself has caused.
  
• Coffin: Now forgives at the end of the countdown rather than each turn bit by bit. Just like how it should.
  
• Hospital: In-game death and forgive numbers were different than the building text so we fixed the in-game numbers. Now the numbers should be same all across the building description and in-game variables.
  
• Industry: Is explosive now. This was the intended while designing this building. Please note that we are still experimenting with this building and may change the effect in the future.
  
• Production Line: Fixed an issue when sometimes the support didn’t make the factories work faster.
  
• Cinema: Now with each level the count of needed factories drained to give a factoling gets reduced rather than increasing the given factoling count.
  
• Court: Fixed a bug where the building was giving a lot of jails before stopping giving them. Not it works as it should be.
  
• Watchmaker: Fixed a cooldown problem.
  
• Lab: Added missing buildings from its pool. So now you should be able to get watchtower and support parts from it.
  
• Tent & Plaza: Like Terrace, these buildings are quite tricky so we will need some more time to develop and fix these buildings.

MORE QoL, FEEL AND CLARITY UPDATES!

• Visuals of the night club are updated. More visual updates are on their way!
  
• Now the activation / deactivation of the Chimneys & Smokes on top of the factories are more accurate.
  
• Screensaver behavior is updated.
  
• You can disable the building columns from settings now. No more blocking vision.
  
• New Sfxs and Vfxs for clarity and feel. If you try to pass the round while having too many buildings you’ll see an animation for an example.
  
• New clarity and text updates. One especially for the new camera schemes.
  
• The deep red dawn color has been updated to help you see better.
  
• Some unnecessary buttons has been disabled.
  
• Down left menu icons are now more flashy.
  
• Sandbox has an interaction deactivation now. This was from our last update but we just wanted to write here.

BUG FIXES!

• We fixed so many bugs that we can’t find the exact number, but we can say that there are no game breaking bugs in the game at the moment and we keep fixing each minor bug.
  
• The bug where a lot of achievements are getting unlocked by themselves while the initial launch of the game is quite a complex problem since we can’t recreate it with Steam and there are no visible problems with the code. So until we fix those we will disable the problematic achievements. We hope that you don’t mind.
  
• Also starting this update we will give you information every time we fix a bug or get informed of a new one so we can develop our communication with you. You can check the pinned post in discussions to get the latest info about what we are doing or are we informed about a bug you’ve encountered.

FINALLY

This is all for this update. If you want to learn our future plans you can check out our State of The Game post which will be posted this week.

Also please keep an eye out for a special announcement!

See you soon!
-Sj & Fausta and Zyve

Pile Up! DreamHack Beyond Stream

Hi everyone,

We're nearing the end of the year and Steam Awards are here! This year has been great for us and we are so happy to see you enjoy the serene atmosphere of Pile Up!.

We are still hard at work to update the game as frequently as possible and get ready for our full release next year. In the meantime, we would love your support during this year's Steam Awards. We believe the "Sit Back and Relax" category of the Steam Awards best suits our game.

You can nominate us directly from this post using the widget above!

Your support means a lot to us! Thank you for playing our game and we hope to continue our journey with all of you in the future.

Hello everyone! It’s been some time since we released an update, and we were working on our plans for the release and the new clarity and feel update.

But first, Pile Up! has been selected for Game Connection Europe 2023: Game Development Awards! And most importantly, we are nominated for the “People’s Choice Award”, which you will decide who will be the winner by voting, so we need your help!

If you would like to support us, please consider voting for us via the form below. Also, don’t forget to check out the other nominated games too! They are real gems <3
-> https://forms.gle/hSfgcQhtEtVZRd7AA

So, with this out of the way, let’s talk about the game.

This update log will only be focused on the clarity update we just released, but if you want to learn more about the game’s future, keep an eye out on our socials for the next “State of The Game” post this weekend.


In the V0.4.6 update, we focused on clarity and quality of life changes, as the name suggests.

• Now, newcomers can select the language as soon as they enter the game. No more saying “The game opened in a language I have never seen before.”. By the way, that language was Turkish (which is our native language!), and you’ve learned something new about us today.
  
• Camera movement improved to be more fluid.
  
• Overall animations and day-night cycle transitions are much faster.
  
• You don’t have to wait for the “happiness balls” to reach the menu to end the round.
  
• You can right-click on a building on hand to open that building’s page in the handbook.
  
• The color of the little happiness bar menu icon now changes depending on how well you do. So you can still learn how your people feel without having a big wheel on your screen.
  
• A red vignette will appear if your happiness level is below the limit to make you realize the risk.

• The major bug occurring in the selection that prevents you from continuing the game is fixed.
  
• Buildings’ scroll field in the sandbox is fixed.
  
• The game prevents duplicate selections now.
  
• Minor bugs.

That’s all for now, see you in the “State of The Game” post and the Game Connection Awards 2023!

-Fausta & Emir

Make sure to check out other games from our Chinese publishing partner IndieArk as well as all the other great games taking part in this event!

We would have loved to offer a discount during this event, however, due to our latest discount being less than a month ago, we are unable to set up a discount during the event.

Steam China Showcase 2023 will be running from September 21 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7) to September 27 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7).

Hello everyone!

We're happy to announce Pile Up! is taking part in Steam Strategy Fest and will be %30 discounted until August 31.

Unfortunately, we were not able to keep the discount going until the end of Strategy Fest due to conflicting issues with discount limitations. The discount will be offered until August 31. So, don't miss out on this opportunity to grab Pile Up! with a great discount.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank our community for an amazing week at Gamescom. We hope this week will be just as great with Strategy Fest!

Steam Strategy Fest runs August 28 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7) to September 4 at 10:00 AM PDT (UTC-7).

Hello, everyone! After many back and forths, we finally managed to publish the Pile Up! trading cards on Steam!
For quite a while, we have been working on bringing Pile Up! trading cards to Steam. And after weeks of work, Pile Up! cards, badges, emoticons, and profile backgrounds are now available on Steam! So, it is exactly the right time to showcase a beautiful-looking Moyai background on your profile! 🗿 😎

PS: (It might take a couple of days to update and be present for everyone.)

We are aware that you wanted to pile buildings while you are laying on the couch, or maybe play Pile Up! on your sweet portable console. In any case, now is the right time to boot up Pile Up!, grab your controller, sit on your comfortable chair, and enjoy the cozy but strategic city building. "Wait, but I thought Pile Up! didn't support controller?" Yes, until now, there there wasn't an official controller support for "Pile Up!", but things are changing...

We are super excited to announce that Pile Up! has an official controller layout for Steam now! Although this is not a full controller support, and it is only a layout for Steam's built-in controller system, from now on, this layout will be set by default for all players. So grab your controller and continue to enjoy "Pile Up!"! 🎮


Important Note: This controller layout is a temporary solution for those who want to experience Pile Up! with a controller. Since we still need some time to develop full controller support, we used Steam's built-in controller layout system.

We'll also publish an update really soon; that will contain improved game flow, fixed saving issues, and improved UI. So stay tuned!

-Mahi & Sj