Hi Timeworkers!

Happy June! While the weather warmed up and everyone was enjoying the summer vibes, the Starworks team locked and loaded enough amazing updates to fill up multiple assemblers, so let's take a look at Starworks 0.1.5!

With the last updates focusing on design, tutorials, and difficulty, we were left with a solid groundwork for our factory floor. So, this update was all about polish. Every minute element of the level was considered for improvement; for example, we considered where the player should be facing when each level begins. A seemingly small change that allows for better clarity in levels like “Through the Cracks.”

My favorite part of builds is seeing all our amazing artists come together and make this game radiate personality out of every industrial 2 by 4. We have such a unanimous understanding of what the game’s style is at this point, so every asset comes out even better than the last. Covering each one would take all three of my loops, so I’ll stick to the highlights:

But beauty is only skin deep; does the game play any better now? Sure does! Another pass on UI and rewinding makes it easier and more fun than ever to hop through time. The new folder UI makes knowing where you are a breeze, and we added a buffer and graphic to the rewind system so you’ll no longer Groundhog Day over your progress.

These new improvements will be needed in our new levels. “Shelf Run” ain’t no pushover but can be completed with smart clone management and skillful platforming. But we promised you a challenge last time and here it is; tons of blueprints, items, and obstacles make these last two the most challenging levels so far. We’ve discovered that level design that is deceptively simple can become plenty challenging with the right use of mechanics; “Stepping Stones” takes a standard layout and puts the assemblers up high, making proper time management a requirement for completion. And the spaghetti of a route to complete “Loading Docks” will test every bit of your knowledge of the game. We’ve just scratched the surface of making the player sweat for minimum wage, and we’ll keep bringing the brain boilers until release.

All of these great changes have been guided by our reinvigorated playtesting efforts! We got that iconic, goofy little smile in front of a lot of faces and got a ton of amazing information from it. Our community outreach has also been popping off on places like our official TikTok and Instagram. Our TikToks are actually funny and not crusty cartoon clips with soap-cutting videos under them.

But overall the project is growing and evolving. More than we ever could have expected. And we’re so excited to show you what we’ve changed. So get rewinding on 0.1.5, playable right on our Itch.io page!

Until next