Engineering ·

Masonry That Behaves Like Masonry

Where walls meet, the joint is mortared and the corner is bonded. A wall built on from another carries its bond on, and a single brick slots into the course.

The corner of a red-brick cottage with white-framed windows and a shingled gable roof, standing in long grass.In development
Corners bonded brick by brick, course by course.

Development update. The construction system is playable in current development builds, and it is still being expanded.

A brick wall is not a textured box. It is courses, joints and corners, and the nearby wall has a say in how the next brick sits.

Bonded corners

Where two walls meet, the joint is mortared and the corner is bonded, alternating brick by brick, course by course. That is ordinary masonry. It is also the difference between a cottage that looks built and a pair of walls that happen to touch.

A wall built on from another carries its bond on. You do not start a new pattern because the drag gesture was new. The course continues.

One brick at a time

When you want precision, you can lay a single brick. It slots into the wall's bond: whole, three-quarter, half, or a queen closer, cut to leave a proper joint. Drag-built runs still exist, so you are not clicking several hundred times to raise a shed. The shed is still made of bricks.

Close view along a brick wall in stretcher bond, mortar joints between every brick, a white window frame at the right.In development
Stretcher bond, mortared joints, a window frame already in the wall.

Openings that belong to the wall

Openings can be left rough, with no frame, and bricked up again later. A lintel still goes in above a proper window or door, because the courses above it need something to sit on.

A long brick wall on a dirt pad with a lintelled opening, its courses stepping down at one end, pines behind.In development
A long wall on a dirt pad, its bond stepping down, an opening already cut.

Roofs, timber frames, foundations that follow the slope, and taking a structure apart again are all part of the same system. The aim has not changed: build structures, not prefabs.

More updates

Development

A home in the habitat

Test build 0.1.403: the habitat from the care package is furnished as a home, with smart glass, lights on the colony's power, a working colony terminal, a bunk, a chair, a shower and a toilet, each with its own animation and seen by the crew in co-op.

Development

Told by Melanie

Test build 0.1.385: the opening film rewritten and told by Melanie, with new scenes inside Genesis's holds and out in the trial bay, a reworked bomb, and a fly-in to the Meridian the first time the title screen opens.

Development

Your game on Discord

Test build 0.1.393: your friends on Discord see the mission you are on and where you are, with a picture for each place. Voices, music, sound effects and menu sounds each have their own volume, and the opening film's narration plays at the right level.

Private testing · Steam page later

Follow the expedition

A private beta for a small group of testers is being set up, and the store page will follow. Until then, every change is written up in the development log, with an RSS feed so you never miss one.

Nova Eridani is in development. Showcase 01 — “Arrival” is in private testing. Screenshots are from the in-development build.