Milky Way - Dev diary

Milky way patch notes

May fix

I have done this udpated to hopefully fix a signal 11 bug, causing some phones to crash the app before the game can open. I cannot recreate the error so I did a bunch of house cleaning to hopefully fix it.

Added the patch notes buttons to the main menu, it is probarbly why you are here
Removed assets and phantom folders in the game folder
Moved the game to a empty folder to shake off bugs
- This may clear your save game slots...sorry :(
Cut the actors active at the start of the game by half to avoid too much memory being used

Halo - Big update 2

This one is quite big aha. Halo is all about pushing the scale of the milky way. We have new characters, lots of new planets and reworks. An introduction to fossil planets and a a huge overhaul to the merge system so you can start mixing your dream planets. Lastly, using the power of sticker collecting, you can expand your borders, That makes it big.

New merge system

As the old system was clumsy and hard to use I have reworked the merge system to be entirely UI

Collisions will no longer trigger a merge
Planets that can merge will have a merge button in their HUD
Merges now support carrying traits such as albino and giant traits
Fusions are cooked in the sun, so only one can be made at a time
Merges require fusion beans, a new rare flower currency
To celebrate. More merges have been added

Expansions

From the new quest vendor, Flare, you can expand your borders to make your system bigger!

Expand your system multiple times
Unlock expansions every 3 stickerbook levels
Stickerbook levels are a new system. Fill a line in your stickerbook to level it up

Energy

A new system for orbiters to help balance out their cheaper prices and bring some micro-managment. This will hopefully be a good foundation for introducing game changing orbiters in the future.

Some orbiters use energy, if you run out of energy that orbiter cannot operate
Orbiters have a turn off button
Planets, moon and the new orbiter generate energy
Orbiters now cost between 250 and 350 dust

40 planets

12 new planets were added, totaling the game to 40 planets (we launched with 20 at vanilla)

New common planet, Electirc, generates energy
New stun collison type for new and old planets
Red's regeneration perk has been replaced with Amber hunt, a fossil finding minigame

Moons

New common moon, Copper, generates energy
2 New rare moons, Disco and Fusion
Added Crystal and Jungle as moonlings and improved moonling UI
Moons will also come in more valuble menamlistic and albino forms
Most moon scores have been lowered to balance overall game scoring

Presents

Upgraded the egg system into a present system. Each planet birthday gives you a gift which can contain the following;

Eggs (containing planets and orbiters)
Moon jars
Fusion beans

Other planet changes

New stun collison will cause some planets to freeze rather than cause damage
Glass now gets +5 points per birthday to make its perk very worthwhile (previosuly +3)
Crystal now makes more dust per second
Planets that are making dust shoot dust at the sun based on their dust/ per second

Flowers

Flowers grow and shrink from an animation
Fusion beans have a 1/8 to grow as a flower
Flowers grown on moons can be collected from the planet HUD. Making them easier to harvest

When first placing a planet, it blocks you from placing it into the sun or out of bounds
Big UI overhaul and all the text is in bold
Baby planets now use a baby prefix on planet names
Planet create button has new animations to show its ready to make planets
Greater UI and new animations for tutorial
New character 'Egg warden yolk' chat screen for hatching eggs
- Upgraded chat screens

Caravans

Caravans no longer depart. When they appear they stay for the rest of the game, instead stock is individually restocked overtime. This gives the player more frequent stock options and fixes depart bugs

Quest bases and caravans have speech bubbles for chats and stock updates
Removed the Warden challange from Saloon
Saloon's flowers contract can sometimes reward fusion beans
Orbiters from traders are cheaper
Updated Bazaar's trade screen to match Avairy's

Orbiters

Orbiters are now powered through the new energy system, hopefully this brings in some balancing for cheaper orbiter prices and some micro-managment

Added a new orbiter, Solar farm, it generates energy
Orbiters have stickers so they are more presentable in markets and UI
More orbiters bob up and down
Orbiters that touch the sun reset their location

Rocks and Lullabies - Big update 1

The first big update is here! Thank you for over 700 downloads and for your very kind reviews. This update introduces moons and themes surrounding them. Planets will create moons! discover new 8 planets inlcuding a new cosmic planet from the new quest by the Jade Rabbit, watch out for fog and enjoy a bunch of improvments to collisons, perks, art and UI

Moons

Planets create moons overtime or by chance after a collison
4 common and 2 rare moons to find
Moons have 5% chance to be a rare gleam form
Moon jar consumable gives you a rare moon

Planets

8 new planets
Planets info uses a new screen and hides all other UI
Jungle has a new look
Fixed an issue causing new planet to never collide
Lowered regen speed since moons can buff planets
Terra and Ice Giant have had their perks adpated to the item changes

Sleeping

Wake up planet through a new minigame
New sleeper events to unlock a sleeper planet
The planets atmosphere now changes to pink while sleeping
Planets leave a trail of Z's while sleeping

Fog

Fog spawns natrually 700 points into the game
Purple asteroids are replaced with Smoker asteroids
- When Smokers hit a planet they create a small fog zone
Orbiters inside fog can't attack or be moved
Planets inside fog can't be moved or interacted with

Collisons

Warp no longer takes/ deals damge from collisons but warps instead
Proto and Plasma wont change course after killing a planet
Gas giant now ignores damage to help it eat planets
Collisons that deal damage will wake up collided sleeping planets

Resources

Removed held items and expoditions as they were the least practicle systems in the game
Added moon jars to the gift tab
Terra now has a local shop that sells flowers and orbiters
Caravans no longer sell held items

Orbiters

Added Zen garden orbiter
Orbiter stystem has been improved to only shoot projectiles one at a time
Archer cannon has a new gillie sniper themed look

Art

Background has been remade to be cleaner
Planets particle trials have been replaced with coloured dots
Asteroids have had a makeover
Sun also uses dots for its animation
Terra and Bazaar have a visible market in their orbit

Removed the newsfeed for a clear experience, planet deaths now show as a HUD notification
While in certain menus the top HUD, notifications and guides will not show
New flower and planet info button
Score changes are shown through a text animation
Top HUD is filled with a rainbow background

Creation update

Special thanks to everyone who downloaded Milky way, it's launch month got 100 downloads and the game now has over 200 downloads. Absloutley incredible. This update was quite spontaneuos, I wanted to implement some new features to make creating planets more intresting.

Planet varaints

Introducing Giant, dwarf, albino and melanistic planets to bring a scope of planet variation. When a planet is made it can have its stats and apperance altered by its variation.

33% chance of a planet being a different size, this could be a dwarf or giant planet.

Dwarfs sleep less, are much smaller but have less health + ram
Giants sleep more, need dragons tongue, are bigger and have more health + ram
So a "Jungle dwarf" is smaller than a normal Jungle and has less health

10% chance of a planet being coloured, either albino (white) or melanistic (black)

Coloured planets are worth 10 more points
The planets base colour changes to a unatural white or black

These varaints also stack so you can have a very rare "albino dwarf" furthermore it stacks with gleam, making the rarest varaints like "Albino Giant Terra Gleam" which has about 0.25% of spawning.

Eggs

The egg hatching process has been improved to be more engaging. Players will now enter a screen where you tap the egg shells apart to reveal the reward.

Eggs no longer sleep
When an egg is ready to hatch it has a interactive notification

Traders

Introducing the Aviary, a planet selling trader that will visit yout system like a Saloon or Caravan. This lets players have more variery and contorl over which planets they can buy. This also lets trading being more accessible since it was exclusive to Bazaar.

Buy a common or rare planet for dust
Trade a planet for a rare planet
Updated all trade systems to feature more planets, Rubber is more common

Traders now show off their vendor when you first visit them for a freindly hello. Caravans have a Smart Telly, Saloons have a Bounty Telly and Aviarys have a Magpie

Traders have shorter stay times, allowing them to swap out for fresh stock more frequently
Saloon's warden challange was reduced from 5 minutes to 2 minutes, rewards are the sam

New background for most UI
Dust and asteroid taps now play a vibration to reinforce the tap feedback

Release - Baby vanilla version

Milky way has been in early access for about 6 months now. I was planning on releasing it ages ago way before mechanics like traders, sleeping or even the celestial planet was added. Ive had so much fun making this game and now I am ready to make it offically vanillia.

Changes based on feedback

I went through a lot of feedback to make sure the game was enjoyable to everyone. Thank you so much everyone who helped by playing the game. Fortunatley most problems of the game were aimed at the controls being a bit of a mess.

Asteroids deal less damage and are a little smaller. They were too aggressive for most players
Asteroid tapping are more accurate
Buttons for planets now scale to zoom. Making all controls around them easier
Pan speed slowed and adjusted for certain zooms
Settings now have zoom and pan options
Sun button is smaller and will reset your camera to stop you getting trapped in the sun

Planet changes

Ice Giant has had a good change, its snowstorm perk has been replaced with 'viking' allowing it to finds items from nearby planets and asteroids.
Gas giant and Ice giants base score have been reduced
Gas giant's digest perk is a lot easier and it now changes colour based on the last planet it ate
Flow now doubles the time dialiation for planets rather than just age time

Early access 1.9 - New items

Held item rework

After improving much of the game I decided to revisit held items becuase they seemed under-used and irrelevant. This was partially becuase they were compliacted and score based which wasnt very fun.

Old items removed. 5 new items added
Terra shot and life orb remian in the game
Items have a cute new art style
Planets now show their held item next to the planet, you can see held items out of orbit
Item UI reworked to be freindlier

Gleam planets

Since the early days of development I have been keen to add a 'shiny' rare version of planets, an inspiration from pokemon. Recently I have thought I wanted to approach it and am delighted to introduce shiny/ rare variants of planets. These make any planet more exciting and your solar system much more vaired from exsisting planets.

When a planet is made it has a 1/15 chance to be a 'Gleam'
Gleam planets have way more health and points
Gleam planets have a rainbow atmopshere, mimicking a card foil effect
When a planet is a gleam thier planet type changes to "planet gleam" such as "Jungle gleam"
Hatching planets can also create gleams
Transformng planets carry over gleams

Sounds

A planet on planet collsion now plays a sword impact sound
Asteroids have their own imapct sounds when they hit a planet
Planets that have a perks related to collisons play a power up sound
Planets with fireball will play a burn sound when they destroy anything
New stardust pop sound

Other things

The expo UI is cleaner and also has a new art style
Fixed the rock market staying open and gave it a new syle too
Updated Planet descriptions and expo locations
Updated the expo loot table
Heart stones have a new look
New planet UI rings
Hopefully a smaller app size

I am almost ready for launch, I am suprised it is almost ready. A few months ago before I added sleeping, caravans, eggs or even quests I felt ready to launch the game. But I am happy I kept making the game. Its been really helpful for me in a terrible and pants year. This game makes me so happy.

I will be pushing for a lot of feedback soon. Now that all major chunks on the game are optomized and mostly bug free. I will asking a lot of freinds, family and social media to give as much feedbak as possible to make this game greater and more accessible to future players. If you want to leave your feedback please do so! you can leave feedback on the playstore in-game in the menu. Thank you x

Early access 1.8 - Pretty easy update

This update focused on making the game a cleaner and easier to understand experience. There is not much new content but your experience will be much better.

Quests and tutorials

The biggest feature added to this update is the quest system. Replacing the original game goal of beating 1000 points you will meet Stellar, a freindly space skeleton guide who will take you through the games mechanics and progression in a more tighly crafted manner,

Stellars quest reflects what the modern Milky way wants to be. If you beat Stellars 6 part quest you will unlock the confetti planet and win the game!

Confetti is now unlocked by beating Stellar's quest
Visit Stellars base for a chat or to track progress
Buy another Confetti from Stellar when yours gets destroyed
Confetti's celebration perk now live
Added galaxy guides, pages of breif info that appear on the introduction of a new item or mechanic

Planet art improvements

New finalised dresses. Planets have 8 skins to spawn with
Planet's atmosphere is now clear and mathces its base colour, this makes them stand out more and look clean

Planet reworks

I added some planet changes to the last update but decided to further improve planets by making the more complex and fiddly planets more straightforward. Making abstract abilities and perks more accessible;

Blood's gladiator perk now gives the planet 4 points when it colldies with a planet rather than kill it for 10 points. This was so players can enjoy using the perk more often and keep more of their planet in one peice

Flow's time flux speeds up planets years timer to a third of the time

Proto and Red can now merge to create a Glass

Mercury's quicksilver ability, allowing to incease the temprature ranges of a select planet has been changed. This ability did not seem fun or as useful as was when it was first introduced. Mercury now has the quicksilver perk that gives planets in the same temprature zone as a Mercury +3 points, put a Mercury in your busiest orbits to score bonus points

Jungle no longer has the miracle tree perk. Instead its new perk let it grow random flowers of any kind, making it easier to farm all flower types

Planets that migrate to transform such as Arctic and Ocean now dont take damage if they are out of their temprature zone but in a zone that allows them too transfor. Making this a clean and easy process.

Flowers

A cute and wholesome interaction system I love needs a bit more attention. I have made it an easier concpet and made its rewards more clear so everyone can enjoy flowers again

Removed the fertilise system, most planets used to not grow flowers until fertelised but now they grow flowers or cant house life, making flowers and easier system

Flowers gifted to a planet now gives it a garunteed point. Gift flowers to a planet to increase its score, random birthdays will still occcur from gifting flowers

Birthdays are garunteed to occur when you enter love mode by gifitng a planet 4 flowers

Thank you for all the donwloads and support. Please keep leaving feedback and I have noticed more crashes as of my latest update so please get in touch so I can help fix it. I am hoping to hit 100 downloads by early December. Thank you so much!

Early access 1.7 - New vibes

Greetings everyone. Here is the new update for Milky way. The main focus has been on planets, music and UI. This has been a suprisinglky big update and change to the game and the experience just got a lot better.

Music and sounds

I spent some time looking into new music, previosuly I had a lo-fi ASMR crackle for a wholesome and inviting feeling that didnt distract you from the game. It was also free and less hassle but after being contacted about music over instagram and having a change of heart over the background music I have added a whole new soundtrack.

Special thanks to Kiran, I bought their music of the Unreal store. For a while musicans who reached me helped me go for a dark ambience theme, music that was gripping and made you feel apart of a large landsacpe. When I found Kiran's soundtrack I did a U-turn and went for somehting wholesome and melachony. The music makes me feel warm and sad. Taking me back to when I played my first game, Sew Lovely in bed, it was my escape and it felt like I was in a better place. Thank you so much for the Music Kiran.

7 new songs have been added to the game. The intro will play 'Drifting' followed by 6 other random songs.

To match the high quality music I have been re-working exsisitng sounds to be harmonious with other sounds and the music. New sound effects such as projectiles and asteroid hits have been added curtosy of SoundSnap.com

Last of the vanilla planets added

I have introdiced the last 3 planets to the game. Warp, Snowball and Cacoon are now available.

Warp is an unstable planet. With the Mischeif anchor perk it will teleport around your solar system randomly. This makes Warp an unpredictable planet but its high score and fun nature makes it worth it. Warp was also the reason the visitor system was added to the game, before adding Warp I thought how it would be cool to lure a teleporting planet in rather than just finding it. Otherwise it would just teleport away right? So. The only way to obtain Warp is through the visitor system. Warp will come to visit now and then and if you can entetain it you can keep it.

Snowball is a cold planet that fires snowballs at asteroids to damage them. Snowball is made by merging 2 Ice Giants together which has reallt changed how the cold planets play out as you wlll see in the rework.

Cacoon is an egg-exclusive planet which means it only hatches from eggs. Cacoon is a giant but starts off as a fragile planet. Cacoon's calcify perk lets it get stronger overtime. Starting at 40HP it can grow into an impressive 300HP quickly. If you can nuture it the Cacoon will become a tank.

Confetti is the last planet to propley add. These last 3 planets are a good testament to the player. If you can take care of planets and merge them you can unlock these cool dudes.

Planet rework

A lot of changes have been made to planets and a lot of them have been due to the new planets making a big entry,

Removed Red’s Dust Veil ability because it was a little pointless, instead I have given it the sandstorm ability, you can heal it for 10 seconds.

Ice Giant no longer has the fireball perk and now has the snowstorm perk, this is Red’s ability but cooler. I wanted to give Ice Giant something special and an ability that helps survivability in the most asteroid heavy zones seemed better than another fireball perk.

Arctic and Ice giants are now more versatile. Merging 2 arctics now creates an Ice giant and merging 2 ice giants creates the new Snowball planet. Considering Oceans can already freeze into arctics the player has a lot of control over cold planets and make so much without spending dust. If this merge-style system is more popular I will try and use it more in the hot zones.

Plasma has had a lot of ability/perk reworks but this is the easiest and most rewarding version yet. The super hot perk gives Plasma ‘fireball’ (immunity to asteroids) and can regen health very fast when it's near the sun. This forces players to change their hot planet orbis if they want to keep a near immortal planet near the sun.

Other additions

Egg system has been reworked to immitate the sleep system. This was due to feedback and will make the egg hatching process easier to understand due to it being the same as waking up a planet and its also more fun.
Orbiters can now hatch from eggs, I wanted to make them more accessible and this way they are free and will give you a reason to keep hatching eggs.
New orbiter animation when you receive a new orbiter.
Caravans will also sell orbiters at a lower price to make them more accessible.
The total dust you can hold is inreased per planet. This is to make buying items earlier in the game much easier.
Improvments to the player HUD and pacing of buying of planets.
Progress screen does not show up when you have an empty solar system
Fixes to Bazaar
Started a new art style for planets
Heartsones now appear in the game. Mash them for starsdust
New stardust animation

Parting notes

Thank you for playing. The next update will focus on planet art. Please leave feedback to further improve the game. With all the mechanics more or less done and 1 final planet to add to the game I will be focusing on feedback and improvments for a couple of weeks before releasing the game. Love you x

Diary intro

Greetings everyone. I have decided to start a dev diary so I can build a closer connection to people playing the game. I am getting close to finishing the game but still want to keep people in the loop and its easier to discuss mechanics, ideas and plans here rather than Instagram @astropollen.

Thank you for the feedback

Firstly I want to thank everyone that has downloaded the game and given feedback. A lot of updates have focused on making the UI easier to access and that thanks to people telling me about eggs being hard to hatch and realizing planets are on fire.

The plan for Milky way, at the moment. Is to keep it in early access for as long as possible. Most of the main mechanics of the game are ready for a vanilla experience and I could be very cheeky and release it right now. My aim is to get lots of feedback instead and keep making the game easier to access, bug free and simply fun before I launch it.

The plan for Milky way

When the game is launched I will be taking a break from the game and I will slowly start working on a long list of content updates. Milky way has been designed for easy implementation so adding new planets, items and mechanics will be pretty easy. It will just be down to timing and seeing how the game grows.

We are currently on 42 downloads. Averaging 3 to 5 downloads a week. I am happy with this and can see we are growing slowly. Thank you so much to everyone who has played the game so far. I love you x