Idle Exotics Patch 0.0.4 and DevLog (August 2025)

I got some things done this month now that I wasn't so busy. I've also got a little bit of a change in plans for how I'm going to arrange future updates, so skip to after the patch notes if you want to hear about that.

Code

This month, I worked primarily on the new temporary bonus system. The code is completely in place, and will be live in version 0.0.4. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to finish all the new art assets, so it'll be just a default button with text for now. But, hopefully, it'll make things advance a little more smoothly early on.

I unfortunately lost some time to Godot updating to 4.4 while I wasn't paying attention. It caused a few minor problems, but I think I got them all. Since it interfered with the class I was using for big numbers, I decided to customize that class a little bit while I had it open. So, now, when displaying numbers in the thousands and higher, it only displays a maximum of 2 place values. It's kind of weird for the thousands especially, because going to a third place value just takes the same amount of space. I also removed trailing zeroes, so that should make things a little nicer to look at.

I also tracked down the issue with the progress bars feeling a little off. Before, there was a delay at the beginning and end of the timer for the progress bar that I had to track down. I found out that this is a problem with how I created the art assets for the progress bar. Since there was just blank space on the sides of the progress bar sprites, it was counting that as part of the "fill" on the bar. So it would "fill in" the transparent areas before it would start showing progress in the  bar itself. So, I've trimmed down the sprites, and that should make things look a little more clear. It's kind of an art update more than a code update, but I'll still put it here because it's related to functionality.

The temporary upgrades did require a refactor to how progress bars functioned. I was just using a timer for them before, but now that I wanted to increase the speed that the bar progresses, this was no longer a viable way to do it. Basically, if you just decrease the wait time for the timer temporarily, then when it goes back to normal, the bar would appear to lose progress. So, instead, I tracked the time elapsed using delta. That way, if I wanted the bar to progress faster, I could just multiply delta by some amount as I add it to the progress of the bar.

Another change I made, now that it's relevant, is to interns. Not only did I feel that the price of interns was growing too quickly, but the behind the scenes numbers needed tweaking. I planned on having 10 upgrades to interns' speed, and reducing them by half every time would put the time between clicks below .1 seconds. As it is, .1 seconds means a click every frame, if the game runs at 60 FPS. After that point, the timer literally can't keep up. So, I reduced the division each time to 1/3 instead of 1/2. It's not as pretty or easy to describe as 1/2, but it's the number I needed to make things work out.

For people who care about the behind-the-scenes changes that you probably won't notice, I decided to address an issue with the dialog boxes potentially opening over top of each other. In 9 cases out of 10, it's a non-issue, as the player needs to click a button to open a new dialog box, which is impossible if a dialog box is already open. Clicking outside of any dialog box dismisses it before you can click a button to open a new one. However, there is one dialog box that opens on its own - the new morph notification box. So, now, I've made it impossible for that to happen. If the box would open while you already have a menu open, it will skip that notification.

Art

I did make a few new assets, even if I didn't get all of the ones I needed. I made little badges to put at the top of the screen to show that you have bonuses active. I also created one for the "Variety Bonus." I might change it to "Collection Bonus" because I'm probably going to re-use the DNA icon from this part in the icon for the Collection Menu, which I should be working on shortly.

Regardless, here's a screenshot of all the bonuses turned on at once, which I did while debugging the new feature. It's not currently possible to do this during normal gameplay as far as I know, but it still does show off all the new icons. I might consider reworking the "dollar" icon, but I think it's fine for now. There's always time to touch things up later.

I cleaned up the morph sprites in the morph selector. I'm doing this in preparation for the new Collection menu. The smaller icons make it much more compact, so that I can potentially re-use it in the collection menu. If not, at least they'll look consistent. I think the "x" icon looks way better than that red "crossed out" line I was using before.

I've also been working on the sprites for the first new species of the second tier. I haven't settled on a name yet. At first I was going to call it the Stego-Lizard, but then I decided I'm going to use the dinosaur inspiration for each of the 3 variations, and maybe use a different name for the species. Dino-Lizard? Jurassic Lizard? I'll figure it out eventually. Regardless, I finished all 3 variants this time around for this one. Some of them were maybe a little ambitious for the technique I was using, but I think they'll be fine. I didn't pick any colors out for them yet, so they are still black and white, but I think it gets the point across.

TL:DR / Patch Notes:

- Added temporary bonuses
- Fixed progress bars
- Updated the morph selector button styling
- Intern cost growth was decreased, but click speed upgrades don't cut the wait time as much.
- Amounts of 1000 or more have been updated to display differently in the UI
- Windows should no longer open on top of each other.

What's Next?

I was kind of hinting at it throughout the "Art Updates" section, but I think the next order of business is the collection menu, which will also contain Achievements, showing which upgrades you have, and stats. At first I didn't know if I'd add achievements - after all, games where collecting things is part of the mechanics don't always need to encourage the player with additional achievements. But, I think I have enough unique ideas for them, where it will add... something, at least. Maybe add a little more personality in there.

I am already collecting a lot of the stats I'd want to be displaying, and the game does already keep track of which upgrades you've gotten, so I think a lot of this should be just dressing up information that's already in the game state somewhere.

I'm hoping for now, I'll only need minimal new art assets for these code changes. Since I'm re-using the background and all the art assets from the morph selector, I think it'll be fine. I suspect that I won't be able to re-use the morph selector completely - I'll probably have to make a new component that looks identical, but works differently. But, we'll see. I don't plan on having achievement icons for a while - I'll probably just put a placeholder "trophy" icon in there for unlocked, and the default "question mark" for locked achievements.

Though, I'm also going to keep working on art assets. First order of business will be anything I need to finish this menu, but after that, I'm going to prioritize new species. I've decided that the tier 2 snake design I came up with fits better in tier 1, and the Mustache Python fits better in tier 2, going with what I'm trying to do thematically. So, that design will take priority.

Announcement

I was going to make a whole new page for the beta, but now I think I'll just keep the same page and call it the beta build when we reach that version. I don't really see a point in making a whole new page, and a lot of the updates (outside of saving the game) aren't truly dependent on being part of a discreet version of the game. Maybe I'll try to make a little social media hoopla about entering the beta stage, but I don't think I'll release the features targeted for the beta build all at once, and for some time, they'll just be part of the alpha build.

It's not a huge update, but I'm realizing now that I'm probably going to change this around for future projects. Especially since I don't plan on the alpha being open, and I may or may not be interested in an open beta for future projects. I'll have to play that one by ear.