Menu
header photo

LOGistICAL

Strategy puzzle games by Sacada

Blog posts June 2017

Build #320

This is a big build with a major rewrite of the back-end in order to allow for single game loads (ie single DLCs).

So now you can load a single DLC straight from the globe without having to load the main game and all the other DLCs in your library.

There were a few glitches along the way and with the help of a great bunch of beta testers I managed to subdue the bugs (hopefully all of them).

The whole game should speed along at a nice pace now.
 

Languages

The first rollout of the language module is included in this build.

There are tutorials in Russian, German, Finnish and Spanish. Russian and Spanish continue into the Main modules contracts. Slowly more languages and parts of the game will get added.

Click the language flag or anywhere on the Notice form for the default English language.
 

Game Files

Generally you can just click load and it will load the top file, which is most likely the last game that you played.

The game file list has been updated to a file requester. You can now have a huge amount of tiles. Beware that the more files you have the longer it takes to cloud load.

Instead of the usual eight files, there is now a daily file save that has the number_reverseDate format (eg 00002_20170630.sav).

Each time the clock ticks over to a new day, a new file is saved.

The number is incremented if:
A file is loaded that is not of that format (eg, the old files)
A new game is started
A copy game is clicked

If you click a file with a lower than the top number, then that game is continued but will have the new date (if it is a different day), so a new file is created if a new day.

To assist any issues or corruptions that may occur along the way, a rolling 10 minute interval file is also saved with the format "backupSave_10-MinutesPastTheHour.sav", so every 10 minutes you get a new additional save that writes over the last 10 minutes save of that time period (hope you get what I mean there).
Anyway, in short, if you have a problem with a game you can go back a bit and redo it.

Clicking on any file in the list will show the number of trophies the file has and also the date and time it was saved (UTC date format).
 

Playing Modules

Once you have a game loaded/started, you are faced with the globe. On the globe you can click any of the DLCs that you own and it will load only that DLC (except if it has dependencies upon another, eg NZ).

You can play that modules as you always would have.

If you want to play a second module, then click on the globe and click another module that you own (green countries).

When that loads, you will have two flags in the bottom right corner. You can now click on those flags to jump between the modules. Both will continue to play.

There were a bunch of other minor fixes that also went into this build.


Again, a big thanks to those that participated in the beta trial. The feedback was excellent and I think we ended up with a reasonable improvement.

Let us know if you find any issues.

The new build will go live shortly (about an hour).

Go Back

Build #314

This beta build has changes to large sections of the backend of the game, so there are lots of changes and not many new additions.

If you would like to help and give this a test run it would be most appreciated. The more it is tested, the better it will be. It would be best to only test this if you have a lot of experience with LOGistICAL and know your game well. Often I don't get to test as much as I would like and then have to deal with the problems that arise which takes me away from creating more content and upgrades for the game. So again, your testing help would be most appreciated.

I have created a "beta testing" forum to isolate these posts. It is open to all at the moment, so please post all feedback into that forum or pm me.
 

Modular Load

"Modular Load" is a term I have given to this build where only the modules that you are wanting to play in the current session are loaded.

You will now find the globe loading and game loading super fast. There will now be a pause when you load your first and subsequent modules.

You start with the globe (except for a "new game"), click on a country (module) that you own and it will zoom into the map view of that country.
If you want to play another module/country at the same time, then click the globe in the bottom right hand corner and then click that country on the globe.

Some modules auto-load, eg NZ and the tutorial auto-load AU.

There shouldn't be a limit to the amount of modules you can load, but I think we might run into problems after the 5th. I will test and change if necessary.

A list of flags appear in the bottom right hand corner. Click on a flag and it should take you back to that module where you were last playing, with the currently selected truck and town.
 

What has changed

A lot has changed. In fact, so much has that it would be hard to list, but the interface hasn't change much at all.

All the data was already modularised, but the save game file wasn't. To be backward compatible things haven't changed a great deal in that area, but there are a lot more checks on load and save to ensure that data is not lost or overwritten.

Only the towns, roads, contracts, regions, states and metadata for that module are loaded. The trucks are all there, but only the ones for the loaded modules are visible.

I have had to rewrite a few areas including the regions, contracts popup, the map display, the hi-res map display and many others.
 

Summary

Once this build is stable, LOGistICAL will load super fast and also play faster. It will also enable the adding of new modules without bloating the game.
You should be able to sit comfortably and play half a dozen modules at once.
 

Things I still want to add to this build

Place the word "Loading" on the map when the module is loading.

There is a pause every so often if you drag the map around a lot. That one is driving me nuts as I can't quite figure out where it is happening.
 

How to

This build can be accessed via the Steam "beta" program.

You should back up your save files before you do this.
They are most likely in the default directory of "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\ 
<Your Steam ID> \573060\remote".
When you start the game, you should also create a second copy of the game you wish to play with. That is done by the copy icon to the right of the game file. Try to keep the original save game file prior to this update, so you can always go backwards and check things. I have about 5 simultaneous spawns from the original.

To access the build, right click LOGistICAL in the Steam library, select properties, select the betas tab and select "Modular Load beta" from the drop down list. If "Modular Load beta" is not in the list you will have to restart Steam first.

Thanks for giving this a go.

Go Back

Build #312

This build is the second part implementation of the globe. Most of it is background that you won't see.

Things that you will see include:

* Roads no longer have two visuals (mouse up or down). These are combined into a single unified view.
- Colour represents speed of the road ranging from red, through yellow and to green for the fastest. There is still bright red for broken.
- Size is for the maximum size of any vehicle that can travel on it. The thicker the road the bigger the truck that can travel on it. The centre line of the road also changes from black to blue for the larger sizes.

* "Disappearing Roads" bug has been found and fixed. This was an intermittent bug that was hard to reproduce. To reproduce it you had to mouse over a truck (it enlarges), move the mouse to the very left or right, mouse down to drag the truck and then zoom the map. Phew, that took a couple of days just to find and about 30 seconds to fix.

* Mouse over Australia in globe now fixed. It used to say Tutorial.

* Tutorial added to globe.

* Set maximum game speed per module. In dense areas like Europe the maximum is 8x, while other less dense places like Australia are 16x.

* Sale of truck money now goes back to wallet. Did you know in the old days you couldn't sell trucks, just delete them. Now you may know how that feels.

* Cancellation of trucks loads now penalises the correct wallet.

* Change the quarantine blinking to use the universal blink function within the game to stop some blinking from being too fast.

* Turn off region areas of map dots at different zoom levels to process map faster. (Will soon be per town dependent on size and isolation).

* Working on language module to display text in different languages.

* Less towns visible in Australia. These have been changed to dots at different zoom factors.

* Quieter default sound effects

* No default music

* Preparation for the LOGistICAL - Germany DLC about to be released.

This beta will go live in around 4 hours.

Go Back

LOGistICAL - Germany

Germany DLC for LOGistICAL is now available in the Steam store.

Get 30% off the Germany DLC for the first week. You can also get an additional 15% off if you purchase it though a bundle.

...
LOGistICAL grows in Europe with the addition of Germany.

Over 2600 New towns to Complete. Tons of achievements.
 

Back Story

A Large Chemical Spill in the Stuttgart region has created chaos. A full quarantine of ALL products in and out of the Stuttgart region has been put into place. Over 100 towns are within the affected zone. We can get you into the area so you can fix the towns within the zone, and you can move your empty trucks in and out. Small industries have been setup for each type of product within the zone.

It is up to you to build industries outside the zone to deliver to the rest of the country.

If you can get the industries inside the zone to a level 3 then you can build similar industries throughout the rest of Germany, depending on the available natural resources and any local government restrictions.

The towns need you so get to work.


...
Germany is an independent game that you can play at the same time as the main LOGistICAL game (and other add-ons). It has its own money, trucks and of course, challenges. So once installed and tutorial played, you can start playing this pack.

Go Back

Build #310 Update

A few changes plus also getting ready for Hawaii DLC.

* Added a difficulty level to each of the modules. These are viewed by mouse-over a country on the globe.
Levels are Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme.
There are often two values as each module can take you from one extreme to the other.

* Removed the green glow of the save. You can still see when the save last saved by looking at the date and time. It will auto-save every 10 seconds if you do anything down to moving a truck or arrive at a destination, etc within that 10 seconds.

* Updated the scoring system. Found that the multiplier for the number of resources required for doing a towns escalated the score into the billions. It is now a little less.

* Setting the ground for scores to be on a leaderboards. Are you ready for it?
This will show how you managed your trucks for the duration of a modules.

Better scores when:
delivering less tonnes to the town (ie beating consumption).
the size of the town (population)
the difficulty level of the town (the town multiplier)
the number of resource lines needed
using small and less trucks to do it with
the play efficiency

All this and the formula is view-able by clicking on the score within a finished town's popup.

A few other things.

Go Back

LOGistICAL - Hawaii

Hawaii DLC for LOGistICAL is now available in the Steam store.

Get 30% off the Hawaii DLC for the first week. You can also get an additional 15% off if you purchase it though a bundle.

The Hawaii DLC starts out nice and easy and is great for the beginner as industries slowly unfold.

Get boats to link to the other islands. Only small 8t trucks can fit on the boats.

There are plenty of towns to do from easy to medium level. Upgrade all the industries for extra achievements.

Hawaii pack can be played independently to the other LOGistICAL packs. Once you have completed the tutorial you can start playing Hawaii. You can play Hawaii at the same time as playing Australia or any other DLC (if you haven't already completed them).

You start with your own new bank account, a bit of cash and a supplied vehicle. You do the rest.

There are lots of easy towns to complete and some tougher ones, for those that like that extra challenge.

Relax, enjoy and play away.

"Just one more Town"

Go Back

6 blog posts