Leaving its early access period, Preferred Network’s Omega Crafter officially launches on May 15. Omega Crafter is an open-world base-building survival game in which you automate tasks needed for progression by programming companions called Grammis. The game is set in a world plagued by a mysterious program that hinders its development. With the help of your programmable partners, you gather resources, build bases, and defeat enemies to complete the “work-in-progress” world.
Omega Crafter’s full release comes with a large-scale update which, among other additions, expands upon its programming-based gameplay with new areas called Shrines of Programming. Preferred Networks is a company that’s strong in the fields of programming and engineering, which led to them incorporating programming into Omega Crafter’s gameplay. However, this side of the game was only emphasized at the time of its initial announcement – after which marketing shifted to presenting it as a more traditional survival crafting game. Automaton recently caught up with Takuya Sato, Omega Crafter’s development manager, to find out more about why they went for this change in messaging and what kind of programming-based gameplay players can expect.
According to Sato, Preferred Networks realized that if they were to focus Omega Crafter’s marketing on its programming gimmicks, the game could risk missing its largest intended audience – fans of the open-world survival game genre. As Omega Crafter is a survival crafting game first and foremost, the developers decided to shift the tone of their marketing to make sure that got properly conveyed – especially given that “programming” is not something you’d commonly associate with the genre.
Looking back, the devs are confident that they made the right decision – as Omega Crafter has found its spot among players of the genre and received strong feedback for its resource management mechanics and core gameplay loop.
But what about the programming side of things? According to Sato, Omega Crafter’s coding-based gameplay is designed to be accessible even to players without any knowledge of programming. This is owed to an intuitive UI – “When programming a Grammi, the UI lets you select desired tasks or equipment, and the game generates the code for you. You can enjoy the benefits of programming (automation) without actually having to write code for it,” Sato explains.
This system left more advanced users wanting more, however. To meet this demand, Preferred Networks created the new Shrines of Programming, which are aimed specifically at players who want a more in-depth programming experience. There are 25 Shrines scattered throughout Omega Crafter’s biomes, and they will offer programming-based challenges that gradually increase in difficulty. Successfully solving the challenges will reward you with new construction recipes for building.
Players who aren’t as keen on programming have no reason to worry though, as clearing Shrines of Programming is not necessary for progression in Omega Crafter. “One thing we were careful about was not making programming essential to completing the game. The shrines give you building recipes that are fun and useful, but you can finish the game without ever solving them. It’s purely optional content for those who want to engage with programming.”
Omega Crafter releases on May 15 for the PC (Steam).
