Welcome to today's blurb!

Did someone order a blurb?

That's right folks, I'm not dead! As a matter of fact, I'm actually really tired! Why do I say that? Over the past couple days, I have been pulling all-nighters trying to get this blurb out. Unfortunately, these only qualify as half all-nighters, because I don't have the capacity in me to stay up past 4 AM! It's truly rough, but I think the effort has paid off for how much of a sick banner this is. Other than that, work and real-life things have mainly gotten in the way of getting the blurb out. Sorry about that, folks!

Problems aside, what's the deal with the pinball themeing? Well you see, after the last blurb was made, there was a development stream made featuring the development build for Brickadia. However, right after the stream ended, I decided to play some pinball and stream it on the voice chat. Surprisingly, a lot of people stuck around, and I got to show a LOT of cool tables. If only I recorded that part of the whole session! Unfortunately, the same issue persists for the speculation column. While I initially based the speculation column on covering topics covered on the stream, there was one major problem: I forgot to turn on my microphone on OBS! This doesn't necessarily mean I was going to share footage with audio coming from the stream, it just more or less meant that I was going to share my questions and the answers I got in text-form with some visual elements from the stream. But yeah. Forgetting to turn on your microphone does make understanding the context for certain answers pretty difficult.

However, we need not worry. Why do I say that? Recently, in the midst of rewriting the speculation column for this blurb, a development blog was released! No way! To read up on it, check it out here: Devlog #7. Basically, a neat recap of a lot of development content secently shown with some cool reveals, and some MAJOR news. We'll take a look at that soon in this blurb.

Now with all that out of the way, let's talk PINBAAALLLL!

Why on earth am I talking about pinball?

I talk about it now cause I can talk about whatever I want on this god-forsaken blog, and no thought remotely close to that question has ever stopped me in the past in doing that very thing: talking about things I like!

"But durb", you may be asking, "isn't pinball a little lame? It's kind of a niche thing, and it's all just luck!"

Oh sweet summer child, pinball is anything BUT lame! Sure it is niche, and some of it can just be RNG-based, but pinball is amazing! Skill, tricks, technique, control, jackpots, and MULTI-BAAAAALL!

Nothing quite beats the experience of a good old pinball machine that just works good, especially ones that are made by Gottlieb, Stern, and Williams!

Did you know that there's a pinball machine that has a SECOND LAYER of the table underneath with its own flippers?

Credit: Coin-Op King

Or what about a machine that shakes non-stop the moment you get multi-ball?

Credit: Ed Cheung

There's even one that starts you off with a multi-ball!

Credit: VPForums

As an array of feedback elements, light, and displays, from what I've experienced for the past 2-3 years, pinball machines are amazing in their own right. Each themed table is so intrinsically designed, with their own gimmicks and their own challenges. No two tables are alike, each one is its own experience! So what's not to love when you try out a Godzilla pinball machine, where you can destroy buildings, bridges, and fight Mecha-Godzilla? It's insane how much you can play around with when it comes to pinball tables, and considering the new modern times that we live in, they'll only get better as time goes on (hopefully).

Credit: Operation Pinball

Now obviously, this doesn't mean every pinball machine is as packed or as crazy as these ones, but it should give you an idea for the level of quality many of these tables have.

That's why I didn't even bother with a community vote for the banner of this blurb. I couldn't hold it back any longer, I wanted to draw something pinball related! And that's exactly what I did. I drew a custom table of what I think a cool table based on Brickadia could look like. If it looks unhinged and incomprehensible, that's because it's meant to be. For me, I think it's pretty cool, and I hope you guys like the fact that the Greggory at the end of the table opens up too. I based this custom table off of Funhouse, which has a puppet head that also has its mouth open. I also took some inspiration from Pinbot, where the drop-targets (the yellow tabs) on the side are essential for getting multiball and starting objectives. Now I could describe a lot more, but I'd be going on a tangent.

Enough pinball tangents, it's time to take a look at what the community has been up to (with some pinball content thrown in too!):

Greetings!

We've got some exciting content to cover! On January 3rd of 2025, a new development blog was written and released by developer Sixmorphugus. The blog, aptly named "Wires, Vehicles, Next Fest & More!", features a plethora of content that we've previously seen showcased by the developers, as well as some new tid-bits here and there. If you haven't read it yet, check it out here: Devlog #7: "Wires, Vehicles, Next Fest & More!"

Now previously, as I mentioned before, I was going to write up this speculation column about a development stream that took place recently, showing the developers and staff play around with the development build of Brickadia, as well as them answering questions. There was only one problem though:

I did record quite a bit, but I forgot to turn on my microphone on OBS. This means I'm asking questions and getting answers, but I can't hear my own questions. This makes understanding answers such as "Oh, yeah, for sure" very confusing when you have no idea what was being asked in the first place. (Maybe I should've used the opportunity to spread some misinformation though? Wink wink?)

So while the plan WAS there, unfortunately I wasn't a smart fella. (For those that are curious, I wouldn't have shared those recordings with peoples voices regardless, privacy is a nice thing some folks like to have, even if it isn't clear whose voice is who. Instead, it would've been audio-less clips with transcriptions for what was being talked about.)

Stream talk aside, let's bring the blog talk to the front now.

We've got some HUGE news starting all of this: A BRICKADIA DEMO? WITH A RELEASE DATE FOR THE DEMO INCLUDED?

Credit: Sixmorphugus

That's right folks, during the Steam Next Fest: February Edition, which runs from February 24th to March 3rd, the developers of Brickadia will be releasing a public, limited-time demo that runs during those dates. Wait, limited-time? For once, it feels like the word has some strong meaning for once, and not in a good way! Your eyes do not decieve you, this demo won't be out forever!

Now hold on, what exactly does that mean? Unfortunately, good things don't last forever, and the saying rings true here. This isn't a grab-it-while-you-can-and-keep-it-forever situation. After March 3rd, you won't be able to play the demo! A shame indeed. But how will that work? I'm not sure, if I have to be honest. However, I could speculate that there may be a way to get around this. A work-around? Before it's even out?

Theoretically, if you download a demo on a PC with no internet connection, run Steam offline, and keep the date perpetually between the dates of Feburary 24th and March 3rd, you MAY be able to keep your copy of the demo. But that is pure conjecture based on nothing but desperation to keep my copy of the demo running. Could this actually work? I'd honestly have no clue, and I wouldn't be surprised if they hard-coded an upperbound hour-limit to playing the demo based on the amount of hours/minutes between those dates even if the game was played offline. But you know, if somehow they forget to add something like that, doesn't hurt to have a burner machine to, y'know, have an offline copy of the demo on.

If that even works, that'd be awesome, and I'd definitely try it myself if I was rich enough to have a second PC.

Actual dumb speculation aside, what can we expect to see in this demo? Considering there's this:

I can imagine we're going to see a LOT of recent stuff that the developers have been working on. But for now, let's keep our focus on this new development blog. This is the part of our blurb column where it goes from speculation to analysis, let's dig in:

The first major section of the development blog specifically deals with changes to building mechanics. In the segment of the Building Improvements section, starting in the first area, you can now move the plane with which you've had a plane lock! That's a lot of planes in a sentence, what does that mean? Plane lock basically means you can have your unmanifested brick hover along a specific plane, something extremely convenient for building on a particular layer in the air! The new addition that was made that with Plane Lock being reimplemented into the development build of Brickadia, a new feature comes with it where you can move your brick perpendicular to the plane, allowing you to readjust where exactly you have your plane lock. On top of that, it comes with a measuring line, making it somewhat useful for measuring the length of builds!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

A while back, we were made aware of the Orbit Mode and Detached Mode being remade, to which they were renamed as Follow Mode and Precision Mode. The big additions that were given to these now remade modes of building mainly come down to the addition of arcball controls. What this means is that you can reorient the brick so that it just faces a specific direction using the numpad, while other button controls for rotation not related to left, right, up, and down basically deal with less conventionally done rotations. In simple terms, you hold CTRL, then you get easy rotation with numpad-controls. Need to rotate it on it's head? Use a button that isn't in the numpad-control scheme.

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Apart from that, reorientation as we know them in the current build of Brickadia is still in the development build, you just need to hold R for those sweet, unpredictable rotations you know and love.

While this is possible for both modes of building, one neat thing for Follow Mode is that the player will look exactly at the position of the brick that they want to place as it moves around! I imagine that will help with players watching other players build and giving them a better idea of what it is they're building from a distance, along with where they're placing it.

After all that reorientation talk, it feels like my brain got rotated! So let's talk about some spacing instead. But will it be good or bad?

Despite the name of this new feature, negative spacing is actually a pretty positive addition! Question. If you like to place a series of planks along a specific axis in a row, what's one problem that gets in your way? While they're in a pattern that makes it seem like they should connect seamlessly in the pattern they were arranged, in the current build of the game, they're placed but in a way where those planks aren't interlocked as they should be. In other words, it's like if you had to place a row of bricks, but there's one stud of space inbetween each one where you didn't want it. That's the problem that needs to be solved here.

Luckily, with negative spacing, by using the mouse wheel, you can change the spacing for bricks you want to place to a negative value. Think of it like placing text in a program and editing the properties of it. If you want the letters farther apart, you increase the spacing. If you want them closer, you decrease the value for spacing. The ability to shrink the spacing between letters, figuratively speaking, is what has been added for row dragging bricks.

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Another feature for row-dragging that was added is that for bricks that contain a wire connection being duplicated along a row, if one of the connections overlap with one another, the wire will travel seamlessly through that connection. This is possible because spacing removes an unnecessary instance of the wire connection. If you need help understanding, here's a visual aid:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Now a big surprise, Brickadia was at a gaming convention, and we didn't know about it! Also, we now have a default loadout for bricks to build with when joining servers. While it is incredibly convenient to have a loadout aimed at building vehicles, it would also be neat if we're able to customize what that normal loadout looks like. On top of that, it'd be neat to swap between loadouts like how the player is able to swap between outfits and palettes!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Now for another change: proper grid snapping for microbricks! For current players of Brickadia, the microbrick doesn't really snap onto the edges of the grid when it's being moved around in Orbit mode, it really only follows the increment. The only time it really does connect with the building grid visually is when the grid is nano or microscale. However, this has now been changed! If you're moving microbricks on stud-scaled grids, they will properly align to the cells of the building grid!

So now you got some ice cream sundae, but what delectable dessert is complete without a cherry on top? Or more precisely, a cherry that's properly aligned vertically? A nice change that is coming into Brickadia is that when you're placing bricks onto unaligned bricks, meaning bricks that don't align to your current building grif when placing bricks, they will automatically (and correctly) connect!

What does this mean though? If you're building with studded bricks with a grid that's set to stud-scale, placing it into a flat microbrick causes the studded brick that's being placed to float above the microbrick instead of being connected as they should. This is now being fixed! Along with this, when resizing microbricks that aren't connected to the edges of the building grid, it will snap to it first when resizing on the first increment, then resize according to the size of the cell. Small step to align, then big steps from there.

Let's keep moving: the inventory quickbar! Remember that whole business about multiple quickbars for both weapons and building? While it doesn't descibe if it's still possible for weapons and bricks to appear in the same inventory, it is a fact of the matter that there will only be one quickbar now. That means that in contrast to what was planned before, which was a series of quickbars you could switch between like a sort of inventory loadout, we will only be getting one. The reason? To put it bluntly, it's too confusing. I can kind of see how it could get confusing, parsing through what essentially is a sequence of quickbars with what could potentially be dozens of bricks for specific uses. If I had to guess, it's like going through a second build menu!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Now for entities: It's been revealed that there are currently two types of entities: wheels and non-wheels. The difference? Non-wheel entities can be resized (spheres, cubes, etc.), and wheels can't traditionally. On top of that, it's described to us why wheels work well as entities and not as bricks: while they do connect to building grids, they don't need a building grid that's constantly calculated while possessing the necessary collisions needed for wheels. In a sense, this also means that wheels are a bit more light- weight compared to bricks in a certain sense.

And lastly, for this column, we'll be looking at the new and improved brick catalog:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

One thing you'll notice is just how much nicer it looks. Thanks ConfidentBottle! I appreciate how the order of bricks on the left side column is arranged from the most simple bricks to the most complicated. Also, finally, microbricks are in their own tab! And they aren't arranged in a monstrous why as one can see here:

Adding on to what I said before about the bottom being the more complex-use bricks, these are the categories that will be the focus for the rest of this speculation column! Additionally, this is where all of our entity bricks are stored in from now on. To put it simply, we have the Physics category, which deals with physics bricks and entities (wheels, joints, etc.), the Mechanics category, which deals with interactivity and game mechanics (spawns, switches, seats, etc.), and logic gates, which deals with wires!

Now hang on, we're going to cut it off here. This speculation column is WAY too long now. So long, as a matter of fact, that we're going to have to split this development blog analysis into what will most likely be one or two more speculation columns! But what have we gathered from this much of the speculation column?

Let's be real here, the big draw of this speculation column is the demo release date. The nice overview of stuff is nice, but all I SUPER care about is that demo. I need to get my hands on it. I will stop at NOTHING to get it.

NOTHING.

I WANT IT.