Shortcuit Pre-Alpha v3.0 - Ready for Testing! [Closed]

Sanyu

Hi everyone!

It’s been a while since we had our last update, but we’ve now released pre-alpha v3.0 with some major changes.

✨ What’s New?

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After the feedback from the previous test versions, we felt that it still needed a lot of improvement. So we took some time to redesign all the core features, started developing from scratch and finally have a new version ready for testing.

New player character (say hi to Gomu!)
New player controls
Item info UI redesign
New item toolbar
New transform gizmo (with pivot tool)
New wire system and wire toolbar
Add shapes
Remodel all components with more accurate measurements
New environment
Rework item shaders
Add basic tutorial window
Add basic challenges
Visual brand refresh
Fix lots of bugs
Code improvements

New components

Light bulb
Diode
AA batteries
DC Motor
Potentiometer

A lot of features (e.g. digital components, lessons, build box, …) are still missing for now. We’ll try to add it back in the next versions.

💻️ For Testers

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Download Details

Windows Build

Download link: [removed]

⚠️ If Microsoft Defender popup appears: click on more info > run anyway

🎮️ Open the Shortcuit_Pre-Alpha v3.0.exe file.

Mac Build

Download link: [removed]

🎮️ Open the Shortcuit_Pre-Alpha v3.0.app file.

🖱️ We recommend using an external mouse as this version is not optimized for a laptop trackpad.

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Feedback Info

In this version, we’ll be focusing on the overall experience of building an electronics project. From moving around with the character to dragging wires and interacting with the components.

Here are 3 key points we’d like to get your feedback on:

How are the player controls? (moving around, flying, ALT key, …)
How are the controls for building an electronics project? (wire drawing, move/rotation, …)
How is the item info UI? (tabs, visualization of info, …)

Here are some other questions you can answer:

Any problems you have when building a project?
Were there things you didn’t understand? Were you stuck?
If you tried v2.0, how does it compare? Were things better in that version?
Do you have any other suggestions?

🧠 You can find a few small challenges to try out (challenge system is temporarily).

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❔ What we’ve been up to

The reason why it’s been a year since the last update, is because we were working on another project so we can fund the Shortcuit development. We had to put this project on hold for a while before we could work on it again part-time.

We also took the time to rethink this whole project and see were we want to go with it. There are some important features planned and we are excited to share them with you in the near future.

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➡️ Moving forward

From now on, the Shortcuit forum will be used as the main place for discussions and questions about this game. We’ll try to post more on our social media channels to keep you updated with our progress as well.

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🆘 How can you support us?

You can support us by giving feedback and sharing the game with other people who would be interested.

🔗 Follow us on our social media channels:

📬️ Subscribe to the Shortcuit Newsletter:
Shortcuit Newsletter Widget

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And lastly, I would like to thank everyone for their support and enthusiasm. It really helps us to keep going!

Varex

I love everything about this!!! The controls are smooth and straight forward (although that tutorial window came in handy when it did 😅), the whole look of the build is just so much fun and pleasant to work in and I think the Info tab on the components is a good idea, my knowledge on electronics has gotten a little rust (ok it has completely rusted) but honestly I’d get back into it with this.

Also… Gomu’s adorable! 😍 although he is a little quiet, it would be fun to hear him say a few lines, like when you succesfully complete a challenge he says “whoohoo” or “sugoi” or something like that 😅

I did hava some trouble with challenge 5, not that is was too difficult 😅 but the shape wouldn’t attach to the dc motor’s shaft and when it did attach I wasn’t sure as to how I did it.

Also loving the new wire system, it really helps avoiding creating a messy cluster of wires where you can’t find the right wire anymore (like a tree in a forest).

I do have a suggestion: when you’re drawing a wire and press Esc it creates a new wire point that isn’t connected to anything, I was thinking maybe cancel setting a new wirepoint when pressing Esc? In my experience that’s a more familiar control and I think it would make a cleaner workflow. but that’s just my opinion.

All in all you guys did a fantastic job!!! This is a huge improvement on v2.0 👌

Good luck on all your projects!!! 👍🍀🍀🍀

Sanyu

Varex

Thanks for testing it out!

Varex I did hava some trouble with challenge 5, not that is was too difficult 😅 but the shape wouldn’t attach to the dc motor’s shaft and when it did attach I wasn’t sure as to how I did it.

Using the shapes and snapping it on the DC Motor is definitely something we’ll have to improve later.

Varex I do have a suggestion: when you’re drawing a wire and press Esc it creates a new wire point that isn’t connected to anything, I was thinking maybe cancel setting a new wirepoint when pressing Esc? In my experience that’s a more familiar control and I think it would make a cleaner workflow. but that’s just my opinion.

Canceling the wirepoint with Esc is a great suggestion and I’ve also noticed it before. We’ll fix that in the next version 😉

Varex Also… Gomu’s adorable! 😍 although he is a little quiet, it would be fun to hear him say a few lines, like when you succesfully complete a challenge he says “whoohoo” or “sugoi” or something like that 😅

Adding sound effects for Gomu would be great, we’ll see what we can do with that later on.

KaiYi

The controls for moving around are good.
Wire drawing and moving components is pretty easy after trying it out.
When a wire is selected, pressing ESC to delete the selected wire or de-select the wire feels more natural.
Visualization of everything is good, the button to ‘power’ everything could have a little bit more visibility,
the dark purple is hard to see sometimes.
In the last challenge I was not sure when the shape got attached, it would be cool to have an indicator of attachment or something.

I really enjoyed this demo and hope to see more soon!

Sanyu

KaiYi

Thanks for your input! We’ll have to add something to make the Play Mode more noticeable and tweak some colors/outlines.