- Endless Mode Released - 15 April 2026
Neongarten 1.3 has been released! This update includes a new Endless Mode option from the Victory screen. If you win a game, you'll have the chance to push your luck even farther. Endless Mode was something that players have been asking for for a while, but I've resisted adding in for two reasons. The first thing to consider is performance. Unlike other games of its ilk, Neongarten has a permanent playing field. You add a building and it's there forever. Buildings and their 3D models have lights, textures, animations and so on, and the game (at least on my five-year-old laptop) can already chug a little bit once it gets to Day 64. Especially if I'm using lots of neon. I wasn't sure if the game's performance would suffer too much if any given player got to, say, day 128. The second thing was a game design conundrum. Neongartern is what I call a "broken build" game - discovering (and then…
- Update 1.2.2 - 4 February 2026
Controllers, man. They can be tricky, especially switching between controller and keyboard / mouse input on the fly. When the game first was released, I tried to be clever with that switch. When the game is in "gamepad" mode, then Godot needs to display that particular button in "focused" mode, something that doesn't happen when you just hover over it (or even click it) with a mouse. When I detected mouse movement, I would remove the focus off of the focused UI control. This caused a bunch of headaches for some players. If a mouse was accidentally brushed (or a thumbpad on the Deck), then the focused element could disappear completely and make controllers difficult or even impossible to use. Sorry about that! My bad. This new update gets rid of that cleverness. If you ever use the controller buttons to move or select something, there should always be a focused element now, even if you s…
- Update 1.2.1 - 19 September 2025
The latest update, 1.2.whatever, is now out for public release! This content update adds a set of nine different Scenarios to choose from. Each scenario is designed to explore a certain synergy or build and give you a head start in that direction. They give you a specific game map, starting buildings, and initial perks. (To compensate for starting with perks up front, you won't be able to choose any perks at the end of the week.) With all those starting goodies, it only seems fair that the City Council is increasing how much rent they expect of you... There's also some small balance changes! The Corp Office gets a small upgrade, adding +1 income to any Corp building above it. I think this helps the Corp faction feel more vertically-inclined - ya know, build on the backs of the peasants sorta attitude. The Bar now gets +1 income from any residential building, not just Basic Apartments. I…
- Update 1.1.2 - 11 July 2025
Neongarten 1.1.2 is now ready for everyone! This update rounds out the optional Black ICE challenge tags with four more options. - Inflation: At the beginning of each week, the rent due increases by your current nightly income * 7. So if rent would have been 263 for week 2 and you come in with an income of 30 per night, your new weekly rent due is 473 (= 263 + 30 * 7). - Balance: If any faction has 3 more buildings than another faction, then all buildings of that type get a -1 Multiplier. - Bad Neighbors: Buildings of the same type that neighbor each other give each other x0 Multipliers. - Power Multiplier: +Power effects are now +Multiplier bonuses instead. I've been able to win games with all four Black ICE challenges, and even with multiple ones enabled at the same time. I'm not sure that it's possible to win with every single one enabled, but I have had some fun trying to beat it wi…
- Update 1.1.1 - 16 June 2025
This is a small patch, but it should punch above its weight class in terms of quality of life. 1) If the player selects a different language, that new language is now saved. It no longer needs to be reset every time the game is launched. 2) There's now a button on the Options Screen for Windowed mode. If the player changes from full screen to windowed mode (or back) via F11 or by the shiny new button, that choice is saved and will be set when the game is launched.. Happy building!
- Neongarten v1.1.0 released! - 1 June 2025
One of the common issues voiced by players game is that you reach a point where it's just too easy. Once you get a hang of wrangling building combos, there's not much more challenge there. (There's always the challenge of trying to break a billion, but not everyone out there is a score-chaser. I respect that.) In order to help with this, I took some inspiration from Hades and added "Black ICE" to the game. These are optional difficulty modifiers that you can select at the start of a game. Currently, there are four Black ICE options available: 1) Captain - once you play a building, it's removed from the draw deck. 2) No Perks - what it says on the tin 3) Ugly Shanties - All shanties give -1 income to all neighboring buildings 4) Roof Ban - All uncovered or partially-covered buildings get -1 income. I particularly like the Captain ICE. It doesn't necessarily make the game more difficulty…
- Update 1.0.12 - 27 May 2025
This should be the last of the small patches before the first larger content update! Fun stuff coming soon. Change list coming now: - The Needle game mode is now 3 x 3 x 14 instead of 3 x 3 x 12. This brings the total number of grid spaces (126) more in line with Stack (128) and Cube (125) than its previous number of spaces (108). - Fixed a bug where building placement could go crazy when the game's FPS dropped. - Fixed a bug where the Basic Builder perk causes the game to freeze on Reroll. - Added an escape hatch to the "Unique Reroll" guarantee added in 1.0.10, since it's already resulted in two unexpected crash bugs. Reroll tries to guarantee different building options for 100 re-draws. If it fails then, then it just gives you the next re-draw.
- Emergency Patch: 1.0.11 - 15 May 2025
A small patch update to fix a bug introduced in the previous update. I blame the cat. - If you hack a building and freeze it, and then you press Reroll, the game will no longer freeze up while it goes into an infinite loop. - The Alphabet Agency now properly applies its Power to the number of Hacks it gives you.
- Update: v1.0.10 - 10 May 2025
Patch 1.0.10 has been released! I've been off most of the week in Boston for Godotcon (showing off Neongarten!) This week has some more small fixes and improvements. I'll be getting a proper roadmap out soon. Change list: - Fixed a bug where the player could not use the library or options screen during perk selection or highlight building stats. - Fixed a bug with the Middle Management perk not counting Starbees coffee shops as Corp and Unwritten Laws not counting Prized Plaza plazas as Government.** - When you take a screenshot from the hovercar, the building scaffolds (or grid markers) will disappear for the screenshot. - Fixed a bug where choosing the Bribes perk would not immediately update the Reroll count on the Building Selection UI.** - Fixed a translation error with the Japanese version of the Billionaire's Row achievement, where it incorrectly stated that only 100 million was…
- Patch 1.0.9 - 29 April 2025
Small changes and bug fixes for the end of release week. Thanks to everyone for playing! Here's the changes: - Fixed an issue where The Biggest Loser achievement was not firing after the conditions were met. - Fixed a minor bug where the Ministry of Profit did not properly highlight contributing residential buildings if you hovered over its income stat. - Neural Net Weaver is now a rare building. - The Memory Hole was like a worse version of the Bureaucrat Hatchery, so it's been changed. Instead of adding +1 Power to same-layer Government buildings if it's neighboring 3 Corp buildings, now it adds +2 Multiplier to same-layer Government buildings if it's neighboring 2 Corp buildings. - Creative games no longer end if you have negative money at the end of the week. - Fixed a crash that could occur if you start a new game, the total money earned (across all games) is a negative number, and…
- Emergency Patch: 1.0.7 fixes achievement fix - 25 April 2025
The previous patch (1.0.6) should have restricted players in Creative mode from earning achievements. Instead, it prevented players in the standard Stack game mode from earning achievements. That has been fixed. Apologies in particular to the player on the Discord server who scored 35 million and did not get the achievement for it.
- Update for 1.0.6 - 24 April 2025
The first patch has been released for Neongarten, all of one day after it released. Modern game development, man. This patch focused on bugs and complaints that the wider player base came across during Day 1. - Fixed a crash where a player could create an illegal building by hitting the rotate button after placing a 2 x 1 building in a legal position. - Fixed the Memory Hole building. Its text indicates its bonus applies to Government buildings on the same layer, but in the code it applied its bonus to Government buildings in the same stack. (It now correctly applies the bonus to layered Government buildings.) - Achievements are no longer earned during Creative mode. - Fixed a bug where the Selected Building dialog could disappear until the game was exited. (The problem? The sun.) - Smoothed out zooming for controllers. More to come!
- Neongarten Released! - 22 April 2025
After lots of hard work, focus, and time spent hunched over a laptop screen, Neongarten is ready to release! It's been an incredible journey, from the first "three month" prototype for Tiny Mass Games (shortened to five weeks due to the arrival of my second son) to the awesome art upgrade to wrangling all the UI through a localization pass. I'm thrilled that everyone will have a chance to enjoy the game now. There are a couple of games that match in style or gameplay that we've decided to bundle Neongarten with. First, the dark and moody cityscape painter Dystopika is another excellent take on "cyberpunk citybuilder". I think our two games make a great "compare and contrast" on the cyberpunk theme. Next, there's the puzzle-y city builder River Towns. This one rhymes mechanically with Neongarten, and it might be closer to sharing a color palette and vibe. Finally, my publisher (Goblinz)…
- 5 days until release - 5 things to look forward to - 17 April 2025
On April 22nd, Neongarten will be released! I know a lot of players have been looking forward to the new buildings and factions and seeing what crazy combos can be pulled off. Here's my top five things to look forward to in the new version. 1) New factions. The Cult of Volt and the Government factions have their own unique mechanics (or mechanical themes) that really set them apart from normal, illegal, and corporate buildings. The Cult of Volt buildings should be placed in a "chain", or orthogonally connected to another Volt building. (So it's like "neighboring" but without any diagonals allowed.) The longer the chain, the more powerful they get! They also have several buildings that power up other buildings based on lighting levels. A Government build is harder to get going - governance is rare in the dystopian future, haha - but they can provide powerful bonuses to other government b…
- Neongarten Releases on April 22nd! - 15 April 2025
Neongarten is releasing on April 22nd! Check out the release date trailer: Key Features: Turn-based Strategy: Plan your moves carefully, with each decision shaping the future of your neon garden. Procedural Generation: No two runs are the same, offering endless replayability and new challenges every time. Minimalist, Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Dive into a stunning retro-futuristic world, where glowing lights meet strategic depth. Inspired by Islanders and Luck be a Landlord: Combine the simplicity of city-building with the thrill of roguelike progression. WISHLIST NOW: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211750/Neongarten/
- Neongarten Demo Out Now!! - 24 February 2025
After a pretty drastic graphical rework, the brand-new demo of Neongarten is now available, just in time for the Steam Next Fest! ✨ Key Features: Turn-based Strategy: Plan your moves carefully, with each decision shaping the future of your neon garden. Procedural Generation: No two runs are the same, offering endless replayability and new challenges every time. Minimalist, Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Dive into a stunning retro-futuristic world, where glowing lights meet strategic depth. Inspired by Islanders and Luck be a Landlord: Combine the simplicity of city-building with the thrill of roguelike progression. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3211880/Neongarten_Demo/ We hope you'll like it! If you do, don't forget that a positive review helps a lot, especially during Steam Next Fest, and that wishlisting the full game also makes a big difference! Have fun! 🎉
- Neongarten Prologue Release! - 25 September 2024
Neongarten Prologue has been released! It's been a really fun game dev journey so far, and I'm not finished yet! I'd like to thank everyone who has supported the project in ways big and small, whether that's posting a Youtube video, leaving a review, joining the Discord, or reaching out with a bug report or an encouraging word. Y'all are awesome. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2691050/Neongarten__Prologue/ I'm also thrilled to announce that I've picked up a publisher! I'll be working with Goblinz Studios, an excellent publisher of strategy games like Hero's Hour and Shogun Showdown. We're working together to make the best Neongarten possible. Since they're based in France, it also gives me some small opportunities to practice my (extremely rusty) French, haha. After signing up with them, the release schedule is only slightly modified. I'm still planning to release the full version o…
