Blêktre 2081 received a small update with a few fixes.
The main change is a complete rewrite of the Steam web client, removing the dependency on Construct 3.
Construct 3 is an effective tool for rapid prototyping and small projects without heavy coding. However, since the shift to a subscription model, it has become prohibitively expensive for hobbyist use. Open source is preferred. Godot is the direction !
Bonus track : “sa puer la merde” (“it smelled like shit”)
This is an unpromoted digital release album, I guess with a cute Xennial liminal vibe.
If you hear about it, it probably means you spend too much time on the internet. Personally, I am quite happy with this music, even though it would not easily stand out from the crowd.
About ten years ago, I wrote a super lightweight PHP script that let you upload your music online without relying on a corporate-owned platform. You don’t need a database either. I called it BondeCampe (I hope you get the joke).
Personally, my low-cost provider shut down my machine three times in ten years, and I had to reinstall everything each time, but that also proved that installation only takes ten minutes. Now I’ve switched to OVH, it feels much safer, and I hope I won’t have to reinstall anything for the next ten years. But to be honest, you’re always relying on a tech company at some level … unless you run your own server.
How does it work? You just create a folder with properly ordered MP3 files and a JPG for the cover. Upload it, and voilà, your album is online with a music player that lets anyone download it.
Maybe the one feature Bandcamp doesn’t have is that you can fully script your album pages, so if you want animations, this is a good way to do it.
All that to say that my personal music repository is back online. I just drop my demos there, everything I’m not selling on Bandcamp. That’s good electronic music ! 🤡
🎵 https://bondecampe.5tfu.org 🎵
💾 BondeCampe code is open source on Github.
Update on my “RTS” prototype and the work on pathfinding.
I previously tried having agents claim a tile at the end of the path, each their own. They follow the flow field to the target area (green circle), and then move to their claimed tile.
The problem was that it became very complicated to assign them relevant, compacted tiles when there were many agents, especially when they were coming from very different parts of the map.
There are multiple ways to fix that, you just have to look at how good RTS games handle it. Check out Beyond All Reason and how they pack units around a point, Age of Empires IV, or even the relatively simple approach used in Starcraft 2.
But I’m aiming more for organic crowd management rather than precise RTS-style movement. Just to try it out, I completely ditched the tile-claiming system and let agents go to a single target tile, organizing themselves around it using steering forces like avoidance and wall repulsion, with a small timer adjusted based on group size.
And honestly, the result fits my system much better and is a lot simpler. So for now, I’ll stop overthinking it and keep it this way.
I might just add a simple local A* calculation for agents that need more precise movement, like workers going back and forth to a mine, to avoid having to compute a full flow field. But that’s probably all I’ll do.
Check it out in action with the explosion force I added too. It’s not perfect yet, agents in the center shouldn’t be thrown farther than the ones on the edges, but it’s getting there.
Blêktre 2081 finally got its 10th review and earned the (100%) “Positive” badge on Steam! That was the final achievement I wanted before moving on.
To be honest, that’s only 100 copies sold, and it’s not a lot for such a “big” game. More importantly, it wasn’t profitable at all, but that’s more about market and marketing dynamics than the quality of the game, which still receives a lot of support from players.
Still doing some coding on the “full picture layout” (mobile) for Blêktre, but since no bugs have been reported lately, I’m moving on.
I’ve learned a lot, and I’m starting new projects with those lessons in mind.
I tried to create a full pathfinder in GDScript, but it started to lag with more than 200 agents.
So I learned C++ and implemented it as a Godot extension. The result is over 2,200 agents running at more than 60 FPS, about a 10× performance boost. The approach is a classic RTS-style system using multiple flow fields with steering.
My latest implementation are explosion forces.
I’m aiming to prototype an RTS using these mechanics.
While trying to help my brother with his own game, I came up with the idea to create a JavaScript loot generator for ARPGs (Diablo-like, actually super inspired by Grim Dawn, my favorite). It’s highly customizable and it should fit my brother’s game needs at some point. He also had the idea to turn it into a versatile tool we can distribute to other developers.
Well, that’s a secret sauce, so I’m not sharing anything except these screenshots:
I’m pleased to finally announce the official expansion of the base game Blêktre 2081!
The new features have been live for some time for testing, and it’s time to make it official.
Those who have already played will immediately notice the major overhaul of the graphics, UI, optimization, debugging, and balancing — the bare minimum.
But let’s talk about what really matters: the real new content.
and more ….
Read the whole update on Steam
Stunfest was amazing for Blêktre 2081 — people played for a long time and had a great laugh. It really stood out as a UFO of a game, praised for its originality and the integrity of its concept!
I sold the game as pay-what-you-want, and the lovely players paid an average of 8 euros. So I decided to set that as the price on Steam!
I got to refine my pitch by repeating it 250 times over 3 days, so now I can finalize the Steam page and officially declare the international release!
What’s next? I’ll be polishing the end-game elements and a few ideas that came up during those 3 intense playtesting days. Overall, Blêktre 2081 is nearing its final form feature-wise — already quite rich, I’d say. It’ll just take a bit of time to tighten all the bolts on something of this scope!
The real future evolution will be offering more servers, including private ones. I was advised to provide that option for people who’d like to stream with their communities. Later, I might also offer private servers for playing with friends, or with custom rule variations, etc.
Oh, and I think I even found a way to make a fully offline solo version. To be continued!
Other duties call in parallel, so for now I’ll focus on maintaining the current instance 🙂
And welcome to everyone who joined during this event — don’t hesitate to throw your feedback, opinions, bugs, or issues my way, it’ll only make the game better!
Cheers,
Charles
Here I am, standing at the final step of the long journey that was the development of Blêktre 2081.
It all lasted about three years — from the first prototype in 2022, the funding in 2023, the release in early 2025, up to the “deluxe” version now being published.
That’s quite a few lines of code and pixels laid down. Blêktre doesn’t look like much, with its “lo-fi” aesthetic, but there’s real work under the hood.
It’s not my first experience as a developer — far from it — but it’s the first game I’ve truly taken to a commercial release. Since I put in the effort, I had a few ambitions in terms of sales! But let’s be honest: it wasn’t the heist of the century. After six months on the market, I haven’t had much media coverage (JV le Mag, a few e-zines). Despite my efforts (launch event, participation in Stunfest), the small hundred copies sold so far make it clear I haven’t broken into the circle of “cool” indie games.
And yet, it’s impossible to be disappointed. The few dedicated players I’ve had brought me a lot — and they clearly had fun. You could count them on two hands, but they truly supported me and fully played along!
As for me, I’m genuinely very satisfied with the result. It’s really the game I wanted to make — the kind of game I’d be thrilled to discover myself. In fact, I wish I could stumble upon something similar!
So, will Blêktre 2081 ever get the recognition I think it deserves? It’s better to be realistic: in 2025, the internet is already flooded with both good and bad games, and it’s hard to say whether there’s still room for this kind of “experience.” But I’m proud to have made something unique and sincere in an era of industrialized entertainment products.
To preserve my sanity — and unless there’s a sudden surge of public interest — I’ll soon move on, at least for a while. I have a few other game ideas, and I think I’ll start working on them gradually, drawing from this rich experience.
But first: there’s still Stunfest ahead, and surely a few bugs still lurking in the shadows here and there — yes, I’ll stay a perfectionist with my baby. ^0^
Hello, good and bad news!
Blêktre 2081 has been selected to appear at Stunfest on October 24-25-26 (Rennes, FR) 📢
Good news because it means this new and ambitious version of the game will be ready by then.
Bad news for me because I have to grind hard to be on time 😆
Sorry for the slightly clickbait title: first of all, I want to say that development is still very much active, and a major update is on the way!
Blêktre 2081 was first created as a conceptual experiment. Since it was also a video game, publishing it on Steam felt natural. It allowed me to discover what the video game market is really like. After six months of operation, and a rather normal lack of mass appeal, I considered smoothing out Blêktre to make it more compatible with market expectations.
But after working in that direction, I realized it was stripping away the game’s original idea: offering a radical, sad, and mocking experience that tells the story of an unjust society. I still believe this is an interesting and even fun idea — but clearly not for everyone. And if I were to twist Blêktre’s concept to appeal to the widest audience, I think it would end up pleasing no one… starting with me.
So I decided to drop any commercial ambitions for Blêktre and make the game free via the demo version (web and Steam). This free version will now have no restrictions, including the save disks that were previously disabled in this mode: you will now be able to resurrect like everyone else.
Oh, but of course there’s a twist! To truly simulate real life, you have to know that while all citizens are equal, some are more equal than others… A new major privilege is now granted to the player who reaches the very top of the pyramid — the position of mayor of the city: they will now be able to set the law and decide, among other things, whether refugees playing on a free account can be pursued by player-police officers. With some skill, those refugees can still evade them and climb the ranks to ultimately change the law in their favor…
Freeing Blêktre from commercial ambitions allows me to imagine more radical, more unfair ideas — but also ones that are more consistent with the nature of the game. I’m convinced this won’t stop it from being fun and balanced — quite the opposite. Opposition always finds a way!
This update is planned for Fall 2025. I hope to see you among the testers of this experience, which I now consider more refined than ever. The next version will bring many changes, and I will get back to you with the full details of this true expansion.
In the meantime, I hope real life isn’t that harsh for you — even if you’re prepared with such a high-quality simulator.
With love,
Charles
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3045400/view/502832791470212425