It's been a whole year since Dystopika launched and what an incredible year it has been. We wanted to do something special with v1.5 so we really went to town on this one: new soundtrack. new districts, new props, new weather options, and a whole lot more.

Release Notes

New Soundtrack by Sascha Dikiciyan

With credits including The Long Dark, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Quake II, Mass Effect 3, and the soon-to-be-released Metal Eden, Sascha Dikiciyan (Sonic Mayhem) brings his signature cinematic-ambient compositions to Dystopika, a meditative city-sculpting experience for creating stunning cyberpunk cities and future noir vibes.

Meditations from the Future is a sonic journey through ambient cityscapes and imaginary futures. Blending nostalgic synth textures with modern minimalism, Sascha crafts a reflective soundtrack for Dystopika - Influenced by the old-school Berlin electronic sound and modern cinematic soundscapes, it weaves emotion into architecture, shaping the skyline of your imagination.

A digipak CD featuring original artwork by Rob Sheridan (NIN, Pearl Jam) is now available for pre-order.

Also, please check out Rob’s merch store, Glitch Goods.

New Districts: Labber’s Row and C-VILLE

Labber’s Row

Labber’s Row is the home of cutting-edge research, where advancements in materials science, weaponry, biotechnology, and chemical engineering shape the future behind closed doors. Within its labyrinth of imposing, brutalist structures, the scientific elite—known as "Labbers"—operate under a strict veil of secrecy, their work shielded from prying eyes by both physical and procedural fortifications. The air here is thick with sterilization protocols: UV-sanitizers line the streets, pulsating with an eerie glow, while infrared scan stations stand as silent sentinels, ensuring that contamination is swiftly detected and eradicated.

C-VILLE

Connectville serves as the black market hub of the dystopian world of Dystopika. It is a vibrant, chaotic tapestry of favela-style alleyways crammed with backstreet shops, ramen stands, and a maze of tangled electrical wires. Known colloquially as "C-VILLE," its interconnectedness mirrors the tightly woven local supply chains that have evolved over decades between the district's myriad of specialty shops. These connections have birthed a dense network of skybridges and makeshift pathways that thread through the heart of the district.

New Megastructure: Jade Corp.

Jade is a global leader in AI, developing both hardware and software used the world over in infrastructure, daily mobile computing, governance, security, and manufacturing.

New Weather Options

City Settings now includes two new Weather options: Thunderstorm and Sandstorm.

Thunderstorms will periodically strike sufficiently tall buildings. Sandstorms will put the city under a coat of sand giving a distinct “Dune”-like feel (especially paired with the new Labber’s Row).

Expanded Photo Mode

Several improvements and enhancements have been made the game’s photo mode.

New Camera Control Scheme. FPS-style controls allow for much more creative freedom than before.

New Camera Movement Widget. Capture up to eight camera positions for playback to create moving camera sequences using three different movement styles: Linear, Smooth, and Rollercoaster.

Video Recording. You now have the option to export video directly from the game in Photo Mode.

Depth of Field effects. Create more immersive photos with aperture, focal length, focal distance, and vignette controls.

New filters and Lens Dirt effects. Change up the tone and atmosphere with several new color filter effects, and glitchy lens dirt options.

Improved Lighting & Light Props

New Volumetric Lighting

New volumetric lighting effects can be found throughout Dystopika, greatly enhancing the utility of the Light Brush. You can now create a sense of major streets and activate additional light effects on buildings.

New Props: Pot Lights and Light Bars

Thanks to the new volumetric effects, you now place your own light-emitters as you please, with customization options for size, color, and intensity.

New Wall Props

Create massive, oppressive walls around your cities to define districts or a dangerous world beyond. Walls utilize the same spline system as Roads, allowing you a variety of height and size options.

Blimps Evolved

The Blimp Pad has been completely overhauled. Blimps now take an editable path that you can customize and configure along with original controls for height and speed.

Two new Blimp styles have also been introduced, plus a facelift of the original blimp. Blimp styles can be cycles by right click.

Saved cities will still load the “old” blimp pad as to not change your past creations. To update to the new Blimp prop, simple delete it and place it again. Moving forward the old Blimp Pad is considered “deprecated” and no longer appears in the prop menu.

Mod Support: Landscapes (Beta)

The Modding Community can now craft custom landscapes, allowing for a range of new creative backdrops for your cities. Mod Support via our Unity ModKit continues to be in Beta. Check out modding.voidswithin.com to get started with creating mods.

Custom Landscapes can be selected when creating a new city if you’ve activated a Mod that includes Landscapes.

Quality of Life Improvements

• Prop Menu now features a category filter.

• Multiple font styles have been added to the Neon Text props

• District list will become scrollable beyond a certain height threshold (i.e. with several mods loaded)

• Multiple checks have been added to recover when failing to load a city due to corrupted or missing save files.

• A visual aid has been added to curved props to identify location of control points when hovered.

• Added a Setting for Volumetric Resolution to the Pause Menu

• Some buildings move/height interaction hot zones have been adjusted

• Delete Tool size calculation has been adjusted to better accommodate large buildings

• Neon Text props now have proper spacing when aligned vertically
  

Minor Adjustments

• Czech Language support now available.

• Prop Adjustments.

  • Mounted Satellite Dishes prop has been visually updated

  • Original Blimp has been visually updated

  • The right click to Edit Text for Neon Text props has been removed.

• Minor UI Refinements.

  • Photo Mode Play Icon has been changed to Play/Pause to better reflect its functionality

  • Load File button has been modified slightly to have a stronger visual draw.

  • Camera Height and Camera Pitch controls in Photo Mode has been removed as they have been made obsolete due to Camera Control changes

  • A special V1.5 Meditations-themed title screen has been temporarily activated.

  • Buildings now have a “weight” when raising and lowering to create a heavier feel.

• Game credits have been updated.

• Several adjustments under-the-hood to accommodate new storefronts for the game.

Bug Fixes

• Traffic Funnel prop now spawns with correct rotation.

• Fixed an issue with tooltips displaying offscreen.

• Fixed an issue where customer mods with billboard ads did not save properly.

• Fixed an issue where spline control points may not raise/lower properly

• Fixed an issue where right clicking in Prop Tool would not cycle randomly as intended

• Fixed an issue with dynamic sky that may result in 20-35% performance increase in many scenarios.

• Leaving the Pause Menu will now respect Play/Pause setting when in Photo Mode

• Air Traffic Density selector will now display localizations correctly

• Fixed several bugs related to the Prop Tool and using right click to cycle to the next prop

• Fixed an issue where an extra building wireframe would be visible for a few frames after placing a building

• Fixed some bugs where pressing Z to Undo while hovered on a prop may soft lock the game.

Known Issues

• Video Recording does not record audio. This is intentional due to licensing constraints on game music.

• Landscape mods may cause camera clipping in certain scenarios.

• Landscape mods may cause unexpected behavior when placing buildings and props.

• Landscape mods may not correctly display weather effects in certain scenarios.
  

What’s Next

It’s been one year since Dystopika launched v1.0 and since then I’ve been shipping a variety of updates both on and in addition to the roadmap. Sometimes you just get Video Billboards working right away and decide to yeehaw out an update, y’know?

We still have features being worked on, but as of v1.5, I have decided to retire the public-facing roadmap. After nearly 3 years of of work, I’m eager to start exploring something new while continuing to make incremental improvements to Dystopika.

After 1.5 me and the team are immediately resuming improvements to Mod Support and creating improved tutorials and workflows for our creators.