Grid Town v0.4 — Release Notes

This update is mostly about making the game easier to read. The most common feedback after launch was that the underlying systems are good but hard to see, so the focus here was surfacing the state of your grid, adding a way to manage what you have built, and simplifying the language.

See your grid at a glance

• Battery charge on the graph. The supply graph now shows a battery charge lane under the source stack, so you can watch the bank fill through the day and drain into the evening peak.
• Unpowered homes are marked. A home without power now shows a clear marker on the map: a red "!" for a home that is wired but short on supply, and a slate icon for one that is out of reach of any source. A counter appears in the top-left whenever any home is unpowered, and clicking it jumps the camera to them.
• Off-grid demand reads correctly. A home built out of reach of any source used to show up as a red "shortfall" on the graph, which looked as though your batteries had failed to cover it. That demand is now drawn as a separate band, so a real supply shortfall and an unwired home no longer look the same.

Find and manage your power sources

• A Power Sources panel. A new panel lists every source you have built, with its output and site quality. Hover a row to highlight that source on the map, click to zoom to it, and use the "×" to remove it (with a confirm step). Finding a plant you placed earlier, and removing it, was difficult before; this makes it direct.

Move around the map

• Drag to pan. You can now click and drag the map to move around, alongside the keyboard and edge-scroll.
• A recenter control. Press C, or use the Recenter button that appears when your town scrolls off screen, to bring the view back to your town.
• Camera fixes. Moving the mouse toward the speed buttons at the top no longer scrolls the map away, and scrolling the wheel over a panel now scrolls the panel instead of zooming the map.

Clearer language

• "Steady" instead of "firm." Power that is available at any hour, from gas, nuclear, or hydro, is now called "steady power" throughout instead of "firm power," which is clearer if you are new to the energy space.
• A plain readout for tonight. The TONIGHT panel now leads with a plain line stating the three numbers that matter for the evening: peak demand, steady power, and batteries. It is easier to tell at a glance whether you are covered.
• Live build-guide prices. The build guide now shows the current price of each source, including any discount from a policy you have unlocked, instead of the starting price.

Smaller fixes

• Game speed in historical mode. The speed setting stays visibly selected through the daily report, and the game no longer advances behind that screen.
• Edge-scroll only at the edge. Edge-scroll now triggers only right at the screen border, so hovering a panel near the edge no longer moves the map.
• No stray camera movement while typing. Typing in the feedback box or another text field no longer pans the camera.

Play the alpha at gridtowngame.com, or read what changed in v0.3.

These release notes are written by Claude, based on direction from Trevor Hinkle.