Well, it took THREE years, but Mondrian - Plastic Reality is finally coming to itch.io (among a few other places). So why, pray tell, did it take so long to bring the game to itch WELL AFTER its launch on Steam? In order to answer To answer that, we need to talk about parallel universes... and the pitfalls of technology.

The Double-Edged Sword of Steam Workshop

From day one, Steam Workshop integration has been a key feature of Mondrian - Plastic Reality. The idea was super simple: from Mondrian Maker, players should be able to click ONE button and get their works online. Technically we did it in two buttons but that's still pretty dang good! Plus, the process, we felt, was far more streamlined than other games: make your level, save a thumbnail, click share level, and click upload, all from within the same game, no external editors or uploaders needed. Over time, our  workshop got filled with over 100 player creations, making it "average sized" based on our research.

While the community is small, they are dedicated, and we can't ever thank them enough for their consistency and quality contributions!

From a technological standpoint, though, Steam Workshop is a nightmare. It is not an open platform, meaning to access it, players MUST be playing the Steam version of the game. Due to technological, time, and budgetary constraints, we just couldn't build in an alternate platform, much to the game's detriment. However, the hope was that the Workshop integration would be enough to spark some interest in the game.

This wasn't the case though. Combined with a rough launch (another story for another time), no media coverage to speak of, and low review numbers (though high review scores), the game plummeted into obscurity almost instantly. There were sparks of hope after though, including a Wired Minds and Virtual Reload Summer Camp which used Mondrian Maker to teach level editing, some successful Twitch streams, and even international groups of artists interested in opening galleries in the game's Museum. But in all these cases, Steam Workshop continued to present even more challenges.

For instance, students at the Summer Camp couldn't all share their creations under a single account from multiple computers, so a bunch of alternate accounts had to be made just to compensate for this. Another issue we ran into was that Gaming Cafes don't use Steam PC Cafe, but more open launchers instead, which inherently locked players out of Mondrian in public spaces unless they already owned it. Finally, the demo version of the game could only upload creations to player profiles and not the public Workshop, which means there could be lots of Mondrian levels out there that we don't even know about!

Simply put, while Steam Workshop is amazing, its inherently locked out to most of the world, including Steam users.

"Smoothing" Things Out

With our upcoming Universal launch of the game, we are making our mod.io page public again, and doing everything in our power to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible. While we haven't been able to integrate their API into the game, we've instead created an interface to simplify the sharing process as much as we can:

• The left button opens your Levels folder to find your creation file
• The middle button opens your Thumbnails folder to find your creation's corresponding image
• The right button opens our mod.io page

You will still have to upload your level in a ZIP file, but the web interface is very straightforward otherwise. There will be a guide on mod.io on everything you need to get your creations online as quickly as possible. It's not perfect, but anything is better than nothing.

The Universal build also includes a new function of the latest engine beta build, which allows us to leave libraries out of the build. Therefore the Steamworks library will not be included in the Universal build at all. This means no achievements or online leaderboards either, but if the demand is there these, building alternates for these isn't impossible.

But what do YOU think?

Steam Workshop is super cool, but it's so proprietary. When we started Mondrian - Plastic Reality, we expected to be able to build out Steam Workshop functionality alongside something like mod.io. Workshop's convenience ended up winning for the game's initial launch, at the cost of community, sales, and openness. We're hoping that we can breathe some new life into the game a couple years later by bringing it to new platforms, even with just a mod.io link included.

We're super curious what your experience has been with integrating and supporting Steam Workshop, mod.io, and user generated content! Leave a comment below and let us know. Until then, thank you for playing, and hope you're looking forward to Mondrian's update in just a couple weeks!

- Danny