Order Automatica is out! Launch recap, PAX West & what’s next

Hey everyone!

It’s been a few weeks since Order Automatica officially launched, so we thought this would be a good moment to look back at everything that has happened around the release and - most importantly - talk a little about what comes next.

First of all: thank you.

Order Automatica started as a small project developed by Mickey over the course of four years, and seeing people finally play it, discuss strategies, discover ridiculous combinations, leave reviews, report bugs, and tell us what they’d like to see next has been incredibly valuable.

The launch was only the beginning.

From PAX West to launch

Just before release, we brought Order Automatica to PAX West in Seattle.

This was one of our first opportunities to put the game in front of a much wider audience and watch people actually sit down and play it in person.

There’s something very different about seeing someone discover the game while standing right next to them. Watching players understand the 3×3 grid, experiment with positioning, figure out how units interact and then suddenly discover a combination that completely changes their run gave us a lot of useful feedback.

And, of course, it was simply great to meet some of you there!

Then, just a few days later, came the big moment.

Order Automatica launched!

On September 4th, Order Automatica officially launched worldwide.

And we decided not to make things easy for ourselves.

The game launched simultaneously across:

PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android.

For a small indie game, releasing on so many platforms at the same time was a pretty ambitious undertaking. There were plenty of things happening behind the scenes - certification, store submissions, localization, builds, fixes and a lot of last-minute checking.

But we made it.

Seeing the game appear on all of those platforms at once after years of development was a pretty special moment for the whole team.

And then something happened that we honestly didn’t fully expect.

Order Automatica found a mobile audience

When we were preparing the release, PC was naturally one of the platforms we were watching most closely.

But shortly after launch, Order Automatica started gaining unexpected momentum on mobile.

Apple featured the game on the App Store and selected Order Automatica for Editors’ Choice across multiple regions.

The game also started appearing in charts across different countries, including reaching #1 in Card Games and the Top 10 among all paid apps in Poland, while also charting in the US and a number of other markets.

Google Play has supported the game too, giving Order Automatica additional featuring and visibility on Android.

For us, this has been one of the biggest surprises of the launch.

It also showed us that Order Automatica works really well as a game you can play both during a longer session at your PC and in shorter sessions on a phone or tablet.

That’s something we’ll definitely keep in mind when thinking about the future of the game.

Meanwhile, Order Automatica keeps spreading

A few other things have happened since launch that we wanted to mention.

Order Automatica is now available through NVIDIA GeForce NOW, so you have another way to play the game through the cloud.

We’ve also added Discord integration, making the game a little more connected with the community around it.

And for those of you who enjoy customizing your Steam profile, we haven’t forgotten about you either.

We’re currently preparing Steam Community Items, including badges and other profile goodies. We’ll share more details once everything is ready!

What people are saying

Another great part of finally releasing Order Automatica has been seeing the game covered by press and creators.

Pocket Gamer reviewed the game, highlighting the satisfaction of discovering synergies and creating increasingly ridiculous combinations on our tiny 3×3 board. They described Order Automatica as a “worthy entry in the auto-battling and Balatro-like world” and particularly praised the synergy-chasing gameplay and its dark fantasy personality.

Pocket Gamer's App Army also took the game for a spin, with several players sharing their experiences with the game, its strategy, difficulty and - importantly for us - areas where they would like to see it expanded in the future.

And if you'd rather watch someone dive into the game, Retromation - whose channel focuses heavily on roguelikes, roguelites and games built around discovering crazy combinations - also checked out Order Automatica.

Seeing an experienced roguelike player experiment with the game's systems, units and synergies was especially fun for us.

A huge thank you to everyone who has written about the game, made a video, streamed it, or simply recommended it to somebody else. For a small indie release like ours, every bit of coverage makes a real difference.

So… what comes next?

This is probably the most important part of this announcement.

We don’t consider Order Automatica finished just because it has launched.

Right now, we’re looking closely at player feedback and thinking about how we can expand the game in ways that make each run more interesting without losing what makes Order Automatica work in the first place.

One of the biggest areas we’re exploring is replayability.

We’re considering adding ways to make the game more replayable by introducing modifiers that change the difficulty and the strategies required during a run.

The interesting part is that this wouldn't only give players additional challenges.

Building a modifier system could also become a foundation for different types of game modes and challenges in the future.

Imagine runs where certain rules are changed, particular strategies become much harder - or suddenly much more viable - and you have to rethink how you normally build your board.

We think there’s a lot of potential there.

And, of course, we’re also thinking about the most obvious way of creating more possibilities:

more stuff to play with.

We’re exploring ideas for new items and new units, which could introduce completely new interactions and combinations to discover.

Order Automatica is built around experimenting with units, positioning, items and board effects, so expanding those systems is something we’re particularly interested in.

We have plenty of ideas - but we also want to develop them carefully rather than simply adding content for the sake of adding content.

And this is where your feedback really matters.

Tell us what you would like to see in Order Automatica. More units? More items? New challenges? Different ways to play? Something completely different?

We’re reading your comments, discussions and reviews, and they’re helping us decide where to take the game next.

This is only the beginning

The last few weeks have been pretty wild.

We went from showing Order Automatica at PAX West, to launching simultaneously across PC, consoles and mobile, to seeing the game featured by Apple and Google, reaching new players around the world, launching on GeForce NOW and continuing to improve the game based on your feedback.

And now we can finally start focusing more of our attention on what comes after launch.

Fixes and improvements will continue, but alongside them we want to start building systems and content that give you more reasons to come back and experiment with the game again.

We’ll share more details about specific updates once they’re far enough along.

Until then, please keep sending us your feedback, weird builds, broken combinations, suggestions and ideas.

And if you’ve been enjoying Order Automatica, leaving a Steam review is one of the best ways you can support a small game like ours. It genuinely helps more players discover it.

Thank you for playing.

Thank you for being here from the beginning.

The ritual continues.

Kuba from better. publishing