I would like to suggest a map or memories overlay.
something like the options menu where you can review each major location, the links between them, and the limited and unlimited resources available there. maybe even special actions and their requirements, just to help in planning runs and reviewing things
suggest a message pop for santorini exploding even if you aren't there, possibly pausing in progress travel actions there?
also I feel like the tram between santorini and atrapos could be split up, I was travelling back to atrapos when santorini exploded but only had 30s or so of travel left and hoped I would survive to explore things I skipped instead of re-looping. similarity I died travelling to santorini but only after the action completed.
Hi, thank you for your suggestions! There are a few relevant parts already on the Roadmap, such as a map and a 'permanent log'.
Messages for when you see Santorini destroyed from a distance are also planned. The tram has been reworked a bit in v0.4, but being able to reverse the direction of it mid-way to avoid dying is an interesting idea. It's not possible with the game's current feature set, but I'll add a note to look into it in v0.5
One random idea - have a "portable" version of the artifact that you can hook up to pods in the bases. Once you've set a pod up, instead of restarting from the beginning, you restart from wherever you last set the artifact. You would have to detach it from the pod to take it to the next base, and if you die without it being attached you go back to the beginning at Talos (no progress lost). You would only get experience from things you actually do. Your inventory and everything else is "saved" at the point at which you connect the artifact to the pod.
I know you added per-action familiarity in place of skills, but maybe you could have both? (Skills being rather minor progression compared to per-action)
As it stands, I have had a couple runs where I take a break and forget quite what I was doing and just head the wrong direction or do something that is effectively irrelevant by the point in progress I have reached. If skills still existed, it would feel a bit more like I still made progress.
It also makes sense narratively. If I tear down a solid metal door, I might not be ripping the next one down with my bare hands, but I'd definitely have some degree of awareness where to start. Same with the various hackings -- theoretically these stations were built to some standard, so learning how to abuse one's digital systems would give insight into the others'.
I agree to a large extent... especially for actions that are common to certain areas.
Like at game start, we have a food replicator. Later on, at one of the stations we also have one there. You'd think knowledge of how to use a food replicator, would be shared between them, but both are separate familiarities.
This has been on the roadmap since v0.3 was being beta tested (Familiarity v2). Skills still have all the same problems and wont work for all the same reasons, but this should deal with the shard familiarity aspect of your problem.
However, I think the OPs issue is more to do with remembering where you got to. Which has also been on the roadmap for a long time - Permanent Log.
Hey, out of curiosity, is there any point in forcing the door at the start? Because I have no idea if it's even possible, and I would hate to waste so much time and effort on something pointless. (Don't tell me what it does, just tell me if it does anything worth my time. I'm lookin for help, not spoilers.)
There is currently no point to forcing the door, and it's not even possible. It was possible in previous versions, a few people have done it, but all it gives is a slightly different message. It will be possible and have more purpose in a future update (but not any time soon).
Kind of like they intentionally turned off the power, and something bad happens when the power comes on and if you force the door with the power off, you see something you wouldn't otherwise see... kind of thing?
That makes sense. Like if there was a garbage compactor in the process of smushing something when the power went out, the moment the power comes on it finishes its job, so with it unpowered, you could find something you wouldn't otherwise find.
A shame I cannot hook up and retrieve power cells from Laurion, to insert into my rover. Was thinking that was a creative means of still being able to implement the water recycler while retaining power. Instead, I end up burning more much-needed power for something that should but doesn't work.
I'm unsure how using power cells to transfer power to the rover would be better than parking the rover and connecting a charging cable? I'm pretty sure you'd spend more time taking cells in/out and going in/out the facility than you would just parking.
I somehow didn't realize I could park the rover. Perhaps there should be a combined action to do so from the interior of Laurion? After all, you're unable to do this until you re-establish power, and you aren't keen to see the extra option when you've made a quick decision to leave.
That's fair. There are a few tweaks planned to make it a bit more obvious that you can park the rover. In v0.4 there will be an action to 'Inspect Rover Charger' once you've powered up the facility, which will suggest parking it. Also, after you've parked it once, the action to park it will always be visible, but locked when the facility has no power.
You should be able to designate personal resource over area resource to be used
Also, forbidden resources should still be used in case of emergency (if not doing so would cause you to die), as forbidding is the only way to prevent consumption when your water/food level is mildly lower than full
In what situation would you want to use personal resources before area resources?
There was a big debate about the DoNotUse priority when it was first added. It was decided that having it still consume them when you get low makes it way to easy to min/max them. Only a small percentage of players ever change priority away from auto, and most of those that do would rather keep it as a bit of a challenge to manage.
For example air when there's no (or insufficient) generation, but you can still make some with your rover lets you stretch it out a bit more. (relevant in the very start and at the end of mining in laurion)
Also, it should at least not add the DoNotUse to the time remaining, or
Hmmm. I do agree it could extend your maximum survival time in those situations. But I think it's only a very small percentage of players who would want to micromanage to that level. I'll make a note to look at it at some point, but I'm not sure how I'd do it without further complicating the UI.
Fair enough. Though as it stands, the mining requires even more micromanagement (or an enormous waste of time and management while throwing yourself at it)
I think it'd be very helpful when mining the obelisk, if there were additionally an option to do so manually when there was power. If you could avoid using the air recycler, then you'll always have enough power to fuel the water recycler and keep going.
Great game! It's great how much old areas expand over time as new paths open up and new resources become relevant. I liked Increlution a lot and so far this is better.
Some more specific comments: 1. I initially got worried that I was going to run out of air and die when the Area air in Talos got exhausted, and didn't understand why the air tanks weren't resupplying it. IIRC my personal air meter wasn't visible yet at that point. 2. It would be nice to be able to turn off the air recycler in Laurion, or have it turn off when all the air is full. Or rebrand it as something else where it makes more sense that we can't turn it off. 3. It's surprising to me that the water recycler doesn't use power (in any location).
1. The personal air meter becomes visible as soon as you put on the emergency suit. If you haven't done that by the time area air runs out, you will die.
2. It's already mentioned that there are some emergency backup systems in Laurion that you simply can't turn off because they're considered essential. The air recycler (running at minimum power) is one of them.
3. I've planned to make the water recycler use power for a while now, but was always wary of making such a huge change to balance. I now have an automated balance tester, which should make it much easier to test that type of change without having to get people to play through it and get their opinions of how much easier/harder it makes the game.
this is great!! i'm not too far into the game but it's SUPER fun. i just discovered the time loop mechanic which is cool, i love time loop games!!! i can't wait to learn more about what is going on!! :D
Very fun game but there are a few bugs, after finding the passage from Talos to Santorini I can't go from the Dam to Laurion, or from Santorini back to the Dam
I am not a native English speaker and understood almost everything. Very well written and has a really nice atmosphere. Reminds me of SOMA, being stranded alone and figuring out what happened or how to escape.
As horror and idle gamer this is perfectly in the middle.
Will join your discord after this comment and check for known bugs or suggestions. Some people already are suggesting a lot of stuff here, some of these suggestion would ruin the game experience for me. Since you already created this amazing game, you know your path. Dont let anyone fool you.
I really enjoy what you’ve got here with Terraformental. I want to qualify that statement- I made an account just to express it. I’ve been around the block on gaming. I was old when the earth was young. Cookie clicker, Adventure Capitalist, Theory of Magic, the idle genre, the incremental genre, the stories written as light novels rather than games, they were new once, I’ve witnessed their rise. You’ve made something good here. That’s not to say other people aren’t making good things either though. I'm quite pedantic so I'll leave a long ramble here, but that's the crux of my message.
One perspective of gaming is that it's a learning experience. In reinforcement learning, there’s a dichotomy of choice between exploration and exploitation. Choosing to acquire new information vs utilization of old information. However, you aren’t just making one choice, but one among a long sequence of choices. Often, they feed in to each other. You explore to find things to exploit- you exploit to be well enough off to explore. It is a dynamic process where you balance and evaluate both things. The through line underpinning it all is time, tempo. In this game, it’s a bottleneck, a duration. In other games, it’s an evaluation on what duration is shorter to elapse- to prestige or to just keep grinding- what is the faster pace.
In practical terms of what I mean with what is existing in the game- let’s talk about the water recycler. There is a rate of water consumption. Similarly, there is a rate of water creation through the recycler. There are three states those numbers can be in- deficit, balance, and surplus. Whether the artifact or quick recycler is acquired, it shifts it from a deficit to a surplus- from a finite span of time to an indefinite span. If food, water, and power are all surplus, like in the barracks of Santorini- you are leaning on exploitation, you don’t need to loop. So you then don’t need to exploit effective choices to get to Santorini quicker to have more time to explore. Even what it is that you exploit is a choice. “What happens if I arrive sooner? What happens if I arrive later? What sequence of events are necessary for something here? What gaps do I have space to do other things with?” You might recognize the resemblance to Majoras Mask, if that is in your pool of experience.
Oh, the story and fantasy is nice too. The overarching goal, space, future, terraforming a planet. It’s cool, you don’t see it much. The story is really important. It gives you something to read while you’re counting down the timer. It gives you some scaffolding to extrapolate for exploration and exploitation. Getting a solar panel eventually, and what that means for the choice of rover attachment, and how that impacts the routes you can take. This game is certainly like a puzzle/adventure game. Like games of old, a cutscene or some dialogue is a reward, is content, is enjoyable as well as connected to the gameplay. It gives a fantasy for the mind to run with and speculate in imagination. To tap into the joy of imagining a station that you power up with solar panels, food generation, water generation, air.
Well, the game seems in good hands dev. The artifact you dig out being optional, the intent for different routes, the exclusivity of options, the limitations of resources, packaging tasks to recognize that repeating them gets old, improving at some tasks... lots of intelligent design with these choices. Maybe some day you'll discover that the starting area is boring, and maybe you'll introduce an artifact that lets you have a different spawn location. Your choice to expand breadth and depth by revisiting the previous station helps keep all options fresh for possibility and exploration- as opposed to a content treadmill of power creep- while simultaneously the text and cues of the game give meaningful directions on what to explore rather than running in circles doing arbitrary tasks like staying in the starter station for 5 hours to discover something.
Glad I got to play it before it ends up having a price tag.
I need to add, I *also* made my account just to comment on this game.
It's one of the few "loop-incrementals" that I totally like , mostly thanks to it's unique theme and resource management. Most loop-crementals have a big issue called "you cannot go farther, now repeat these actions soo you get more stuff later for 3 hours"
This feels more like an adventure game than a boring slog. Every run you either discover new things, get better on old things, or try to get a permament upgrade (like the artifact #2).
And the story, hoo boy... it's nothing to write home about (cuz it's incomplete), But it's nice to have something to read about. My only issues in this game:
-Add Codex for all the lore interactions we can find .(even better, LET TIME MOVE while we read soo we can review our notes while the game plays itself early-game)
-mid-late game (for the demo...) let us unlock some way to "program" our tasks (like a route) soo we don't have to manually play early-game (Yes I know it's gonna be a headache to program thanks to loop-completion shaving off many seconds every time we play the game, but I think it's doable)
-More puzzles like the Dam that need to be only completed once.(unlike most people, I like having an "objective" that requires us to do specific tasks at specific times in order to complete it, and I didn't mind needing 3 loops to do it)
This is a fantastic game so far and I'm eager to see more. It's a great infusion of soft incremental mechanics into what it essentially an adventure/puzzle game. I entered a fugue state and lost most of my day to finishing it.
Having a huge initial boost of familiarity on first completion of an action is the perfect way to fix Increlution's biggest problem, which was the need to grind so many loops to break speed/efficiency thresholds.
I was initially bummed that this game functionally has no automation, but after only a couple of loops I understood why. It's (mostly) unnecessary since you don't need to grind for basically anything. The additional familiarity bonus from repeat loops definitely helps long term and gives you breathing room, but that initial 30% bump is always enough to get you moving on to your next tasks.
Loop-persistent actions acting as single-use time sinks are another great way to avoid needing to grind over a wall more than once.
I'd like to see some way to further reduce manually replaying most of Talos station at the beginning of a loop because even after the existing combined actions it's a lot of unengaging clicking for zero benefit once you've mapped it out. A combined action called something like "Wake Up and Prepare" that one-clicks getting out of the pod and drinking, fixing the upper floor, grabbing initial stockpiles of Basic Food/Water Pouches, getting the suit, and repairing the rover would be a huge improvement. The protein bars, regulator, generator, and modifying the rover could stay completely manual to still give the player options before heading out, as well as not holding their hand about making sure they're topped up on resources if they're being maximally efficient.
It would also be nice to have some kind of log of past text boxes in case the player misses one or wants to re-read them. It's understandable that most of them go away as you progress but the idea that they're unavailable without restarting is a little unfortunate.
Okay, I completed all the content so far. Gotta say, absolutely PHENOMENAL game so far. It scratches like all my itches when it comes to like, idler/incrementals. And man I cannot wait to see what comes next.
Pretty much maxed out on everything I can until another update. Really enjoyed it, but I wish there was more automation for areas you already cleared but still need to do each loop for materials. Like, if there were a pre-set route you could program and edit to auto-play at the start of each loop. It gets pretty tedious leaving the starting area each time, picking up extra fuel cells, etc.
Anyway, I hope we get to see more! I'd love to find out what happens next. :)
Came across a few bugs and glitches. (But I was so focused I forgot most of them.
One was that certain elements couldn't be stopped via clicked once started.
Another is: if you start an action with play [top of queue] and {after having it progressed for a while} add an other action on top, and then add another of the first one on top, then that top one has the same progress as the identical below. That can be repeated indefinitely, giving lot's of time saving in early play)
That aside. Did I read the end of game message correctly, that all that is just the prologue?
If true, then Holy F!
Shut up, take my money. I just hope I don't miss the launch on steam.
That is, if you manage to pull it off. Plenty of people got ambitious with their projects and burned themselves out on them. With the project forever in 30% limbo.
The current content is the prologue plus first 2 chapters, and I add a new chapter with each major update (every 2-3 months).
I've never encountered the first issue you mentioned, but will keep an eye out for it.
The second is completely intended but does not give you time saving. All copies of the same action do indeed share progress in the queue. So if you 90% something, cancel it, the go back it later, you only have 10% left to do. But once you finish the first one, the next one will have to start from scratch.
Phenomenal game and the task mechanics blew my mind. Everytime I thought i got a grasp of the gameplay a new thing popped right up and made me completely replan my strategies in a good way.
I will say, some of the task groupings don't work as intended. Like gathering supplies outside Laurion and the lost rover, it states the 'return' task for each are within the group but then it doesn't actually complete that task when running the grouping.
I really hope Astrape gets implemented soon, keep up the good work!
The issue with some combined actions not finishing is a known bug and is being worked on for v0.4, which is currently planned to be released next month.
It would be nice for us to be able to pre-program a long list of actions to load into the queue on start, so we don’t have to manually click back to where we last were in order to make progress.
That is one possible route I'm considering for automation in the future. I'm hesitent to add much automation, since it'd make it very easy for players to miss new actions/content which gets added to early parts of loops, then think the game is broken/badly balanced because they don't know about half the content. As I say though, it is being considered for future. Just my primary goal is reducing the need for automation via features like combined actions.
On the topic of combined actions then, my preferred way of dealing with Laurion base at one point was to take out a full power cell from the rover, collect outdoor supplies, go inside, charge the base up, shut down systems, go back out (with a powered door), park the rover, install the generator at the base (faster than taking it in through the personnel airlock), install the water recycler in the parked rover (faster than taking it out through the personnel airlock), add fuel to the base generator, and reattach the now-empty power cell as the rover recharges from the base.
The only combined action available in this sequence is just the outdoor collection. There exists a combined action for infrastructure installing with taking things through the airlock, which isn’t my route. Training power cell attachment is probably more useful long term than a potential few seconds shaved by first bringing the generator in directly (the immediate difference isn’t large).
Hey, hope things are going well with the devtool your building to help with balancing updates. You said you had a vacation scheduled for early May. Hope you have fun! I'm really looking forward to the next update, but don't feel rushed. Take all the time you need!
Saw this on Wanderbots' youtube channel and played through v0.3.1 today. I'm really liking it so far. I'd be willing to pay $5-$10 for the finished game from what I've seen so far. Looking forward to more! Thanks for this, made my day!
Installed this yesterday and stayed up until 6am accidentally, did almost everything up to the current content, absolutely worth it, and I hope you keep cooking!
Don't know if you're the same person that reported this on Discord, but if not/if other people read this:
The game has a minimum default height. Normally it's low enough that it's not an issue, but if your screen is low enough resolution then it'd probably show like that. I should be able to reduce the minimum height further, just never had a reason/need to do so. And I'll also make escape open the options menu so you can swap to windowed mode.
any chance for a copy text button in the save export? or just let you select/type in the full window instead of highlighting the whole think automatically so it triggers the text selection tool.
im trying to swap from my iPad to my PC and it wont let me copy the save export text.
For some reason, many features of Unity's text boxes don't work properly in browsers, so they cause a lot of problems on different platforms. It looks like I should be able to make a copy text button though, so I'll try to get that sorted for the next version.
Not sure what cause it, but there is a bug with the combine actions at Laurion, namely the two supplies gathering ones. Where it doesn't automatically return to Rover/Laurion even when they were listed in the combine actions.
Not sure if a bug or a design decision, but it seems that combined actions always result in a 110% increase, even if the individual items are much more.
So if you want to go fast, you have to expand the items and click them individually.
The combined actions always give a 10% speed boost, which multiplies the speed of the combined actions. The tooltips will be improved next version to make this more clear, but you can prove it now if you add up the "modified* time of the sub actions and compare it to the "modified" time of the combined action.
I'm fairly certain the 10% increase is in addition to the individual discounts. If I look at the modified times for each of the tasks and add them together, the result is 10% less than the combined action's modified time.
1) Some way to upgrade our storage capacity, or have finer control over our capacity. So say you can have a limit of 25 drinks / food. Then at the start you could load up on 25 synthfood and 25 water pouches. Then to balance it, other sources have just more food/water or they are more "fulfilling". By that I mean after you use one, it gives a buff halving drain rates for say 30 seconds. So then other items would be technically better.
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2) I do see the game used to have skills. They got replaced by the new system of doing things over and over again. I do think that the new system is better for early game actions, but is absolutely terrible for late game actions. Like getting to Santorini, with its food synthesizer, its a brand new redo of the existing action in Talos, so its slow as molasses, while Talos is likely super fast by this point. So maybe go for a "hybrid" of skills and repeat actions. Repeat groups. That way improving food synthesis, at one location, improves it all all, but doesn't speed up gathering of other food types or waters. But gathering food should have its own group, so that grabbing protein bars or loose rations, is grouped together. So some suggested groupings:
-> Synthesis = Improves food synthesis and water recycling.
-> Gathering = Improves food and water collection from the environment.
-> Strength = Forcing objects in a direction; whether its a door, cargo container, or maybe even a vehicle.
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3) Instead of the "speed up" system (of partial actions), all actions to be done the first time, are highlighted in blue. That way no progress is actually lost, when you interrupt an action.
I do notice that sometimes this does occur anyway. Like with mining the first two steps, they appear as grey, but if you return next loop, they are now blue.
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4) The ability to attach empty power cells to the generator at Laurion. That way, when you complete what you can there, and the generator still has charge, you can syphon off 100 points of it, with an empty power cell. As you can put an empty power cell in the Rover, but not the generator currently.
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5) Allow the player to carry 3 partially consumed items. So a protein bar gives 3.00 food. If consumed at 7.8 food, create a partial protein bar with 0.8 food remaining. This could also mean you could have a partial power cell, with power less than 1. Thus being able to remove the last power cell in the Rover.
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6) The ability to permanently deactivate the fission reactor at Talos, and earn 2 Fuel Cells as compensation. So that you could travel farther or do more at Laurion in a single loop. Because really, there isn't much point to return to Talos right now, even if it is to stock up on food/water, as it takes so long to travel there and you have limited ways to generate rover power.
Well, reached "end of content", though I'm sure there is some stuff left to explore, but reached and explored Uranium Vault and got the end of the line message.
Things I didn't accomplish:
-> I only visited the lost rover once. Its a bit too far out of the way at the moment, to go grab those two empty power cells.
-> I didn't mine the obelisk completely. Stuck on phase 4, where your water decreases ultra fast.
-> I didn't get info on the other facility mentioned at Santorini, from Laurion. The lab one.
-> I never found a solar panel, but did learn how to attach the solar cell.
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Bugs/Issues:
-> Once you travel to Santorini, you cannot travel back to the dam. Thing is several loops I knew I couldn't progress far to that place where the Tram is stuck at (I can't remember its name; starts with an A), so I'd want to drive back to Laurion to work on the obelisk, but found out you can't.
-> Apparently, you can't charge empty power cells at the charger at Santorini. So unless you manage to park the rover, you can't restore its power.
-> I get that the generator isn't meant for the rover, but why isn't it more efficient when plugged into Laurion?
-> The game mentions that there are standard tools at the obelisk. Why can't I use them to mine the obelisk, in a power shortage situation, at say a faster food/water/air consumption rate?
-> The game hints at the rover with the initial artifact being useful later, or the mining laser inspection, or driving the long way to Laurion, but I never was able to unlock any further actions with this route.
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Feedback (outside of already provided stuff):
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A) There is lots of plotholes / missing stories (yes I know early access).
-> If the artifact we have causes time loops, how did someone manage to force it into the container, without touching it themselves?
-> Like, you have a huge evacuation from Laurion to Santorini. But yet most of the vehicles remain, there are no corpses to be found (other than the miner), and there isn't a ton of vehicles/bodies at Santorini.
-> Game name drops some people, like the Colonel, and never mentions them again. They sound fairly important, yet, nothing about them at Laurion or beyond. You also don't find out if Marie made it to Santorini... though that in itself is confusing, as you find her journal at Laurion, but she mentions fleeing to Santorini, so why'd she come back to Laurion after that?
-> Game said the missing rover went to explore some anomaly, but once we get to the rover, we never bother to hunt for that anomaly. Or bother to find out why their navigational system failed.
-> There is no evidence of life (corpses, discarded clothing, bedding, etc) at Santorini. Its as if everyone just disappeared without a trace.
-> If the administrator of a location knew they were evacuating to another facility, why didn't they take their protein bars with them, for such an emergency?
-> The game mentions an artifact at Talos causing problems, which led to the facility being evacuated, but we never find that artifact.
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B) The optimal route to Santorini, seems like install metal plates (for mining rotors), install generator, travel tunnel to Laurion to pick up the supplies (ie 2 fuel cells), drive through tunnel back to Talos, then drive to dam->santorini. We need those fuel cells to power the generator, once we install the mining rotors. Unless I'm missing something, but this cuts like 8~ minutes off the timer, and so there wasn't a ton I could do each loop.
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C) Some more progressive unlocks at bases might be nice. Like you find a log at Laurion mentioning a hidden compartment in admin office, requiring the admin code to open. Or you find a security door at Santorini that requires all three admin codes to access it, and leads to a tunnel that lets you walk to plateau underground. Or those various rovers have a hidden device stored on them, that you find out about later, and only knowing where it was hidden, would you know where to search. That kind of stuff, to make backtracking in old areas more interesting.
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D) Finding out a way to use the artifact we have to cause one object in the game, per run, to be "addressed". So say you force open a door, and set the artifact to that. Then, as long as you don't change it, every loop that door is forced open. Then have a way to power that artifact, to allow more than 1 forced change. Or you could have the food container on the tram, so you can just call it from Santorini. So depending on what the choice was, you could greatly reduce a loop time requirement. But of course prevent it used on complex actions (ie Repair Rover), but only one-off actions that don't require resources (ie fixing the mining override).
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E) Using the artifact to store some food/water from the previous loop, for the next loop. So say you are about to die, and you stash your 3x Food Ration and 2x Water Pouch. Then next loop you can start out with those items.
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F) Since there is lots of use between Talos and Laurion, hence the need for a tunnel, perhaps there is a cable that runs between them, that may need repairs, but allows you to transfer power from Talos to Laurion. But every 10 minutes of doing this, briefly shuts down the reactor at Talos (due to power drain overload), and you have to drive back to Talos to restart the reactor.
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G) An option to go on foot. Make it so that only paths you've managed to optimize allow it. Yes, driving is faster. But, if you have 8 minutes to boom, and your rover runs out of power 30s from Santorini's compound choice, maybe allow the player to walk it. Could take 3x as long, so probably run out of food/water/air anyway, but offers an option for reaching an outpost in dire situations. You know where the outpost is and the path to take, and there are things to do at Santorini so you hoof it.
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Anyway, will wait for the next content drop. Its definitely an interesting spin on the incremental genre, so I applaud your ingenuity.
I can give some pointers for a couple of your comments:
"-> I didn't mine the obelisk completely. Stuck on phase 4, where your water decreases ultra fast."
That's definitely the toughest stage, but it should only take 2/3 loops at worst. Try setting up the Water Generator inside Laurion. Mine until your Water runs out (or all Water sources are on cooldown), then go out, do some other things and restock.
"-> Like, you have a huge evacuation from Laurion to Santorini."
I think the evacuation was in the other direction, Santorini -> Laurion. (It's Santorini they were concerned would blow up.)
"-> If the administrator of a location knew they were evacuating to another facility, why didn't they take their protein bars with them, for such an emergency?"
I mean, 5 Protein Bars are worth a lot to someone stuck in a time loop. They won't stretch very far feeding dozens of evacuees.
"B) The optimal route to Santorini, seems like install metal plates (for mining rotors), install generator, travel tunnel to Laurion to pick up the supplies (ie 2 fuel cells), drive through tunnel back to Talos, then drive to dam->santorini. We need those fuel cells to power the generator, once we install the mining rotors."
You can go straight there from Talos. There are more fuel cells at the Quarry area in Santorini. (You may also be having trouble with this because you haven't completed mining the Laurion artifact.)
The desktop version is bugged pretty severely. Here is a screenshot.
In the online version, I ran into a similar situation of running out of power, and the "Loop Now" appeared where this green box, that I placed should have been.
Suffice to say, as I was looking for the Rover, I'm hard-locked from progressing. I liked the desktop version as I could play at my own pace and not worry about online data being lost (as I like to clear cache and cookies on occasion).
The hardlock kinda bummed me out, so probably won't play more of it for a while.
EDIT: Noticed a button in top middle "Waiting". It works, just going to take me a while to dehydrate to death. So not hard-locked. Hrmm.
Other feedback on it:
-> I feel like water and food drain too fast. They are very limited in a lot of places, and its the main limiter to exploration at the moment.
-> The generator said I could remove it, after welding it on. But at Laurion, I couldn't remove it, despite really needing to do it there.
-> I really think the consumption priority system, should be active from the start.
-> I like that hacking doors, means I have the password later, but man does it take forever to hack them. And as they are a one-off event, you don't even get a speed-up boost. Especially the admin door at Laurion.
-> I like that many actions only have to be performed once per playthrough (blue highlights), so even if you die, you feel like you made some progress each time.
-> I wish there was more actions I could do while piloting the rover to a location. Practicing a skill, or playing a card game, or something beneficial. Its just that with some of the driving sections its a long period of just refilling oxygen tanks.
-> I think that the repeat action should be applied per a category of actions, rather than individual actions. So acquiring any source of water, applies a multiplier to all actions involving gaining water. Any action that involves hacking a door, you get a multiplier to that. Adding/removing power cell/fuel cells should be an action group. That way, when you practice one thing, you can practice for all similar actions.
-> I wish I could find some empty power cells at Talos, so that I'd have some full cells in the rover and some empties on hand. That way you could extract 3 full ones, install the 3 empty ones, and have 3 full ones on hand, while the generator now fills up the 4 empty ones in the rover.
-> Why do the water bottles at the start of the game are called small bottles, fill up the normal water bottle slots, but the 2 found at Laurion are actually small bottles, and fill up the small water bottle slots.
-> Maybe provide a hand-crank charger, for recharging Empty Power Cells. That way, you'd have a way to generate the power, but it could take a while to crank a charge to full. Kinda like that idea in the Metro games.
Was your initial issue on your second loop? Because the Loop Now button doesn't appear until your third loop.
- The generator explicitly says you can't remove it because you are welding it in place. That's why there's a warning message saying "are you sure you want to do this?".
- The consumption priority system has little-no benefit until the point you unlock it, and isn't available until then to avoid confusing/overwhelming new players. I may make it unlock a bit earlier, but it definitely won't be from the start.
- Door hacking takes as long as it does to give a meaningful choice between quickly forcing it, or spending a long time hacking it so you get a permenant upgrade. Even as it is, pretty much everyone hacks straight away.
- Having fuel and empty power cells and Talos would massively skew the balance of the game, and rover power is already way higher than it should be due to the way familiarity currently works.
- I'm not sure what you mean by 'normal water bottle slots' and 'small water bottle slots'. You can carry up to 5 of each item, so 5 Small Water Bottles, 5 Water Bottles and 5 Water Pouches.
- As mentioned, power is already way too plentiful. More options for long-term power generation are going to be added, but power will have to be nerfed first for them to have any real point.
Yes, my initial issue was on the second loop. And it did appear on the third loop, as you said. So I guess it was just the sequence of events that I took to get there.
The first time I installed the generator, I didn't get that message. Then after I had posted this feedback, I noticed that warning. So the big black popup warning that it would be a permanent change didn't appear the very first time.
I wouldn't say it has no point. I like to grab as much food and water as I can, quickly so that I can empty up the protein/filter water, but the system auto-uses synfood/water pouches, so I had to manually waste them to empty up their resource pallets.
Well, what you "could do" to balance it, is to reduce the hacking time, but the mental concentration needed to do the hacking consumes water/food faster, to offset the time needed.
After posting that suggestion, I realized what I was actually asking for was "skills" that would in another game. A passive upgrade that improves the activity speed of multiple actions. Possibly with a chance for a critical effect, that consumes twice as much time as a normal tick.
Rover power is only "that useful" once you've completed a path section at least once, or an entire path at least once. Until then, it takes forever to complete sections and death from loss of resources is very likely. I do see now that I'm on cycle 9 or so now (was at cycle 2 at the time of posting) that you slowly unlock shortcuts which makes things better, but at the time I had no shortcuts and it was torturously hard to get anywhere, hence the suggestion. But now at cycle 9, with some shortcuts and better route planning, I'm able to do things faster, but as a new player I didn't know about any of that and was ready to give up.
My apologies on the water bottles. I was confused and you are right, they are specifically different.
You don't have to nerf power. What you could do is give the option to add on more objects that drain the power faster. ie:
-> Improved navigation to reduce time needed for optimizing existing paths.
-> Improved detection to find additional objects of interest on side paths that you avoid now (like to first rover with artifact).
-> Build an extra compartment to the rover, that adds weight and thus increases standard travel time costs. Can install the water recycler into it, alongside the generator.
-> Build an extra storage compartment to the rover, that also adds weight. Can stash some supplies in it for an emergency. So you could effectively have 10/10 synthfood, water pouches, etc...
EDIT:
-> Something I have noticed, is that combined actions don't get speed up boosts from repeatedly doing them. ie Repair Upper Floor, I've done at least 3 times, and it says I've completed it 0 times over my 9 loops.
Yeah, +25% is still enough to make the water and air generators go infinite, plus adds a lot of time saved throughout the whole run that you don't need to use restocking.
I just finished the game a day ago and I want to say I love it. I love the figure it out yourself style of gameplay I love each choice you have to make to understand what's going on and what to do next. A few things I want to say though is the fact that I really don't like the priority consumption changing by itself, if there was a setting to change the fact, that would be really apricated, also I would like to be able to change the order of the queue without removing most of what I have. Also the gather supplies from outside at the Laurion station doesn't finish the last return to rover action. I also wish if you were to do more choice based things, give us options on what to do like how in the second dialog at the end of the current version it says you can either go to Strabo or Astrape, I would love to see more of this and I would love for for a spot were after you make enough progress you can have a second save so you if you make the game long enough then you don't have to wake up in the cryo sleep pod each time but it would be also cool to pick where you want to wake up.
You don't have to do anything I suggested in this but just take all of this as something from someone that really liked the game you made.
Most of your suggestions are planned/in some cases are on the roadmap. The only one which isn't is the alternate start points. I very much doubt I'd ever let you just pick where you want to start a loop, as that'd be impossible to balance. There may be one or two dedicated alt spawns at some point, but that'll be a ways in the future.
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I would like to suggest a map or memories overlay.
something like the options menu where you can review each major location, the links between them, and the limited and unlimited resources available there. maybe even special actions and their requirements, just to help in planning runs and reviewing things
suggest a message pop for santorini exploding even if you aren't there, possibly pausing in progress travel actions there?
also I feel like the tram between santorini and atrapos could be split up, I was travelling back to atrapos when santorini exploded but only had 30s or so of travel left and hoped I would survive to explore things I skipped instead of re-looping. similarity I died travelling to santorini but only after the action completed.
Hi, thank you for your suggestions! There are a few relevant parts already on the Roadmap, such as a map and a 'permanent log'.
Messages for when you see Santorini destroyed from a distance are also planned. The tram has been reworked a bit in v0.4, but being able to reverse the direction of it mid-way to avoid dying is an interesting idea. It's not possible with the game's current feature set, but I'll add a note to look into it in v0.5
One random idea - have a "portable" version of the artifact that you can hook up to pods in the bases. Once you've set a pod up, instead of restarting from the beginning, you restart from wherever you last set the artifact. You would have to detach it from the pod to take it to the next base, and if you die without it being attached you go back to the beginning at Talos (no progress lost). You would only get experience from things you actually do. Your inventory and everything else is "saved" at the point at which you connect the artifact to the pod.
I know you added per-action familiarity in place of skills, but maybe you could have both? (Skills being rather minor progression compared to per-action)
As it stands, I have had a couple runs where I take a break and forget quite what I was doing and just head the wrong direction or do something that is effectively irrelevant by the point in progress I have reached. If skills still existed, it would feel a bit more like I still made progress.
It also makes sense narratively. If I tear down a solid metal door, I might not be ripping the next one down with my bare hands, but I'd definitely have some degree of awareness where to start. Same with the various hackings -- theoretically these stations were built to some standard, so learning how to abuse one's digital systems would give insight into the others'.
I agree to a large extent... especially for actions that are common to certain areas.
Like at game start, we have a food replicator. Later on, at one of the stations we also have one there. You'd think knowledge of how to use a food replicator, would be shared between them, but both are separate familiarities.
This has been on the roadmap since v0.3 was being beta tested (Familiarity v2). Skills still have all the same problems and wont work for all the same reasons, but this should deal with the shard familiarity aspect of your problem.
However, I think the OPs issue is more to do with remembering where you got to. Which has also been on the roadmap for a long time - Permanent Log.
Okay. Good to know. Thanks for the update.
Game was updated? What was it?
No, there's not been an update yet. The next update is scheduled for next month.
Says there's an update four days ago, and we don't have a log for 0.3.1.1. Was something hotfixed?
I don't know what Itch is talking about. 0.3.1.1 was released ages ago, and it was just a hotfix for a death message bug.
"Hmm, I think I'll go back to Talos and then see what's in Strabo!"
Do NOT make your UI on phone as small as possible. It will make it ridiculously small, making it very hard to press anything.
Hey, out of curiosity, is there any point in forcing the door at the start? Because I have no idea if it's even possible, and I would hate to waste so much time and effort on something pointless. (Don't tell me what it does, just tell me if it does anything worth my time. I'm lookin for help, not spoilers.)
there is a point to forcing the door and I don't want to spoil too much but it is technically unnecessary
There is currently no point to forcing the door, and it's not even possible. It was possible in previous versions, a few people have done it, but all it gives is a slightly different message. It will be possible and have more purpose in a future update (but not any time soon).
Kind of like they intentionally turned off the power, and something bad happens when the power comes on and if you force the door with the power off, you see something you wouldn't otherwise see... kind of thing?
Not necessarily something bad, but yeah. Something you wouldn't otherwise see, or you're able to do something that is prevented by the power being on.
That makes sense. Like if there was a garbage compactor in the process of smushing something when the power went out, the moment the power comes on it finishes its job, so with it unpowered, you could find something you wouldn't otherwise find.
just spent 2 hours trying to open that stupid door
A shame I cannot hook up and retrieve power cells from Laurion, to insert into my rover. Was thinking that was a creative means of still being able to implement the water recycler while retaining power. Instead, I end up burning more much-needed power for something that should but doesn't work.
I'm unsure how using power cells to transfer power to the rover would be better than parking the rover and connecting a charging cable? I'm pretty sure you'd spend more time taking cells in/out and going in/out the facility than you would just parking.
I somehow didn't realize I could park the rover. Perhaps there should be a combined action to do so from the interior of Laurion? After all, you're unable to do this until you re-establish power, and you aren't keen to see the extra option when you've made a quick decision to leave.
That's fair. There are a few tweaks planned to make it a bit more obvious that you can park the rover. In v0.4 there will be an action to 'Inspect Rover Charger' once you've powered up the facility, which will suggest parking it. Also, after you've parked it once, the action to park it will always be visible, but locked when the facility has no power.
very nice game
You should be able to designate personal resource over area resource to be used
Also, forbidden resources should still be used in case of emergency (if not doing so would cause you to die), as forbidding is the only way to prevent consumption when your water/food level is mildly lower than full
In what situation would you want to use personal resources before area resources?
There was a big debate about the DoNotUse priority when it was first added. It was decided that having it still consume them when you get low makes it way to easy to min/max them. Only a small percentage of players ever change priority away from auto, and most of those that do would rather keep it as a bit of a challenge to manage.
For example air when there's no (or insufficient) generation, but you can still make some with your rover lets you stretch it out a bit more. (relevant in the very start and at the end of mining in laurion)
Also, it should at least not add the DoNotUse to the time remaining, or
Hmmm. I do agree it could extend your maximum survival time in those situations. But I think it's only a very small percentage of players who would want to micromanage to that level. I'll make a note to look at it at some point, but I'm not sure how I'd do it without further complicating the UI.
Fair enough. Though as it stands, the mining requires even more micromanagement (or an enormous waste of time and management while throwing yourself at it)
maybe double clicking an air tank when the internal air tank's full (or almost full) would add the surplus to area resources?
Also: maybe add a "unlock uranium vault" impossible action to remind people about what they're supposed to do when they come back after the update.
I think it'd be very helpful when mining the obelisk, if there were additionally an option to do so manually when there was power. If you could avoid using the air recycler, then you'll always have enough power to fuel the water recycler and keep going.
Great game! It's great how much old areas expand over time as new paths open up and new resources become relevant. I liked Increlution a lot and so far this is better.
Some more specific comments:
1. I initially got worried that I was going to run out of air and die when the Area air in Talos got exhausted, and didn't understand why the air tanks weren't resupplying it. IIRC my personal air meter wasn't visible yet at that point.
2. It would be nice to be able to turn off the air recycler in Laurion, or have it turn off when all the air is full. Or rebrand it as something else where it makes more sense that we can't turn it off.
3. It's surprising to me that the water recycler doesn't use power (in any location).
1. I think it's clear the point is to get the hell away from there, and it does make it.
However it should be clearer that death is not final.
1. The personal air meter becomes visible as soon as you put on the emergency suit. If you haven't done that by the time area air runs out, you will die.
2. It's already mentioned that there are some emergency backup systems in Laurion that you simply can't turn off because they're considered essential. The air recycler (running at minimum power) is one of them.
3. I've planned to make the water recycler use power for a while now, but was always wary of making such a huge change to balance. I now have an automated balance tester, which should make it much easier to test that type of change without having to get people to play through it and get their opinions of how much easier/harder it makes the game.
4. It would be nice if you could see the rover's resources (particularly power) while it is parked at Laurion (or elsewhere I assume)
5. It's odd that during the middle of traveling I can still do actions only available at the start of the route
Finished a second playthrough in 20 loops (as opposed to ~32 the first time).
this is great!! i'm not too far into the game but it's SUPER fun. i just discovered the time loop mechanic which is cool, i love time loop games!!! i can't wait to learn more about what is going on!! :D
Very fun game but there are a few bugs, after finding the passage from Talos to Santorini I can't go from the Dam to Laurion, or from Santorini back to the Dam
Those aren't bugs, just content which hasn't been added yet. Those will be added in v0.4. Glad you're enjoying the game though.
I used to be able to do those things before finding the Talos to Santorini passage though, now I can't
There has never been a way to drive from the dam back to Laurion. Nor has there ever been a way to drive from Santorini back to the dam.
I swear there used to be, restarting now to check
Terraformental: I'm going mental
Amazing game! 35 Loops to finish current content.
I am not a native English speaker and understood almost everything. Very well written and has a really nice atmosphere. Reminds me of SOMA, being stranded alone and figuring out what happened or how to escape.
As horror and idle gamer this is perfectly in the middle.
Will join your discord after this comment and check for known bugs or suggestions. Some people already are suggesting a lot of stuff here, some of these suggestion would ruin the game experience for me. Since you already created this amazing game, you know your path. Dont let anyone fool you.
I was so sad when I realized the game isn't done so I can't find out how it ends yet... you better finish this game!
this is great!!!
This is super fun, please continue. Do you need any help?
this simulates the argument I had with myself earlier quite nicely
the ten minute side quest to find the rover was wild though
I really enjoy what you’ve got here with Terraformental. I want to qualify that statement- I made an account just to express it. I’ve been around the block on gaming. I was old when the earth was young. Cookie clicker, Adventure Capitalist, Theory of Magic, the idle genre, the incremental genre, the stories written as light novels rather than games, they were new once, I’ve witnessed their rise. You’ve made something good here. That’s not to say other people aren’t making good things either though. I'm quite pedantic so I'll leave a long ramble here, but that's the crux of my message.
One perspective of gaming is that it's a learning experience. In reinforcement learning, there’s a dichotomy of choice between exploration and exploitation. Choosing to acquire new information vs utilization of old information. However, you aren’t just making one choice, but one among a long sequence of choices. Often, they feed in to each other. You explore to find things to exploit- you exploit to be well enough off to explore. It is a dynamic process where you balance and evaluate both things. The through line underpinning it all is time, tempo. In this game, it’s a bottleneck, a duration. In other games, it’s an evaluation on what duration is shorter to elapse- to prestige or to just keep grinding- what is the faster pace.
In practical terms of what I mean with what is existing in the game- let’s talk about the water recycler. There is a rate of water consumption. Similarly, there is a rate of water creation through the recycler. There are three states those numbers can be in- deficit, balance, and surplus. Whether the artifact or quick recycler is acquired, it shifts it from a deficit to a surplus- from a finite span of time to an indefinite span. If food, water, and power are all surplus, like in the barracks of Santorini- you are leaning on exploitation, you don’t need to loop. So you then don’t need to exploit effective choices to get to Santorini quicker to have more time to explore. Even what it is that you exploit is a choice. “What happens if I arrive sooner? What happens if I arrive later? What sequence of events are necessary for something here? What gaps do I have space to do other things with?” You might recognize the resemblance to Majoras Mask, if that is in your pool of experience.
Oh, the story and fantasy is nice too. The overarching goal, space, future, terraforming a planet. It’s cool, you don’t see it much. The story is really important. It gives you something to read while you’re counting down the timer. It gives you some scaffolding to extrapolate for exploration and exploitation. Getting a solar panel eventually, and what that means for the choice of rover attachment, and how that impacts the routes you can take. This game is certainly like a puzzle/adventure game. Like games of old, a cutscene or some dialogue is a reward, is content, is enjoyable as well as connected to the gameplay. It gives a fantasy for the mind to run with and speculate in imagination. To tap into the joy of imagining a station that you power up with solar panels, food generation, water generation, air.
Well, the game seems in good hands dev. The artifact you dig out being optional, the intent for different routes, the exclusivity of options, the limitations of resources, packaging tasks to recognize that repeating them gets old, improving at some tasks... lots of intelligent design with these choices. Maybe some day you'll discover that the starting area is boring, and maybe you'll introduce an artifact that lets you have a different spawn location. Your choice to expand breadth and depth by revisiting the previous station helps keep all options fresh for possibility and exploration- as opposed to a content treadmill of power creep- while simultaneously the text and cues of the game give meaningful directions on what to explore rather than running in circles doing arbitrary tasks like staying in the starter station for 5 hours to discover something.
Glad I got to play it before it ends up having a price tag.
I need to add, I *also* made my account just to comment on this game.
It's one of the few "loop-incrementals" that I totally like , mostly thanks to it's unique theme and resource management. Most loop-crementals have a big issue called "you cannot go farther, now repeat these actions soo you get more stuff later for 3 hours"
This feels more like an adventure game than a boring slog. Every run you either discover new things, get better on old things, or try to get a permament upgrade (like the artifact #2).
And the story, hoo boy... it's nothing to write home about (cuz it's incomplete), But it's nice to have something to read about. My only issues in this game:
-Add Codex for all the lore interactions we can find .(even better, LET TIME MOVE while we read soo we can review our notes while the game plays itself early-game)
-mid-late game (for the demo...) let us unlock some way to "program" our tasks (like a route) soo we don't have to manually play early-game (Yes I know it's gonna be a headache to program thanks to loop-completion shaving off many seconds every time we play the game, but I think it's doable)
-More puzzles like the Dam that need to be only completed once.(unlike most people, I like having an "objective" that requires us to do specific tasks at specific times in order to complete it, and I didn't mind needing 3 loops to do it)
This is a fantastic game so far and I'm eager to see more. It's a great infusion of soft incremental mechanics into what it essentially an adventure/puzzle game. I entered a fugue state and lost most of my day to finishing it.
Having a huge initial boost of familiarity on first completion of an action is the perfect way to fix Increlution's biggest problem, which was the need to grind so many loops to break speed/efficiency thresholds.
I was initially bummed that this game functionally has no automation, but after only a couple of loops I understood why. It's (mostly) unnecessary since you don't need to grind for basically anything. The additional familiarity bonus from repeat loops definitely helps long term and gives you breathing room, but that initial 30% bump is always enough to get you moving on to your next tasks.
Loop-persistent actions acting as single-use time sinks are another great way to avoid needing to grind over a wall more than once.
I'd like to see some way to further reduce manually replaying most of Talos station at the beginning of a loop because even after the existing combined actions it's a lot of unengaging clicking for zero benefit once you've mapped it out. A combined action called something like "Wake Up and Prepare" that one-clicks getting out of the pod and drinking, fixing the upper floor, grabbing initial stockpiles of Basic Food/Water Pouches, getting the suit, and repairing the rover would be a huge improvement. The protein bars, regulator, generator, and modifying the rover could stay completely manual to still give the player options before heading out, as well as not holding their hand about making sure they're topped up on resources if they're being maximally efficient.
It would also be nice to have some kind of log of past text boxes in case the player misses one or wants to re-read them. It's understandable that most of them go away as you progress but the idea that they're unavailable without restarting is a little unfortunate.
Okay, I completed all the content so far. Gotta say, absolutely PHENOMENAL game so far. It scratches like all my itches when it comes to like, idler/incrementals. And man I cannot wait to see what comes next.
Pretty much maxed out on everything I can until another update. Really enjoyed it, but I wish there was more automation for areas you already cleared but still need to do each loop for materials. Like, if there were a pre-set route you could program and edit to auto-play at the start of each loop. It gets pretty tedious leaving the starting area each time, picking up extra fuel cells, etc.
Anyway, I hope we get to see more! I'd love to find out what happens next. :)
I played the hedge out of it.
Came across a few bugs and glitches.
(But I was so focused I forgot most of them.
That aside. Did I read the end of game message correctly, that all that is just the prologue?
If true, then Holy
F!Shut up, take my money. I just hope I don't miss the launch on steam.
That is, if you manage to pull it off. Plenty of people got ambitious with their projects and burned themselves out on them. With the project forever in 30% limbo.
Well, if you release the full version, I buy it.
Glad you enjoyed it!
The current content is the prologue plus first 2 chapters, and I add a new chapter with each major update (every 2-3 months).
I've never encountered the first issue you mentioned, but will keep an eye out for it.
The second is completely intended but does not give you time saving. All copies of the same action do indeed share progress in the queue. So if you 90% something, cancel it, the go back it later, you only have 10% left to do. But once you finish the first one, the next one will have to start from scratch.
Phenomenal game and the task mechanics blew my mind. Everytime I thought i got a grasp of the gameplay a new thing popped right up and made me completely replan my strategies in a good way.
I will say, some of the task groupings don't work as intended. Like gathering supplies outside Laurion and the lost rover, it states the 'return' task for each are within the group but then it doesn't actually complete that task when running the grouping.
I really hope Astrape gets implemented soon, keep up the good work!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
The issue with some combined actions not finishing is a known bug and is being worked on for v0.4, which is currently planned to be released next month.
Fantastic game, played it for an hour before bed last night and then for another seven hours today. Really looking forward to what's coming next :>
It would be nice for us to be able to pre-program a long list of actions to load into the queue on start, so we don’t have to manually click back to where we last were in order to make progress.
That is one possible route I'm considering for automation in the future. I'm hesitent to add much automation, since it'd make it very easy for players to miss new actions/content which gets added to early parts of loops, then think the game is broken/badly balanced because they don't know about half the content. As I say though, it is being considered for future. Just my primary goal is reducing the need for automation via features like combined actions.
On the topic of combined actions then, my preferred way of dealing with Laurion base at one point was to take out a full power cell from the rover, collect outdoor supplies, go inside, charge the base up, shut down systems, go back out (with a powered door), park the rover, install the generator at the base (faster than taking it in through the personnel airlock), install the water recycler in the parked rover (faster than taking it out through the personnel airlock), add fuel to the base generator, and reattach the now-empty power cell as the rover recharges from the base.
The only combined action available in this sequence is just the outdoor collection. There exists a combined action for infrastructure installing with taking things through the airlock, which isn’t my route. Training power cell attachment is probably more useful long term than a potential few seconds shaved by first bringing the generator in directly (the immediate difference isn’t large).
Took 32 loops to fully complete the game, the only thing I haven't done to 100% it is max out the familiarity of everything.
I don't think you can "max out" familiarity (or loop completion as it's called).
There currently is a hard cap of X10 speed. That will be changed to a two stage soft cap system in v0.4.
Hey, hope things are going well with the devtool your building to help with balancing updates. You said you had a vacation scheduled for early May. Hope you have fun! I'm really looking forward to the next update, but don't feel rushed. Take all the time you need!
Saw this on Wanderbots' youtube channel and played through v0.3.1 today. I'm really liking it so far. I'd be willing to pay $5-$10 for the finished game from what I've seen so far. Looking forward to more! Thanks for this, made my day!
same. once finished, as is, easily worth 5 dollars. easily. better UI, fix up some of the bugs, some QOL things, definitely worth 10.
Installed this yesterday and stayed up until 6am accidentally, did almost everything up to the current content, absolutely worth it, and I hope you keep cooking!
Can't play if the main screen is wide-screen. It just opens half cut-off, and I can't even move it to another screen!
Don't know if you're the same person that reported this on Discord, but if not/if other people read this:
The game has a minimum default height. Normally it's low enough that it's not an issue, but if your screen is low enough resolution then it'd probably show like that. I should be able to reduce the minimum height further, just never had a reason/need to do so. And I'll also make escape open the options menu so you can swap to windowed mode.
any chance for a copy text button in the save export? or just let you select/type in the full window instead of highlighting the whole think automatically so it triggers the text selection tool.
im trying to swap from my iPad to my PC and it wont let me copy the save export text.
otherwise loving the game so far.
For some reason, many features of Unity's text boxes don't work properly in browsers, so they cause a lot of problems on different platforms. It looks like I should be able to make a copy text button though, so I'll try to get that sorted for the next version.
Glad you're enjoying the rest of the game though!
Not sure what cause it, but there is a bug with the combine actions at Laurion, namely the two supplies gathering ones. Where it doesn't automatically return to Rover/Laurion even when they were listed in the combine actions.
That is a known bug with the current version and will be fixed in the next one, but thanks for the report.
Ah, good to know.
Great game!
Not sure if a bug or a design decision, but it seems that combined actions always result in a 110% increase, even if the individual items are much more.
So if you want to go fast, you have to expand the items and click them individually.
The combined actions always give a 10% speed boost, which multiplies the speed of the combined actions. The tooltips will be improved next version to make this more clear, but you can prove it now if you add up the "modified* time of the sub actions and compare it to the "modified" time of the combined action.
I'm fairly certain the 10% increase is in addition to the individual discounts. If I look at the modified times for each of the tasks and add them together, the result is 10% less than the combined action's modified time.
Some last thoughts till next release:
1) Some way to upgrade our storage capacity, or have finer control over our capacity. So say you can have a limit of 25 drinks / food. Then at the start you could load up on 25 synthfood and 25 water pouches. Then to balance it, other sources have just more food/water or they are more "fulfilling". By that I mean after you use one, it gives a buff halving drain rates for say 30 seconds. So then other items would be technically better.
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2) I do see the game used to have skills. They got replaced by the new system of doing things over and over again. I do think that the new system is better for early game actions, but is absolutely terrible for late game actions. Like getting to Santorini, with its food synthesizer, its a brand new redo of the existing action in Talos, so its slow as molasses, while Talos is likely super fast by this point. So maybe go for a "hybrid" of skills and repeat actions. Repeat groups. That way improving food synthesis, at one location, improves it all all, but doesn't speed up gathering of other food types or waters. But gathering food should have its own group, so that grabbing protein bars or loose rations, is grouped together. So some suggested groupings:
-> Synthesis = Improves food synthesis and water recycling.
-> Gathering = Improves food and water collection from the environment.
-> Strength = Forcing objects in a direction; whether its a door, cargo container, or maybe even a vehicle.
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3) Instead of the "speed up" system (of partial actions), all actions to be done the first time, are highlighted in blue. That way no progress is actually lost, when you interrupt an action.
I do notice that sometimes this does occur anyway. Like with mining the first two steps, they appear as grey, but if you return next loop, they are now blue.
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4) The ability to attach empty power cells to the generator at Laurion. That way, when you complete what you can there, and the generator still has charge, you can syphon off 100 points of it, with an empty power cell. As you can put an empty power cell in the Rover, but not the generator currently.
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5) Allow the player to carry 3 partially consumed items. So a protein bar gives 3.00 food. If consumed at 7.8 food, create a partial protein bar with 0.8 food remaining. This could also mean you could have a partial power cell, with power less than 1. Thus being able to remove the last power cell in the Rover.
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6) The ability to permanently deactivate the fission reactor at Talos, and earn 2 Fuel Cells as compensation. So that you could travel farther or do more at Laurion in a single loop. Because really, there isn't much point to return to Talos right now, even if it is to stock up on food/water, as it takes so long to travel there and you have limited ways to generate rover power.
Well, reached "end of content", though I'm sure there is some stuff left to explore, but reached and explored Uranium Vault and got the end of the line message.
Things I didn't accomplish:
-> I only visited the lost rover once. Its a bit too far out of the way at the moment, to go grab those two empty power cells.
-> I didn't mine the obelisk completely. Stuck on phase 4, where your water decreases ultra fast.
-> I didn't get info on the other facility mentioned at Santorini, from Laurion. The lab one.
-> I never found a solar panel, but did learn how to attach the solar cell.
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Bugs/Issues:
-> Once you travel to Santorini, you cannot travel back to the dam. Thing is several loops I knew I couldn't progress far to that place where the Tram is stuck at (I can't remember its name; starts with an A), so I'd want to drive back to Laurion to work on the obelisk, but found out you can't.
-> Apparently, you can't charge empty power cells at the charger at Santorini. So unless you manage to park the rover, you can't restore its power.
-> I get that the generator isn't meant for the rover, but why isn't it more efficient when plugged into Laurion?
-> The game mentions that there are standard tools at the obelisk. Why can't I use them to mine the obelisk, in a power shortage situation, at say a faster food/water/air consumption rate?
-> The game hints at the rover with the initial artifact being useful later, or the mining laser inspection, or driving the long way to Laurion, but I never was able to unlock any further actions with this route.
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Feedback (outside of already provided stuff):
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A) There is lots of plotholes / missing stories (yes I know early access).
-> If the artifact we have causes time loops, how did someone manage to force it into the container, without touching it themselves?
-> Like, you have a huge evacuation from Laurion to Santorini. But yet most of the vehicles remain, there are no corpses to be found (other than the miner), and there isn't a ton of vehicles/bodies at Santorini.
-> Game name drops some people, like the Colonel, and never mentions them again. They sound fairly important, yet, nothing about them at Laurion or beyond. You also don't find out if Marie made it to Santorini... though that in itself is confusing, as you find her journal at Laurion, but she mentions fleeing to Santorini, so why'd she come back to Laurion after that?
-> Game said the missing rover went to explore some anomaly, but once we get to the rover, we never bother to hunt for that anomaly. Or bother to find out why their navigational system failed.
-> There is no evidence of life (corpses, discarded clothing, bedding, etc) at Santorini. Its as if everyone just disappeared without a trace.
-> If the administrator of a location knew they were evacuating to another facility, why didn't they take their protein bars with them, for such an emergency?
-> The game mentions an artifact at Talos causing problems, which led to the facility being evacuated, but we never find that artifact.
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B) The optimal route to Santorini, seems like install metal plates (for mining rotors), install generator, travel tunnel to Laurion to pick up the supplies (ie 2 fuel cells), drive through tunnel back to Talos, then drive to dam->santorini. We need those fuel cells to power the generator, once we install the mining rotors. Unless I'm missing something, but this cuts like 8~ minutes off the timer, and so there wasn't a ton I could do each loop.
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C) Some more progressive unlocks at bases might be nice. Like you find a log at Laurion mentioning a hidden compartment in admin office, requiring the admin code to open. Or you find a security door at Santorini that requires all three admin codes to access it, and leads to a tunnel that lets you walk to plateau underground. Or those various rovers have a hidden device stored on them, that you find out about later, and only knowing where it was hidden, would you know where to search. That kind of stuff, to make backtracking in old areas more interesting.
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D) Finding out a way to use the artifact we have to cause one object in the game, per run, to be "addressed". So say you force open a door, and set the artifact to that. Then, as long as you don't change it, every loop that door is forced open. Then have a way to power that artifact, to allow more than 1 forced change. Or you could have the food container on the tram, so you can just call it from Santorini. So depending on what the choice was, you could greatly reduce a loop time requirement. But of course prevent it used on complex actions (ie Repair Rover), but only one-off actions that don't require resources (ie fixing the mining override).
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E) Using the artifact to store some food/water from the previous loop, for the next loop. So say you are about to die, and you stash your 3x Food Ration and 2x Water Pouch. Then next loop you can start out with those items.
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F) Since there is lots of use between Talos and Laurion, hence the need for a tunnel, perhaps there is a cable that runs between them, that may need repairs, but allows you to transfer power from Talos to Laurion. But every 10 minutes of doing this, briefly shuts down the reactor at Talos (due to power drain overload), and you have to drive back to Talos to restart the reactor.
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G) An option to go on foot. Make it so that only paths you've managed to optimize allow it. Yes, driving is faster. But, if you have 8 minutes to boom, and your rover runs out of power 30s from Santorini's compound choice, maybe allow the player to walk it. Could take 3x as long, so probably run out of food/water/air anyway, but offers an option for reaching an outpost in dire situations. You know where the outpost is and the path to take, and there are things to do at Santorini so you hoof it.
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Anyway, will wait for the next content drop. Its definitely an interesting spin on the incremental genre, so I applaud your ingenuity.
I can give some pointers for a couple of your comments:
"-> I didn't mine the obelisk completely. Stuck on phase 4, where your water decreases ultra fast."
That's definitely the toughest stage, but it should only take 2/3 loops at worst. Try setting up the Water Generator inside Laurion. Mine until your Water runs out (or all Water sources are on cooldown), then go out, do some other things and restock.
"-> Like, you have a huge evacuation from Laurion to Santorini."
I think the evacuation was in the other direction, Santorini -> Laurion. (It's Santorini they were concerned would blow up.)
"-> If the administrator of a location knew they were evacuating to another facility, why didn't they take their protein bars with them, for such an emergency?"
I mean, 5 Protein Bars are worth a lot to someone stuck in a time loop. They won't stretch very far feeding dozens of evacuees.
"B) The optimal route to Santorini, seems like install metal plates (for mining rotors), install generator, travel tunnel to Laurion to pick up the supplies (ie 2 fuel cells), drive through tunnel back to Talos, then drive to dam->santorini. We need those fuel cells to power the generator, once we install the mining rotors."
You can go straight there from Talos. There are more fuel cells at the Quarry area in Santorini. (You may also be having trouble with this because you haven't completed mining the Laurion artifact.)
The desktop version is bugged pretty severely. Here is a screenshot.
In the online version, I ran into a similar situation of running out of power, and the "Loop Now" appeared where this green box, that I placed should have been.
Suffice to say, as I was looking for the Rover, I'm hard-locked from progressing. I liked the desktop version as I could play at my own pace and not worry about online data being lost (as I like to clear cache and cookies on occasion).
The hardlock kinda bummed me out, so probably won't play more of it for a while.
EDIT: Noticed a button in top middle "Waiting". It works, just going to take me a while to dehydrate to death. So not hard-locked. Hrmm.
Other feedback on it:
-> I feel like water and food drain too fast. They are very limited in a lot of places, and its the main limiter to exploration at the moment.
-> The generator said I could remove it, after welding it on. But at Laurion, I couldn't remove it, despite really needing to do it there.
-> I really think the consumption priority system, should be active from the start.
-> I like that hacking doors, means I have the password later, but man does it take forever to hack them. And as they are a one-off event, you don't even get a speed-up boost. Especially the admin door at Laurion.
-> I like that many actions only have to be performed once per playthrough (blue highlights), so even if you die, you feel like you made some progress each time.
-> I wish there was more actions I could do while piloting the rover to a location. Practicing a skill, or playing a card game, or something beneficial. Its just that with some of the driving sections its a long period of just refilling oxygen tanks.
-> I think that the repeat action should be applied per a category of actions, rather than individual actions. So acquiring any source of water, applies a multiplier to all actions involving gaining water. Any action that involves hacking a door, you get a multiplier to that. Adding/removing power cell/fuel cells should be an action group. That way, when you practice one thing, you can practice for all similar actions.
-> I wish I could find some empty power cells at Talos, so that I'd have some full cells in the rover and some empties on hand. That way you could extract 3 full ones, install the 3 empty ones, and have 3 full ones on hand, while the generator now fills up the 4 empty ones in the rover.
-> Why do the water bottles at the start of the game are called small bottles, fill up the normal water bottle slots, but the 2 found at Laurion are actually small bottles, and fill up the small water bottle slots.
-> Maybe provide a hand-crank charger, for recharging Empty Power Cells. That way, you'd have a way to generate the power, but it could take a while to crank a charge to full. Kinda like that idea in the Metro games.
Was your initial issue on your second loop? Because the Loop Now button doesn't appear until your third loop.
- The generator explicitly says you can't remove it because you are welding it in place. That's why there's a warning message saying "are you sure you want to do this?".
- The consumption priority system has little-no benefit until the point you unlock it, and isn't available until then to avoid confusing/overwhelming new players. I may make it unlock a bit earlier, but it definitely won't be from the start.
- Door hacking takes as long as it does to give a meaningful choice between quickly forcing it, or spending a long time hacking it so you get a permenant upgrade. Even as it is, pretty much everyone hacks straight away.
- The familiarity speedup for actions is planned to be partially shared (https://trello.com/c/9stzrBhs/26-familiarity-v2)
- Having fuel and empty power cells and Talos would massively skew the balance of the game, and rover power is already way higher than it should be due to the way familiarity currently works.
- I'm not sure what you mean by 'normal water bottle slots' and 'small water bottle slots'. You can carry up to 5 of each item, so 5 Small Water Bottles, 5 Water Bottles and 5 Water Pouches.
- As mentioned, power is already way too plentiful. More options for long-term power generation are going to be added, but power will have to be nerfed first for them to have any real point.
Yes, my initial issue was on the second loop. And it did appear on the third loop, as you said. So I guess it was just the sequence of events that I took to get there.
The first time I installed the generator, I didn't get that message. Then after I had posted this feedback, I noticed that warning. So the big black popup warning that it would be a permanent change didn't appear the very first time.
I wouldn't say it has no point. I like to grab as much food and water as I can, quickly so that I can empty up the protein/filter water, but the system auto-uses synfood/water pouches, so I had to manually waste them to empty up their resource pallets.
Well, what you "could do" to balance it, is to reduce the hacking time, but the mental concentration needed to do the hacking consumes water/food faster, to offset the time needed.
After posting that suggestion, I realized what I was actually asking for was "skills" that would in another game. A passive upgrade that improves the activity speed of multiple actions. Possibly with a chance for a critical effect, that consumes twice as much time as a normal tick.
Rover power is only "that useful" once you've completed a path section at least once, or an entire path at least once. Until then, it takes forever to complete sections and death from loss of resources is very likely. I do see now that I'm on cycle 9 or so now (was at cycle 2 at the time of posting) that you slowly unlock shortcuts which makes things better, but at the time I had no shortcuts and it was torturously hard to get anywhere, hence the suggestion. But now at cycle 9, with some shortcuts and better route planning, I'm able to do things faster, but as a new player I didn't know about any of that and was ready to give up.
My apologies on the water bottles. I was confused and you are right, they are specifically different.
You don't have to nerf power. What you could do is give the option to add on more objects that drain the power faster. ie:
-> Improved navigation to reduce time needed for optimizing existing paths.
-> Improved detection to find additional objects of interest on side paths that you avoid now (like to first rover with artifact).
-> Build an extra compartment to the rover, that adds weight and thus increases standard travel time costs. Can install the water recycler into it, alongside the generator.
-> Build an extra storage compartment to the rover, that also adds weight. Can stash some supplies in it for an emergency. So you could effectively have 10/10 synthfood, water pouches, etc...
EDIT:
-> Something I have noticed, is that combined actions don't get speed up boosts from repeatedly doing them. ie Repair Upper Floor, I've done at least 3 times, and it says I've completed it 0 times over my 9 loops.
Don't really like how you do so much work to get just a 25% increase, other than that great game!
In the previous version it was 50%, but that was massively overpowered. A lot of people say the 25% is still a bit too strong.
Glad you enjoyed the rest of the game though.
Hmm.... Now that I played a bit more it is quite strong. Just didn't seem all that powerful when I first got it.
Yeah, +25% is still enough to make the water and air generators go infinite, plus adds a lot of time saved throughout the whole run that you don't need to use restocking.
I just finished the game a day ago and I want to say I love it. I love the figure it out yourself style of gameplay I love each choice you have to make to understand what's going on and what to do next. A few things I want to say though is the fact that I really don't like the priority consumption changing by itself, if there was a setting to change the fact, that would be really apricated, also I would like to be able to change the order of the queue without removing most of what I have. Also the gather supplies from outside at the Laurion station doesn't finish the last return to rover action. I also wish if you were to do more choice based things, give us options on what to do like how in the second dialog at the end of the current version it says you can either go to Strabo or Astrape, I would love to see more of this and I would love for for a spot were after you make enough progress you can have a second save so you if you make the game long enough then you don't have to wake up in the cryo sleep pod each time but it would be also cool to pick where you want to wake up.
You don't have to do anything I suggested in this but just take all of this as something from someone that really liked the game you made.
Really glad you're enjoying the game!
Most of your suggestions are planned/in some cases are on the roadmap. The only one which isn't is the alternate start points. I very much doubt I'd ever let you just pick where you want to start a loop, as that'd be impossible to balance. There may be one or two dedicated alt spawns at some point, but that'll be a ways in the future.