I got to the end of the current content and really enjoyed everything so far. Just a quick question: If you leave Talos after the carbon filters fail and return after some time the air will be refilled, is this an intended feature?
No, once the carbon filters fail, air should stop being generated in Talos until/unless you can find a way to replace them (which is not possible in the current version).
This game is amazing! Ive been playing it for probably 20 hours in the past few days, one small bug is all combined actions will always display 1.1x speed. thankfully the real time is correct
Glad you're enjoying the game! The combined actions showing x1.1 isn't a bug, more of a missing feature. Every combined actions gives a x1.1 speed boost on top of any familiarity the sub actions have, but the combined action itself doesn't gain familiarity beyond that. The next version adds an extra line to the tooltip showing the average speed boost of the sub actions.
If you're having any further issues/glitches, it'd be best if you could post about the on the discord server, as it's much easier to have a back and forth discussion there. I'd be happy to try and help fix whatever issue you're having.
I'm loving the game so far! It melds the dopamine of idle/incremental games with mystery's in a very intriguing way.
I'm a musician/composer and with the planned launch on steam, I was wondering if you'd like help with creating some original music/sound design for the game?
This game is absolutely amazing, from the balance to the story. I'm quite close to the end of current content (v0.3.1) and I've been wondering, is the plan to get a steam or paid release? With the quality of content and apparent length/complexity of 1.0, I wouldn't be surprised. And I'm sure with a bit of extra polish most people (with interest on the genre) would buy this.
Yep! After the next update is released (later this month), I'll be focusing on getting the game ready for Steam, and putting together all the assets that requires.
Yeah, I've always been wondering if the 1.0 version would be free because with the amount of polish and work put into it, I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to be the next big indie game like Balatro.
If I could strongly, strongly encourage one thing for 1.0 or shortly after, especially if you are planning to market it: add pictures. they don't need to be interactive at all, (I would even suggest against making them interactive) they don't even need to be highly detailed, but even a simple background for each location, and a small picture for each action would go a long way towards widening your target audience. just something to consider.
Pictures have the issue of "how do I get them". Midnight Idle (found here on Itch), uses AI pictures quite intelligently, that they don't have the usual issues with them, but people have issue with AI pictures on Steam.
Some people figure out ingenious ways of generating images, like justkevin did with Starcom: Unknown Space, but that requires specialized tools and a lot of patience.
In general, most people either have to get royalty free images or some artist that wants to make a start in game development, to get the images you might need at anything of a reasonable cost. Like, you might think that a wage of $60,000 isn't much per year, but its a lot of money for a small indie to pay for 4 months of effort ($20,000). And as most small indie games, don't easily make $10,000, for their first game, as net profits, its pretty demanding to require images.
i was actually just thinking about this recently after reading palandus's response... while royalty free images would be perfectly fine, there is a lot to be said about the theatre of the mind... if that is what is kept, then the focus should be more with the intent of this being essentially an interactive book, meaning all focus is on the writing and I would say the UI needs to be made better with more options for font size and maybe a small handful of color options to make sure no one has trouble reading stuff... which I know from the roadmap UI is already a work in progress so... will just have to wait and see about that
I put a lot of work into preserving saves every version. If you've returned and your save is just gone, it's likely due to the browser clearing its data - as with all browser games, it's recommended to keep an exported copy of your save, especially if you're not going to be playing for a while. If you have an exported save and it failed to load, that's a bug. If you send the save on the discord server, I may be able to recover it.
This is crazy fun. I didn't expect to be so invested in a game without any visuals and a large amount of reading but it's really really fun. I just encountered my first action block to due lack of implementation and it pulled me out for a moment, so despite having lots(?) more of the game to go I'm already looking forward to the rest and feeling a bit sad its ending so soon. Great game!
Wow, you really have to execute perfectly to survive. Not a lot of room for error. Once you leave the first facility, you have to have everything topped off or else you're dead. Not sure I like that kind of narrow margin for error.
As someone who has played many incremental games, and games that make use of a time loop... and having beaten the current content... I actually find the balance pretty much perfect: the game doesn't reward you for just bruteforcing loops to get what you want, you need to actually think out your steps a bit to maximize the rewards you get at the start, and that kind of thinking helps you throughout the rest of the game, then you start getting the loop mechanics, and it really does make everything easier pretty quickly. That being said: you have a lot more room for error then you think... I ended up losing all progress due to a browser reset and, properly maxing out all food and drink, you can get the first objective with a little over 2 minutes to spare.
With how fast the person dies of things, was this a colony of hummingbirds? I don't mean that in a bad way. Just an interesting sci fi way as hummingbirds need to drink a lot in one day or else they die.
I don't think the time it takes you to do things is really canon. It's more from a game design perspective. While I also think it is very odd how fast you dehydrate, you should think more about how it takes around 3 minutes to drive to different facilities when, in real life it would take hours or even days to do so.
I haven't figured out the words to describe what exactly and why I like this game, but I've only opened it the second time today and sunk another three hours into it, after my first time playing was also that long. I don't even notice the time passing and I'm just genuinely so impressed that you managed to achieve this with such minimal means. Will need to come back after I played through the available chapters and leave a more thoughtful review because I'm also so here for the narrative and I have so many thoughts. But until then, wish you all the best for further development!
Sorry forgot write what i want its not bug just asking where i should put generator in car or somwhere else? Next thing ahould i break wall or do orher things 1st because my character die very fast because loss water too fast.
that case, break the wall first. Provides a good benefit
Most people agree, that it will take some loop before eventually breaking Once broken, if you are traveling further, always install the generator on the rover, you can forget the water system
Given that it's a game about time loops and repeated deaths, I wish you had the option to fill your water at the river and die to an aggressive strain of alien dysentery.
That has been suggested, along with several other "obvious death choices". However, while some players would find it funny, I feel that a lot more players would find it frustrating to have "pointless" actions which force them to redo everything.
At minimum, if I were going to add them, I would want to clearly flag them as "this will kill you, are you sure?" which I feel would spoil part of their charm. More likely is that I would have a toggle when you start the game for if you want to see them at all. So once I have a proper main menu for the game, and less important features to build, I may revisit it.
Personally, I'd find it'd add to the immersion dramatically. It's weird that I can't do anything like this, tbh. It wouldn't be pointless at all, granted how much even a few more seconds helps. You were going to die anyways; how is it 'pointless' to extend that?
What if you added them with an Easter egg type of thing?
I think of that Deep Space 9 episode, Visionary, where Miles gets a nasty dose of Radiation, that lets him "see" into the future. Or the episode of Bhala, where Sisko gets a shock and is able to think and conceive of things, that lets him find a city lost to time for 10,000 years.
So, what I have in mind is that, you take this thing that "will" kill you, but it doesn't kill you immediately. You have to find out what Easter egg it unlocks, while you have the "debuff" and of course before it kills you.
That way, you'd have players that would see an obvious warning of don't do this, but then other players would realize you wouldn't put an obvious death thing in, unless it had a purpose, and now they are trying to find what that purpose is.
Kind of like the Pendant in Dark Souls. Though to be fair, there was one place no one bothered to check for its use and since no one was looking there, that is why I believe the developer said it was just a joke, so that people would stop looking.
... Alternatively, you could have something like a skill that increases called "Alertness" that is raised by deadly events, and helps to provide a "spiderman spidey sense" when it comes to detecting future dangerous events, so you don't do them... some of which could be tied to main story events. Like say the artifact in containment facility has a few options to interact with it, and some causes immediate or delayed death and one is safe, and choosing the wrong one means that the loop ends fairly fast.
The entire point is that I don't want to kill players, because while some (like you) would find it amusing and it'd add to the game for them, most would find it a frustrating waste of time because they want to progress the game and see more of the story, which dying actively prevents. Hiding bonuses behind dying would make it even worse, because players who see the death warnings and want nothing to do with them would then be missing out on whatever that bonus was.
As I said before, I may well add death actions at some point in the future, but they'll be disabled by default and you'll have to tick a box when you start the game to enable them.
Well... technically you already do have actions that kill players. So unless you intend to remove them... Examples:
-> When you go to hunt the missing rover, I died twice trying to find it. The reward for that? Lacklustre.
-> When you go to Santorini, and get a nuclear explosion to your face for the first time... instant death action.
-> When you get to the tram and Santorini explodes... you travel to your death.
-> When you get close to the center of the artifact in the mine, your water depletes super fast, to the point that you can dehydrate... thus dying.
Each of these are situations where the reward feels lacklustre and/or the death is abrupt and mood-killing.
So if those are all acceptable ways to kill the player, why are these methods wrong? There is a risk to any action you take in a sandbox style game... you eventually learn from your mistakes what to do and what not to do. You have to experiment to learn new things. Even something that is "obviously" going to kill you, doesn't always kill you. Like in most video games, I'll go stand in the nearest fire, and see if I actually get hurt. And I do this because, so many developers like to hide the first secret in the game behind a fake fireplace. Or a fake waterfall. Or a pushwall. Etc...
There's a difference between: - Actions which are likely to kill the player if they're trying to do it when they're already low on resources or managing their resources badly - Actions which kill the player if they do them wrong/at the wrong time - Events which are likely to kill the player for the purpose of a set piece
- Actions which exist only to kill the player and do so immediately when you complete them for no reason other than "haha, now you're dead"
The missing rover is far from a death sentance. It's very easy to start tracking it down, go back to Laurion for supplies when you start getting low, then finish finding it in a single loop. You may find the reward lacklustre, but the pressure regulator is a huge buff, removing huge amounts of babysitting and time from all journeys for the rest of the game. Santorini's event is a set piece and the entirety of that facility's challenge. The tram is an existing action with other uses. Yes, it kills the player if they do it at the wrong time, but that's not its purpose for existing. And the obelisk, again, is a set piece and the challenge of the facility.
If you find the rewards for the rover and obelisk lacklustre, then I very much disagree. The obelisk reward has already been halved, and most people still think it might be a touch too strong, and the pressure regulator may be getting a slight nerf next update because it's always been too strong for how easily and early in the game you get it.
If you find these deaths abrupt and mood-killing, then I certainly don't think that adding more deaths with literally no benefit to doing them is going to help.
love this idea, would enable it immediately but can see why surprise deaths are frustrating enough for most players to keep them toggled off by default
guess it's another possible development for me to look forward to <3
Surprise deaths? I thought it was implied in the suggestion that you clearly did something that would eventually kill you to gain at least a few more seconds. You'd know what you're getting into and lose nothing as you'd die sooner if you didn't regardless.
Game crashed in Santorini :(. Did not copy the error bug sorry. but I was when I was exploring the control room in the quarry area for the first time. I can provide more info if you need for bug replication
Glad you're enjoying the game, and that your save was saved!
Most likely the crash you had was caused by a memory leak. I fixed the worst ones in time for v0.3, but there were one or two which were missed, but have been fixed for the next version.
The "Fill Water Bottle" and "Synthesize Food" actions at the central compound don't carry over loop progress from the ones in other places. Is this by design? I assume they're the same device as the one at Talos so it should combine.
All these little one-off bits of content that get superseded by something else right after you've done them are fun, but they've GOT to be hard on the developer.
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
What if it was an automatic action, rather than a manual one? Say the Tram detects a lack of railway (due to an explosion), and so it returns to base automatically.
Though even if you could travel back to the base, there would still be an issue. You'd get in your rover, drive back, but you'd have to pass through Santorini, in order to get back to Talos or such... unless you can drive by destroyed Santorini... I've not tried, so I don't know.
EDIT:
However, then there is a further problem. Even if you could drive by Santorini, there is no current action to drive back towards the Dam, so you'd be stuck at Santorini's crater.
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.
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this game is AWESOME!!! WE, yes, WE love being in a time loop. can't wait for the update!!!!!!!gaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLease keep this up, this was so much fun and i want to know what the story is!
I got to the end of the current content and really enjoyed everything so far. Just a quick question: If you leave Talos after the carbon filters fail and return after some time the air will be refilled, is this an intended feature?
Glad you're enjoying the game so far.
No, once the carbon filters fail, air should stop being generated in Talos until/unless you can find a way to replace them (which is not possible in the current version).
This game is amazing! Ive been playing it for probably 20 hours in the past few days, one small bug is all combined actions will always display 1.1x speed. thankfully the real time is correct
Edit: My game was glitched, it is fixed
Edit 2: its not fixed anymore? I am not sure
Glad you're enjoying the game! The combined actions showing x1.1 isn't a bug, more of a missing feature. Every combined actions gives a x1.1 speed boost on top of any familiarity the sub actions have, but the combined action itself doesn't gain familiarity beyond that. The next version adds an extra line to the tooltip showing the average speed boost of the sub actions.
If you're having any further issues/glitches, it'd be best if you could post about the on the discord server, as it's much easier to have a back and forth discussion there. I'd be happy to try and help fix whatever issue you're having.
I'm loving the game so far! It melds the dopamine of idle/incremental games with mystery's in a very intriguing way.
I'm a musician/composer and with the planned launch on steam, I was wondering if you'd like help with creating some original music/sound design for the game?
Glad you're enjoying the game!
Thank you for the offer, but I'm already working with someone to try and add music to the game.
Ok! I hope it goes well!
This game is absolutely amazing, from the balance to the story. I'm quite close to the end of current content (v0.3.1) and I've been wondering, is the plan to get a steam or paid release? With the quality of content and apparent length/complexity of 1.0, I wouldn't be surprised. And I'm sure with a bit of extra polish most people (with interest on the genre) would buy this.
Yep! After the next update is released (later this month), I'll be focusing on getting the game ready for Steam, and putting together all the assets that requires.
Thanks, glad you're enjoying the game!
really glad to hear that. I love your game.
Yeah, I've always been wondering if the 1.0 version would be free because with the amount of polish and work put into it, I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to be the next big indie game like Balatro.
If I could strongly, strongly encourage one thing for 1.0 or shortly after, especially if you are planning to market it: add pictures. they don't need to be interactive at all, (I would even suggest against making them interactive) they don't even need to be highly detailed, but even a simple background for each location, and a small picture for each action would go a long way towards widening your target audience. just something to consider.
Pictures have the issue of "how do I get them". Midnight Idle (found here on Itch), uses AI pictures quite intelligently, that they don't have the usual issues with them, but people have issue with AI pictures on Steam.
Some people figure out ingenious ways of generating images, like justkevin did with Starcom: Unknown Space, but that requires specialized tools and a lot of patience.
In general, most people either have to get royalty free images or some artist that wants to make a start in game development, to get the images you might need at anything of a reasonable cost. Like, you might think that a wage of $60,000 isn't much per year, but its a lot of money for a small indie to pay for 4 months of effort ($20,000). And as most small indie games, don't easily make $10,000, for their first game, as net profits, its pretty demanding to require images.
I'm not sure; with the huge waits, imagining the scene is a big part of it for me and art would possibly spoil it.
i was actually just thinking about this recently after reading palandus's response... while royalty free images would be perfectly fine, there is a lot to be said about the theatre of the mind... if that is what is kept, then the focus should be more with the intent of this being essentially an interactive book, meaning all focus is on the writing and I would say the UI needs to be made better with more options for font size and maybe a small handful of color options to make sure no one has trouble reading stuff... which I know from the roadmap UI is already a work in progress so... will just have to wait and see about that
Well, can't wait for the next update. Hopefully this time it won't break save compatibility
I put a lot of work into preserving saves every version. If you've returned and your save is just gone, it's likely due to the browser clearing its data - as with all browser games, it's recommended to keep an exported copy of your save, especially if you're not going to be playing for a while. If you have an exported save and it failed to load, that's a bug. If you send the save on the discord server, I may be able to recover it.
That could be it. Just in case I made a backup save on text too.
Dead game
This is crazy fun. I didn't expect to be so invested in a game without any visuals and a large amount of reading but it's really really fun. I just encountered my first action block to due lack of implementation and it pulled me out for a moment, so despite having lots(?) more of the game to go I'm already looking forward to the rest and feeling a bit sad its ending so soon. Great game!
Wow, you really have to execute perfectly to survive. Not a lot of room for error. Once you leave the first facility, you have to have everything topped off or else you're dead. Not sure I like that kind of narrow margin for error.
keep playing the margin for error increases each loop
I have, and it does. But the first loop can scare away some because you have to make sure you have max water/food supply when you leave.
Second loop I even had to wait to ensure I did all the water pulls so -next- loop it was even faster XD
the first restart or two is just understanding priority, and then it gets easier as you learn and understand more.
As someone who has played many incremental games, and games that make use of a time loop... and having beaten the current content... I actually find the balance pretty much perfect: the game doesn't reward you for just bruteforcing loops to get what you want, you need to actually think out your steps a bit to maximize the rewards you get at the start, and that kind of thinking helps you throughout the rest of the game, then you start getting the loop mechanics, and it really does make everything easier pretty quickly. That being said: you have a lot more room for error then you think... I ended up losing all progress due to a browser reset and, properly maxing out all food and drink, you can get the first objective with a little over 2 minutes to spare.
With how fast the person dies of things, was this a colony of hummingbirds? I don't mean that in a bad way. Just an interesting sci fi way as hummingbirds need to drink a lot in one day or else they die.
I don't think the time it takes you to do things is really canon. It's more from a game design perspective. While I also think it is very odd how fast you dehydrate, you should think more about how it takes around 3 minutes to drive to different facilities when, in real life it would take hours or even days to do so.
...and yet, the time it takes to pick up a water bottle is realistic.
yeahhh it seems kinda weird that it takes the same time to grab 25 water bottles and and ride the tram to an entire different facility
Grabbing a water bottle is 1 second. You're thinking of filling a water bottle.
I am just having fun imagining hummingbird aliens is all.
That would be an enjoyable plot twist: the colonists aren't human.
I don't recall if that's already been established yet tho.
I like it a lot, looking forward to the update.
obsessed with this game rn, will definitely return for the update
Been enjoying this for a few days
Broken Obelisk
Upgraded Motors
Gone to Arepo and fixed the tram
Resperator
Is there anything I'm missing from the current version? A major point to fixing the tram before Santini explodes? Or have I reached the current cap
go back to santorini with the tram, there should be an option to go to the plateau
I haven't figured out the words to describe what exactly and why I like this game, but I've only opened it the second time today and sunk another three hours into it, after my first time playing was also that long. I don't even notice the time passing and I'm just genuinely so impressed that you managed to achieve this with such minimal means. Will need to come back after I played through the available chapters and leave a more thoughtful review because I'm also so here for the narrative and I have so many thoughts. But until then, wish you all the best for further development!
Any tips what i should do ?
trial and error?
the more loops you do, the faster you are in the next...
Sorry forgot write what i want its not bug just asking where i should put generator in car or somwhere else? Next thing ahould i break wall or do orher things 1st because my character die very fast because loss water too fast.
that case, break the wall first. Provides a good benefit
Most people agree, that it will take some loop before eventually breaking
Once broken, if you are traveling further, always install the generator on the rover, you can forget the water system
thats in my case
I didn't find the generator worth it until I got the bigger engine.
bigger one?
Given that it's a game about time loops and repeated deaths, I wish you had the option to fill your water at the river and die to an aggressive strain of alien dysentery.
That has been suggested, along with several other "obvious death choices". However, while some players would find it funny, I feel that a lot more players would find it frustrating to have "pointless" actions which force them to redo everything.
At minimum, if I were going to add them, I would want to clearly flag them as "this will kill you, are you sure?" which I feel would spoil part of their charm. More likely is that I would have a toggle when you start the game for if you want to see them at all. So once I have a proper main menu for the game, and less important features to build, I may revisit it.
Personally, I'd find it'd add to the immersion dramatically. It's weird that I can't do anything like this, tbh. It wouldn't be pointless at all, granted how much even a few more seconds helps. You were going to die anyways; how is it 'pointless' to extend that?
What if you added them with an Easter egg type of thing?
I think of that Deep Space 9 episode, Visionary, where Miles gets a nasty dose of Radiation, that lets him "see" into the future. Or the episode of Bhala, where Sisko gets a shock and is able to think and conceive of things, that lets him find a city lost to time for 10,000 years.
So, what I have in mind is that, you take this thing that "will" kill you, but it doesn't kill you immediately. You have to find out what Easter egg it unlocks, while you have the "debuff" and of course before it kills you.
That way, you'd have players that would see an obvious warning of don't do this, but then other players would realize you wouldn't put an obvious death thing in, unless it had a purpose, and now they are trying to find what that purpose is.
Kind of like the Pendant in Dark Souls. Though to be fair, there was one place no one bothered to check for its use and since no one was looking there, that is why I believe the developer said it was just a joke, so that people would stop looking.
... Alternatively, you could have something like a skill that increases called "Alertness" that is raised by deadly events, and helps to provide a "spiderman spidey sense" when it comes to detecting future dangerous events, so you don't do them... some of which could be tied to main story events. Like say the artifact in containment facility has a few options to interact with it, and some causes immediate or delayed death and one is safe, and choosing the wrong one means that the loop ends fairly fast.
The entire point is that I don't want to kill players, because while some (like you) would find it amusing and it'd add to the game for them, most would find it a frustrating waste of time because they want to progress the game and see more of the story, which dying actively prevents. Hiding bonuses behind dying would make it even worse, because players who see the death warnings and want nothing to do with them would then be missing out on whatever that bonus was.
As I said before, I may well add death actions at some point in the future, but they'll be disabled by default and you'll have to tick a box when you start the game to enable them.
Well... technically you already do have actions that kill players. So unless you intend to remove them... Examples:
-> When you go to hunt the missing rover, I died twice trying to find it. The reward for that? Lacklustre.
-> When you go to Santorini, and get a nuclear explosion to your face for the first time... instant death action.
-> When you get to the tram and Santorini explodes... you travel to your death.
-> When you get close to the center of the artifact in the mine, your water depletes super fast, to the point that you can dehydrate... thus dying.
Each of these are situations where the reward feels lacklustre and/or the death is abrupt and mood-killing.
So if those are all acceptable ways to kill the player, why are these methods wrong? There is a risk to any action you take in a sandbox style game... you eventually learn from your mistakes what to do and what not to do. You have to experiment to learn new things. Even something that is "obviously" going to kill you, doesn't always kill you. Like in most video games, I'll go stand in the nearest fire, and see if I actually get hurt. And I do this because, so many developers like to hide the first secret in the game behind a fake fireplace. Or a fake waterfall. Or a pushwall. Etc...
There's a difference between:
- Actions which are likely to kill the player if they're trying to do it when they're already low on resources or managing their resources badly
- Actions which kill the player if they do them wrong/at the wrong time
- Events which are likely to kill the player for the purpose of a set piece
- Actions which exist only to kill the player and do so immediately when you complete them for no reason other than "haha, now you're dead"
The missing rover is far from a death sentance. It's very easy to start tracking it down, go back to Laurion for supplies when you start getting low, then finish finding it in a single loop. You may find the reward lacklustre, but the pressure regulator is a huge buff, removing huge amounts of babysitting and time from all journeys for the rest of the game. Santorini's event is a set piece and the entirety of that facility's challenge. The tram is an existing action with other uses. Yes, it kills the player if they do it at the wrong time, but that's not its purpose for existing. And the obelisk, again, is a set piece and the challenge of the facility.
If you find the rewards for the rover and obelisk lacklustre, then I very much disagree. The obelisk reward has already been halved, and most people still think it might be a touch too strong, and the pressure regulator may be getting a slight nerf next update because it's always been too strong for how easily and early in the game you get it.
If you find these deaths abrupt and mood-killing, then I certainly don't think that adding more deaths with literally no benefit to doing them is going to help.
love this idea, would enable it immediately but can see why surprise deaths are frustrating enough for most players to keep them toggled off by default
guess it's another possible development for me to look forward to <3
Surprise deaths? I thought it was implied in the suggestion that you clearly did something that would eventually kill you to gain at least a few more seconds. You'd know what you're getting into and lose nothing as you'd die sooner if you didn't regardless.
Game crashed in Santorini :(. Did not copy the error bug sorry. but I was when I was exploring the control room in the quarry area for the first time. I can provide more info if you need for bug replication
Edit: game autosave clutched it
But its a great bloody game
Glad you're enjoying the game, and that your save was saved!
Most likely the crash you had was caused by a memory leak. I fixed the worst ones in time for v0.3, but there were one or two which were missed, but have been fixed for the next version.
It's seems like boring game but i like it
The "Fill Water Bottle" and "Synthesize Food" actions at the central compound don't carry over loop progress from the ones in other places. Is this by design? I assume they're the same device as the one at Talos so it should combine.
The game currently doesn't support that, but it's already implemented for the next update.
All these little one-off bits of content that get superseded by something else right after you've done them are fun, but they've GOT to be hard on the developer.
I love the game. I am still in the game, can't stop playing it)
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
What if it was an automatic action, rather than a manual one? Say the Tram detects a lack of railway (due to an explosion), and so it returns to base automatically.
Though even if you could travel back to the base, there would still be an issue. You'd get in your rover, drive back, but you'd have to pass through Santorini, in order to get back to Talos or such... unless you can drive by destroyed Santorini... I've not tried, so I don't know.
EDIT:
However, then there is a further problem. Even if you could drive by Santorini, there is no current action to drive back towards the Dam, so you'd be stuck at Santorini's crater.
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.