most things you don't really need experience, and the attempts you've already had before should already be enough whenever it is useful
if you're in a situation where you need to grind experience, it's more than likely that there's an alternative somewhere that doesn't require experience
It was planned to be an idle game when I first made it, but I removed the idle tag after v0.2 because it became obvious that it wasn't going that direction anymore.
there's probably a bug, grouped actions bypass requirements, like when you get installing of solar panels on your rover grouped up, you don't need the mount for them anymore, it still installs them
That's not a combined action bug, it's just a bug with the specific action outside Talos (the one outside Laurion works fine). But thank you for the report.
Love this game, have been playing since v0.3, minor bug: sometimes, if you hover over the "play" button of an action, then scroll, the box describing the action, time taken, etc will stick to the cursor, and will persist when hovering over other actions. This can be fixed by hovering back over the action then off, but if you leave and reenter the area (through loops or just traveling) the box will stay there until you restart the tab.
Ahh, I've been looking for that tooltip bug for a while. People occasionally report it, but never know what caused it to get stuck in the first place. Thanks, and glad you're enjoying the game!
It's not something I've looked into. I won't say it's impossible, but I'd definitely be hesitant about maintaining it on that many platforms. If it does happen, it likely won't be for a while.
1. The description says there's a prologue + three chapters, is each facility a "chapter" with the "prologue" being Talos?
2. Is it currently possible to go straight from Talos to Santorini? I can't quite seem to make it without picking up the fuel and such from Laurion, I'm assuming there's something at Astrape I can inspect that shaves off enough time. (Haven't gotten far in that one cuz it's biiiiig lol)
It's triggered by getting exploded by Santorini (just continue on into Santorini after getting across the dam the first time, there's basically no way to avoid it).
Might also be triggered by seeing the crater, if you do something crazy like waiting 5 minutes before going up the hill.
1. Yes, there are currently a total of 4 facilities, including Talos.
2. It is possible, but mostly depends on having greater familiarity with the travel actions. I'm not sure what number of completions are needed to make it possible, but I think most people prefer going to Laurion first and doubling back through Talos anyway, to get more supplies.
Even if you can make it to Santorini from Talos without stopping at Laurion, you shouldn't anyways. Since Santorini is on a fixed timer, and you can only get so much done in one loop anyways, stopping at Laurion and performing a handful of tasks will actually save you time in the long run once you get serious with Astrape, even if the Santorini portion will take you an extra couple loops because of it. Astrape is unforgiving in its early attempts, so getting the time of gathering resources and fiddling with systems shaved down during the Santorini portion will save you tons in the long run. Trust me...
Personally, I beat the game in 28 loops, went through Laurion to Santorini twice, but when going further to Astrape, I first unlocked the "Talos to Santorini" path by upgrading my rover in Laurion first. The path becomes viable after you used it the first time because the energy cost gets reduced from 2 energy/sec to 1.5 and is significantly shorter
I've been playing through the game over and over because my browser keeps deleting my save and actually it's pretty fun.
I've been finding that I need to make the trip from Talos to Sanorini aided by the resources from Laurion about three times before I can start heading directly for Santorini right after leaving Talos. Once you can do that, there's no reason to visit Laurion again except to complete blue actions there, because Santorini has enough fuel to fill up your supply and then some.
Such unique and interesting mechanics — I adore how each location has its own gimmick and gives you different objectives to overcome, and how the tone shifts as you progress.
It feels like being Robinson Crusoe but in a fantasy genre. At first, you're scared and trying hard to survive, but later, you feel confident thanks to your knowledge and past experiences to ta
The game's title speaks for itself, so I really suggest giving it a try!
And below this will be minor spoilers — don't look if it's your first playthrough :/
question and spoiler ---> is it possible in curent version of game somehow save Santorini?
Absolutely love this and games like it, on loop 24 and just now managing to explore the inside of Santorini
Any recs on free fleshed out games like this? A loop mechanic not required.
Similar games ive played is Increlution, a campfire one, and one about being in a spaceship with micromanaging the resources to restore the ship (if anyone knows the name of this game specifically lk)
After completing all game content and 100%ing the persistent actions, I FINALLY went back and opened the first artifact's containment crate a second time... and it still said "it's the only thing you've found so far which is different from the first time".
It's nice that it's possible to go back and check that so late now (it didn't used to be), but it should probably have a different message. 😛
Minor bug: After letting the tram get destroyed along with Santorini (remotely unblock it and call it -> ride it to Astrape and back -> then drive the rover to Astrape), I went into the Astrape Civilian Sector and saw an "Unblock Tram" button, disabled because I "don't have the tram override codes".
Great game! But I found a bug regarding the solar panels. You don't have to use a power coupler (you don't have to make the Solar Panel Mount) if you use the combined action to set the solar panels up. Then you get the +0.1 power. Works at Talos.
Edit: Also you still have the option to make the Solar Panel Mount later.
Edit2: Power Generator seems to be tied to the Solar Panel Mount so you can't use it to boost the Solar Panels by themselves.
Some bugs: 1) you can install the mining motors in the rover in Santorini Central with the rover off in the quarry, because it only checks if you have the mining equipment, and you can transport that with the tram. I think completing this task would only teleport the equipment into the rover, not the rover to you (which would be exploitable because central has power and the quarry doesn't except for when you come back with the drone block), so it's not a huge deal but it is a little jarring. 2) There's some weirdness in descriptions depending on what order you do Astrape in, e.g. if you've read the admin logs when you get the drone to the artifact the character is still confused why the staff put it there. 3) I don't know if it's a bug, but you can't load the mobile generator in the tram.
Questions about the VTOL:
- don't the rovers have nav chips? Also Laurion's navigational database makes it seem like a likely spot to search for one, if it needed something more specialized.
- for the propeller, it sounds like the ventilation system at Laurion (specifically in the mining wing) would need to meet those specifications.
- it's sad I can't cannibalize even a single power coupler back from the rover.
Until a means of accelerating the Door or General Actions happens, its impossible, as the “failed previous attempt” bonus is only 1.2x for the duration, even if you somehow filled the entire bar with this bonus, you’d come up just a bit short as that only reduces the task time to 12 minuts(You die to lack of Air/Water before it could be completed)
I played the game for 2 days now, finally finishing the actual content (In about 37 loops) I was so much fun and I really love that gameplay mechanics! I got really addicted and kept playing it for hours :) I would love to see more content and even more games with the same gameplay!
What I am missing so far are sound effects and/or music. But I just played my own playlist in background. But some sounds would give better feedback of actions.
But overall the game is really great and just keep going! :D
I think the game would be better if you could queue up every move for the whole loop at the start instead of just the tasks in the current location. Or let you save your own combo tasks.
The possibility of automation has been discussed many times. The results of those discussions are on the roadmap (https://trello.com/c/VuYstcev).
But the short answer is that I'd never allow queueing a full loop at the start, as that would remove all sense of discovery when the player stumbles across new actions, and practically guarantee that they'd not see the logs that come from those new actions unless they were at the end of the loop (which they're often not).
But new actions and logs appear early in the loop as well. So either you can only queue actions up to the first "new action" (which would be difficult to calculate and confusing to players), or I limit how much you can queue at once.
there is fun and enjoyment in figuring out the most efficient way to do things, if you go that approach you would be able to leave it idle like that, maybe set an auto clicker on to click the restart loop button overnight until the stacking effects make it so that you would be able to reach your last point. You want the game to play itself
Damn, this game is better so far than i expected. Last time i was this invested was on crushon ai, but i digress. I hope the new update come soon! Keep up the good work!!!
Just finished Astrape. Cant wait for update! Honestely I had so much fun that I am willing to assist with code cleanup, refactoring or some basic implementations on my own time for free ^^.
Keep it up! I cant wait to play the next section ^^
I am utterly obsessed with this game! My only real complaint is that I find the text very difficult to read sometimes (especially the red text). I'd really appreciate some UI customization: font size, font brightness in comparison to the background (maybe even the ability to tweak the background's saturation too), that sort of thing.
Apart from that, I think it would be nice if you could mouse over routes on the map to see how long they'd take. And to have maps of the facilities themselves, because I get pretty confused trying to navigate Astrape XD
Glad you're enjoying the game! There is a UI Scale slider in the options which will make everything (including the text) larger/smaller, which may do what you need. I'll keep the rest in mind for the next update though, as it's planned to be focused on UI/UX.
The map is definitely going to get some upgrades sooner or later. What's in game right now is the minimum, super basic map just to get something to help players out. Hopefully I'll have time to put some work into it with the next update, but I wouldn't be surprised if the map continues evolving over several updates.
I love the concept for this game! The time management mechanics are very creative, there's a great sense of progression and opening up of possibilities, and it has one of the cleanest, most understandable UIs in modern gaming. However, I would also like to give a few pieces of constructive criticism. These are entirely subjective and reflect only my personal enjoyment of the game.
Note: I will be using the terms "early-game" and "late-game" to refer to overall progression across loops. If I need to talk about progression within a loop, I will use "early-loop" and "late-loop" instead.
Possibly my biggest problem, due to being the cause of several other problems, is how much water becomes a non-issue late-game. Both Santorini and Astrape have more than enough water that it has literally never been the thing I was worrying about in those facilities (in Astrape even when the water recycler breaks) and the water crates at the dam make it very easy to have enough water for that long journey as well. This makes the decision of which system to sacrifice at Astrape an incredibly easy one, as well as simply giving me one less resource to juggle overall, when having to balance resources and make hard decisions is one of my favorite parts of the game. It is also a contributing factor to my next issue.
The generator is incredibly overpowered to the point of making any other possible loadout for the rover basically unviable, which makes me feel bored and stuck in the exact same equipment every time, rather than trying anything creative. I see several different causes for this, which are as follows:
The fuel for the generator is extremely plentiful, as well as being concentrated in only two places. As long as you successfully make it to Laurion, you will literally never need supplemental power, even using the mining machine motors. Making fuel a little harder to get might be helpful.
Despite the warning about the generator taking up all the space in the rear compartment, it doesn't really come up that you need to put something else in there. The only other thing that goes in there is the water recycler, which you never need beyond the point where you first make it to the dam due to the first problem. Working on the water problem is one plan of action, but it would also be interesting to see something else that can go next to the water recycler in a future update.
Lastly, the second set of solar panels, which represents the only other way to get power on the go, is in the same place as the generator fuel cells, making the routing no different no matter which one you choose. Either one moving to a different location would make it more interesting.
The option to drive directly to the dam from Talos simply doesn't work out. There's no way to get enough food in Talos to even come close to making the drive to another facility, not to mention it doesn't actually save any time because you need the solar panels to get enough power and so can't get the mining motors later.
The random little "explore", "read diary", etc. actions that basically just get you flavor text make me unreasonably happy and I want more.
I'm a big fan of the "event" mechanic and would love to see more creative uses of it. Ideas include:
More events similar to the dam event, where you need to arrive somewhere within a narrow window of time.
"Do something and then wait for something to happen" actions that work on a larger timescale, e.g. pushing a button in one facility and then something happens exactly 12 minutes later in another facility.
A combination of the previous two, where you can set up your own exact time window, but you have to do it far in advance and if something unexpected happens, you're out of luck.
There are a few points (mainly the dam and the power-surge-control aspect of Astrape), where the meta-progression feels a little too fast, because as soon as I succeed once, even if it was by a fluke, I never need to worry about that mechanic again. Guarding the way to bypass the mechanic completely behind 2-3 successes seems like a better idea.
The part in Astrape where you have to get three different parts to repair the drone is literally just a fetch quest and isn't fun.
As I believe a few commenters have already pointed out, it would be cool to give the players the option to make their own combined actions. The best way to handle that would probably to just have an option titled "Start New Combined Action", which would add any action you take to the combined action, until you press a corresponding "End New Combined Action" button.
The Laurion artifact felt very disappointing, especially after the hype of the first artifact. I don't have any specific ideas, but it definitely needs to feel more powerful.
Near the very end, it took me a while to figure out where I was still missing persistent actions. I would have appreciated if the "You're thinking about..." flavor text near the beginning of each loop were a little more specific.
Glad you're enjoying the game, and I appreciate the detailed feeback! Some of your concerns are already being addressed (at least to some extent) in the 4.1 update I'll be releasing very shortly. Others will naturally balance out as the game progresses (e.g. the fuel will make a lot more sense when there are further away locations to travel to).
Some things definitely won't change though, at least in the direction you want. For example, you say the Laurion artifact is disappointing, but it already has a huge impact on how long/how many loops it takes to do the rest of the content. It used to be 50%, and I had to nerf it to 25% because it was way too overpowered. Even now, I'd say it's borderline OP because while it's not necessary to get it before going anywhere else, everyone agrees it's easily the optimal stragegy.
As for Astrape's "fetch quest", a lot of players really enjoyed it, and I think it's good to have diversity in how each facility is 'resolved'. I'd consider adding more ways of achieving some parts of it though. I definitely like how the power portion of it can be solved at least 4 ways, and different people find/prefer different ways. So it'd be nice to get some of that into the other components, but I think that'd be difficult to do without adding a decent chunk of new content, so if it does happen, it'll probably be a ways down the line.
Well the Laurion artifact is disappointing because of the amount of work required to get it, mostly the risk of constant death. So the game overhypes it up to being this super important thing, and then feels not worth the effort.
So if you cut out a layer of mining, then it wouldn't be over-hyped.
Its like how Hello Games overhyped NMS when it launched. If they had kept more quiet on what it could or couldn't do, then the game would have done better at launch.
The same is here, where you have to dig through layer after layer, and you get hyped up to think its this super awesome reward. 25% is powerful, but not at the level of work required to get it.
So my advice is to reduce one layer of mining to it. Keep the thirst and oxygen layers, as they build tension, but get rid of one of the layers that just pads the duration it takes to mine through it. Less work = less expectation of a great reward.
What work? Its a Persistent check, the layers are fine and just checking that you understand how to micromanage your resources
And what the hell are you on about it not being at the level of work? You take 3-5 loops of easy work(steal all the power cells you don’t need to reach Laurion, power on Laurion, set up the Generator, stockpile the last resources and dive in, you don’t even need the Food Synth Coupler you know you’ll die in there)
Anything requiring persistence is work and you even call it work later on, so you contradict yourself.
3-5 loops is 15-20 minutes a loop, is roughly 1.5 hours of gametime. That is a lot of time to complete a single task.
Anything requiring more than 30 minutes of gametime isn't fun, its work. And I'm not being paid to play this game, so that is time I could be doing something else.
That's the fun part. You don't! Though I think things aren't necessarily hit at the same times, plus if you get there in time but it's close there is a way to control the damage before it happens. Honestly there's enough going on at Astrape that even if you can't get there before it's fried this time, there should be something else to do, and making it there makes it faster the next time, which could get you there before things get bad.
Go to Tram Station at Astrape, there's something there that can get you to the Astrape by 14 mins before Santorini becomes SantoTNT. (if you can micro-manage to get there fast enough)
Day 3 waiting outside Talos Solar cells still charging. Suit reads 519 Calvin. Hydration pouches less infinite than expected. Taggart/Mella fanfic status: 13% complete.
I rode the tram from Astrape to the destroyed Santorini and when approaching, the track ended and I fell to my death. This further alludes that the tram is magic.
I found the the handling of moving to and from the rover within the Astrape's vehicle bay very confusing. The routing is short enough that I muddled through, but I'm still not confident I really understand it.
After "Calling the Tram" to Astrape after it was destroyed along with Santorini, the tram eventually returns (as evidenced by the "Ride Tram to Santorini" button appearing). I don't think it's supposed to do that.
I really love this game, but the problem I have with it is the fact that my save file keeps getting deleted, which means i have to go through everything all over again.
It was fine the first time since that was when astrape released and there was a lot of stuff that was new that i'd only have noticed on a fresh playthrough (like the dam crates), but the most recent one that wiped my 100% completion just sucks, and I really don't want to start over again. Great game, but I think i'll just wait for the 1.0 version (or, at least until the end of the year) to play it again.
Saves are never deliberately deleted, and are always forward compatible with new versions.
So if your save is getting deleted, it's because your browsers data is getting cleared. You can either download the desktop version, which stores saves in files in your user data, or use the Import/Export menu to export your save and store it anywhere you like.
Also, if you ask on the Discord, someone is usually happy to send a save file to help people get back to where they were. If you'd still rather wait, that's fine. I just wanted to explain what happened to your saves and give you some options.
Just finished the game to 100%, and honestly, I really liked it. The story and worldbuilding of the game is all just so interesting and fun to uncover, and the gameplay is honestly quite satisfying and relaxing. Like, I know this is supposed to be an idle game, but I spent almost no time at all tabbed out from the actual game. Maybe a couple times during long waits, but otherwise I was playing the entire time, which is honestly impressive considering I've got around 20-25 hours in this game now
I think that what this game does so well at is using its resources effectively. Even though you could've just as easily made it so that there was no wait time between any actions, after playing the game, I can say for sure that would've taken away so much from this game. With all the waiting for every action, you have plenty of time to ponder on the information you've received while also thinking about the actions you're going to take, which honestly does take a lot of thinking about; even with all the moments of waiting, I'd say easily over 50-60% of the time I've spent in this game was paused, thinking about/reading plot developments or trying to plan the best way I can use my limited time. This all comes together to make it so that the primary gameplay in Terraformental literally is thinking, making it a really relaxing experience to play, and with enough "gameplay" to never bore you.
Talking a little more about the waiting stuff, I do really also like how it puts value into every action you take, making the rewards for completing them feel better and the longer ones actually feel more daunting, especially when this waiting is paired with rapidly dwindling resources you constantly have to manage, decreasing more and more with every second spent.
And to mention the game's plot one more time, it is honestly just so excellent. Another great thing about all this time spent waiting is that, when combined with all of the descriptive text provided, you really get a good chance to get a clear mental picture of the the places you visit, the objects you use, and the things that are happening. I'm not gonna make any claims that this is better than if there was some ambience or basic visuals, but I still have to appreciate how the game's plot and visualizations are like that of a well-written book.
Finally, to talk about the conceptual main mechanic, the time loop stuff is also just great. It felt really compelling to keep unlocking new more efficient ways to complete actions while also making as much progress as you could in as many Persistent actions as possible to continue progressing through the game while also unlocking even more completely new actions and paths at every location you go to. I also liked how the starting actions were balanced out, where you would always need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to repeated actions at the beginning of a loop once it resets, as well as all the things you need to do to get back to where you were in the previous loop. For me it added a lot of value to the time I had in a loop, and made it so that I really was always fighting against my limited resources with all my might, just to get a little more time in, though it also made it very satisfying whenever I figured out/unlocked new ways to make the versions actions and journey's to other locations much quicker.
I mean honestly, this is just a really great game. I'm impressed by how relaxing, satisfying, interesting, and fun it all came out to being even with such simple gameplay, and I'm certainly very excited for the future updates and eventual completion of this excellent game. Huge thanks to ShadyGames for making all this, and a good luck to the rest of its development!
True. But for me its just that it was called semi-idle in the game's description, so I thought this would mean that there would be a good amount of time spent waiting or tabbed out, and while this is sort of true, the way the game played out for me definitely flipped my original expectations. That's fair to point out though, I only noticed the incremental label after I had written out the final paragraph, and at that point I was like eh, works well enough.
I definitely would agree that this isn't an idle game tho, the sort of merge of idle waiting mechanics and all this crazy incremental stuff was what ended up being so cool about the game.
I enjoyed this game a lot. I really like the idea of time and how fast you can do things (and the order in which you do them) influence how far can you progress.
At first I thought it was just a simple incremental game but the story, different locations and the progression makes it so unique.
Can't wait until the game is finished. Good job, developer!
This is my favorite game right now! It’s so simple and so complex and deep. A few notes:
I actually don’t mind the UI at all, I think it works great and conveys almost all information that’s needed simply and quickly
I love the size of the text for the story! Any shorter and they would seem terse, any longer and I would get overwhelmed with reading it all. I particularly like it when a new piece of story/info shows up and I can queue a slow task in the background while I read it
A low key soundtrack would work wonders for setting the mood in various locations; I’m thinking about Subterrain (which shares a bunch of similarities to this game) or the original Fallout series
I know you’re still working on the map, one thing that I wish it showed me was projected time/power it would take to travel each leg using the current state of the vehicle, since it’s hard to remember exactly how far things are from each other between playthroughs
I love it! I sat out a few updates to ensure that dipping back in would be worth it, and boy was it! Great work.
I was a little surprised that (mild mild spoiler)
you can't load the water recycler in the rover and drive it back to Talos for installation, or uninstall it using the Talos workshop. The third type of water resource and prudent handling of the preexisting two seemed like an answer to the 'maintain both water and power' riddle for getting to site 3.
I really loved this game, the text-only style really works to flesh out the world but also leaving just enough for the imagination. I was worried after my first couple loops that it would be grindy, but the mechanic of simplifying tasks is great! A permanent log of the information you've learned would be great, as I sometimes had to take notes. Also maybe on the map screen there could be info on which areas have what e.g. a water filter. But i loved this so much already!
P.S. also a cool sci-fi soundtrack wouldn't be remiss ;P
Install/Remove Full Power Cell doesn’t share similar actions with vs without tools.
Having heavily trained the action in v0.3 by repeatedly uninstalling and reinstalling until I starve, the new action in v0.4 to do it in Talos with tools (base 10s) actually takes longer than out in the field without tools (base 30s).
After talking the artifact from Astrape, the water filterer seems to have disappeared on future cycles. Also, If it is impossible to get the nav computer and the propeller and mining motors for the VTOL, I feel like it should be marked as not available in this update like the other two facilities are and the Santorini artifact.
My persistent actions are at 96.99%, even after investigating a name I got from crates. Seems like I've done nearly everything else that can be done. Are there any other persistent actions that are well hidden?
If your save game was originally started before v0.3, your save might have a minor glitch which makes it think a few of the first-loop actions are incomplete when they're not. It could be something else, but someone else who had this issue had the same %age completion. This'll be fixed in the next patch.
Thanks! I started playing a couple days ago, so it should have all been v0.4.x. But I do tend to browse a lot of games on Itch, especially in the "Recommended for You" section which is where I saw this, so it's not impossible that I might have clicked it once, didn't play, forgot about it, but still ended up with an earlier save.
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something i think this game could really use
a way to loop attempts
just repeat previous attempt over and over to grind up experience on certain tasks
most things you don't really need experience, and the attempts you've already had before should already be enough whenever it is useful
if you're in a situation where you need to grind experience, it's more than likely that there's an alternative somewhere that doesn't require experience
Try using other methods that are available i only grinded water damn part 2 times to get there other things i only followed the flow
it is an idle game letting it ru n idle for hours is kinda the way they are suppose to be played
It was planned to be an idle game when I first made it, but I removed the idle tag after v0.2 because it became obvious that it wasn't going that direction anymore.
fair enough
there's probably a bug, grouped actions bypass requirements, like when you get installing of solar panels on your rover grouped up, you don't need the mount for them anymore, it still installs them
That's not a combined action bug, it's just a bug with the specific action outside Talos (the one outside Laurion works fine). But thank you for the report.
Love this game, have been playing since v0.3, minor bug: sometimes, if you hover over the "play" button of an action, then scroll, the box describing the action, time taken, etc will stick to the cursor, and will persist when hovering over other actions. This can be fixed by hovering back over the action then off, but if you leave and reenter the area (through loops or just traveling) the box will stay there until you restart the tab.
Ahh, I've been looking for that tooltip bug for a while. People occasionally report it, but never know what caused it to get stuck in the first place. Thanks, and glad you're enjoying the game!
I believe you can also open the PDA to fix it, that worked for me the only time it happened
whatever the issue was, it seems to have been fixed. I'm no longer having the scroll issue.
Think a release on GOG is possible?
It's not something I've looked into. I won't say it's impossible, but I'd definitely be hesitant about maintaining it on that many platforms. If it does happen, it likely won't be for a while.
Two questions:
1. The description says there's a prologue + three chapters, is each facility a "chapter" with the "prologue" being Talos?
2. Is it currently possible to go straight from Talos to Santorini? I can't quite seem to make it without picking up the fuel and such from Laurion, I'm assuming there's something at Astrape I can inspect that shaves off enough time. (Haven't gotten far in that one cuz it's biiiiig lol)
You should be able to chart a course directly to the Dam from Talos. I dont remember what triggers the event to be able to get it tho
It's triggered by getting exploded by Santorini (just continue on into Santorini after getting across the dam the first time, there's basically no way to avoid it).
Might also be triggered by seeing the crater, if you do something crazy like waiting 5 minutes before going up the hill.
1. Yes, there are currently a total of 4 facilities, including Talos.
2. It is possible, but mostly depends on having greater familiarity with the travel actions. I'm not sure what number of completions are needed to make it possible, but I think most people prefer going to Laurion first and doubling back through Talos anyway, to get more supplies.
Even if you can make it to Santorini from Talos without stopping at Laurion, you shouldn't anyways. Since Santorini is on a fixed timer, and you can only get so much done in one loop anyways, stopping at Laurion and performing a handful of tasks will actually save you time in the long run once you get serious with Astrape, even if the Santorini portion will take you an extra couple loops because of it. Astrape is unforgiving in its early attempts, so getting the time of gathering resources and fiddling with systems shaved down during the Santorini portion will save you tons in the long run. Trust me...
Personally, I beat the game in 28 loops, went through Laurion to Santorini twice, but when going further to Astrape, I first unlocked the "Talos to Santorini" path by upgrading my rover in Laurion first. The path becomes viable after you used it the first time because the energy cost gets reduced from 2 energy/sec to 1.5 and is significantly shorter
I've been playing through the game over and over because my browser keeps deleting my save and actually it's pretty fun.
I've been finding that I need to make the trip from Talos to Sanorini aided by the resources from Laurion about three times before I can start heading directly for Santorini right after leaving Talos. Once you can do that, there's no reason to visit Laurion again except to complete blue actions there, because Santorini has enough fuel to fill up your supply and then some.
The game is fire!
Such unique and interesting mechanics — I adore how each location has its own gimmick and gives you different objectives to overcome, and how the tone shifts as you progress.
It feels like being Robinson Crusoe but in a fantasy genre. At first, you're scared and trying hard to survive, but later, you feel confident thanks to your knowledge and past experiences to ta
The game's title speaks for itself, so I really suggest giving it a try!
And below this will be minor spoilers — don't look if it's your first playthrough :/
Glad you're enjoying the game, but no, there's not currently.
Absolutely love this and games like it, on loop 24 and just now managing to explore the inside of Santorini
Any recs on free fleshed out games like this? A loop mechanic not required.
Similar games ive played is Increlution, a campfire one, and one about being in a spaceship with micromanaging the resources to restore the ship (if anyone knows the name of this game specifically lk)
The spaceship one could be lost in space. What's the campfire one?
Its A Dark Room (https://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/)
Also checked, the space one i played is a bit more different, it didnt use pixel art.
But i think i did play Lost In Space, still gonn give it a replay tho since its been so long
I'm guessing Crank.
Checked and its not Crank
It had an overview of the actual ship and you also managed people from cryopods to manage resources like food and power
I used to be in its discord but i cant find it
After completing all game content and 100%ing the persistent actions, I FINALLY went back and opened the first artifact's containment crate a second time... and it still said "it's the only thing you've found so far which is different from the first time".
It's nice that it's possible to go back and check that so late now (it didn't used to be), but it should probably have a different message. 😛
I apparently can't install the quick-cycling filter into the water recycler while it's installed at Laurion.
Minor bug: After letting the tram get destroyed along with Santorini (remotely unblock it and call it -> ride it to Astrape and back -> then drive the rover to Astrape), I went into the Astrape Civilian Sector and saw an "Unblock Tram" button, disabled because I "don't have the tram override codes".
Oh, after opening the security door, the "Unblock Tram" button enabled. I pressed it, it completed, didn't actually accomplish anything though.
Great game! But I found a bug regarding the solar panels. You don't have to use a power coupler (you don't have to make the Solar Panel Mount) if you use the combined action to set the solar panels up. Then you get the +0.1 power. Works at Talos.
Edit: Also you still have the option to make the Solar Panel Mount later.
Edit2: Power Generator seems to be tied to the Solar Panel Mount so you can't use it to boost the Solar Panels by themselves.
Update was fun.
Some bugs: 1) you can install the mining motors in the rover in Santorini Central with the rover off in the quarry, because it only checks if you have the mining equipment, and you can transport that with the tram. I think completing this task would only teleport the equipment into the rover, not the rover to you (which would be exploitable because central has power and the quarry doesn't except for when you come back with the drone block), so it's not a huge deal but it is a little jarring. 2) There's some weirdness in descriptions depending on what order you do Astrape in, e.g. if you've read the admin logs when you get the drone to the artifact the character is still confused why the staff put it there. 3) I don't know if it's a bug, but you can't load the mobile generator in the tram.
Questions about the VTOL:
- don't the rovers have nav chips? Also Laurion's navigational database makes it seem like a likely spot to search for one, if it needed something more specialized.
- for the propeller, it sounds like the ventilation system at Laurion (specifically in the mining wing) would need to meet those specifications.
- it's sad I can't cannibalize even a single power coupler back from the rover.
Will this ever be released on Steam?
Ko-fi milestone is reached so yep
Is there any way to force the ground floor door? I have completed the game, but want to get that done, just cant seem t
Nope. It's mathematically impossible for now.
Until a means of accelerating the Door or General Actions happens, its impossible, as the “failed previous attempt” bonus is only 1.2x for the duration, even if you somehow filled the entire bar with this bonus, you’d come up just a bit short as that only reduces the task time to 12 minuts(You die to lack of Air/Water before it could be completed)
I played the game for 2 days now, finally finishing the actual content (In about 37 loops) I was so much fun and I really love that gameplay mechanics! I got really addicted and kept playing it for hours :) I would love to see more content and even more games with the same gameplay!
What I am missing so far are sound effects and/or music. But I just played my own playlist in background. But some sounds would give better feedback of actions.
But overall the game is really great and just keep going! :D
I think the game would be better if you could queue up every move for the whole loop at the start instead of just the tasks in the current location. Or let you save your own combo tasks.
The possibility of automation has been discussed many times. The results of those discussions are on the roadmap (https://trello.com/c/VuYstcev).
But the short answer is that I'd never allow queueing a full loop at the start, as that would remove all sense of discovery when the player stumbles across new actions, and practically guarantee that they'd not see the logs that come from those new actions unless they were at the end of the loop (which they're often not).
Not on the first loop, only after you've done it once can you queue it up for the next loop.
At the moment you have to babysit the game to get back to your last point.
But new actions and logs appear early in the loop as well. So either you can only queue actions up to the first "new action" (which would be difficult to calculate and confusing to players), or I limit how much you can queue at once.
When a new action appears it would pause the current loop by default. It's not that confusing, Idle Loops does exactly this.
Idle Loops expects you to queue up any new actions in the next loop after you discover they're possible.
there is fun and enjoyment in figuring out the most efficient way to do things, if you go that approach you would be able to leave it idle like that, maybe set an auto clicker on to click the restart loop button overnight until the stacking effects make it so that you would be able to reach your last point. You want the game to play itself
Damn, this game is better so far than i expected. Last time i was this invested was on crushon ai, but i digress. I hope the new update come soon! Keep up the good work!!!
Just finished Astrape. Cant wait for update! Honestely I had so much fun that I am willing to assist with code cleanup, refactoring or some basic implementations on my own time for free ^^.
Keep it up! I cant wait to play the next section ^^
I just have to say, such an interesting concept and truly a fun game! Great job ^^
I am utterly obsessed with this game! My only real complaint is that I find the text very difficult to read sometimes (especially the red text). I'd really appreciate some UI customization: font size, font brightness in comparison to the background (maybe even the ability to tweak the background's saturation too), that sort of thing.
Apart from that, I think it would be nice if you could mouse over routes on the map to see how long they'd take. And to have maps of the facilities themselves, because I get pretty confused trying to navigate Astrape XD
Glad you're enjoying the game! There is a UI Scale slider in the options which will make everything (including the text) larger/smaller, which may do what you need. I'll keep the rest in mind for the next update though, as it's planned to be focused on UI/UX.
The map is definitely going to get some upgrades sooner or later. What's in game right now is the minimum, super basic map just to get something to help players out. Hopefully I'll have time to put some work into it with the next update, but I wouldn't be surprised if the map continues evolving over several updates.
Aw man, I was very excited to hear of the UI scale . . . but it turns out it was already set to maximum. Thanks though!
No worries. I'll be sure to include more options when I can :)
i think the system of combining actions is very cool & intuitive
Not sure what happened, but having power when drilling the obelisk isn't giving me the 3x speed boost anymore.
Refresh the page and make sure you're on v0.4.1.4 (uploaded a couple hours ago). It was a bug in 4.1.3.
I love the concept for this game! The time management mechanics are very creative, there's a great sense of progression and opening up of possibilities, and it has one of the cleanest, most understandable UIs in modern gaming. However, I would also like to give a few pieces of constructive criticism. These are entirely subjective and reflect only my personal enjoyment of the game.
Note: I will be using the terms "early-game" and "late-game" to refer to overall progression across loops. If I need to talk about progression within a loop, I will use "early-loop" and "late-loop" instead.
you can go from Talos to dam without solar panel with empty power cell (or put gen in rover and use power cell).
Glad you're enjoying the game, and I appreciate the detailed feeback! Some of your concerns are already being addressed (at least to some extent) in the 4.1 update I'll be releasing very shortly. Others will naturally balance out as the game progresses (e.g. the fuel will make a lot more sense when there are further away locations to travel to).
Some things definitely won't change though, at least in the direction you want. For example, you say the Laurion artifact is disappointing, but it already has a huge impact on how long/how many loops it takes to do the rest of the content. It used to be 50%, and I had to nerf it to 25% because it was way too overpowered. Even now, I'd say it's borderline OP because while it's not necessary to get it before going anywhere else, everyone agrees it's easily the optimal stragegy.
As for Astrape's "fetch quest", a lot of players really enjoyed it, and I think it's good to have diversity in how each facility is 'resolved'. I'd consider adding more ways of achieving some parts of it though. I definitely like how the power portion of it can be solved at least 4 ways, and different people find/prefer different ways. So it'd be nice to get some of that into the other components, but I think that'd be difficult to do without adding a decent chunk of new content, so if it does happen, it'll probably be a ways down the line.
Well the Laurion artifact is disappointing because of the amount of work required to get it, mostly the risk of constant death. So the game overhypes it up to being this super important thing, and then feels not worth the effort.
So if you cut out a layer of mining, then it wouldn't be over-hyped.
Its like how Hello Games overhyped NMS when it launched. If they had kept more quiet on what it could or couldn't do, then the game would have done better at launch.
The same is here, where you have to dig through layer after layer, and you get hyped up to think its this super awesome reward. 25% is powerful, but not at the level of work required to get it.
So my advice is to reduce one layer of mining to it. Keep the thirst and oxygen layers, as they build tension, but get rid of one of the layers that just pads the duration it takes to mine through it. Less work = less expectation of a great reward.
What work? Its a Persistent check, the layers are fine and just checking that you understand how to micromanage your resources And what the hell are you on about it not being at the level of work? You take 3-5 loops of easy work(steal all the power cells you don’t need to reach Laurion, power on Laurion, set up the Generator, stockpile the last resources and dive in, you don’t even need the Food Synth Coupler you know you’ll die in there)
Anything requiring persistence is work and you even call it work later on, so you contradict yourself.
3-5 loops is 15-20 minutes a loop, is roughly 1.5 hours of gametime. That is a lot of time to complete a single task.
Anything requiring more than 30 minutes of gametime isn't fun, its work. And I'm not being paid to play this game, so that is time I could be doing something else.
How are you meant to get to Astrape in enough time so that nothing is fried yet?
That's the fun part. You don't! Though I think things aren't necessarily hit at the same times, plus if you get there in time but it's close there is a way to control the damage before it happens. Honestly there's enough going on at Astrape that even if you can't get there before it's fried this time, there should be something else to do, and making it there makes it faster the next time, which could get you there before things get bad.
There are actions in Astrape which tell you what triggers the overloads and what you can do to avoid/reduce them.
Go to Tram Station at Astrape, there's something there that can get you to the Astrape by 14 mins before Santorini becomes SantoTNT. (if you can micro-manage to get there fast enough)
How much content is there?
I had about 9h of gameplay until I reach it's en
Thank you
Day 3 waiting outside Talos
Solar cells still charging. Suit reads 519 Calvin. Hydration pouches less infinite than expected.
Taggart/Mella fanfic status: 13% complete.
Huh, calling the tram from Astrape, after its been destroyed in Santorini, still works... Apparently its immortal?
Immortal tram needs to be like a secret easter egg or something if this ever becomes a full game
I rode the tram from Astrape to the destroyed Santorini and when approaching, the track ended and I fell to my death. This further alludes that the tram is magic.
I found the the handling of moving to and from the rover within the Astrape's vehicle bay very confusing. The routing is short enough that I muddled through, but I'm still not confident I really understand it.
After "Calling the Tram" to Astrape after it was destroyed along with Santorini, the tram eventually returns (as evidenced by the "Ride Tram to Santorini" button appearing). I don't think it's supposed to do that.
The message about seeing Santorini explode while most of the way to Astrape says "the far side of the dam". Might be the wrong message.
I really love this game, but the problem I have with it is the fact that my save file keeps getting deleted, which means i have to go through everything all over again.
It was fine the first time since that was when astrape released and there was a lot of stuff that was new that i'd only have noticed on a fresh playthrough (like the dam crates), but the most recent one that wiped my 100% completion just sucks, and I really don't want to start over again. Great game, but I think i'll just wait for the 1.0 version (or, at least until the end of the year) to play it again.
Saves are never deliberately deleted, and are always forward compatible with new versions.
So if your save is getting deleted, it's because your browsers data is getting cleared. You can either download the desktop version, which stores saves in files in your user data, or use the Import/Export menu to export your save and store it anywhere you like.
Also, if you ask on the Discord, someone is usually happy to send a save file to help people get back to where they were. If you'd still rather wait, that's fine. I just wanted to explain what happened to your saves and give you some options.
Just finished the game to 100%, and honestly, I really liked it. The story and worldbuilding of the game is all just so interesting and fun to uncover, and the gameplay is honestly quite satisfying and relaxing. Like, I know this is supposed to be an idle game, but I spent almost no time at all tabbed out from the actual game. Maybe a couple times during long waits, but otherwise I was playing the entire time, which is honestly impressive considering I've got around 20-25 hours in this game now
I think that what this game does so well at is using its resources effectively. Even though you could've just as easily made it so that there was no wait time between any actions, after playing the game, I can say for sure that would've taken away so much from this game. With all the waiting for every action, you have plenty of time to ponder on the information you've received while also thinking about the actions you're going to take, which honestly does take a lot of thinking about; even with all the moments of waiting, I'd say easily over 50-60% of the time I've spent in this game was paused, thinking about/reading plot developments or trying to plan the best way I can use my limited time. This all comes together to make it so that the primary gameplay in Terraformental literally is thinking, making it a really relaxing experience to play, and with enough "gameplay" to never bore you.
Talking a little more about the waiting stuff, I do really also like how it puts value into every action you take, making the rewards for completing them feel better and the longer ones actually feel more daunting, especially when this waiting is paired with rapidly dwindling resources you constantly have to manage, decreasing more and more with every second spent.
And to mention the game's plot one more time, it is honestly just so excellent. Another great thing about all this time spent waiting is that, when combined with all of the descriptive text provided, you really get a good chance to get a clear mental picture of the the places you visit, the objects you use, and the things that are happening. I'm not gonna make any claims that this is better than if there was some ambience or basic visuals, but I still have to appreciate how the game's plot and visualizations are like that of a well-written book.
Finally, to talk about the conceptual main mechanic, the time loop stuff is also just great. It felt really compelling to keep unlocking new more efficient ways to complete actions while also making as much progress as you could in as many Persistent actions as possible to continue progressing through the game while also unlocking even more completely new actions and paths at every location you go to. I also liked how the starting actions were balanced out, where you would always need to dedicate a considerable amount of time to repeated actions at the beginning of a loop once it resets, as well as all the things you need to do to get back to where you were in the previous loop. For me it added a lot of value to the time I had in a loop, and made it so that I really was always fighting against my limited resources with all my might, just to get a little more time in, though it also made it very satisfying whenever I figured out/unlocked new ways to make the versions actions and journey's to other locations much quicker.
I mean honestly, this is just a really great game. I'm impressed by how relaxing, satisfying, interesting, and fun it all came out to being even with such simple gameplay, and I'm certainly very excited for the future updates and eventual completion of this excellent game. Huge thanks to ShadyGames for making all this, and a good luck to the rest of its development!
This isn't an idle game; just an Incremental.
Idle = You benefit (a lot) from time spent waiting, the game just running in the background
Incremental = Lots of unfolding mechanics, setting one activity aside for another as the game progresses
True. But for me its just that it was called semi-idle in the game's description, so I thought this would mean that there would be a good amount of time spent waiting or tabbed out, and while this is sort of true, the way the game played out for me definitely flipped my original expectations. That's fair to point out though, I only noticed the incremental label after I had written out the final paragraph, and at that point I was like eh, works well enough.
I definitely would agree that this isn't an idle game tho, the sort of merge of idle waiting mechanics and all this crazy incremental stuff was what ended up being so cool about the game.
I enjoyed this game a lot. I really like the idea of time and how fast you can do things (and the order in which you do them) influence how far can you progress.
At first I thought it was just a simple incremental game but the story, different locations and the progression makes it so unique.
Can't wait until the game is finished. Good job, developer!
loving this game
This is my favorite game right now! It’s so simple and so complex and deep. A few notes:
I love it! I sat out a few updates to ensure that dipping back in would be worth it, and boy was it! Great work.
I was a little surprised that (mild mild spoiler)
you can't load the water recycler in the rover and drive it back to Talos for installation, or uninstall it using the Talos workshop. The third type of water resource and prudent handling of the preexisting two seemed like an answer to the 'maintain both water and power' riddle for getting to site 3.
I really loved this game, the text-only style really works to flesh out the world but also leaving just enough for the imagination. I was worried after my first couple loops that it would be grindy, but the mechanic of simplifying tasks is great! A permanent log of the information you've learned would be great, as I sometimes had to take notes. Also maybe on the map screen there could be info on which areas have what e.g. a water filter. But i loved this so much already!
P.S. also a cool sci-fi soundtrack wouldn't be remiss ;P
Install/Remove Full Power Cell doesn’t share similar actions with vs without tools.
Having heavily trained the action in v0.3 by repeatedly uninstalling and reinstalling until I starve, the new action in v0.4 to do it in Talos with tools (base 10s) actually takes longer than out in the field without tools (base 30s).
With Vs without tools is deliberately separate, as doing things with or without tools would be a very different process.
After talking the artifact from Astrape, the water filterer seems to have disappeared on future cycles. Also, If it is impossible to get the nav computer and the propeller and mining motors for the VTOL, I feel like it should be marked as not available in this update like the other two facilities are and the Santorini artifact.
My persistent actions are at 96.99%, even after investigating a name I got from crates. Seems like I've done nearly everything else that can be done. Are there any other persistent actions that are well hidden?
If your save game was originally started before v0.3, your save might have a minor glitch which makes it think a few of the first-loop actions are incomplete when they're not. It could be something else, but someone else who had this issue had the same %age completion. This'll be fixed in the next patch.
Thanks! I started playing a couple days ago, so it should have all been v0.4.x. But I do tend to browse a lot of games on Itch, especially in the "Recommended for You" section which is where I saw this, so it's not impossible that I might have clicked it once, didn't play, forgot about it, but still ended up with an earlier save.
I'm at 100% now, it turns out there were four actions I missed at Santorini.