I died at Laurion after Santorini exploded (having not visited Santorini at all) and the game used a start message that assumed I had already visited Santorini and learned about Astrape.
There's a bug where if you go to the lost rover during a loop before collecting supplies at Laurion it removes the collect supplies option at Laurion
Secondly if you move the generator into Laurion and then start moving the rover inside there is again an option to move the already moved generator into Laurion
from what i understand time dilation makes it so it takes less time for you the player not the in game character. for example the drive from talos to Laurion in world it could take 2 mins in game but it would only take 30 second of real time
Each completion gives speed boost up to 3x. After that, each completion will give 7% less boost than the previous completion, but will also start giving time dilation. Once time dilation reaches 3x, it also loses 7% per completion.
It seems It comes up when you hit the soft cap, and speeds it up for in RL only so if it say takes 10Sec at your mods and you have dilation 2 it takes 5seconds but eats 10seconds of resorces
It can be completed in 3 loops (after you start it), or 4-5 if you're not a speed runner.
Not affecting fuel is a known limitation of the system (since fuel cells aren't consumed by the player, it uses a different system and will be non-trivial to add to it). It likely will be added, but not sure when.
Oh it took me 7 loops. 4 for the first three layers, and got fourth layer (water) started. Then took 2 more loops to finish water and 1 loop to finish the toxic air.
This was mostly due to resource starvation, so not sure how you could complete it all in 5 loops, without cheating.
How does that work? The power generated by the rover, doesn't transfer to the Laurion station. I've tried. So any power generated, wouldn't do anything. But mostly it wasn't the lack of power that slowed down my progress. It was running out of food/water in those loops, that is why it took me so long. Laurion has no infinite food or water supply, so it is quite easy to run out of those resources there. It does have the water filter device, but that thing is SO DAMN SLOW, that by the time the next water bottle is generated, you'd have consumed more water, than the bottle gives. Its like 2.5 water, and the time to wait to get a bottle you consume 2.6 water.
1.in Talos install solar panel, use artifact on solar panel.
2.drive to Laurion and install generator and water recycler at Laurion (to Laurion), also install the solar panel at Laurion (to the rover) and use artifact on generator.
3.use all fuel cell in generator and charge drone (also install 2 empty power cell) then takes the artifact back to the solar panels.
4.drive to dam and get the 1 empty power cell and 1 power coupler.
5.close dam and drive to Santorini.
6.drive to quarry and call tram (also restock to have max all item and take the environmental suit).
7.drive to central to charge rover (also install the empty power cell) and restock food and water.
8.drive to quarry to take vegetable.
9. drive to central to charge rover (also install the empty power cell) and restock food and water.
10. go to Laurion, put the artifact in the generator and then use all fuel cell and start digging.
at this point you should have 2 water recyclers (infinity water), a lot of energy (if not enough energy than you can put artifact in solar panels after the fuel cell ran out and not park the rover in Laurion and take full power cell the transfer it to Laurion), 5 ration pack, 5 protein bars, 5 basic foods,5 vegetable and that not even count the amount of food you don't take in Laurion.
if you think this have any problem, please let me know
edit: 2,3 loop is just an estimate I seriously don't know this Strat can take the artifact in just 2,3 loop or not
Previously the generator was just a fixed timed event. You put a fuel cell in, it ran for 60 seconds and gave a flat amount of power per second. That worked fine, but was incredibly inflexible. Now, fuel cells have a fuel value, the generator has fuel storage, and burns an amount of fuel per second. This allows for:
Items having different amounts of fuel
Adding multiple fuel items to the generator at once and letting it run for longer
Upgrading the generator to burn fuel faster
Upgrading the generator to burn fuel more efficiently
Upgrading the generator to hold more fuel
Not seeing the time remaining is a known drawback. There is a resolution to it planned, but there wasn't time to implement it yet.
Been waiting for this update and excited as can be for it. Looks like the multi action to drive to Astrape seems to be broken now? Can't do the observe now and have done it before.
There are a few issues in that area. Mostly people seem to be able to progress, they just have to re-do things they'd done before. I'm working on fixing it though.
Yes; the repeating wasn't too onerous at all once I understood what I needed to do, and now I've done the route scouting (which is way cooler the new way) the combined driving to Astrape works fine.
Doing a complete reset of the game, so that I avoid savegame related issues. Some things noticed immediately:
1) If a feature isn't implemented yet, just leave that blank in the PDA or just have the PDA become available once you unlock the Map.
2) The map has a single dotted line to nowhere, when you start out. Only once you reach Laurion, does it update and show Laurion. Doesn't show whereabout the Rover is though.
3) When you reach Laurion, the first time, it asks you to move the generator into the base. But the first time you get there, you don't know of the generator. I'm hesistant to touch the button, until I find the generator though.
4) A lot of the old "blue highlighted" actions from previous version is gone, so now I don't know what is a permanent action or not.
5) You can take non-essential couplers, without lifting the lockdown first. Several are behind doors, that must be accessed after the lockdown is lifted, normally.
-> After a few loops, installing the generator and fueling it, I went back to the rover and I can "Move Generator Into Laurion" without a generator in my rover and it has no extra completion time on it. Didn't touch it though.
-> Sure wish I could repair the food replicator at Laurion with the taken power coupler from Talos.
-> I tried a loop with installing the generator at Talos. I'm now at Laurion and have the above "Move Generator Into Laurion" available, with time speed up, even though its fused into my Rover.
I'm not sure why I thought this would work, but in case it was planned to do, thought I'd mention:
Had the rover with the generator in it. Hooked it up to Laurion charger. When I got the rover to maximum power, I expected the excess fuel would charge up Laurion. It did not. Might be cool if it did.
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Really think that "take empty power cells" from the lost rover, should share time with taking full power cells from the rover. Otherwise it takes forever to "rank up" this specific event.
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After getting the lost rover and heading back to laurion, died at laurion (lack of water). When respawned, I got a message about what I can still achieve at Santorini, and maybe visit Astrape. Issue is, I've not made it to Santorini yet, not even the dam.
- Agreed, though there are two versions of taking power cells - one with tools (in a facility) and one without. The lost rover will share familiarity with the one without tools.
2) That's because you don't know that it's called Laurion yet. You know you want to head that direction, and that's all.
3) Known bug
4) Not sure what you mean. Very few if any persistent actions were outright removed, and all actions which are persistent are still highlighted blue.
5) That's always been the case, and is how combined actions work. If I prevented the combined action being visible until after you lift the lockdown, people might take two of the couplers, then lift the lockdown, then be annoyed that they wasted time taking two of the couplers without getting the speed bonus of the combined action.
#4 = Several of the actions at Talos weren't highlighted in Blue, yet were single one-off actions that would progress over cycles. They might highlight after the first or second death, but first time, they aren't blue. Then all future buttons that are blue are properly highlighted as blue.
That's been the case since persistent actions were introduced. It's because on the first loop you're not in a time loop yet. And at the start of the second, your character still isn't sure if it's a time loop or not.
I had just remember this game and thought "it's been a couple months since I played last, I wonder if there's been an update?" Lo and behold, just ten hours ago there was! Very excited to do another full playthough :>
when I woke up for the fourth loop, it gives me a log about Santorini and Astrape, which I think is where I was before resetting for this update, but this time I haven’t even made it into Laurion yet.
edit for clarity: I saw there was a brand new update (0.4.0) and hard reset. The fourth time I woke up, I got the “there’s probably more for you to achieve at Santorini, but maybe Astrape is the way to achieve it” message, which might be where I was before the hard reset, but after the hard reset I haven’t even heard of Santorini yet.
In v0.4.0, when charging the power block in Santorini, the text suggests that this is "Super Fast Charging", but it's actually 5x slower instead of 5x faster. This means that the fastest charging method is actually to charge it in your rover while the rover is charging from Santorini, but that causes "finished recharging" message spam that blocks waiting.
It would technically be faster to recharge it from the rover/aircraft at astrape since you don't have to travel to santorini and and back but yeah charging directly from santorini shouldn't take more time than from the rover
You can't recharge the rover at Astrape because of the incompatible power systems. It seems difficult to get to Astrape with the rover and enough spare fuel + power to totally recharge the block; it's such a power-hungry process that I'm not sure a full load of fuel cells is enough.
I hadn't considered trying to partially repair the aircraft to use its power systems, though; does that work?
It is possible to reach Astrape with enough power and fuel to recharge it from the rover however after some testing it seems you can't bring enough fuel with you to recharge it from the aircraft
Been checking back intermittently since I completed the 0.3.0 content, pleasant surprise checking this morning to see the new update less than an hour ago! Starting over from scratch to extend the experience, looking forward to the new stuff!
WHEN IS 0.4 COMINNGGGGGGGGGG I AM FIENDING FOR MY NEXT HIT OF THIS GAME PLEASE STEAM RELEASE SOMETHING TAKE MY MONEY
On another note I was curious as to is it possible to force the door open, after completing the game I made it my mission to force it open but your water runs out at the same time as the air does and I got it down to just about 5 minutes left or so, with previous 1.2 first time bonus
this was posted two days ago on the official discord:
"So I think I'm pretty safe to say that I plan to do the public release of v0.4 next weekend. Maybe Friday if everything goes very well. There are a few new features and snippets of content which I think will have to wait for a v4.1, but all the major stuff is in, so it should just be a few days to get it stable and polished enough for public consumption"
i managed to get it to like 3:58 left with like 3 tries but it is impossible since you survive 10m 19s every time and if you get the full 1.2x boost it'd be 12 minutes
The tram not giving familiarity is deliberate, as it runs on rails so there's no way that you being familiar with riding it would increase its speed. To make this more immediately obvious, in v0.4 it's been replaced with an event. You perform a very short action to start the tram, then there's a timed event during which you're free to perform other actions within the tram (but no longer have access to actions at your point of departure).
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.
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
coming back here way too late - this idea reminds me slightly of how Fallen London uses headers for it's zones. Detailed but contained, sometimes abstract, pieces of art that just give a general idea or vibe as to how this place looks or feels. Something like that could work without spoiling the fun of imagining the specifics of the place.
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.
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.
I can get behind that. I like the way it's written currently with the sort of "I would like to fill my water here, but that would be a really, obscenely bad idea." but I like having that as an option, after being directly told how obviously stupid it would be. Then each time you pass after, the character can be like "Yeah, not doing that again." sort of like with the empty buggy.
But I agree that a lot of people would probably just be annoyed.
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.
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I died at Laurion after Santorini exploded (having not visited Santorini at all) and the game used a start message that assumed I had already visited Santorini and learned about Astrape.
There's a bug where if you go to the lost rover during a loop before collecting supplies at Laurion it removes the collect supplies option at Laurion
Secondly if you move the generator into Laurion and then start moving the rover inside there is again an option to move the already moved generator into Laurion
Oh, I thought new update would unlock Strabo, not only the other half of Astrape. Hopefully that will be out soon.
Also might be a bug but after recovering the artifact from Astrape, I was able to go back to Santorini after it was destroyed and park, resupply.
So finally got the artifact at Laurion. Its decent, but the amount of loops to get it, was a pain.
However, it doesn't affect the amount of fuel gained / amount of power gained, of fuel cells in the generator.
Also, don't quite understand "Time Dilation"
Sometimes the Time Dilation multiplier increases. Sometimes the normal multiplier increases. Sometimes both increases. Sometimes neither increases.
from what i understand time dilation makes it so it takes less time for you the player not the in game character. for example the drive from talos to Laurion in world it could take 2 mins in game but it would only take 30 second of real time
Each completion gives speed boost up to 3x. After that, each completion will give 7% less boost than the previous completion, but will also start giving time dilation. Once time dilation reaches 3x, it also loses 7% per completion.
It seems It comes up when you hit the soft cap, and speeds it up for in RL only so if it say takes 10Sec at your mods and you have dilation 2 it takes 5seconds but eats 10seconds of resorces
It can be completed in 3 loops (after you start it), or 4-5 if you're not a speed runner.
Not affecting fuel is a known limitation of the system (since fuel cells aren't consumed by the player, it uses a different system and will be non-trivial to add to it). It likely will be added, but not sure when.
Oh it took me 7 loops. 4 for the first three layers, and got fourth layer (water) started. Then took 2 more loops to finish water and 1 loop to finish the toxic air.
This was mostly due to resource starvation, so not sure how you could complete it all in 5 loops, without cheating.
after taking the artifact at the astrape you could easily to done it in just 2,3 loop by use the artifact on solar panels and generator
How does that work? The power generated by the rover, doesn't transfer to the Laurion station. I've tried. So any power generated, wouldn't do anything. But mostly it wasn't the lack of power that slowed down my progress. It was running out of food/water in those loops, that is why it took me so long. Laurion has no infinite food or water supply, so it is quite easy to run out of those resources there. It does have the water filter device, but that thing is SO DAMN SLOW, that by the time the next water bottle is generated, you'd have consumed more water, than the bottle gives. Its like 2.5 water, and the time to wait to get a bottle you consume 2.6 water.
here step by step what I do:
1.in Talos install solar panel, use artifact on solar panel.
2.drive to Laurion and install generator and water recycler at Laurion (to Laurion), also install the solar panel at Laurion (to the rover) and use artifact on generator.
3.use all fuel cell in generator and charge drone (also install 2 empty power cell) then takes the artifact back to the solar panels.
4.drive to dam and get the 1 empty power cell and 1 power coupler.
5.close dam and drive to Santorini.
6.drive to quarry and call tram (also restock to have max all item and take the environmental suit).
7.drive to central to charge rover (also install the empty power cell) and restock food and water.
8.drive to quarry to take vegetable.
9. drive to central to charge rover (also install the empty power cell) and restock food and water.
10. go to Laurion, put the artifact in the generator and then use all fuel cell and start digging.
at this point you should have 2 water recyclers (infinity water), a lot of energy (if not enough energy than you can put artifact in solar panels after the fuel cell ran out and not park the rover in Laurion and take full power cell the transfer it to Laurion), 5 ration pack, 5 protein bars, 5 basic foods,5 vegetable and that not even count the amount of food you don't take in Laurion.
if you think this have any problem, please let me know
edit: 2,3 loop is just an estimate I seriously don't know this Strat can take the artifact in just 2,3 loop or not
Fueling the generator event no longer tells you how much time is remaining? Why? How am I supposed to know how much power I'm getting?
Previously the generator was just a fixed timed event. You put a fuel cell in, it ran for 60 seconds and gave a flat amount of power per second. That worked fine, but was incredibly inflexible. Now, fuel cells have a fuel value, the generator has fuel storage, and burns an amount of fuel per second. This allows for:
Not seeing the time remaining is a known drawback. There is a resolution to it planned, but there wasn't time to implement it yet.
Been waiting for this update and excited as can be for it. Looks like the multi action to drive to Astrape seems to be broken now? Can't do the observe now and have done it before.
There are a few issues in that area. Mostly people seem to be able to progress, they just have to re-do things they'd done before. I'm working on fixing it though.
Yes; the repeating wasn't too onerous at all once I understood what I needed to do, and now I've done the route scouting (which is way cooler the new way) the combined driving to Astrape works fine.
Doing a complete reset of the game, so that I avoid savegame related issues. Some things noticed immediately:
1) If a feature isn't implemented yet, just leave that blank in the PDA or just have the PDA become available once you unlock the Map.
2) The map has a single dotted line to nowhere, when you start out. Only once you reach Laurion, does it update and show Laurion. Doesn't show whereabout the Rover is though.
3) When you reach Laurion, the first time, it asks you to move the generator into the base. But the first time you get there, you don't know of the generator. I'm hesistant to touch the button, until I find the generator though.
4) A lot of the old "blue highlighted" actions from previous version is gone, so now I don't know what is a permanent action or not.
5) You can take non-essential couplers, without lifting the lockdown first. Several are behind doors, that must be accessed after the lockdown is lifted, normally.
Some new stuff:
-> After a few loops, installing the generator and fueling it, I went back to the rover and I can "Move Generator Into Laurion" without a generator in my rover and it has no extra completion time on it. Didn't touch it though.
-> Sure wish I could repair the food replicator at Laurion with the taken power coupler from Talos.
-> I tried a loop with installing the generator at Talos. I'm now at Laurion and have the above "Move Generator Into Laurion" available, with time speed up, even though its fused into my Rover.
I'm not sure why I thought this would work, but in case it was planned to do, thought I'd mention:
Had the rover with the generator in it. Hooked it up to Laurion charger. When I got the rover to maximum power, I expected the excess fuel would charge up Laurion. It did not. Might be cool if it did.
===
Really think that "take empty power cells" from the lost rover, should share time with taking full power cells from the rover. Otherwise it takes forever to "rank up" this specific event.
===
After getting the lost rover and heading back to laurion, died at laurion (lack of water). When respawned, I got a message about what I can still achieve at Santorini, and maybe visit Astrape. Issue is, I've not made it to Santorini yet, not even the dam.
- That's a possible future feature.
- Agreed, though there are two versions of taking power cells - one with tools (in a facility) and one without. The lost rover will share familiarity with the one without tools.
- Known bug, it's on the list to fix.
Okay. Thanks for the reply.
- Known bug, same as before.
- The food synthesiser at Laurion has a lot more wrong with it than just a broken power coupler
- Still the same bug.
Good to know. Thanks for heads up.
2) That's because you don't know that it's called Laurion yet. You know you want to head that direction, and that's all.
3) Known bug
4) Not sure what you mean. Very few if any persistent actions were outright removed, and all actions which are persistent are still highlighted blue.
5) That's always been the case, and is how combined actions work. If I prevented the combined action being visible until after you lift the lockdown, people might take two of the couplers, then lift the lockdown, then be annoyed that they wasted time taking two of the couplers without getting the speed bonus of the combined action.
Fair enough.
#4 = Several of the actions at Talos weren't highlighted in Blue, yet were single one-off actions that would progress over cycles. They might highlight after the first or second death, but first time, they aren't blue. Then all future buttons that are blue are properly highlighted as blue.
That's been the case since persistent actions were introduced. It's because on the first loop you're not in a time loop yet. And at the start of the second, your character still isn't sure if it's a time loop or not.
Ahh, I see. Its a "4th Wall" kind of issue. Wherein the player might realize its a time loop action, but the character hasn't realized that yet.
I had just remember this game and thought "it's been a couple months since I played last, I wonder if there's been an update?" Lo and behold, just ten hours ago there was! Very excited to do another full playthough :>
when I woke up for the fourth loop, it gives me a log about Santorini and Astrape, which I think is where I was before resetting for this update, but this time I haven’t even made it into Laurion yet.
edit for clarity: I saw there was a brand new update (0.4.0) and hard reset. The fourth time I woke up, I got the “there’s probably more for you to achieve at Santorini, but maybe Astrape is the way to achieve it” message, which might be where I was before the hard reset, but after the hard reset I haven’t even heard of Santorini yet.
In v0.4.0, when charging the power block in Santorini, the text suggests that this is "Super Fast Charging", but it's actually 5x slower instead of 5x faster. This means that the fastest charging method is actually to charge it in your rover while the rover is charging from Santorini, but that causes "finished recharging" message spam that blocks waiting.
It would technically be faster to recharge it from the rover/aircraft at astrape since you don't have to travel to santorini and and back but yeah charging directly from santorini shouldn't take more time than from the rover
This is a known bug and is on the list to fix.
You can't recharge the rover at Astrape because of the incompatible power systems. It seems difficult to get to Astrape with the rover and enough spare fuel + power to totally recharge the block; it's such a power-hungry process that I'm not sure a full load of fuel cells is enough.
I hadn't considered trying to partially repair the aircraft to use its power systems, though; does that work?
It is possible to reach Astrape with enough power and fuel to recharge it from the rover however after some testing it seems you can't bring enough fuel with you to recharge it from the aircraft
Seems like I have the generator on the rover from the start, without needing to "Load Generator On Rover".
Seems like "Move Generator Into Laurion" creates a generator from nothing, but parking the rover in Laurion doesn't (is handled correctly).
Oh that must be what happens I thought it was just part of the new update
LES GOO NEW UPDATE
Edit: THE MAP IS SO SICK
every time I find something slightly different:
WHAT thats different now! woah thats so cool thats so cool thats so cool
Edit 2: Some of the flavor text at Laurion about getting power from the rover's batteries or the generator at Talos is outdated in the new update.
Edit 3: I think what I previously said is part of a glitch where you have the generator in the rover without putting it in.
new update yeahhhhhhhhhhh
Been checking back intermittently since I completed the 0.3.0 content, pleasant surprise checking this morning to see the new update less than an hour ago! Starting over from scratch to extend the experience, looking forward to the new stuff!
Found this game bc a friend was playing increlution
Looked at the store page and saw this mentioned
Love it so far, keep up the good work!~
WHEN IS 0.4 COMINNGGGGGGGGGG I AM FIENDING FOR MY NEXT HIT OF THIS GAME PLEASE STEAM RELEASE SOMETHING TAKE MY MONEY
On another note I was curious as to is it possible to force the door open, after completing the game I made it my mission to force it open but your water runs out at the same time as the air does and I got it down to just about 5 minutes left or so, with previous 1.2 first time bonus
Last I checked it should have been last or this month. The Trello was updated like a week ago or so though so probably just delayed?
this was posted two days ago on the official discord:
"So I think I'm pretty safe to say that I plan to do the public release of v0.4 next weekend. Maybe Friday if everything goes very well. There are a few new features and snippets of content which I think will have to wait for a v4.1, but all the major stuff is in, so it should just be a few days to get it stable and polished enough for public consumption"
i managed to get it to like 3:58 left with like 3 tries but it is impossible since you survive 10m 19s every time and if you get the full 1.2x boost it'd be 12 minutes
I noticed that riding the tram from Astrape to Santorini does not give time reduction per loop like the other loop actions do.
Edit: and that includes other actions at the top of and on the way to the plateau.
The tram not giving familiarity is deliberate, as it runs on rails so there's no way that you being familiar with riding it would increase its speed. To make this more immediately obvious, in v0.4 it's been replaced with an event. You perform a very short action to start the tram, then there's a timed event during which you're free to perform other actions within the tram (but no longer have access to actions at your point of departure).
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.
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
coming back here way too late - this idea reminds me slightly of how Fallen London uses headers for it's zones. Detailed but contained, sometimes abstract, pieces of art that just give a general idea or vibe as to how this place looks or feels. Something like that could work without spoiling the fun of imagining the specifics of the place.
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 ?
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.
I didn't find the generator worth it until I got the bigger engine.
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.
I can get behind that. I like the way it's written currently with the sort of "I would like to fill my water here, but that would be a really, obscenely bad idea." but I like having that as an option, after being directly told how obviously stupid it would be. Then each time you pass after, the character can be like "Yeah, not doing that again." sort of like with the empty buggy.
But I agree that a lot of people would probably just be annoyed.
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.