There's no way to adjust the difficulty I'm afraid. It's meant to be difficult at first and then to get easier as you master it.

There's also no way to erase records from inside the game. You could try uninstalling and reinstalling it and see if that clears all the data associated with the app. (If it works it would also erase your current saved game and any achievements.)

Thank you!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not working on the game any more. I also think it works best as a small game focused on a limited set of actions (exploring and choosing where to settle), and more mechanics like gathering resources would make it less focused.

That's intentional, that's how this kind of roguelike game normally works. Even though you're starting from the same place each time, you're  getting better at the game, so you should eventually be able to beat it.

Thank you, I hope you enjoy it!

Sadly I don't think it's possible to sell an iPhone app except on the app store.

If you download the HTML version from itch.io and run the HTML file in your phone browser, it should work basically like the app does, although it won't be a proper app on your phone.

To be honest you don't really need a character sheet to play this game, there's not much information you need to record for each character.

You get two xenologists for free (start with one, and the first one you hire costs nothing), and I tried to balance the game so that you'd stumble across enough xenology data that you should be able to afford the upgrades that help you find more.

There's no special ending beyond Cosmic Enlightenment, so you can try for higher scores but you've won the game as much as it can be won.

Good work, and glad you like the game!

Thanks, I'll take a look at that for the next update!

Thanks, I'll get that fixed in the next update!

I've added an android apk version to the itch.io page, you should be able to download it.

For iOS users reading this: I can do this for Android but I'm pretty sure it's not possible to sell an iOS app anywhere but the app store, sorry.

Have you tried downloading the browser version to your phone and running it in your phone browser? That should work essentially the same as the Android app version

No problem, glad it's working now!

It sounds like there's something weird to do with the way your browser is initialising the seeded random number generator, but I don't know what could be happening or what I could do about it. Playing it in a different browser or clearing your browser's cookies might fix the issue, although you'd also lose your saved game and any high scores. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Which browser are you using? It sounds like something is funny is happening with the random number generator and it's outputting the same numbers every time. If you close the browser down and re-open it does it keep happening?

I can't reproduce this. Can you tell me which version you're playing (windows, mac, browser, android, ios), and if the browser version, which browser you're running it in?

OK thanks. It sounds like you triggered the "Out of Fuel" event and there was a bug in that event.

Do you remember what the error said specifically?

Did this happen right when you clicked the travel button or did a travel event trigger first?

No, that wasn't me, and I have no plans to do this for Beyond the Chiron Gate.  If you buy it on itch.io and download the browser version to your Ubuntu Touch you should be able to open it in the mobile browser though.

A log is a cool idea but I don't think it's practical for me to implement, I'm afraid. As well as being a lot of work to implement, it would also mean the game was storing a growing amount of information, which can cause performances issues in a Twine game like mine. A glossary with descriptions of everything you can discover was something I thought about implementing, but decided it would be too big a job for not much benefit -- I think most of the trait names are fairly self-explanatory, and if you want to know what a real space thing like a dwarf star is you can look it up elsewhere.

In the crew section you should be able to see the skill modifier for each trait, e.g. Depressed -10%. That's all the information the interface gives, there's nothing else hidden in a tooltip. All negative traits (including Depressed) get removed one level at a time when an explorer is in the hospital. There are also events that can remove the Depressed trait, but there aren't any tooltips that tell you that, it's something you're meant to discover through play.

Tooltips never give you information you can't get somewhere else. When a crew member gets injured or acquires a new trait, there's a tooltip saying what trait that was, but you can always see which traits they all have in the crew section. When the ship gets damaged there's a tooltip telling you which system was damaged, but you can always see which systems are damaged in the ship section. When you gain data there's a tooltip telling you how much data you got, but you can always see how much data you have in the status bar. So it should be possible to play without tooltips, just less convenient.

Maybe I could add an option that makes tooltipped text into links you can select to make the tooltip appear, rather than relying on mouse-over. Do you think that would work? It would mean the passage text would always be full of inline links, though, which I guess might make for a less smooth listening experience.

On another note: I uploaded a new version yesterday that adds music volume controls.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question, my bad.

Tooltip example in Beyond the Chiron Gate: Whenever a crew member's full name appears in the text, the name has a tooltip that displays their class, level, and any traits they have. An easy way to check this would be to start a new game and put a Pilot on your crew, then on the passage where you enter the Gate for the first time the pilot's name will appear saying they fire the manoeuvring thrusters.

On this page, next to each post are "Vote up" and "Vote down" buttons. For me, they look like up and down arrows, but when I mouse over them there are tooltips saying "Vote up" and "Vote down".

Maybe I could add an "accessible tooltips" setting that changed the tooltips from using my custom code to using the HTML "title" attribute. Would that make them accessible to a screen reader?

Regarding the "land" graphic, it's not interactive in itself, but it goes with a link to an explorable trait and means that exploring that trait will cause the ship to land.

If you find a bug, you can either post it on this thread, post it on the Discord, or email bugs@johnayliff.com. Please include a screenshot showing the full game window--most of the time that will give me everything I need to track down the bug. Also, before reporting a bug please check that you're running the latest version of the game, so you're not reporting a bug that's already fixed. (You can see the version number in the bottom right of the title screen.)

Spelling and grammar errors are bugs, although note that I'm writing in UK English so e.g. the "u" in "colour" isn't a mistake.

Thank you so much for the comment! I did my best to make it accessible, and I tested it using a screen reader, but since I'm not used to using a screen reader it was hard for me to tell how well it worked. If you find any parts that aren't accessible, please do comment here or email me (bugs@johnayliff.com).

When you installed the game it should have made a start menu shortcut in a start menu folder called Beyond the Chiron Gate, so that's the best way to run the game. If you want to run the .exe file directly, you should run the one in the BeyondTheChironGate folder, not inside the app-1.0.1 folder.

I'll add a volume slider to my list of things to do for a future update.

Hi! It should install to:

C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Local\BeyondTheChironGate

No, an explorer gets XP when they succeed at an event, and all explorers get XP when they make a discovery.

Whether characters should get XP for failure is an interesting part of RPG design space and different games do it differently, but I decided to go with only XP for success in my game.

I'm afraid I don't know what's happening here. I can confirm it's not capitalisation of the track names -- I had that problem with one track during development, but I fixed it so it should all work on Linux. The browser version won't play audio until you've interacted with the page in some way, but once you've clicked on something it should start.

The only thing I can think of is that's something to do with the itch desktop app. Maybe try downloading the file directly from the web page rather than using the itch app?

Thank you! (Although I wasn't aiming to  be quite as dark as Frostpunk or This War of Mine!)

The music is from a couple of asset packs I bought on itch.io. The composer's name is Wiktoria Zac. https://wiktoriazac.itch.io/atmospheric-sci-fi-music-vol-i

Text-based space exploration roguelike Beyond the Chiron Gate is now out!

Explore an endless universe filled with exotic planets, strange life forms, and ancient civilisations. Manage a crew of space explorers and upgrade their ship with new technology. Brave dangerous worlds to gather the data you need to reach the home system of the mysterious Gatebuilders.

Introductory sale: Beyond the Chiron Gate is on 20% off for the first week.

https://johnayliff.itch.io/beyond-the-chiron-gate

I always intended this game to just one fight with one opponent--an interactive short story rather than an interactive novel. There are other endings depending on your choices and the outcome of the fight, though. Glad you liked the game!

I don't know why this game would have the problem if Seedship doesn't. If you had cookies disabled and have just enabled them, try clearing your cache and reloading this page? Both games use the save features in the same way, and in any case I think this problem is to do with how Sugarcube stores the current game state, not the save system.

I agree, it would be nice if Sugarcube could at least show a "you need to enable cookies" message rather than an incomprehensible error.

This is probably happening because you've got Firefox configured to disable cookies. Twine games like this one require cookies to function.

I love this music! It and Deimos are exactly what I need for my next game.

This is very cool, thank you!

Thank you!

I'm not actively working on the game any more, but I'm making a new game that should appeal to the same players. I post dev blogs on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnayliff