I ended up having to do Level 1 ten steps without using the right arm too! I didn't realise I could still launch while the claw was "closed".
techhead7890
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A member registered Mar 16, 2022 · View creator page →
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Nice references, cool minigames. Translation good overall, but I don't really get the "Progression" one with a timing bar to hit. Ran into some random frame drops in the main design desk every 20s or so (memory seems fine). Overall pretty fun. I unlocked the whole tech tree and filled out the drawer.
I second this. It's really hard to switch between the benchmarks and figure out what each benchmark provides (funding, telemetry) as there just isn't enough reward information provided, or even to swap between them because the tiny dropdown can't fit enough of the different options. It would feel much easier to select a benchmark in the tab and then click a button to "set as active benchmark" in the main tab.
I also didn't really feel a good sense of progression or what was coming next; it felt more like a proof of concept with random unlocks than actual gameplay. Apart from the benchmark rewards above, it feels like the unlocked research, components and prestige unlocks were very jumbled. Each loop didn't really feel that different to the last and I never felt like what I knew what I wanted to do next and nothing really felt natural. It felt like I was just testing the same designs slotting them in and out and I had no idea why I would keep doing that before progressing to the "current generation" chip.
Anyway -- I think the progression has to be really reworked a lot before the gameplay layers start to make sense. In a general sense, it feels like you should start off with a basic chip design each generation, and then you progress to making more and more advanced chips as the game progresses, until you reset. At the moment the player can kind of dump in whatever components you like as soon as the refresh completes and then apart from the research (which is not very visible of interactive), each refresh kind of feels a bit pointless. Or you try and dump everything in but then you need to run the basic benchmarks (with a low TDP) to restart the run and get the basic currency. So I'd like to propose that the player should be resetting component design each prestige; not the arbitrary research buffs. That type of reset would give a lot more meaning to the components, both as something interactive and as obvious milestones along the run to unlock, rather than upgrades hidden on the different shop tab.
I have actually thought for two literal hours of ways to improve the game because the concept of a microchip designer is such a fascinating topic: from restructuring the benchmarks into branches and forcing the player to pick a branch and make more frequent "chip prestiges" to swap between mobile/desktop designs; gameplay constraints like a limit on silicon wafers changing the amount of parts available per run, or restricting the grid size; changing the genre to a puzzle with roguelike-style random component offerings/unlocks per run; maybe even retheming to the business side with an idea of running an "efficient foundry" and introducing component costs to give a management flavour. There's a lot of potential and fun ideas connected to working at the chip companies, honestly the time flew by. But as the game currently is, it's just a cool way to try tinkering and making chips and making the number go (randomly) up. Sadly the gameplay loop and currencies/prestiges just don't really connect to the idle genre or anything with deeper meaning yet.
I agree with the economy stuff, it felt like I could just sit in one place and get a decent income by spamming scavenge and living off disposable biocells (not bothering with carcasses/biotanks at all)... but upgrading the salvager/harvester would take forever to pay off with the low rate of energy to power to resource conversion. I think that payoff was something like 8 minutes per level, and you had to stay put by the node, and you had to pay power for it.
Yay, I finished the game, I really liked it, especially the humour and jokes! The keyboard input for fine-tuning resources added into the cauldron is helpful.
Some minor things I noticed is that at the start of the game without upgrades, it can take a while to transfer resources (so I would open the interface back up, and it would not let me add any more until the animation played out.) It would be nice if the button said "Transferring..." or "Adding..." to explain why it can't be clicked. I also was a bit confused when trying to "queue up" multiple fairies and having resources left in the cauldron, until I realised that this button wouldn't actually add the correctly updated cost until the first fairy had been crafted, but I'm not sure how to fix that in an obvious way. Maybe this interface could predict the correctly scaled cost if you try to add multiple fairies all at once?
"What is the current state of the Early Access version?
“The game currently has 4 facilities, with some information on the next 2.”
From playing the latest version, Talos, Lar, San, Ast are playable; in the latest build Str, Hip, Pne are referenced in logs etc (three, so might have been a bit after the Steam FAQ was written). I'm definitely curious to see which of these are coming next. One of those three requires a different vehicle though, so I get the feeling that one will be last.
Question to other commenters, is there much use for the quick-cycle water filter at the moment? Using it on the rover stops me from installing the generator to use fuel on the long drive, and I can't seem to install it (to avoid spoilers) anywhere useful, further away.
Maybe I take the filter back to the start for the endgame or something?
PS: does the tram ever actually break down if you boost it? I guess I could do a loop with the air recycler, running it back and forth to test that...
For sure. In a similar theme, I think it would be great to add more detail to the map - previewing the travel tasks for example. It's quite hard to remember each travel stage when many journeys are multi-part. Even counting the number of stages, or some sort of base travel time note (wouldn't even have to be an updated estimate) would be super helpful. So adding these sorts of simple notes to the map would be a big help!
PS/edit: the Astra routes are a bit better and clearer, the more annoying one was Laurion-Dam which doesn't show the multiple stages, and is not to scale compared to the Talos-Dam route.