Preparing the game for players is my main focus right now.

Update Time:

[Alpha Iteration 182]

With playtesting in mind I reworked a lot of the menus, created a feedback system, made a build for the game, and playtested it, submitting feedback with the new system, later addressing it to stress test the new system. For the player side I focused heavily on: - Removing friction - by improving startup times, a simple way to set the graphics, reducing the number of clicks to starting the game - Decreasing learning curve - by improving menu consistency, gameplay consistency - Feeling good to play - by removing as many things that I found to be annoying or unrewarding

Player Side:

Reduced the starting Inventory side yet provided more upgrade options. Now the player earns the improvement and it feels much better

Starting to replace bits and pieces with the final materials and more accurate meshes.

Players now can post anonymous feedback

Worked on the subtle hints that guide the player to their next goal

Malfunctions can now show signs that someone before you tried to repair them

Improved navigation by adding a lot of swinging handles near malfunction and critical zones

Improved navigation by making the cables that twist and turn in the tunnels grabbable and swingable

A more unified experience in the menus of the game. The graphics menu was completely deleted and will be made into a slider with more than enough options to run the game on a lot of PCs yet keep the look and aesthetic. There will be an exposed "ini" like text editor in-game so people still edit the settings.

There are cutscenes after major events to better separate and highlight player progression

The "final challenge" will now require you to gather parts from all of the station's biomes

Developer side:

Created the feedback backbone - it allows to gather and display feedback tickets from hundreds of players in the editor and while playing

Refactored the "Ball" puzzles use 5 times less code.

Major optimization over the Code of the original game reducing loading times on Samsung 970 NVMe SSD by 5-7 seconds. The game can now boot to the playable level in around 3-4 seconds.

Resolved over 100 errors/warning caused by objects and maps

Optimized the player character loading some variables twice Optimized the player character so I can edit it better

Refactored the settings code More work on the accessibility settings

Removed the old triangular meshy "orb" from every interactable object they will be better integrated now.

Refactored malfunction and Container logic

Giant refactor of the Junk spawner. Objects in the original game often spawned one inside the other and it was possible to spawn inside walls. this is now all fixed.

- I also coded the foundation for some cool features that I will implement soon

Refactored the way the insanity scribbles work, now they can be integrated into the materials of the ship while before they were just stuck on top of things

Created a really nice material that blinks out of sync on different objects while still rendering as one draw call.

Added the volumetric for the open areas that have an atmosphere. It was really hard to make it not spill in the vacuum of space.