Greetings, explorers!
Next Fest is only a week away and we're super excited to be a part of it! We're bringing you a brand new demo to celebrate and you can play it right now!
You can find details and updates on the new demo at the end of this post.
We also have a shiny new trailer for you here!
Demo Update
We’ve rejigged how the core gameplay works - instead of blasting from planet to planet, you’re now building enough power to break the orbit velocity of the current planet you’re on. The reasoning here is it allows a much clearer through line between adding power to the engine and it having an effect on the rocket.
There are a bunch of fun new animations to go alongside this, so hopefully it feels good!
Fuel items are now unlocked between boosts - you can rearrange your engine as you see fit to try and maximise synergies. The middle ring now randomly rotates before a boost starts, so don’t get too comfortable that your fuels will stay lined up!
Boosts now work by topping up the time of your boost, rather than being stuck to a set time each boost. You can top up a bunch of time ahead of a boost, or add time during a boost if you think you can push the RPM higher without throttling the engine!
I’ve added ‘Calibrations’ to the game. These are powerful bonuses that you’ll get to choose from at the first waypoint of each journey - hoping these feel a bit more impactful on gameplay than just getting a random choice of common/uncommon at the first waypoint! Current calibrations are:
Extra stock slot
Transform starting capsules into common/uncommon
Add doomed to all items currently in engine
Increase chances of items having mutators in salvage
Immediate 300 glory
Immediate 4 crew tokens
Immediate 100 scrap material
Reduce cost of modulators
Final boost token gives extra second of boost
Can hang up on pirates
50% chance of boost token refund if engine throttles
Completely reworked fuel effects, crew effects and modulator effects to be more dynamic and bring more thought into engine building.
A lot of UI reworking to bring more clarity to what’s happening in the engine - new data panels, new hover effects and subtle glows to items to help visualise whether they’re affecting POWER, RPM or HEAT
An updated tutorial to explain all the new features!
Added an in-game feedback (found in pause menu - sends feedback directly to a discord channel)