New game+ offers a way to replay the game after completing all currently available content, before more content is release-ready. It resets your game to the very beginning, with additional small perks that can be allocated with DNA points that are earned by completing the current content.
This feature is designed for those of you that are looking for a reason to play the game again, and might not be for everyone. But that should be OK, as it will remain entirely optional. It is only available after completion of currently available content, and merely offers another alternative to simply putting the game down after completion, or overgrinding current content. New content will at no point require new game+ progress, and will be designed and balanced without new game+ progression.
From a technical perspective it can be looked at a little like an optional prestige layer. But it's balanced much closer to a traditional new game+ mechanic, to stay true to the balance of content, with a little better chances. I personally always had a bit of a soft spot for games that offer a new game+ mechanic, and it was always planned for Increlution. Releasing it as experimental at this time is just sooner than originally planned!
So why experimental?
This feature is designed to adapt to new content fairly naturally, and the DNA reward per playthrough is dependent on how much content is currently in the game. However, new content might change the balance in ways that may require new game+ rebalancing too.
To experience new content as it is intended, it is advised to backup your save before trying new game+. That way you can experience it as intended, and swap back to your new game+ save afterwards. Using new game+ progression for new content will be supported too though, it's merely what I'd advise, but you do you!
Does experimental mean I need to switch a branch in Steam?
No. It's available in the main branch right now, just make sure to grab the update! You can access it by reaching the completion message at the end of current content. It's branded "experimental" because it's more subjected to potential changes than most content, and therefore comes with the appropriate warnings to clarify its current state.
So why release it now?
New game+ was always planned, but much later during Early Access. From a roadmap perspective it's a little silly to release it so soon, but inspiration got the better of me! Especially because I felt able to design it in a way that adapts relatively well as content expands, and I liked it quite a bit when I tested it. So I figured I might as well release it already, for those of you that are into this sort of mechanic!
If anything, it should allow for some additional replay value when new content requires a fair amount of time to craft and balance.
Will new game+ be expanded further?
Yes, but not soon. "Penalties" are still planned to combine and create custom challenges for additional difficulty and rewards per playthrough. This part however would create a design constraint on the creative freedom of future content. So for that reason, this won't be added until later.
That said, perks will likely be expanded a little too, as new content introduces new mechanics that might fit into new game+ perks too. And other mechanics might happen too. But a fair amount will be limited to "not forming a constraint on new content creation" until the story is finished entirely.
Other changes in this update:
- Reworked how the rendering tasks handle CPU usage, lowering overall CPU usage by approximately 20~40%
- Explorations with "stop before completion" enabled no longer trigger automations to survive completion for damage on completion explorations, since they won't complete
- Some optional chapter three, four and five explorations now reduce their automation unlock requirement based on an alternative exploration, where they previously didn't
- Lowered the automation unlock requirement of a chapter two resource job
- Some chapter five explorations now also have the story choice icon in the automations tab where they previously didn't
- Slightly reworked how the hiding of tooltips is handled when jobs, constructions and explorations disappear and their tooltip is visible. Aiming to tackle a situation where tooltips could temporarily persist when the action disappeared
- Fixed a bug that could cause values in job tooltips to not directly update when completing a specific chapter eight exploration
- Fixed a bug that caused reincarnation screen automation unlocks to reset to the default after already being configured, if closing the game when the reincarnation screen was open
- Fixed a bug that caused "off" automation jobs to not be properly considered a manual job for the combat safety auto-stalling logic, causing resource automations to trigger too soon in specific situations
- Fixed a bug that could cause you to survive fail-damage explorations when you shouldn't, if any food was off-cooldown
So what's next?
I want to get through a little more quality of life and polishing before moving onto the next content. I suspect to do two or three more of those smaller updates before starting on the next content. It's been quite refreshing to work on some other aspects for a while, after working on the last four chapters for over three months. But I have some ideas shaping for the next content that I'm starting to get excited about testing too!