First off I want to thank everyone for the support. When a friend and I originally started developing this we couldn’t have anticipated the amount of interest people would have in the game. What most of this post deals with changes to better facilitate (organize?) that interest.


From now on updates will be monthly regardless of how much or how little we get done. This is mainly because of the number of abandoned Early Access games. It is also is the most honest and transparent way of showing how the game is progressing. If the game isn’t updated each month I’m dead.
The update for this month is almost done and just needs a little polish. It’s actually already uploaded as a beta so if you’re interested in checking it out you can access it by going to the “BETAS” tab in the game properties and entering the password “opensesame12”. It’s obviously an incomplete build so I don’t recommend switching to it unless you’re prepared for some major bugs. Otherwise it should be publicly released this weekend.


User feedback was the whole point of releasing to Early Access and we want to leverage it as much of possible. One of the problems we’ve run into is organizing the feedback in the forums. It’s almost impossible for people to scroll through either one of the pinned posts and follow everything. Because of this I’m no longing going to respond to posts made there. I will read any new posts but if you want a response I’m going to ask that you start a separate thread. All of this will be posted at the top of each of the pinned threads.

The update has been delay because the executable has been flagged by AVG. The patch is still accessible through the beta options by using the password "opensesame12". There is no risk to your computer trying out the beta and I am 100% confident this is a false positive. It has been scanned by 55 separate anti viruses and only avg flags it. The executable has been submitted to AVG but it is unclear how long that process takes.

While this delays the patch it does not delay development. We are currently working on the next update and it is all content.

First off I want to thank everyone for the support. When a friend and I originally started developing this we couldn’t have anticipated the amount of interest people would have in the game. What most of this post deals with changes to better facilitate (organize?) that interest.


From now on updates will be monthly regardless of how much or how little we get done. This is mainly because of the number of abandoned Early Access games. It is also is the most honest and transparent way of showing how the game is progressing. If the game isn’t updated each month I’m dead.
The update for this month is almost done and just needs a little polish. It’s actually already uploaded as a beta so if you’re interested in checking it out you can access it by going to the “BETAS” tab in the game properties and entering the password “opensesame12”. It’s obviously an incomplete build so I don’t recommend switching to it unless you’re prepared for some major bugs. Otherwise it should be publicly released this weekend.


User feedback was the whole point of releasing to Early Access and we want to leverage it as much of possible. One of the problems we’ve run into is organizing the feedback in the forums. It’s almost impossible for people to scroll through either one of the pinned posts and follow everything. Because of this I’m no longing going to respond to posts made there. I will read any new posts but if you want a response I’m going to ask that you start a separate thread. All of this will be posted at the top of each of the pinned threads.

The update has been delay because the executable has been flagged by AVG. The patch is still accessible through the beta options by using the password "opensesame12". There is no risk to your computer trying out the beta and I am 100% confident this is a false positive. It has been scanned by 55 separate anti viruses and only avg flags it. The executable has been submitted to AVG but it is unclear how long that process takes.

While this delays the patch it does not delay development. We are currently working on the next update and it is all content.

Our thoughts and prays are with the people of France after the events of Friday night.

I was hesitant about whether this was an appropriate channel to express my sadness, grief, and anger for the attacks across Paris but I'd rather be inappropriate than silent.

As an American, the French are our oldest alley. They helped us carve a nation out of an otherwise hostile world. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people, stands as one of the most iconic symbols of America. After terrorist attacks struck us at the heart the President of France ran the headline "We are all American" in a national act unity.

As a soldier, I can speak from personal experience of the honor, professionalism, and resolve of French Frogmen. I would hate to be on the receiving side...

As a human being, I believe these attacks on the French are attacks on all of us. On the universal values that we share. The purpose of these attacks is to divide us and to instill fear in our hearts. We must not fear. We must maintain our humanity. We must remain united

If you want to help:
French Red cross
American Red cross

Our thoughts and prays are with the people of France after the events of Friday night.

I was hesitant about whether this was an appropriate channel to express my sadness, grief, and anger for the attacks across Paris but I'd rather be inappropriate than silent.

As an American, the French are our oldest alley. They helped us carve a nation out of an otherwise hostile world. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people, stands as one of the most iconic symbols of America. After terrorist attacks struck us at the heart the President of France ran the headline "We are all American" in a national act unity.

As a soldier, I can speak from personal experience of the honor, professionalism, and resolve of French Frogmen. I would hate to be on the receiving side...

As a human being, I believe these attacks on the French are attacks on all of us. On the universal values that we share. The purpose of these attacks is to divide us and to instill fear in our hearts. We must not fear. We must maintain our humanity. We must remain united

If you want to help:
French Red cross
American Red cross

Walk/run has been inverted.
Target cursor will now toggle blue when you hover over an interact-able object.
Experimental POV now only effects FOV.
Added particle effect to fertilizer containers to make it more obvious.
Moved greenhouse Android closer to fertilizer unit to avoid confusion.

Significantly optimized of sky effects shaders.
Exit button on main menu now works.
Collision boxes for props.
Collision of water planes.

This update was not as substantial as we would have liked. The delima was whether to push a monthly update regardless of progress or wait until we felt the update was substantial enough.

Because of the current state of Indie games in early access being abandoned we felt it would be better to continue pushing updates at least once a month. This gives much more transparency to the community on progress of the game and reaffirms that we have, in fact, not abandoned the game. Please let us know how you feel about this or if you think we wait to release more content in our updates.

We say that a lot but we are sincerely interested in your opinion of the development process.

From this point forward I'm going to lock the story feedback thread and try to divert the traffic to the "Story and Development" sub forum. This will make it much easier to manage and give direct responses to players without sifting through a massive thread.

I also want to thank everyone who has supported us this far. As you may know there are only two people working on this game as a labor of love. The interest and support we've gotten is already beyond anything we ever hoped for. It's very hard to express the amount of gratitude we have for you but thank you for everything.

- ːionizedgamesː

Walk/run has been inverted.
Target cursor will now toggle blue when you hover over an interact-able object.
Experimental POV now only effects FOV.
Added particle effect to fertilizer containers to make it more obvious.
Moved greenhouse Android closer to fertilizer unit to avoid confusion.

Significantly optimized of sky effects shaders.
Exit button on main menu now works.
Collision boxes for props.
Collision of water planes.

This update was not as substantial as we would have liked. The delima was whether to push a monthly update regardless of progress or wait until we felt the update was substantial enough.

Because of the current state of Indie games in early access being abandoned we felt it would be better to continue pushing updates at least once a month. This gives much more transparency to the community on progress of the game and reaffirms that we have, in fact, not abandoned the game. Please let us know how you feel about this or if you think we wait to release more content in our updates.

We say that a lot but we are sincerely interested in your opinion of the development process.

From this point forward I'm going to lock the story feedback thread and try to divert the traffic to the "Story and Development" sub forum. This will make it much easier to manage and give direct responses to players without sifting through a massive thread.

I also want to thank everyone who has supported us this far. As you may know there are only two people working on this game as a labor of love. The interest and support we've gotten is already beyond anything we ever hoped for. It's very hard to express the amount of gratitude we have for you but thank you for everything.

- :ionizedgames:

Fixes:
Optimized VR - addressing "judder".
Fixed skylift not going all the way up.

Gameplay:
Adjusted AutoPOV - effects FOV instead of camera boom length.
Adjusted lighting and audio in the Cave scene.
Decreased ground friction - It takes slightly longer to stop.
Increased angle you can traverse - This makes movement over the different terrains much more fluid.
Dramatically shortened the beginning dialog.

Story:
The largest change was to the story. Because of the recent discovery of flowing surface water the planet has been changed from Kepler 452b to Mars. This gives us a number of benefits but the main one is that we get to stick to a much more "hard" version of science fiction.

Community:
Another sub forum was created, Story and Development , for players who want to get more involved with the story. The pinned post on story feedback is just too bloated. By creating a separate sub forum I can respond to posts on an individual level.

Like always, we'd love to get your feedback and thanks for your support!!!

Fixes:
Optimized VR - addressing "judder".
Fixed skylift not going all the way up.

Gameplay:
Adjusted AutoPOV - effects FOV instead of camera boom length.
Adjusted lighting and audio in the Cave scene.
Decreased ground friction - It takes slightly longer to stop.
Increased angle you can traverse - This makes movement over the different terrains much more fluid.
Dramatically shortened the beginning dialog.

Story:
The largest change was to the story. Because of the recent discovery of flowing surface water the planet has been changed from Kepler 452b to Mars. This gives us a number of benefits but the main one is that we get to stick to a much more "hard" version of science fiction.

Community:
Another sub forum was created, Story and Development , for players who want to get more involved with the story. The pinned post on story feedback is just too bloated. By creating a separate sub forum I can respond to posts on an individual level.

Like always, we'd love to get your feedback and thanks for your support!!!

I wanted to make a post about possible changes to the story to get feedback from the community. Because of NASA's recent discovery of flowing water on the surface of Mars we want to change the stories location from Kepler 452b to Mars.

The gives us a couple of benefits but most importantly the ability to stick to "hard" science fiction. Up to this point we've been smudging it with the FTL drive while all other aspects were at least theoretically possible. All the backstory on how the terraforming would take place is already based on models of Mars. It would also let us shorten some of the dialog and expand on the backstory. This is because there is a lot more common knowledge about Mars as well as research done into the atmosphere and geology of the planet.

This wont have any effect on the core story or what you find in the caves. The main reason Mars wasn't the original planet was because I personally believed they would never find flowing water. I am very glad I was wrong.

I want to include the community in these decisions so I'd love to know what you think about this change.

I wanted to make a post about possible changes to the story to get feedback from the community. Because of NASA's recent discovery of flowing water on the surface of Mars we want to change the stories location from Kepler 452b to Mars.

The gives us a couple of benefits but most importantly the ability to stick to "hard" science fiction. Up to this point we've been smudging it with the FTL drive while all other aspects were at least theoretically possible. All the backstory on how the terraforming would take place is already based on models of Mars. It would also let us shorten some of the dialog and expand on the backstory. This is because there is a lot more common knowledge about Mars as well as research done into the atmosphere and geology of the planet.

This wont have any effect on the core story or what you find in the caves. The main reason Mars wasn't the original planet was because I personally believed they would never find flowing water. I am very glad I was wrong.

I want to include the community in these decisions so I'd love to know what you think about this change.