This month was all about small quality-of-life tweaks, making the gameplay smoother and more intuitive, and sneaking in a bit more immersion to pull you deeper into the experience. Most of the work went into polishing and simplifying things — but there’s also a pretty exciting change to the gameplay scene itself. Make sure to read till the end 👀
What kind of game with economic mechanics doesn’t have a daily summary, right? At the end of each day, you’ll now get a full breakdown of your financial operations: all your income, expenses, and, well... the final result - You’ll see exactly how much you earned, or how much you lost 😨

Placing items into containers now comes with a bit of animation! It’s a small touch, but it really helps smooth things out — the old version felt a bit… odd. A minor improvement, but definitely a satisfying one.

The inspection table has been split into two: one for inspection and one for packing. This makes the process much clearer and easier to follow — products now go into crates instead of boxes.
Packing happens at a separate station, which not only simplifies things when an item doesn’t need inspection, but also leaves room for future mechanics and improvements.


You can now see the contents of containers more easily! It’s much simpler to keep track of how many items are stored where, especially those tucked away inside boxes, which used to make organization a bit tricky. No more guessing what’s inside!

The garage has received a complete makeover to better fit the game’s world and instantly convey its purpose. The new design aims to capture the atmosphere of 1980s Chinese slums, giving the space a more authentic and immersive feel.
Along with the visual overhaul, objects and lighting have been reworked, and some mechanics got a bit of a personality shift to match the new vibe. But there is still plenty to do, so stay tuned.








So, what do you think about the new garage? Does it give off the right vibe? We’d love to hear your thoughts, what would you add or change to make it feel even more alive? Drop your ideas in the comments!
As for next month... let’s just say it’s going to be mostly about assembling products, but I can’t tell You more 🤫


Factory Life Team

Before getting into everything else, please note that Gentoo Rescue will be 20% off November 3 - November 17 to celebrate all of the below. This will be the biggest and longest sale yet, so don't let your friends miss this opportunity! Also, remember that you can get even deeper discounts by purchasing (or completing) either of the bundles:

• Gentoo's Demon Wormholes: With 2023 and 2024 Thinky Award winners Can of Wormholes and Maxwell's puzzling demon.

• Gentookeeper: With 2025's Glowkeeper, which is another underrated title that I highly recommend!

Why? Because so much is happening all at once!

• Aliensrock, a popular puzzle YouTuber, has started a playthough of Gentoo Rescue on their channel! Their videos are always entertaining, so it has been a pleasure to watch him play. I want to welcome all of the new players to our Discord server, and encourage everyone to try out some of our amazing community levelpacks on the Steam Workshop once they've completed the main game. Go check out their videos, and share some love with likes and comments, especially to the Gentoo Rescue videos. Here are the episodes released so far:

  • Part 1

  • Part 2

  • Part 3

• We're now at 81 reviews, with a quick burst of 15+ from the last few weeks! This is undoubtedly due to the new attention from Aliensrock, so I'm incredibly grateful to him and everyone that has taken the time to leave a review. I think getting to 100 (and beyond) is a real possibility. Hopefully this barrage of events will get us there soon!

• The talks and schedule for Thinky Con 2025 have been released. I will be speaking on the opening day of the conference (Wednesday, November 5) about the puzzle solver I built for Gentoo Rescue. There are many other amazing talks on the schedule, so don't miss it! Okay, it's actually not big deal if you miss it because they'll have all the talks available on YouTube afterwards.

• Gentoo Rescue will be part of 3 separate Steam events in the next two weeks!

  • DevGAMM Awards Celebration runs November 3 - November 9. I don't know if Gentoo Rescue actually won anything, but I'm so proud to see it accepted into this event.

  • Metroidvania Fusion Festival runs November 3 - November 9. Metroidvania enthusiasts are (rightfully) very skeptical about games claiming to be metroidvanias. I designed parts of Gentoo Rescue through a metroidvania (and partially metroidbrainia) lens, so I'm excited to participate alongside more traditional examples in the genre.

  • Animal Fest runs November 10 - November 17. Save the penguins!

Anything else?

• There are so many custom levelpacks on Steam Workshop now that I've decided to start curating my favorites. Check out this collection of Dev picks!

• I started streaming more regularly, and will continue to do so for a few days per week. Give me a follow and come say hi! I've played some puzzle games (including Gentoo Rescue custom levels), some competitive games, and other variety (including talk prep and some game dev). I'll actually be competing in a chill Silksong any% race with a few friends on Saturday, November 8 at (I think) 11am PST, so that should be fun!

• I played around with Godot and made a silly October themed game Witch Cauldron. It's a free puzzly platformer on Itch.

• Due to all of this renewed interest in Gentoo Rescue, I am excited to say that I'll be returning to post-launch development in November. I have a long list of small fixes to make, so expect at least one more patch this year. Maybe more?

• The Discord server has grown from all of this renewed interest, so I've started making it more organized. This has involved a few special roles, one of which is for those that have "solved something in-game without any reward". Players can earn this reward by messaging me the secret message. I'd like to give our small community a comfortable home to hang out, so all suggestions are welcome!

Small patch to fix some bugs.

Something meatier coming relatively soon..!

Patches

• Dialogue after Wave 5 won’t clash with the Special Upgrade choice.

• Mycellius Prime’s Vis Orb attack can now be properly defeated.

• Map Buttons have been tidied up to prevent cases where they were showing incorrectly.

• Updated developer logo and splash screen.

Dear Steam community,

The halloween event for Unpossess: Exorcism Simulator is now over.

Thank you for playing during this time and I hope you gained a lot of XP and rewards to purchase customizable items!

What is next for Unpossess?

Another update for Unpossess: Exorcism Simulator is being planned and will consist of a new case, new objectives and new mechanics. There is currently no timeframe on when this will be available but please stay tuned for more information. You can join our Discord community here.

New game in development: Toy Terribles

Last but not least.....I would like to use this post to announce a new game that is in development. It's called Toy Terribles and this will be available next year. You can support me by wishlisting here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3831100/Toy_Terribles/

Catch you up later!

- chreseeba (solo developer)

It's time to build, conquer, and save the world! Dive into the incredible worlds of Firaxis with massive savings on some of their most iconic titles. Whether you're a grand strategy veteran or a tactical genius, there's a deal for you.

The Firaxis Games Developer Sale is Here!

Featured Deals :

Civilization VII: Get started on your journey through history with 35% off the newest installment in the legendary series. The world awaits your rule!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1295660/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_VII/

Civilization VI: Anthology: Experience the full saga of Civilization VI with a monumental 90% off. This is the most comprehensive way to play, including the base game and all released DLC.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_VI/

XCOM 2 Collection: Humanity's last hope is on sale! Command your squad and reclaim Earth from the alien threat for an incredible 80% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/268500/XCOM_2/

Marvel’s Midnight Suns: Legendary Edition: Assemble your team of heroes and stop the demonic forces of Lilith. The Legendary Edition, including all DLC, is now 85% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/368260/Marvels_Midnight_Suns/

Don't miss your chance to expand your library with these epic strategy games. The Firaxis Developer Sale is on now, but these deals won't last forever!

*Discounts based on 2K's SRP. Digital only. Offers end November 17, 2025. Terms apply.

The Pit Supervisor Supervisor will now inform the Pit Supervisor (you) that you need to go to the office to upgrade your facilities. In addition, the helpful text telling you to take pictures of your tourists for money will no longer accidentally be lost in the mail.

[h5][color=#33FFDD]Greetings, esteemed colleagues![/color][/h5]

We’ve just dropped a new update that focuses on community feedback, new difficulty modes for the truly hardcore, some craftable exercise equipment, and MORE! While we did have a vlog planned, we ran out of time because we are terrible planners, so you just get TEXT for today. A vlog will be added here later, and we’ll ping discord when it’s up - as usual!

Introducing… Hardcore Difficulty and Iron Mode!

“What are those?” we hear you ask (you should really disable that microphone).

Hardcore Mode is a forced-Apocalyptic difficulty mode where the bravest of scientists can take on the challenge of losing everything if they perish. Along with this mode, we’ve added a basic Spectator mode in which you can continue spectating after you have died. We’ve also added a button to the Admin panel to allow Admins to reset Hardcore state, if you must. But just know that is the coward’s way.

Iron Mode is a selectable job when running on Hardcore Mode, which will disallow certain actions, such as sharing recipes with others, reducing health regen substantially, and more. If you are just in it for the pain, Iron Mode might be for you! This role can also be disabled by the server in Sandbox Settings, for whatever reason one might want to do that.

One major update we made to Apocalyptic Difficulty (whether in Hardcore Mode or not) is enemies will now occasionally have new abilities. Ever wondered if Peccary might be harder when they can actually steer their charge? Well, the answer turns out to be… yes. There’s a whole slew of new abilities and changes, but we’ll let you discover what those are. After all, we wager you are playing Apocalyptic difficulty for one reason, and one reason only.

Can we really be called scientists if we’re afraid of simple machinery? No! Therefore, we’re happy to announce, our scientists can now utilize exercise machines to skill up AND keep your base powered while doing it!



No more carrying around 10 radfridges to get your sweat on, now scientists can level up their strength in the comfort of their own base! Sprinting into a wall repeatedly to level up Sprinting? Try the Exercise Bike instead!

Yolk up, eggheads.

What’s more, pre-existing gym equipment is no longer indestructible. You can dismantle these chunky objects and free up some extra floor space to fill with anything you like (maybe even the new charging crate, which does exactly what it sounds like it does!)

There’s a new way to throw throwables, such as grenades. Alt Fire no longer does an underhand throw, but instead toggles which state you are in (underhand or overhand.) We felt this was better from a user-experience standpoint.



Remember how you’ve had to reload all the shells and rounds in your shotgun and/or magnum revolver when you reloaded? Well, that will soon be a distant memory. You can now reload each round individually, meaning if you only spent one round, you only reload one round!




Sheesh, we sure took our sweet time on that one, huh? Wild west of game development out here. Yeehaw.

Highly requested changes have been made to trader behavior. That’s right, they can sit down now!



Oh! And they’ll get out of your dang way. Traders will try to move if you bump into them, and you can also shove a particular ‘lil fella who gets underfoot a little too often. Should we add a bed for him or something?

There’s a new upgrade for the Makeshift Crossbow, which comes with a very minor 2x scope.



In our quest to only take care of Sharp Melee users (that was a joke) we have added a new Hardlight Spear, something with a bit more range, wieldable with a shield, and a unique throw type which sends out a holographic hardlight something or other instead of throwing the actual weapon itself.

We have also made some improvements to at least one substantial encounter (avoiding spoilers here) where melee wielders were a bit left behind. There is now a way to deal consistent melee damage during this particular, climactic fight. Are we being vague and also clear enough here? Maybe!

And yes - we’ll look at the Blunt Melee drought as well. We hear you. It’s definitely on The List, we just want to make sure we get it right and actually address the core of the issues.

We’ve got a number of other improvements and changes to enjoy, including some bug fixes. A few (non-inclusive list of) highlights are:

• Improved teleporter tags (with a much wider selection of phrases or words)
  
• Broken armor indicators on your HUD
  
• New Chef Sense Cooking Perk
  
• GROWABLE MUSHROOMS
  
• Plantable berries of a specific shadowy sort
  
• A couple more ways to eat pumpkins
  
• More sandbox settings, such as toggling visible radiation, tainted sink water, enemy accuracy, base inventory size, and bonus perk points available at the start! There’s more than that, probably.
  
• Some buffs now save properly long-term, such as broken leg states.
  
• The aforementioned Charging Crate
  
• Skink Meat
  
• and the ability to craft ammo at the new Ammo Bench!

Really buried the lede on that one, didn’t we. You folks have been clamouring for an Ammo Bench for years at this point. When do we get to pick up our “they finally did it” award?

Our dear beloved publisher Playstack has finally okay’d us to add some Balatro stuff to the game.



There’s a new tie and two new ID Cards, which arrive with a whole new system we built to allow for ID Cards to have more variety in appearance and even dangly physics. There’s also a fun hat around here somewhere… Ah, no matter, we’re sure you’ll find it.

The new Home World DLC has arrived. You can scoop it up HERE if that’s your cup of coffee, and on that page will be all the info about the goodies you get alongside the Home World.


As always, no major or stat-boosted game content is locked behind this Home World DLC. It is JUST a cozy place for a base, if you so choose, and comes with cosmetics (including a new low-defense made-for-transmog armor set), a couple new furniture items, and a sprinkling of lore regarding the Home World itself. Some also say we did another convoluted secret, but those people have since turned to stone.



Anyway, we hope you enjoy this Home World - we had a lot of fun crafting it, and the art and level team knocked it out of the park... Or, garden, rather.

Need something to blow all that new CS2 weapon skin money on? (See, we keep up with current events.) Well, Abiotic Factor will also be on sale as part of the Playstack Publisher sale at 20% off. Dive. On. In.

And get your friends to do the same!

And then leave a positive review!

And also drink water, it’s good to stay hydrated!

And call your mother!

We’re actively wading through candidates for adding a new designer to the team to help see the future of Abiotic Factor forward (because frankly, poor ol’ Zag is spread just a bit too thin) so you can expect a new face on the dev team before long, and that face will probably come with some words, and plans. We are also looking at methods for dropping future surveys more frequently, because our last one was a smashing success, with over 46,000 replies. Wow, I do not envy the Deep Field scientists who have to wade through those!

The so-called “holiday” update is well underway already and will be dropping in December. That’s all for now. ☃ If you’d like to know more about what the future has in store, take a peek at our latest roadmap in our recent Roadmap Post.


Thank you so much for your support throughout Early Access, throughout our 1.0 launch, and today - with 1.1. We have more in store, and Abiotic Factor’s journey is far from over. And we’re spinning up some new things too! Perhaps one day the fog will part, and we will all see what lies ahead.

If you aren’t too busy playing ARC Raiders like we are, please check out the patch notes below for full update information. And good luck out there in the Rust Belt– er, the GATE Cascade Research Facility.

Click here for the full patch notes.

[color=#33FFDD]Onward -- to science. (Science that hopefully does not result in killer robots overthrowing humanity.)[/color]

Also, Zag says hi to the person who left this on his Steam profile.

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• Newsletter
  
• YouTube
  
• Bluesky
  
• Twitter

https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

We're excited to announce that THRASHER is fully optimized for Steam Deck at launch on November 7!

Experience the mind-melting visuals of all 9 alien realms at the max quality settings and running at a smooth 90fps. We've put in a significant effort into tailoring the game for the Steam Deck, including:

• A native Linux build, maximizing performance and compatibility

• Optimized to run at up to 90fps (requires OLED edition)

• Support for seamless switching between gamepad and trackpad controls

• Custom Deck-specific button prompts and controller diagrams in-game

• An official Steam Input layout for the Deck shipped with the game

• UX accommodations for the handheld form factor like size of UI elements

The game is truly beautiful on the Steam Deck and we hope it will be a visual feast as you dive into the game's deep combo system centered around circling (or just vibe out in the breathtaking landscapes)!

Wishlist or purchase the game here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2702300/THRASHER/
Please join our Discord community to stay up-to-date on the latest and show off your best runs:

https://discord.gg/5YrVUzw6fb

- Losing a party member no longer decreases rank, and enemy turn timers are faster on low and mid rank than they were previously.
Previously, spamming attack and facetanking damage was an effective strategy, because the continual death of party members kept you at low rank, which in turn kept enemies slow enough for your DPS to out-pace theirs.

- Poise has been reworked. Enemies now ALWAYS get knocked back on hit. Knockback has been doubled globally, and enemy walk speeds have been increased by x1.5.
This makes the game much less spammy. Every hit will now reset the neutral, forcing you to re-approach to attack again.

- Lower ranks now penalize essence gain, with bottom rank only giving you 1/3 of the essence you would ordinarily get.
This was the case in pre-release versions, but was removed. The rationale was to introduce a dynamic where you would want to be selective about items and pickups in order to strategically delay rank gain as much as possible, since there was no benefit to being at higher rank.
However, in practice this dynamic did not occur. Even should the previous change make this emerge, a minor layer of added strategy does not justify encouraging the player to remain in a slower and easier version of the combat.


- Reverted extra time bonuses on lower rank.
Lower ranks still have a chance of despawning enemies on level load, but giving extra time would reward worse players with more essence.



Other Changes:

- Shield counter value now increases by 2 from melee hitboxes, making the guard much more useful.

- Reverted change to enemy alert distance scaling, as it made quick-killing too effective.

- Halved the range of the blunderbuss bullets.

- Reduced range of longbow arrows.

- Staff projectiles have less range and active time.

- Cure-alls now cure the entire party of status effects instead of just one member.

- Changed the water pillars section in 3-5 to be more forgiving.

- Added missing killfloor to 3-4 elevator shaft.

- Fixed locks requiring multiple of the same key accepting only one.

- Lock forcefields now visually disappear correctly.

- Fixed bad teleport in 1-6.

The Pinecliff Forest Update is now Live!

This map will be unlocked in season 2. Anyone who has already finished a complete season will have access to this map. It will feature new animals, two new mushrooms, a golden morel, mystery animal, and collectables.

Pinecliff Forest Trailer

You will now see your daily morel count and record on your main UI.



The photobook will now open to the last page instead of the first page.

In celebration of the release of my new game Bigfoot Life, Morels: The Hunt is on 80% Off and featured in a bundle sale with Bigfoot Life. Morels: The Hunt was the first game to feature the Legend himself.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3108130/Bigfoot_Life/

Thank you for everything.

-Wes
Abrams Studios