Nothing all that large in this one, in the main -- just general housekeeping. This makes some things smoother and clearer, and resolves the bulk of the items reported or requested by players in the last little while. A couple of the bugs are rather humorous.

If you’ve spent time with Heart of the Machine and want to leave a review, that’d be appreciated. No need to say more than you mean, but if you’ve been meaning to write one, I’d be grateful. Steam reviews carry weight. For a project like this — developed by a single person over many years, every review makes a difference.

Honest thoughts are what matter. Whatever your experience has been, sharing it helps. It’s a powerful way to have your voice heard and contributes to how future patches are prioritized and addressed.

Thanks for reading and for playing.

[expand type=details expanded=false]

• Understanding When It's World War 4: If you are in the part of the game where you have triggered the inevitability of WW4, but you have not yet actually gotten the goal completion for it yet, the game now shows a message in the task stack stating that this is "Early WW4" and how much longer you need to survive for it to be full-blown.
• Analysis Lens Color Clarity: Fixed the Deterrence Coverage and Protection Coverage descriptions to be accurate to the current color scheme. The colors were adjusted in the past to be more clear, but the description did not match.
• Decimal Feats: Fixed a visual issue where feats were not always shown as a decimal, but instead sometimes were shown as a rounded integer.
• Nonplussed: Removed the plus sign in front of the feat number on equipment, so that it is more likely that players will realize that the highest value is taken rather than them being additively taken. That's a fairly minor detail most of the time, which the "Feats" entry in the "Status Effects" section of the handbook mentions.
• Infinity War: If you are in the full WW4 scenario, it no longer shows a military invasion of 99 turns, but instead shows an infinity symbol and says WW4, with some other added notes for this.
• Units Crying Wolf: Fixed an issue where if you hovered over a unit that you could select, it would show some random incoming damage predictions rather than what was actually planned against it for the moment. I can't believe nobody ever noticed this or said anything, as it's not new at all. Anyway, it's fixed now.
• Knowing Their Fate At A Glance: Added the incoming damage to NPC/bulk units and structures, to match how it works (properly now) when you hover your own units.

• Setup Phase Generosity: During the setup phase of the game, you now are given a constant minimum of 5k Scandium, Alumina, and Neodymium rather than 2k. 2k was not enough to set up shell company buildings, which was annoying.
• PMC Impostors Blend In: PMC Impostors now have the Blending In perk as well as their PMC-related ones. This makes it so that they can be used for things like Excuses and Justifications can be done by them.
• So Do Basic Armor And Hoodies: MilStyle Armor now also grants the Blending In perk, as does Security Jacket, on top of the other perks they grant.
• Extra Enemy Politeness During Setup Phase: Since this was confusing to people, vulnerable structures (those with insufficient protection or deterrence) don't cause any aggressive enemies to spawn during the setup phase. Same with vulnerable territory control flags. Originally it was meant to only be counter-attacks that were suppressed during this phase, but the distinction between those was not adequate.
• Enemies More Punctual When Attacking You For Revenge: There are some intentionally-delayed "I hate you and want revenge" spawns, but those are now a lot less delayed than they were before. Also, in general, when countdowns finish to a revenge spawn, it now finishes the countdown earlier in the turn-change logic so that any enemies that should immediately spawn will now do so.
• Enemies Not Showing Up For Revenge Mid-Turn Just Because You Visited A Shop: Adjusted things so that certain kinds of NPC managers (revenge spawns among them, but there were 56 spots in all that got this change) won't ever spawn new units except during turn-change. This prevents them from spawning when you force conversations, complete contemplations, interact with StreetSense, and so on.
• Immediate Visibility When Equipping Scopes: After any of the stats of your units change (not your bulks and workers and converted, since those don't matter for this), it does a visibility recalculation pass. This is a big improvement for when you increase the attack range of a unit, you get vision from them right away rather than the vision not increasing until some unit moves.

• Armored Executive Exclusive Discussions: Fixed a generalized issue where if a dialog was supposed to be between some third party and one of your armored executives, then it would actually allow any of your shell company units to do it.
• My Great Shame: Fixed a surprising typo (they're instead of their) in the sheltered citizen tooltip.
• Inability To Finish Breaking Into Prisons: Fixed an issue where the "Now What?" project could not progress properly, and did not register your investigations with Liquid Metal. The same problem was there with the Yinshi Umbilicals not giving you any umbilical cords after you snuck in.
• Mimic Journey Deja Vu: Fixed an issue where you could send mimics out of the city twice (and have the same thing happen both times) if you sent them out without the thumper designs, and then got the thumper designs, and then sent them out again. It now properly blocks the second case if you already did the first case, as the two are meant to be different wordings for the same thing in slightly different circumstances, not two distinct events.
• When Investigation Spots Get Nuked: In the event that an investigation target has been destroyed -- nuked, burned down, whatever -- that investigation target is now properly removed, rather than still being a place you can investigate as if it was still there.
• 404 Investigator Not Found: If you are in the "Now What?" project and trying to investigate more prisons, but the investigation is missing, it now self-corrects that. However, if it can't find any functional prisons after 12 seconds of you having loaded the game, then it fails the project with the note that somehow there are no more prisons on the map (this is usually because of them all being nuked or similar).
• Enemy Status-itis Finally Cured: Fixed a longstanding issue where any unit afflicted by a status effect would randomly lose some health or morale. It was some sort of threading issue when calculating status intensities during initial load of a savegame. I solved this by having it recalculate the status intensity after all the other data is loaded and a one-second delay. In all of the existing cases now, except where savegames were saved-over, loading them should now have the original health and morale that was saved.
• Ghosts Exploration Sites: Fixed an issue where exploration sites could be kind of there (but not really there) if you had completed them but they were still locked to a location. They were invisible on the map and in the listing, but would show up in the totals, being very confusing.

[/expand]

Full notes here.

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Want to stay in the loop or share your thoughts? Join the conversation across these platforms:

💬 Discord – Best place to share feedback, get direct responses, and to talk about Heart of the Machine.
📜 Reddit – Discuss strategies, share ideas, and exchange tips with the community.

The Halloween Live Event has started. In addition to themed decorations, the game includes several major changes and improvements.

The tutorial has been completely redesigned to make getting started easier and more intuitive.
There is also a new dialogue system, adding more dynamism and variety.

The settings have been revised and are now saved permanently.

New objects have been added to the agency.
The new dialogue system is also active here, making conversations feel more natural and varied.

To enhance the atmosphere, various new sounds have been added to intensify the gameplay experience.

The game can no longer be exited via the PC. Instead, it is now shut down via the bed.

The game has been decorated for Halloween.
Check out the new details and the spooky atmosphere.

The game has been significantly overhauled.
In upcoming updates, new content will be added gradually – stay tuned for surprises!

To celebrate the event, the game is currently available at 25% off on Steam.
The discount is only available for a limited time.


We look forward to your feedback – it helps us continue to improve and develop the game.

Thank you for your support and enjoy the Halloween event!

Added the ability to rebind controls for the inventory, abilities, skills, notes, map and flee menus. The correspond new key will show up on the HUD if the name of the key is 2 characters or shorter. Otherwise, it will be left blank. This is because "middle mouse button" stretches the HUD button too much for humans to accept.

Also added a gamepad turn sensitivity slider. The turn rate both horizontally and vertically is now adjustable from 0.5x the base rate to 2x the base rate. Happy turning!

As always, enjoy the game! And if you like it please, please consider leaving a review!

• Dialog on game start: An extra dialog that could not be closed has been removed.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN Impact Point Players!

I know this once again took farrr too long. I was finishing uni and have a tonne of other excuses that you do not care to hear. But coming back to give Impact Point some much needed attention was always my plan.

This update is a culmination of a variety of work sessions over the last year and a half.

Thank you once again for all the supportive, messages, emails, music, and requests. As well as everyone in the dedicated little discord community.

Here's whats new!

Additions:

• \[NEW WEAPON] UZI!

• ALL NEW HALLOWEEN MAP! \[LIGHTING SYSTEM]

• A LEVELING AND EXP SYSTEM

• DAILY MISSIONS WITH DOZENS OF MISSIONS

• LEVEL BASED COSMETIC REWARDS

• A GRAFFITI SPRAY SYSTEM

• PLAYTIME GRAFFITI CASE DROPS

• DISCORD SKIN REWARDS

• OVERHAULED LEVEL EDITOR

• SERVER UPGRADE

• A GOLD PASS FOR ALL DLC OWNERS

• VISUAL EFFECTS SETTINGS

• JOIN AND LEAVE LOBBY SOUNDS

• ADDED PLAYER COUNTS PER REGION

• ADDED LEVEL EDITOR AUTOSAVE

Tweaks:

• Tweaked bloom and visual effects

• Tweaked weapon sounds, kill sounds

• Tweaked main menu

• Tweaked level editor movement, selection, scaling

Fixes:

• Fixed massive issue with joining games being on the wrong server

• Fixed 2v2/gungame related win/loss bugs.

• Fixed crosshair getting stuck

• Fixed level editor other props not loading/saving correctly

• Fixed workshop loading menu being slow

• Fixed workshop searching

• Fixed infinite weapon glitch

I have lost track of everything that was tweaked and changed as there were many disconnected sprints done for this update, there were a bunch more bug fixes that I didn't track and I may even have introduced quite a few more.

it makes me super happy to see people still passionate about and enjoying the game my 16 year old self made over 7 years ago, and I once again hope to offer you even more in the future.

Join our lil discord community to obtain the discord rewards!
https://discord.gg/7AZNyfG2JG

v25.1
- hi-hat and ride rebuild.

NEW FEATURES

- Added new sound effects for player and enemy hits.

- Added visual feedback (screen shake) when the player hits an enemy.

- Adjusted Troll turning speed for better responsiveness and gameplay experience.

- Replaced some rocks in level 1.

- Added sound when picking up XP coins.

- Added hit damage labels above enemies when they are hit.

- Fog now stays for only 1 or 2 minutes before going away.

- Troll grunts when trying to use an attack that is on cooldown.

- Uppercut attack now throws enemies upwards.

- Hit combo counter added to the UI when hitting enemies consecutively.

FIXES

- Corrected localization typos in some languages.

- The skill to cure 10% of max health now works once the user selects it.

- After leveling up, there is now a short timer during which you can't select anything.

- Fixed archers shooting after they are dead.

- Adjusted story scroll speed.

Your Florin Beds now grow naturally — expanding over a few seconds as their halos bloom and resources awaken in sync. Worlds feel more alive, and your tiny ecosystems a bit more magical.

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• Beds now expand gradually (~3 seconds), with logic that matches their visual growth.

• Resources appear early but only begin to grow once the bed’s edge reaches them, creating a smooth, organic reveal.

• A soft, warm halo grows with each bed, fading gently once the bed is fully formed.

Tip: Watch your first few seconds after planting — the new bloom effect gives each Florin Bed a little moment of life.

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• Your Florin Bed placements and resource positions are now positioned to be saved and restored when reloading a world = when the save and load system is complete...

• Growth progress isn’t persisted yet — each load begins with a fresh flourish.

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• Fixed a freed-instance error in the Visual Manager when rebuilding halos.
  Everything now regenerates cleanly, keeping your Neeblarium stable and smooth.

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Florin Beds now bloom instead of pop, halos glow and fade, and worlds remember your arrangements between sessions. It’s a small but beautiful step toward a living, breathing terrarium. 💚

Hello there!

Long time no see, sure, but here come some bigger changes!

Changes:

• Added new map: Safe House.
  
• Added short Story Mode that links maps together.
  
• "Old" way of playing became Casual Mode.
  
• Removed generic briefing screen. Now each map has custom briefing shown only during Story Mode.
  
• Some various fixes I didn't bother to write down :P

What's next?
I plan to finalize the game, that is go out of Early Access, in the following weeks. There will be a bit more explanation regarding the story and the overall setting, as well as some tweaks to UI and general improvements. I need to update translations, the store page, screenshots, trailers, all this "stuff around", which taaaakeees tiiiimeeeee.

Wanna help?
Just play the game. And perhaps then give me some feedback, especially on the newest map. And maybe throw a link to the game to some friends. Totally not necessary. But I will kiss you on the forehead. Virtually, that is.

I go sleep, you go play.

Enjoy and stay tuned!

Watch Charlie Pryor plays “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of” update

It's pre-recorded videos of Charlie Pryor playing a “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of” update. Enjoy!