Gentoo Rescue is part of Steam NextFest! This comes with another round of many small improvements. Here's some of the more noticeable ones that appear in the demo: [olist]

The previous demo was intentionally long so that I could gather as much feedback as possible. This new version has a much more appropriate length of only 17 puzzles. The full game will have nearly 300. The demo covers: [olist]

I've gathered a lot of feedback on the previous demo, and the consensus is that it was still too difficult. I agree, and I've identified that this was not because of the mechanics or the puzzles themselves, but because the progression was too fast. Demo version 0.4 completely reworks the world puzzles and the overall organization of puzzles. The early experience is now much more representative of the full release. With 30 puzzles, there is more room for tutorial puzzles without sacrificing too much of the post-game bonus content. Don't worry! There are still difficult puzzles and teases of late-game mechanics that come without any on-boarding. It's just that they are now 100% optional. The full version of the game is coming along nicely, but I wanted to take this detour to update the demo. It's very important that I get as much feedback as possible, and now that the demo is a better representation of the full game, the feedback will be more valuable. Want to join the conversation? Join the discord! After discord, our twitter is the next-best place to get updates and follow development. Be on the look out for an announcement later this year!

The new demo features a journal system, which will track the discovered mechanics and interactions. Once unlocked, each journal entry reveals a description and video demonstration. Players can be confident about what they've learned, and they no longer need to worry about forgetting old mechanics. Additionally, the journal features a lightbulb "hint" button, which will show all journal entries that are needed for the current level. This will remove uncertainty about whether the current level needs a new discovery, or if it just uses old mechanics in a new way. The main hub levels "The Beginning" and "Vignette" were also tweaked to be a bit easier. "The Beginning" was particularly difficult for its place in the demo, and this difficulty was not very interesting, so it's been greatly simplified to make it easier for the player to reach new puzzles. It still features all of the same bonus content as the previous version, except the sub-puzzle "Siblings" has been removed. "Siblings" was not a great reward for the amount of secret discovery that the player needed to do to reach it. The demo also already has way too much secret and bonus content as it is. The change to "Vignette" was much smaller. We just removed one crucial step from it, which was done because "VIgnette" already introduces a lot of new mechanics - including the meta elements. We hope the journal system and simpler hub puzzles will round out the difficulty curve a bit. The on-boarding is still quite a bit rushed compared to the full game, but we believe the new demo is much closer than the old version. Please join our discord for feedback!

Demo has been updated! The new demo features metroidvania-esque elements, where backtracking is rewarded and different levels can influence one another. This demo contains 15 puzzles, and will take roughly:

• 30+ minutes to reach the end screen
• 100+ minutes to complete all puzzles
• 150+ minutes to obsessively complete literally everything (don't do this)