Starting today, I will be reposting 10 days of developer standup blogs that I write on my discord server. These will be delayed but highly detailed posts about what I have been working on for Idle Research 2. You will also see the progression of changes over time, so some things may come and go. Obviously, there still isn't a demo out... I missed the deadline for the Steam Idler Fest because of a failed Steam review and I decided to completely rework the entry feature. You will see the initial idea in Standup 10.0. Also I have been moving to a new apartment, so the past few weeks have been unproductive. Anyways, here are the first posts! The earlier ones are a bit rusty

Episode 1 - Posts I-X

1/18/25-1/29/25

Dev Standup 1.0: First

Dev Standup 2.0: Water Drains in Water Pipelines

Dev Standup 3.0: Building Out the Gameplay for Exploration

Dev Standup 4.0: Hardening + Save System

Dev Standup 5.0: Research UI + Gameplay Overhaul

Dev Standup 6.0: Research UI + Configs 2.0

Dev Standup 7.0: Research Theories UI Coloring + Rewards

Dev Standup 8.0: Settings

Dev Standup 8.1: Settings + Facts

Dev Standup 9.0: Settings, Information, Manual Saving, Toasts, Grid Zoom and Pan Mode

Dev Standup 10.0: Changing How Water Works

About Me

Are ya winning?

You wake up from a time-activated cryogenic pod in 2070 on planet Mu Ra Tempel after the devasting Earth-27 Mutually Assured Destruction incident.

Steam Page At The Bottom

You wake up from a time-activated cryogenic pod in 2070 on planet Mu Ra Tempel after the devasting Earth-27 Mutually Assured Destruction incident.

New Steam Page Coming Soon

Hey friends! Happy 4th of July to my American players, and happy Thursday to everyone else! I hope everyone is having a great week. As decided on my discord, I have decided to begin development on a new version of Idle Research. There's a lot of things that need to be remade from scratch, specifically project infrastructure and basic game features (Research, Crafting, etc.). I personally feel like the game needs a more thoughtful approach to what I wanted Idle Research to be. I would really love if people filled out this Google Form survey, so I have a good idea on my player base's wants and needs for the best idle/incremental game experience. Here is the link: https://forms.gle/jUQ2jT9vWhH9XBhWA I'll provide more details on what will happen to the current Idle Research, but to keep it short:

• Game will be playable and live, not replaced by Idle Research 2.
• Cylinders will not be a thing, but I may provide a UI playground area to paint a picture on what I had already worked on.
• Bugs will be maintained.
• Features may be slightly tweaked.
• Performance improvements.
• Purchases of any kind will be transferrable to the new game in some way.

Hi friends, I have finally removed the steam achievement for the Black Ice Flask. So now people should be able to 100% the game for now. This new update is still taking way longer than it should, and I again apologize for that. For those who don't know, I am a full-time computer science student who also is an intern at a software development company. On top of that, I've had a lot of personal/social obligations to focus on, and other side-projects unrelated to Idle Research. I'm doing my best to make progress, but it's just hard maintaining everything. Hopefully this achievement removal will help people! Thanks, Zach

Hello everyone! As you may have noticed, it is definitely past the February or March goal I was hoping for. Unfortunately, there is no update ready still. Those who go to university and work full time may understand. It is currently summer break, and I am currently a full-stack software developer intern (ASP.NET + Angular for anyone who is interested). I do have more time to work on the game, but I have become such a better programmer over the past few months. This has led me to begin a rewrite project. The rewrite will consist:

• Brand new polished UI
• UI Themes!
• Removing the current tutorial system, replacing it with a task/chapter system. If the storyline is ever made, it'll be combined with this.
• (Hopefully In the future) modding support
• Brand new menu and settings system.
• Ability to have more than one playfab cloud and local account per device
• Major performance boosts
• Etc.

Hello! I just wanted to provide the last major feature previews to provide more updates on where I am at in terms of the next major update THESE ARE JUST PREVIEWS, NOT AN ACTUAL UPDATE. THERE IS STILL NO ETA. I AM STILL FOCUSING ON COLLEGE AT THE MOMENT. My personal goal is end of February or March, and I will announce 1-2 weeks before. But who knows, take this with a grain of salt :) Anywho, here are some screenshot previews: Offline v2.0, from Research Tier 2:
Corruption (Flasks Only):

That'll be it, stay tuned for more information! Join the discord for more previews and announcements: https://discord.gg/9A9CjrSxeu. Thanks, Zach / CryptoGrounds

Hi friends! Just felt like I should provide some updates on my progress with the next major update. THESE ARE JUST PREVIEWS, NOT AN ACTUAL UPDATE. THERE IS NO ETA. I AM STILL FOCUSING ON COLLEGE AT THE MOMENT :) Also spoiler warning... Anywho, here are some screenshot previews: So this is Research Tier 2, if you didn't see the previous post. It will contain random stuff like unlocking ice, prestige v2, mastery v2, etc.
Tubes' Blue Energy will now boost Flasks' Green Energy.
Adventure is being reworked by a lot (which is taking up a lot of time). You can no longer manually deploy, your army is just based on your current Tubes. QoL! Skill Shards are also no longer RNG. More information in the future.
Flask Intruders in Tubes... more information in the future.
Simulations Rework
If there are special game breaking errors (most likely caused by crafting presets), you will now get error messages in the corner).
Ice Rework:
Ice Crafting (removing Ice Makers):
Ice Research:
Ice Mastery:
That's all I have at the moment. The update is taking forever due to me basically having to replay the entire game so I can properly balance the game pace, implement/replace/remove features, and make the game more fun! Cylinders will not be included in this update, would take way to long and I'd rather push out this content before even touching Cylinders. The goal is to have all achievements beatable with F2P and convince Steam to allow me to add more of them :^) I am deeply sorry these aren't posted quite frequently. I am pretty transparent on my progress via Discord: https://discord.gg/9A9CjrSxeu. I will do my best to keep you guys up to date and will announce an ETA whenever I get closer to finishing this colossal update. Thanks everyone, hope y'all understand, Zach / CryptoGrounds

Hi everyone! Classes for college starts tomorrow... I wanted to give you guys a quick heads up on what I will be working on during this semester (and potentially next semester). There are lots more than what's being shown, but it's just the general list. Can't give any promises on ETAs sadly. But due to my sanity/mental health, I plan on doing my best to balance school life, social life, and game dev life. Hope y'all understand and are excited for what's to come! Thanks everyone <3

Here is the roadmap:

Preview of Research Tier 2:

Thank you very much for your patience to those who were affected by the Offline Progress issue. Should be good to go now! :^) [ v0.21.7 ] [Added]

• (Accelerators) You can now hold on the little buttons on every accelerator.
• (Crafting) EXPERIMENTAL: Added a manual input for crafting presets. If you somehow add some weird string or something and it messes up the game, please get in contact with me!
• (Tutorial) During the tutorial, when you need to head to a certain location in navigation, the button will turn blue!
• (Research) Added the crafting cost in the description of current research.
• (Settings) Ability to toggle patch notes on game load.
• (Settings) When using Mixed Notation, you can now switch through a few numbers when you want it to switch to scientific.
• (Diamond Shop) If you feel generous and appreciate my work, you can now donate in the Diamond Shop. These do not change the game in any way, just donations. If you are in my Discord and want a donator role, reach out to me!
• (Misc.) Quick save and return to the main menu button on the navigation panel.
• (Misc.) When you unlock a feature and it involves the navigation panel, the button will turn red.

• (Achievements) The auto slot achievement has been changed to Buy 10 Crafters
• (Adventure) Deploy All bugs
• (Adventure) In stats, the Skill shards per kill was relabeled.
• (Crafting) Orange Flask base crafting time: 40 => 30 seconds.
• (Crafting) Yellow Flask base crafting time: 200 => 150 seconds.
• (Crafting) Yellow Flask base crafting cost: 25 => 20 Orange Flasks.
• (Tutorial) Redid the entire Flasks tutorial, made it more friendly and up to date with the recent changes :)
• (Tutorial) The tutorial is now a floating window that can be moved around and resized :^D
• (Research) Orange Flask base research time: 60 => 30 seconds.
• (Research) Orange Flask base research requirement: 50 => 100 Orange Flasks.
• (Misc.) Adventure and Diamond Shop buttons have been repositioned in the navigation panel.

• (OFFLINE) OFFLINE PROGRESS SHOULD WORK AS NORMALLY NOW. IF IT DOESN'T BE THE FIRST LOAD, IT SHOULD BE AFTERWARDS. REPORT TO THE DEV IF IT DOESNT STILL.
• (Achievements) The Auto Crafting slot achievement has been replaced by: Buy 10 Crafters.
• (Ice) Fixed a bug where the crafting slots dont reset on freeze mode/ice age upgrade doesnt working. I am aware others are having issues, but Im going to try to figure out
• (Ice) Fixed buy max ice makers
• (Mastery) Fixed some mastery bugs
• (Skilling) Fixed distribute all skill shards
• (Skilling) Fixed an ice upgrade that isnt supposed to hide skill tabs
• (Solitaire) Fixed an issue where doing practice mode can reset solitaire cooldown
• (Diamond Shop) Certain upgrades not unlocking
• (Misc.) Minor UI/Game bugs
• (Misc.) Letter Notation
• (Misc.) Fixed several buy maxes
• (Misc.) Fixed a bug where certain old saves couldnt be imported in settings

• (Accelerators) The toggle spend mode, useless
• (Ice) Auto Upgrade and Unlock Auto Deploy, useless

[ v0.21.6 ] [Added]

• (Crafting) Presets now have a custom preset input.
• (Solitaire) A setting to toggle Auto Win

• (Saving!) Save System has been reworked. Flasks, Tubes, and Shared data has been merged! No more importing/exporting/managing multiple files! This should eliminate a lot of the save-related bugs. With this save system change, current backups have been wiped. You are still allowed to import previous saves with the following tags: FLASKS>, TUBES>, SHARED>.
• (Saving) You now have a maximum of 50 backup files.
• (Menu) Menu has gotten a touch up since the save system was reworked, so it should be less confusing now!
• (Research) Orange Flask Research Time: 120 => 60 Seconds
• (Research) Yellow Flask Research Time: 600 => 300 Seconds
• (Research) Yellow Flask Requirement: 250 => 100 Orange Flasks
• (Research) Blue Flask Time: 7,200 => 20,000 Seconds
• (Research) Purple Flask Time: 1.00e7 => 1.00e8 Seconds
• (Diamond Shop) The upgrades have been moved to their own page
• (Diamond Shop) (subject to change!) The upgrades have been reworked to make it more fair for F2P and pay-to-speed-up players. Most upgrades have been grouped together, so you can buy one upgrade with multiple effects. Each upgrade group starts at 1 Diamond Item, the cost multiplier is 4x. Costs are no longer shared. Upgrades work exactly the same, just a bit easier to choose which upgrades to get. This also means the UI has been cleaned up :). Everyone's upgrades will be reset for the first time, just so you can respend your diamonds accordingly!
• (Crafting) Start of the rebalancing phase, for a smoother early game experience. Here are some base Flask cost changes: Yellow (15 => 25), Green (25 => 250), Blue (75 => 1.00e3).
• (Accelerators): (subject to change!) Energy boost accelerator unlock cost: 1.00e10 => 1.00e15
• (Prestige): (subject to change!) Base formula: log(energy / 1e10 + 1, 1.35) => log(energy / 1e15 + 1, 1.35)
• (Prestige): (subject to change!) Prestige Unlocks at 1.00e18 Energy

• (Accelerators) Item Accelerators generate items when you havent unlocked the accelerator.
• (Ice) Fixed a bug where ice makers went negative for some reason
• (Offline) Fixed offline progress

• (Crafting) Manual Crafting! Whenever you buy a crafting slot, it automatically starts crafting for you. You no longer need to buy Auto Crafters. This is to make the early game feel smoother.
• (Settings) Flask/Tube Resetting, due to the reworked save system.

[ v0.21.5 ] [Added]

• Offline: For Tubes Adventure, you now gain kills offline! This only gives kills for the stage you are currently on.
• Settings: A setting to toggle the offline progress screen.

• Crafting: Presets have a new look and were heavily simplified. You can now toggle individual presets, rather than presets as a whole. Getting rid of the three buttons on the side allows the preset screen to look less cluttered and confusing.
• Settings: For PC, the fullscreen setting has been changed. It should work properly and work across all scenes. For the first time, it might load into borderless or windowed.
• Saving: If you load into a local save, it will only save locally automatically. You can manually save to the cloud if you want. However, if you load into a cloud save, it will automatically save locally and to the cloud.

• Saving: Attempted to fix the Save System for when you close the game or shut off your device while playing. This does not fix when your device dies (not that I see a fix for it at all).
• Misc: Minor bugs

• Solitaire: Removed the +5 base reward, but you will still get +5 if you skip the game. Playing the game will start you at 0. I removed this because its too OP.
• Ice: Removed the ice upgrade for Auto Advance Zone in Adventure, too broken and not useful.

v0.21.4 [Added]

• Flasks Assembly: Added shortcut buttons in Juice.
• You can now hold on the Sample Processor buttons.
• Mastery: (QoL) since there is a large phase where you only have 1 mastery slot, assigning another mastery slot will disable the already enabled one (assuming you have no slots left).
• Potions: You can now see tube expenditures at the top.
• Settings: Added a setting where the game can run in 10 fps if its out of focus.
• Misc: Added Skill Shards to the Skilling navigation button
• SOLITAIRE: YOU CAN NOW DOUBLE CLICK THE CARDS IF YOU WANT THEM TO GO TO ONE OF THE 4 FOUNDATION PILES (if it can) (WOOOOOO!!!)
• +5 Diamonds for winning! Game will also automatically end if you win.
• Solitaire cooldown has been reduced to 23 hours, so users dont keep pushing it further and further into the night.
• AUTO WIN CONDITION HAS BEEN ADDED! No more needing to spam drag/click cards!
• You can now switch between the normal Idle Research solitaire cards and super basic easy to read ones!!
• Upon ending the game, there is a confirmation now

• Adventure: Auto Stage is a little more flexible for when you first start out/enter freeze mode.
• Settings: Mute Music has been relabeled to Music, to make it more straightforward.
• UI Scale Change is now saved based on the device.
• Tubes Simulations: Auto Purify no-longer saves, just so you dont miss out on nice gains.
• The concept of Simulation Length is gone! Simulations will run forever. No need to start them either, once they are unlocked, they are free to go! That means the Simulation Length upgrade was removed and that right panel has been cleaned up. Woo!
• Diamond Shop: The Special Upgrade and others are now hidden until you unlock the previously specified feature.
• The Time Bender IAP now ranges from 0.1x-5.0x (previously 0.5x-5.0x), if you enjoy the pain.
• Misc: Some buttons in the navigation panel have been indented.

v0.21.3 [Added]

• Settings: Army Veteran Gamer has been added to the social media section in settings, thank you for making a series on the game!
• Intro Animation toggle
• Letter Notation, all notations after log notation have been shifted plus one. Your settings may change if you use any of those notations.
• Diamond Shop: Time Bender IAP now multiplies offline progress as well.
• Ice: Added a button where you can queue freeze mode on the next prestige. This is so you dont have to disable auto prestige anymore!
• Guide: Added accelerator descriptions in the accelerator guide page.
• Crafting: In tubes layer, auto brewing potions now subtracts your crafting production display.
• Added a Set Current Crafting Layout as Preset Layout button.
• The Map: [Experimental] Added the ability to load a cloud save in the Map. If you want full control on what you want to choose, its best to go to the main menu.
• Menu: An export save button (for local saves only)
• Adventure: Zones now display their stage.
• Misc: Added a confirmation for going to Daily Solitaire.

• Extra stuff in the navigation panel has been moved to its own section, to reduce clutter.
• The accelerator icons have different colors
• (Mobile only) Ad button height is smaller: 50px => 35px
• Diamond Shop: Special upgrade now gives 2.0x per level, instead of 1.5x. However, the Energy boost will remain at 1.5x per Diamond Item added.
• Accelerators: Normal and Booster accelerators that have colors of flasks/tubes that havent been unlocked will be gray instead.
• Crafting: Base crafting time for red tubes has been reduced from 30 down to 10 seconds. What was I thinking?
• Fire: Auto Prestige upgrade cost 1e15 => 1e8
• Presets upgrade cost 1e5 => 1e3

• Minor UI bugs
• Settings: UI Scale slider updates the text, it also displays the correct number now
• (iOS only): Fixed the black bar setting from toggling off.
• Potions: Autos sometimes not buying
• Ice: Fixed an issue where any form of Fire gains upgrade would not boost Fire gains while in Freeze mode, if you have 0 Ice Items.
• Adventure: Fixed the issue where the enemy would not be killed if HP was exactly 0.
• Deploy All now goes off of the % Tubes to deploy.
• Saving: Fixed an issue where loading tubes while logged in on cloud will wipe the Flasks save sometimes.
• Fixed an issue where loading into tubes for the first time from the menu loads into a new flask save and overwrites your data.
• Crafting: Preset related bugs
• Potions: An exploit where you could get free potions.
• Offline: Sometimes, offline would not save properly. I added a backup offline thingy that should fix this.
• Fixed an offline exploit based on device

• Diamond Shop: Removed timer for New Player Bundle, some people would start with an empty timer.

[<== v0.21.2 ==>] [Changed] - Lab now displays Flasks' boost as energy boosts, because that's technically what it was. So now it makes more sense. - Daily Solitaire: I heard ya. Stockpile now deals one card, instead of three. This will make games a bit easier to win! - Alright, solitaire will now bring you back to main menu again. There has been some saving issues when it brings you directly to the game. No idea why. If this happens to you again, please get in touch immediately, and don't close your game so I can obtain player log files. In case it does happen and you are a windows user: Go to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\CryptoGrounds\Idle Research\ and send me Player.log and Player-prev.log if you have it. Otherwise, you can do it from the main menu if you scroll down to "Report Bugs" Thanks!

[<== v0.21.1 ==>] [Added] - Change All buttons in mastery - Process juice button on all sample processors (Flask Assembly). [Changed] - Mixed Scientific Notation, Scientific starts at 1e50 rather than 1e100 - Solitiare now sends you back to the game, instead of the menu [Fixed] - Minor UI Fixes - Fixed Ice Maker Steam Achievements (blue and up) - Fixed Crafting Presets being goofy - Fixed Steam iaps not buying - Fixed Playfab once again [Removed] - Locked Crafting Slots, just to clean the interface and eliminate a bug. Other minor undocumented changes (silly me) Side Note: Very sorry for the amount of bugs related to solitaire and saving lately. Hopefully those are gone for good. For the Daily Solitaire, I plan on adding one or two more easier games, so you get to choose. I also will make Daily Solitaire 1 card draw instead of 3, which should increase the chances of winning. Thank you everyone for playing. If you enjoyed, be sure to leave a review!

[<== v0.21.0.8 ==>] [Changed] - Minor UI Changes - Daily Solitaire reward now starts with a 5 Diamonds. This will allow you to skip playing solitaire and get the free Diamonds. - Daily Solitare and Diamond Shop now unlocks at 1e8. [Fixed] - Fixed the game being messed up for new people - And other undocumented bug fixes

[<== v0.21.0.6 ==>] [Added] - All accelerators now have a spend energy button on them. QoL - Added a crafting flask flashing setting - Added a fullscreen mode setting (experimental) - Current amount of fire flasks under the fire button - Prestige navigation text now displays the prestige gains when you are able to prestige. [Changed] - Auto research now defaults to on - Reduced Diamond Shop and daily solitaire unlock to 1e10 energy - The boost in daily solitaire no longer drains [Fixed] - Fixed tutorial related bugs - Fixed Playfab related bugs - Other UI bugs

Fixes more minor ui bugs Disables Steam Cloud to prevent data issues Fixes IAP related issues

- Fixed Playfab bugs - Fixed tutorial related bugs - Fixed other random things

Hi everyone! Release is around the corner. I am just as excited as you are all :) A lot of people are probably wondering if demos saves will transfer to the release version. Unfortunately, they will not (details on why later). However, you can use the save bank and pick a post where you want to start off if you'd like to. SAVE BANK! Additionally, the game will look for a demo save. If one exists, it'll ask you if you want to start fresh or import a save that has roughly ~e80 energy. This save will unlock a brand new feature that was not included in the demo! Up to you on what you want to do. I personally say you should start fresh to get a feel of all the new changes. Now the why: There are currently two layers of content: Flasks and Tubes. At the time of the demo release, these were being managed under the same save file. It was an absolute mess to say the least. Adding a third layer of content was going to be a massive amount of pain, so I knew things needed to be changed. Now, there are several save files! One for general data (such as achievements, settings, etc), flasks, and tubes. The nice thing here is that this will allow me to expand the game with ease and eventually add holiday events. I hope you all understand! Discord: https://discord.gg/9A9CjrSxeu See you all soon :) Zach / CryptoGrounds

The time has finally come! No more delays :) Mark your calendars, the game will be here on the first of August! See you soon, CryptoGrounds

Hello, Please watch the following video for an explanation on the delay. Thank you and I am truly sorry. CryptoGrounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oysa8hqIjM

Hey guys, I messed up the build name for the demo, causing saves to not transfer to the full release :( However, there is a way! It's not too bad, here are the steps: Make sure you have ran the full release version of Idle Research, for those who have access already (and those who will in the future :D) [olist]

Hello! I have some great news. One of my other games: CompactO, will be released on Steam and WebGL on August 1st! The game will cost $2.99 and a demo version will most likely be included. The game will also be released on iOS and Android! It will be released one month earlier, July 1st. Can't wait for you guys to play, mark your calendars! Cheers, CryptoGrounds Games LLC

Hello, Currently I am working on three different games: CryptoClickers, Idle Research, and CompactO. My plan is to finish CompactO, then finish the third/meta prestige for CryptoClickers, and then publish Idle Research. Refer to the graphic below:
CompactO will be released sometime around end of February to end of March, that's my goal at least. CryptoClickers should finally receive the major update and be out of early access phase by the end of June or July. Idle Research should be finished by November to December, hopefully! If you would like to stay up to date, join the discord! https://discord.gg/S9mtMTw I will be giving you guys the chance for CompactO to be wishlisted soon, so keep your eyes open for that. CompactO will be $0.99 Idle Research will be free (yum!) Until then, I will be hard at work creating some fun games that hopefully you guys will enjoy! Thank you, CryptoGrounds Games LLC