• Added a new render-buffer flush mechanic to the window manager which aims to tackle the render-buffer getting out-of-sync after minimizing the game on some Windows hardware configurations. Due to none of my testing hardware being affected by the issue, this solution is somewhat of a theoretical approach and not fully confirmed as effective, but community testing results look promising
  

• It now tracks whether you had encountered actions prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  
• It now tracks your game completion and longest life data prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  

• Fixed a bug that could cause combat stalling to proceed for explorations that were no longer available, if they were still in the queue due to being manually added
  
• Fixed a bug in chapter 5 where the prevent auto-refill setting could fail to trigger after automatically filling up on eggs, if the return to the children wasn't also automated
  

• Various hotfixes to tackle launch day issues with the QoL patch
  
• Fixed an issue in the new restart generation feature that caused story completion times to not properly reset, which could lead to incorrect displayed times (those prior to the restart). This effect was purely visual/informational, and had no impact on progression. This fix takes one or two restarts or reincarnations to correct itself in your save
  
• Fixed the top-right close button of the restart generation modal not working
  
• Fixed an issue that stopped the reverseSkillColors launch parameter from working
  

With this update I wanted to work through a significant amount of my feedback-backlog, primarily focusing on features that were too big to "pick up" during focused-developement cycles, such as content updates. It doesn't tackle the entirely of my list, but takes care of most things that don't have roadmap-benefits to hold off until more content is fleshed out.

Let's get straight to todays changes:

• Added an option to restart your current generation, at the cost of resetting progress obtained throughout that generation. This feature is aimed for the min-maxers among you, to allow you to correct mistakes (ex: when you misconfigured an automation) at the cost of taking a bit more time
  
• Added a new automation behavior setting for experienced players: "Override exhausted", allowing you to automatically (temporarily) adjust automation priorities for cooking jobs when you lose access to the related resource job. Aimed to minimize manual intervention of runs for the very min-maxing ones among you, as well as offer some extra optimization potential for others
  
• You can now bookmark automations, causing them to appear in a new bookmarks-tab (similar to chapter tabs). This allows you to create a quick-overview of automations you may frequently change, without having to adjust things throughout multiple tabs. This option appears after unlocking the chapter 3 automations tab (because it doesn't offer much value earlier, and could overwhelm new players)
  
• The top-bar time tooltip now displays maximum health gain for the next generation in real time
  
• The hourglass tooltip now displays related completions as well, rather than just being visible in the reincarnation screen
  
• The maximum health tooltip on the reincarnation screen now displays more detailed information as to what contributed to the multiplier (if above 1), and what you haven't completed yet. Aimed to be both informative, and a reminder when you forgot something earlier in the game
  
• Added an option to display instinct levels gained during the current generation to the skill tooltips (Settings > General > Tooltip instinct gain)
  
• Added an option to change what instinct-data is displayed on the reincarnation screen, with options: "Level", "Multiplier" (default/what it always has been), "Both" (Settings > Visual > Instinct display)
  
• You can now click the top-left "view last generation screen" button in the reincarnation screen, causing it to stay enabled until anything is clicked, rather than only when hovering the button. This allows you to view tooltips at their final states
  
• Added an option to change the volume of the sound notification (if you have that enabled)
  
• Added an option to display an additional pause button at the top of the queue, mainly for mouse-only players that were bothered by the button positions changing as the queue size changes. The big pause button remains visible for its "edge of your eye" UX purpose, this setting just adds an additional small persistent-location button if enabled
  
• Slightly reworked a chapter 8 job (catch seals) look-ahead safety feature so that it gradually introduces itself as you get faster between generations. This aims to make it less "interruptive" early on, while staying true to its design intention to prevent accidental deaths for unfortunate automation setups as you pass that part increasingly faster
  
• Fixed a visual bug that caused maximum health to include newly rewarded health too early when reloading the game while the reincarnation screen was shown
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented a chapter 5 job (eggs) from automating, if it was below the prevent auto-refill priority and another job had automation disabled. It's almost poetic how the eggs are what automation keeps breaking...
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause eating as a result of a damage job to surpass your maximum health, if said food healed more than your maximum health
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the auto-refill prevention setting to kick in when a manual action was visible but couldn't be started due to a missing requirement
  
• Added additional verification logic to the interface scale setting on launch, tackling an issue where it would incorrectly default to mid-scaling if the OS cache stored an incorrect scaling setting, or none at all
  
• Reworked the formula behind the screen scaling function, to reduce one pixel artifacts on various resolutions/scaling settings. One pixel lines with scaling can still slightly vary in when they become two pixel lines, but it should be far less frequent and limited to high screen resolutions
  
• Slightly adjusted the minimal screen sizes that are communicated to the OS, to better account for OS theme/window-manager additions such as top-bars at minimal size
  
• Added the --skipCloudSavePrompt launch parameter, for those that really don't want to enable Steam Cloud. I highly recommend against disabling Steam Cloud, but you can now stop the game from prompting you about it if you really want to
  

Let me start off by thanking you for all the feedback that followed the release of chapters 10 & 11! With different people taking vastly different approaches to the same content, it was somewhat of a challenge to define the rough edges. But nothing is as helpful as in-depth thought-sharing of your experience to determine what to improve upon! So lets get to the changes, I hope youll enjoy them!

[h2]Player feedback balance adjustments[/h2]

• Jobs that deal damage on completion (seals, magma, steel) now reduce your active food cooldowns by 10% of your maximum cooldown per completion as well. Providing an additional strategic element to tackle them through food variety. This aims to reduce a commonly reported frustration of "I get worse as I get faster" if properly utilized, without invalidating their place in the balance
  
• Chapter 8: Catch seal damage per completion was increased by 10%, to keep the initial pressure similar to how it was before, now that the cooldown reduction effect is added. It remains a clear buff for chapters 9+, but is initially fairly minor during chapter 8 (it's never a nerf either)
  
• Chapter 8: Catch seal now has additional safety logic, causing it to look a little ahead (one food cooldown) to prevent accidental automated deaths to the walrus fight. This should make it require less specific automation setups to comfortably pass at higher skill numbers
  
• Chapter 10: Mushroom school damage was increased by 12.5%, while required time/experience per completion was increased by 25%. Effectively making it 10% easier (damage per second), but in a way that benefits later stages of the chapter more than earlier stages
  
• Chapter 10: Added additional flavor text to the first dog exploration, to hint that you might want to explore that part even if you've already obtained the iron stick in chapter 3
  
• Chapter 11: Reduced the base difficulty of dodge by 20%, and the damage of trip by 12.5%. Aiming to soften the first phase for builds that are very low on agility (one of which is fairly commonly used)
  
• Chapter 11: The titanstone hut can no longer be finished after returning to the fight
  
• Added a new game plus perk that matches the fourth funnel
  

• The inventory total food value tooltip now also displays uncooked food (after unlocking cooking for the first time)
  
• Reworked how food cooldowns internally behave when eating within the dynamic tick-range of 1-100ms, slightly increasing millisecond accuracy behind the scenes and aiming to tackle a rare situation where combat safety calculation could false-positive due to hardware delays or offline progress
  
• Chapter 10: Food-trade resource automation no longer continues to run food-jobs until it has enough food of that type to trade, but instead only triggers this automation for the very last food-job if total food is insufficient to trade. This way it should no longer interfere with manual min-maxing, while automation still uses the internal functionality
  
• Chapter 10: Food-trade no longer uses partial food-value food types during trades when it doesn't have enough of those to complete, to prevent wastage through previously getting combined with 1:1 food value trades
  
• Explorations that deal damage on completion now consume an additional food to reach maximum health, if health decay after completion would otherwise become deadly within one food cooldown. This mostly affects rare situations with low maximum health
  
• Action tooltips now update instantly when their automation unlock requirement is reduced by completing another action, instead of being somewhat delayed until something else triggered a tooltip update
  
• Chapter 11: The fourth funnel effect now updates affected tooltips more consistently/faster on completion
  
• Added additional logic to tackle the chapter 11 health bar element not visually updating during some first completions
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause low-priority jobs not to trigger, when no manual actions were present in chapter 5. Causing the game to require manual interaction when it shouldn't
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause combat-stalling logic to overwrite empty-food automation, if the food job was on a lower priority than other stalling options
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause automated jobs with additional requirements to get stuck in a loop (visual freeze) that required manual intervention, if job automations were prioritized in specific orders
  
• Fixed some story elements firing their "done this before" story alteration on first completions, after an earlier update changed how that was tracked internally
  
• Fixed a bug that caused combat-decay increases on completion of explorations (funnels, ch11) to also apply to the very last tick prior to completion, causing them to deal a fractionally higher amount of damage than intended (usually 0.03~3ms of extra combat decay) and in very rare occasions caused the combat safeties to fail
  
• Similar to the bug-fix above, constructions now consume their in-tick time prior to triggering a completion as well. In this case the same bug was arguably (fractionally) working in your favor for huts
  
• Fixed a bug in the chapter-completion backup logic for chapters 6, 7 and 8 that caused it to backup too early, causing it to miss one completion in the data. Previously affected backups should also be detected and work again with this update
  

January 21

• Jobs that deal damage on completion no longer halt to prevent lethal damage before they are actually close to completion
  
• The new game plus passive jobs perk no longer progresses two specific jobs in the middle path of chapter 10, to prevent wasting valuable resources. But they no longer provide passive experience either
  
• Slightly expanded the rendering system to better detect when it missed something, and catch up next frame. This should tackle a rare chapter 11 visual bug where a number/bar wasn't visually updated after completing certain explorations if they finished at the exact same time as something else such as eating food
  
• Added a small number-precision safety check to a chapter 11 finale event
  

• Fixed the passive jobs NG+ perk cheating its way past two chapter 11 job requirements
  
• Fixed a chapter 10 person following you around after moving on without meeting that person (how rude)
  

• Fixed a cache bug that could cause the construction button to not listen for a specific chapter 11 construction
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltip-experience information to not visually update with certain chapter 11 explorations
  

Our journey continues with two new chapters! Featuring various new mechanics that will feel both familiar, and may just take you by surprise!

All new content has been balanced and tuned for a "first playthrough"
I'd advise playing it without New Game plus benefits for the intended first experience. If you have finished the game after the June 2022 QoL update, a save-backup of your completion should have been automatically created in: [installFolder/saves/backups/completion]. But I realize that a fair amount of you completed the previous chapters earlier than that, so this solution doesn't fully work until after this update. Alternatively, you can find a save at the end of chapter 9 here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/841043627705892902/1065641149936705556/chapter-nine-finished.txt . Obviously this is not advised if you haven't completed the game yet. Although I'd personally advise playing through the new content as intended the first time, the game doesn't force you to. If you prefer to use a New Game plus save or over-grinded save instead, I'm not stopping you either.

If you were playing new game plus and want to try the new content without perks, make sure to backup your new game plus save so you can continue after seeing the new content!

Other changes

• Jobs that deal damage on completion now include off-cooldown food in their combat-safety computation, to be more accurate at low maximum health values
  
• Food cooldowns in the inventory tab now display as rounded up, rather than rounded down. To tackle a common confusion when dying when it displayed 0.0s, when that could just mean "below 0.1s" internally. Internal cooldowns still work on the same millisecond precision, this change is purely visual
  
• Chapters 6-8 now record their chapter completion stats upon finishing their last exploration for the first time, rather than reaching the next chapter. To better account for pathing options
  
• New game plus perk tooltips now display the previous perk price, as well as the total dna allocated on said perk. To be more informative in helping you determine how you may reallocate dna between playthroughs, would you want to
  
• The game client now detects when the Steam client isn't running on launch, and requests the steam client to relaunch the game automatically
  
• The prevent auto-refill setting should no longer fire when no manual actions are shown. To prevent unexpected halts of automation in edge-cases
  
• Fixed a rare case where run-once jobs could run twice, if automation triggered in a specific way behind the scenes
  
• Fixed a display bug that could prevent the reincarnation screen from showing if death occurred during the hiding transition. This could occur to some self-assigned challenge-run players when combined with offline time
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the chapter 8 meta-progression mechanic to not have it's downside applied, if the chapter 6 meta-progression mechanic wasn't ever completed
  
• Fixed a minor rounding-error in the fifth new game plus perk, causing it to occasionally display a slightly better value than it would actually be (last digit)
  
• Fixed a minor display bug in the story timediff seconds notation that could cause it to format as 1Ks instead of 1,000s when between 999.5s and 1000s
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause opening and closing (cancel) the NG+ screen during a run to unpause the game
  
• Reworked exploration completion accuracy at high numbers, mainly to support new content. But it should also make speedrun levels of optimization a tad more accurate
  
• Removed an internal cap to offline progress that was still there by mistake, causing offline progress to be capped to 5% of the total playthrough time when it shouldn't be
  
• Reworked various internal calculation-functions to support new scaling factors, allowing for new and future meta-progression mechanics
  
• Reworked how the NG+ passive jobs perk affects the action queue, to be more easily maintainable for future job-types
  
• Expanded various internal data management aspects, further reducing creative constraints for future content
  
• The game will now notify you when it detects that an update was installed (after this one)
  

More information about the next steps of development below today's changes. But let's start with what's changed!
[h2]Today's changes[/h2]

• Reduced the default automation unlock requirement by 20% (500 > 400 for jobs, 10 > 8 for constructions/explorations). Actions with specific requirements have been tuned accordingly. New game plus scaling remains the same percentage, but the result is 20% lower by effect (subject to rounding)
  
• Added two options that allow for accumulations of offline time when a menu is open, or the reincarnation screen is shown. Similar to when the game is closed, this causes the game to fast-forward to catch up on time that would have progressed if it was running normally, up until a paused state is reached. Aiming to support less attentive playstyles, if desired
  
• Local saves are now also stored in [installFolder/saves], as a third save-loss prevention layer. For the very rare edge cases where Steam Cloud could fail, and a local disk-cleaner could remove the local file from the temp folder at the same time
  
• Added an auto-backup feature with a frequency setting, allowing you to configure when the game should automatically create a save backup to [installFolder/saves/backups]. The setting defaults to new completions of current content, but can be configured up to every reincarnation. Only works for milestones after downloading this update, because this data wasn't stored before
  
• Added a chapter completions tab to the generation history, to provide more in-depth information about how your playthrough compares (either to your own new game plus runs, or to flex to friends)
  
• Automations that have their requirements reduced by completing another action, now mention which action that is. If that action has been encountered at least once
  
• When automations are unlocked because their alternative was completed, even if it wasn't completed during the generation itself, it now explains that in the tooltip. To clarify a fairly common confusion
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the "prevent auto-refill" priority setting to prevent refilling during combat-stalling when something manual was available, resulting in unintended pauses
  
• Automated explorations that can fail and use "stop before completion" through the setting now re-apply that setting when they fail
  
• Chapter five tools now reduce the automation unlock requirement of their alternatives, since obtaining them all isn't really an option until well after automation is unlocked
  
• Three constructions in chapter seven now also appear when their requirement is missing (but can't be built). To make the effect of an earlier pathing choice harder to miss
  
• Those same three chapter seven constructions now reduce their automation unlock requirement when completing the required fourth construction. Similar to how some other optional things handle automation unlock requirements
  
• The first optional exploration in chapter two now also reduces its automation unlock requirement when moving on
  
• Lowered the automation unlock requirement of a chapter nine job
  
• An early chapter five exploration now also reduces its automation unlock requirement when moving on
  
• One chapter five exploration that requires a resource no longer halts filling-up automation with the setting, if the exploration itself as well as the resource are automated. To require less of a specific automation setup to proceed
  
• Fixed a bug that caused passive jobs to remove the active job when running out of the required resource, if they shared a resource requirement but weren't the same job. It now causes resource automation for the active action to trigger similar to when it's normally started
  
• Fixed a bug in the completion-damage exploration safety-check that caused it to not include decay increases, and potentially considering completion "safe" too soon. This affected one exploration in current content
  
• Fixed a bug that caused queuing the same action as run-once before a fill-up to remove the fill-up from the queue on activation
  
• Added a textual hint to the new game+ screen, indicating that right-clicking perks allows you to freely reallocate dna between playthroughs, to make that harder to miss
  
• Slightly adjusted the order of warning messages when actions can't be ran, to make them a little more accurate to what's most relevant when notifying you
  
• Added additional logic to the tooltip-rendering to ensure they're updated when available actions change, aiming to prevent tooltips of actions that are no longer available from remaining visible until moving the cursor
  
• Added another safety-check to the launch process to verify that the connection to Steam succeeded. Aiming to prevent save-loss when the Steam API failed to connect
  

• Added checkmarks to the automation tab for constructions and explorations that were completed in the current generation, for a slightly easier overview of what your current automations managed to complete
  
• Replaced the 25% health check from the safety combat logic with a more accurate alternative, for a few edge-cases where it could cause combat to be lethal when it didn't need to be
  
• Resource-jobs are now only triggered to fill-up (last in line within a priority), but no longer specifically trigger when empty (like food jobs still do), unless required by another action
  
• When a fail-damage exploration that won't be completable is triggered with safeties off, it now automatically triggers stalling with jobs when it would normally proceed to the next exploration
  
• In the save-selection screen that's shown when the local and cloud save are out of sync, new game+ DNA points are now shown as well, if unlocked on either save. For additional clarity on which save is more recent
  
• Fixed a rare fatal launch error for saves with particular action-settings queued. Saves that ran into this issue should work again! Apologies for the inconvenience
  
• Expanded the Steam Cloud processing logic on launch to tackle a very rare situation where the Steam client could fail to properly provide the Cloud save file to the game. The game now recognizes this, and exits after a warning for manual intervention. Aimed to tackle a rare situation that could result in data-loss
  
• Fixed a rare bug where passive jobs could cause automation not to properly reach the queue, if triggered at the exact same time as a passive completion
  
• Added a line of text to the launcher to help solving installation file integrity issues for the unlucky few that run into them
  

• Added an "automation behavior" section to the ingame settings tab (Menu (ESC) > Game settings) with three new options related to automation
  
• Added an automation option that causes empty jobs to be automated with "run once", if triggered when empty. Causing stocking up to happen after other actions of the same priority have completed, rather than before
  
• Added an automation option to trigger low priority explorations with "stop before completion", if their time left is above 1 second
  
• Added an automation option that allows you to prevent automatic refilling of the inventory when no automated explorations of a lower priority are available. Low priority used to do this, but this behavior now adjust to this configuration instead
  
• Food-resource automations now trigger as "run once" if triggered by a cooking action that was initiated as "run once" as well
  
• When jobs are automated to stall during combat, it now uses "run once" to get back to fighting as quickly as possible. This especially helps efficiency at lower maximum health values
  
• Stalling with automations now properly triggers when starting a damaging exploration, if it is unable to start the exploration right away. Instead of triggering the warning too quickly
  
• When queuing the same action as the last queued action, it now updates run options instead of skipping it (such as stop before completion)
  
• Slightly reworked how hiding of resources in the inventory is handled with specific explorations, aiming to tackle a display bug that could cause resources to remain visible in the inventory when they were actually lost
  
• Slightly reworked how queued actions are picked up as active action when moving forward in your queue, to tackle a few rare edge-cases that could cause actions to fail from starting
  
• Reworked when passive jobs are processed in the gameloop, to prevent very rare queue conflicts with automation
  
• Passive cooking jobs no longer trigger resource automation, to prevent some interruptions that could conflict with your queue
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the first generation of new game+ to not properly add maximum health, if new game+ was initiated from the reincarnation screen
  
• Fixed a bug in "stop before completion" that could cause the next queued action to be skipped upon stopping the active action
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the "replace on start" option to sometimes trigger for automations when it should only apply to manual actions
  
• Fixed a display bug that caused the reincarnation screen maximum health tooltip to not reset after new game plus, until the multiplier became above 1 again
  
• Fixed a situation where if the game paused directly after a high-speed job, the bar could remain visually active during that pause
  
• Corrected a small mathematical accuracy issue in the percentual timediff notation, for times slower than last run
  
• Added a bit of text to clarify that you lose access to a chapter two job with a certain exploration
  

• [Yesterday, hotfixed] Fixed two bugs that could cause older or empty saves to prevent launching the game after the NG+ update
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause new game plus perks to change after cancelation, shortly after initiating a new game plus
  
• Fixed data shown on the end screen not properly resetting with new game plus, causing it to show outdated values upon completing new game plus
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the automations modal to show as empty because it tried to open the last selected chapter after starting new game plus, when that chapter was no longer available
  

New game+ offers a way to replay the game after completing all currently available content, before more content is release-ready. It resets your game to the very beginning, with additional small perks that can be allocated with DNA points that are earned by completing the current content.

This feature is designed for those of you that are looking for a reason to play the game again, and might not be for everyone. But that should be OK, as it will remain entirely optional. It is only available after completion of currently available content, and merely offers another alternative to simply putting the game down after completion, or overgrinding current content. New content will at no point require new game+ progress, and will be designed and balanced without new game+ progression.

From a technical perspective it can be looked at a little like an optional prestige layer. But it's balanced much closer to a traditional new game+ mechanic, to stay true to the balance of content, with a little better chances. I personally always had a bit of a soft spot for games that offer a new game+ mechanic, and it was always planned for Increlution. Releasing it as experimental at this time is just sooner than originally planned!

[h3]So why experimental?[/h3]
This feature is designed to adapt to new content fairly naturally, and the DNA reward per playthrough is dependent on how much content is currently in the game. However, new content might change the balance in ways that may require new game+ rebalancing too.

To experience new content as it is intended, it is advised to backup your save before trying new game+. That way you can experience it as intended, and swap back to your new game+ save afterwards. Using new game+ progression for new content will be supported too though, it's merely what I'd advise, but you do you!

[h3]Does experimental mean I need to switch a branch in Steam?[/h3]
No. It's available in the main branch right now, just make sure to grab the update! You can access it by reaching the completion message at the end of current content. It's branded "experimental" because it's more subjected to potential changes than most content, and therefore comes with the appropriate warnings to clarify its current state.

[h3]So why release it now?[/h3]
New game+ was always planned, but much later during Early Access. From a roadmap perspective it's a little silly to release it so soon, but inspiration got the better of me! Especially because I felt able to design it in a way that adapts relatively well as content expands, and I liked it quite a bit when I tested it. So I figured I might as well release it already, for those of you that are into this sort of mechanic!

If anything, it should allow for some additional replay value when new content requires a fair amount of time to craft and balance.

[h3]Will new game+ be expanded further?[/h3]
Yes, but not soon. "Penalties" are still planned to combine and create custom challenges for additional difficulty and rewards per playthrough. This part however would create a design constraint on the creative freedom of future content. So for that reason, this won't be added until later.

That said, perks will likely be expanded a little too, as new content introduces new mechanics that might fit into new game+ perks too. And other mechanics might happen too. But a fair amount will be limited to "not forming a constraint on new content creation" until the story is finished entirely.

[h3]Other changes in this update:[/h3]

• Reworked how the rendering tasks handle CPU usage, lowering overall CPU usage by approximately 20~40%
  
• Explorations with "stop before completion" enabled no longer trigger automations to survive completion for damage on completion explorations, since they won't complete
  
• Some optional chapter three, four and five explorations now reduce their automation unlock requirement based on an alternative exploration, where they previously didn't
  
• Lowered the automation unlock requirement of a chapter two resource job
  
• Some chapter five explorations now also have the story choice icon in the automations tab where they previously didn't
  
• Slightly reworked how the hiding of tooltips is handled when jobs, constructions and explorations disappear and their tooltip is visible. Aiming to tackle a situation where tooltips could temporarily persist when the action disappeared
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause values in job tooltips to not directly update when completing a specific chapter eight exploration
  
• Fixed a bug that caused reincarnation screen automation unlocks to reset to the default after already being configured, if closing the game when the reincarnation screen was open
  
• Fixed a bug that caused "off" automation jobs to not be properly considered a manual job for the combat safety auto-stalling logic, causing resource automations to trigger too soon in specific situations
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause you to survive fail-damage explorations when you shouldn't, if any food was off-cooldown
  

• Fixed a missing percentage character in the percentual time-diff option, if the time was slower than the last
  
• Slightly changed the border-color on dark-mode blocks to be a slightly darker shade of white, to make it a little bit softer on the eyes
  
• Fixed the reverseSkillColors launch parameter not working with dark mode
  

Let me start off by thanking you for the incredible reception of the chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 content update! Far more of you returned to the game than I ever dared to expect, and the game even peaked into the top 250 games with most concurrent players on Steam.

As a result of that, I've been having a bit of trouble to keep up with all the feedback and suggestions coming in. I appreciate all the feedback immensely. Whether I use it for updates directly, or take it into the thought process to find other solutions to issues that you address. I truly believe that without all your feedback the potential of the game would be far smaller than Early Access allows it to be now!

Normally I aim to respond to as much feedback as I can, but with how much feedback has been supplied by all of you, it's been a bit of a challenge to keep up. So my apologies if it's taken me a while to respond. But ultimately working feedback into updates is the best way to show that your feedback certainly is valuable to me, even when I fail to answer all of it in the level of detail that I'd prefer. So for this update, I decided to focus on implementing as much as I could instead. It's far from all feedback that I have listed, but don't worry, Early Access has only just begun!

Here are today's changes:

• Added automation loadouts! Three slots to easily swap between automation setups, and the ability to export/import them to your clipboard
  
• Added a new settings tab with various new options based on player suggestions, and it offers further expansion
  
• Added a dark-mode option
  
• Added default automation priority options
  
• Added an audio-alert option, in addition to the window flash option. Both are individually optional and can either be combined or used separately (or not at all)
  
• Added an UI-scale option, to adjust the resolution auto-scaling, for people that like text to be bigger or smaller than the default
  
• Slightly buffed the chapter 8 meta progression mechanic, from 1%/1% to 1.25%/1%, to keep it as spoiler-free as I can. This also affects how that particular food source at chapter eight scales
  
• New meta unlock progression is now also displayed in the related skill tooltip
  
• The new skill now also displays the amount of artifacts found, aiming to make it a little clearer how to improve the new multiplier
  
• You can now right-click explorations to have them stop right before completion
  
• You can now right-click the clear queue button to retain the currently active action
  
• Added icons for story choices, health decay, inventory size, maximum health gain and unique rewards to the automations tab. Aiming to make it a little easier to find the ones that stand out
  
• The reincarnation screen health icon tooltip now displays your total maximum health gain multiplier, if above one
  
• Added a few time-display options for the story block
  
• Reworked how UI buttons communicate to the game engine, which should remove a slowdown in their responsiveness when the game is open for extended periods of time (mostly reported for the automations tab button)
  
• Slightly reworked a precision check for progress-per-tick, increasing accuracy per millisecond from roughly 99.71% to 99.98% at low multipliers. This should reduce the occurrences of odd time differences between runs
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented food from being eaten before the food cooldown elapsed at least once. This could stall the first eat action after completing a chapter three construction, when it shouldn't
  

• Improved the accuracy of combat-safeties. They now include food cooldowns into the computation when it's a close call. Tackling the frustration of being forced to stop when you were sure you could make it
  
• Combat safety no longer checks for 25% health, as it no longer has a benefit for the formula and could potentially lead to false-positives with low maximum health (Temporarily disabled with a hotfix as it introduced an unintended side-effect)
  
• Experience earned now shows decimals in the reincarnation screen tooltip and generation history, if relevant
  
• Slightly changed how the renderer picks up completions of the chapter eight meta-unlock, aiming to tackle displayed values occasionally being out-of-sync
  
• Fixed a bug that caused a late game exploration to remove food resources, when it should only remove construction resources
  
• Corrected some minor textual issues
  

• Slightly reworked the cap jobs to construction functionality. It now only caps after a completion, so it no longer entirely prevents manual completions in between. This also tackles an extremely rare fatal error
  
• The safety stops for fail-damage explorations now consider off-cooldown food. Making them more accurate if damage is close to your maximum health
  

• Fixed a bug that could cause low-priority jobs to not always trigger when force-fight was enabled, requiring some manual intervention that it should prevent
  
• Fixed a bug in the warning notifications of damaging explorations, that caused them to assume that when the exploration couldn't run it had to be because of damage, when another requirement could be the reason
  

• The food recovery indicator at the top-right of the inventory now states the total value of your food in the tooltip as well
  
• Fixed one tooltip telling you too late that you'd lose access to a chapter 6 job. It now tells you at the right exploration
  
• Added a --reverseSkillColors Steam launch parameter. Making generation levels blue (the top bar) and instinct levels yellow (the bottom bar). I don't think I need to explain why
  

Over three months in the making and finally ready to be played! The new chapters are designed to expand the content in a way where run-based decisions have a bigger impact on progression, throughout these new chapters.
Featuring one new skill, used exclusively for a new mechanic that introduces some new rewards that persist between runs.

Thank you for your patience during the long wait, I hope the time it took makes sense when you see all the new content! The branching I wanted to introduce really benefited from releasing multiple chapters at once, as they come with a new form of pathing. I won't spoil too much, it'll make sense soon enough as it gradually unfolds by playing!

Other changes:

• The combat-stop notification that tells you there's something less lethal you can do, now gives an example of something you can do. To prevent confusion with small oversights
  
• The maximum recovery value per second of your current food supply is now displayed in the inventory
  
• You can now right-click jobs to run them once. For those that wanted picture-perfect manual finetuning
  
• You can now shift+click explorations to bypass combat safety checks for the most part. It still automates to stall, but won't stop for manual jobs or constructions. Allowing you to end runs faster and skip the repetitive loop that bothered some players in some stages of the game
  
• The reincarnation screen now also displays skills that didn't improve their instinct in the current generation
  
• The inventory is now visually ordered by [food > food resource > construction resource], rather than just [food > resource]
  
• Times between 10 and 1 seconds now also display milliseconds, to be slightly more detailed about speed improvements at lower numbers
  
• Automation unlock progression in the menu tab is now shown after encountering an action once, rather than completing it once. Takes one run to populate data. The reincarnation screen still only shows progression after one completion
  
• The automations menu tab now includes information about damage effects such as combat for explorations, to provide a little clearer information in preparation of runs
  
• The manual paused state is now stored in your save, so exporting a save or closing the game will retain that state
  
• Added the total experience earned per skill to the reincarnation screen tooltips and generation history tab
  
• Added an icon to the reincarnation screen that allows you to see the main screen when hovered, to see the exact point where your run ended
  
• When automations trigger to stall combat, low priority jobs are now also triggered if nothing else can
  
• Health decay now properly updates its number when switching explorations if the game is manually paused
  
• Reduced the automation requirement for dig copper from 250 to 200 completions
  
• Skill levels now display their full number above 1000, instead of being formatted the usual way. They now use comma separation for readability
  
• Skill multipliers below one now display an additional decimal, mostly for something that would be a spoiler
  
• The reincarnation skill improvements now properly size if no instinct levels went up (only really happened with over-grinding after game completion)
  
• Reworded/expanded some tooltips to help with common confusions
  
• Skills now display slightly more consistent early game, if unlocked once but not leveled up yet
  
• The cap jobs to construction option is now enabled by default for new saves
  
• Reworked how the inventory and queue scrollbars are introduced, to keep positioning of content a little more consistent
  
• Fixed a rare bug where capping jobs to construction requirements could conflict with combat stops
  
• Fixed a rare bug where a skill would appear below the reincarnation screen time-spent-bar in specific number rounding situations
  
• Fixed a rare bug where job progress could reset if switching queued items caused the construction cap to be below current progress
  
• Fixed a minor bug that could queue an action twice in a row if only one action was queued
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the fatal error screen to not properly include your save-code
  
• Fixed a bug in the combat safeties that could cause them not to stop for less-dangerous explorations in specific situations
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause numbers in tooltips not to be properly formatted when hovering queued actions
  
• Reworked some internal handling of content-data. Initially useful for me during content creation, but it's also a step towards hopefully supporting custom-story mods somewhere down the line
  
• Constructions now properly disappear from the queue when completed, if another action was instantly auto-queued
  
• Constructions that were still in the queue after completion no longer auto-queue their resource jobs
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the "save & exit" button not to exit when Steam Cloud was disabled
  

• The action container menus (left column) now have their own scrollbar when content doesn't fit your screen size, rather than requiring the entire window to scroll
  
• Added a health per second indication to the inventory food tooltips
  
• Chapter four constructions now hide when leaving chapter four, if they can't be completed anymore
  
• The game finished message now also triggers the window flash, if enabled
  
• Fixed a rare bug where automation for required resources would not trigger if a construction was started when said resources were already empty, but it could continue construction for a short time
  
• Fixed food cooldowns displaying an incorrect value until unpausing when launching the game in a paused state
  

• "Cap jobs to construction requirement" now only applies if the next-queued action doesn't require another resource that the same job provides. Fixing a "looping queue" bug
  
• Fixed a bug in the "cap jobs to construction requirement" that could make it cap to a queued construction that was already completed
  
• Changed the taskbar flash behavior on MacOS to be more noticeable, because the single jump was too subtle compared to other platforms
  

• Added an option to cap jobs to the required resources of the first queued construction. To prevent "waste". Automated jobs now use this logic by default
  
• Added on option to flash the game window/taskbar on pause (when your queue finishes and the game is not in the foreground)
  
• Fixed a bug that caused explorations that deal damage on failure to finish when they shouldn't if your maximum health was close to or below their damage and any food was off cooldown
  
• Constructions now have a second icon in the queue, similar to jobs and explorations. Mostly because that made more sense with chapter five content
  
• Adjusted the internal values of explorations that require a skill multiplier to complete, so that rounded values that are internally slightly lower now also successfully complete them
  
• Fixed a fairly rare rendering issue that could cause some screen flickering after minimizing the game
  

• Reworked the automated combat stops to trigger less frequently, but still prevent death. To reduce queue micromanagement at specific situations
  
• Combat now only stops below 25% health if your health/health decay is actually at a risky combination
  
• "Damage on completion" explorations now only cancel when they are within a 0.1 second range to actually causing damage, instead of at any time
  
• Redesigned the visual display of "turbo mode" jobs progression bars. They no longer continue to appear "active" to prevent a common confusion, and now switch at 20 completions per second, down from 50
  
• Negative health decay effects are now also shown in the story completion log. To make it a little more obvious what happened if you didn't read the tooltip earlier
  
• Fixed a rare bug where combat wouldn't be allowed to continue due a false-positive in constructions being able to continue
  
• Fixed a bug that could allow some constructions to be finished when they shouldn't be able to
  
• Fixed a chapter five bug that caused a vendor to appear when it shouldn't
  
• Corrected various textual issues. Thanks a lot to many of you that pointed them out!
  

After three months of beta testing, and over eight months of development, I'm happy to announce that Increlution is now available as Early Access!

If you haven't played the demo yet, please give that a try first. It features the first 7 hours of the game and your save automatically synchronizes to Early Access, so there is absolutely no need to spend a dime until you're convinced that the game will be worth it to you!

If you've played the beta, it includes a new chapter and raises the total unpaused playtime to roughly 90 hours! If you have only played the demo yet, you have only seen 7% of what Early Access already has to offer!

I hope you'll enjoy Increlution in Early Access! If you feel like sharing your thoughts or suggestions, those are always appreciated on Discord and the Steam community forum. And to all of you that participated in the beta, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I couldn't have hoped for a group of participants as helpful and kind as you have proved to be! The level of quality that has been reached during the Beta wouldn't have been possible without you!

I'm excited to welcome new players into Increlution with Early Access. After eight months of development, it's ready for the next step! But it's one in many to come, as Early Access will be expanded significantly!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593350/Increlution/

I know, it is a little later than the planned release in Q3. While I'm not happy about that, the Beta period received a significant amount of updates that were not originally planned. I'm confident that it improved the game enough to make it worth the extra time, but am sorry to ask for a little more patience from you.

[h3]How much content will Early Access launch with?[/h3]
Early Access will launch with the first five chapters, containing well over 70 hours of unpaused gameplay. In the grand scope of things, it'll just be the beginning, as Early Access is aimed to expand to roughly 700 hours of content before marking the game complete. Of course, as you should expect, joining Early Access means all future content will be included for free.

[h3]What does this mean for the Beta?[/h3]
The beta will close on October 12th. Beta sign-ups close today, but a few more invites will go out. Way more of you signed up than I dared to expect, and Beta testers have been incredible to me. Your feedback has helped the game reach a level of quality I wouldn't otherwise have been able to reach before Early Access. I can't wait to show the game to a lot more players with Early Access!

The Beta does not automatically provide a key to the Early Access version. However, your save does automatically carry over to Early Access through Steam Cloud. So you do not need to start from the beginning (although you can, if you'd want to).

[h3]What will the game cost when entering Early Access?[/h3]
Increlution will feature a one-time purchase of $3 (or any currency equivalent). No optional in-app purchases or DLC. The balance is too carefully tuned to really fit any other model, and it just feels like the right approach on Steam. Of course, the demo will remain available to try the first chapter for free.

A lot of beta testers have indicated that the price point might be on the low side for the content that is already present in the game. I greatly appreciate this feedback as it's extremely helpful in determining what to expect when more players are able to play the game. However, I do feel more comfortable sticking to my original plan as it keeps the threshold to join Early Access low for many players. The price may increase throughout Early Access as more content is released, so you can consider the initial price an early adopter price. By joining Early Access, you are directly supporting me in bringing Increlution to the potential I strive for. And I'd like to reflect my gratitude for that by keeping Early Access easy to join!


I hope to see you in Early Access! I've been very happy with how the Beta period has been, but can't wait to show all of you what Increlution has to offer!

[h3]Why closed beta instead of starting Early Access?[/h3]
Development has reached a state where I feel there's still too little content to feel comfortable releasing it as Early Access. At the same time it has also reached a state where the content will benefit from player feedback. For this reason, it made sense to move into Beta. The Beta initially features the first three chapters (roughly 6.5 times as much content as the Demo), but will be extended throughout the Beta period.

[h3]How long will the game be in closed Beta?[/h3]
At least four weeks. The exact length of the Beta will be subject to how much balance adjustments and other changes will be made. The Beta will remain available until at least two weeks after the last invite wave has been sent out. I'll announce the Beta end date once that feels more predictable, most likely combined with the Early Access release date announcement.

[h3]Does joining the Beta provide a free key for Early Access?[/h3]
No. The Closed Beta is provided through the Steam Playtest feature, which provides (free) limited time access to Beta content. Access will close once the Beta ends. Your save will, similar to the Demo, carry over to the Early Access version.

[h3]Are you the kind of player that should sign up for the Beta?[/h3]
I'm looking for enthusiastic players that finished the demo and are looking forward to play more content, but are OK with that content being less than Early Access will contain. The Beta comes with no requirements. It is a tool to gather community feedback, but if you're not the kind of player that gives a ton of feedback, that's ok. Simple things like how much the Beta is played on average (behind the scenes information) already provides me with valuable information! Being a part of the Beta also comes with no "secrecy", you are absolutely allowed to share your experience with others. However, please be courteous and warn others for spoilers as they might not have access yet.

[h3]So how to sign up?[/h3]
Head over to the Steam page right away and click "Request Access" for the closed beta at the top of the page (right below the demo download button). Invites go out randomly, but the earlier you sign up, the more drafts you're in! The exact amount of players receiving access will depend a little on how many players have signed up, but I'm hoping to invite quite a lot of you, so that everyone has a good chance of getting into the Beta. Not going open beta allows me to do a few "first impression rounds" when balance adjustments are made.

So if you're interested in joining the Closed Beta, don't hesitate and sign up right away! I'd be glad to have you! Here's a link to the Steam page where you can sign up:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593350/Increlution/

Cheers,

Gniller

Steam Next Fest features hundreds of demos between June 16th and June 22nd, and I'm happy to announce that the Increlution Demo is one of those demos!

[h2]For those of you that haven't played the demo yet[/h2]
The demo features the first chapter of Increlution and takes most players between 7 and 8 hours to complete. I understand that that might be a lot and you probably want to try a ton of other demos during the festival, so I'm glad to be able to inform you that the demo will remain available after the festival ends! Make sure to download it and give it a try, but feel free to finish it whenever suits your schedule!

[h2]For those of you that already completed the demo[/h2]
The demo featured during the Steam Next Fest is the same demo that has been available since May, including some changes made based on the feedback that some of you have provided. The demo does not include additional content just yet. I'm hard at work at getting that ready for Early Access (with possibly a closed Beta prior to that), but that's going to require some more time. You are free to replay the demo if you want to, of course, but now you know what you can expect!


You can download the demo at the Increlution Steam page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593350/Increlution/

And make sure to check out the Steam Next Fest for all the other demos! There's a lot of demos representing all sorts of genres, all available for free. I love the concept of the festival, and feel honored to be a part of it with Increlution! You can find much more information about the Steam Next Fest here: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest

The free pre-release demo has just released! Play the first nine hours of gameplay right now.

This demo features the first chapter of the game, before the game is ready to release into Early Access. The demo has no limitations other that it can be completed faster than the Early Access version will be!

After working on this for months, I'm very exited to show the first chapter with you this way. And I'd love to hear if you like it!

You can download the free demo on the Steam store page!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593350/Increlution/
Enjoy!