Increlution (tuxdb.com)

June's quality of life and player feedback update

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 ([spoiler]catch seals[/spoiler]) 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 ([spoiler]eggs[/spoiler]) from automating, if it was below the prevent auto-refill priority and another job had automation disabled. [spoiler]It's almost poetic how the eggs are what automation keeps breaking...[/spoiler]
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

Some of these changes also form a preperation for future-features I'd like to add, such as the automation-override options internally being expandable to things like chapter 11 style content. However, it made more sense to flesh out more content before further polishing mechanics like that, as they could otherwise form creative constraints during content expansion. The same thing goes for Steam Achievements. I'm well aware that this is a highly requested feature, and one that I most certainly aim to add. But to determine a proper long-term value for Achievements, it feels more appropriate to hold off from defining them until the story is fleshed out further (possibly even completed).

So, what's next?

With this done and live, I'll monitor bug-reports for a bit while starting the draft for new content. I've tested this update to a degree similar to most updates, so I don't expect many issues, if any at all. But I want to be well prepared to delve fully into content development again! Which will be the main focus for the next major update. I don't want to make too many specific promises as far as new content goes just yet, it's all far too subjected to change for that. But for those of you that want to stay posted as development progresses, I'll be moving back to the development diary during that development process! Thanks for all the great feedback that largely inspired this update! Early Access is still pretty far from completed, but I feel that player feedback has already helped various aspects of the game reach a level of polish it wouldn't ever have without player participation!

[ 2023-06-07 13:46:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Increlution
Gniller

Developer

Gniller

Publisher

Q3 2021

Release

Singleplayer EA

Managing time

Throughout life, you'll have access to various jobs, constructions and explorations. Using the step-by-step queue system, you can plan exactly what you want to happen and the game will automatically follow your orders. When your queue is empty, the game pauses automatically, so you don't lose any of your precious time! This is a game about planning and strategizing, not a game about micro-management or clicking. However, if you prefer to play more real-time, you can prioritize anything over your queue at any time.

Skills

Every action uses one of many skills, such as Farming of Woodcutting. Every skill has two leveling types, Generation levels and Instinct levels. Generation levels increase more rapidly and provide a bigger benefit throughout life. Instinct levels increase at a slower pace, but persist through death, creating a permanent improvement for every following life. The combined effect of these levels directly affects how quickly you can perform actions that use these skills, allowing you to spend more of your time on other actions to increase your chances to survive!

Story based progression

You progress through the game with a story. Exploring the world allows you to discover new tools to improve your chances at survival. Unlike most idle games, having a story also means the game includes no procedural content, and you're actually able to complete the game. When the game is released into early access, the story will contain between two and three weeks of content, depending on how well you are doing. Throughout early access this story will be expanded significantly, until at least two months worth of content. When the story feels properly finished, a new game plus will likely be added to offer an option to continue playing after completing the game.

Meta progression

Every generation will have better chances at survival than the last. The longer you survive, the more those chances will increase! This cycle of life and death plays a fundamental part in the overall progression through the game. Death is inevitable, but never pointless!

Featuring a free demo

Like many things in life, you can only truly judge whether something fits your liking by trying it first hand. For that reason, Increlution will feature a free demo so you don't need to take anyone's word for it! Try it yourself, and only get the full version if you're completely convinced that it'll be worth your while! The free pre-release demo is estimated to release in the second half of May 2021 and will contain roughly nine hours of content. After the game reaches Early Access, the demo will probably be adjusted to roughly two hours of content.

When will the game be available?

Increlution will release as Early Access during the third quarter of 2021. The Early Access version is currently targeted to be between two and three weeks of content, after which I intend to expand the game to at least two months of content. As a solo developer, community involvement has been incredibly useful to the overall quality of my previous game and calling a game finished before improving it to player feedback would be a missed chance!

Interested? You can wishlist the game and Steam will notify you when the demo is released, or Increlution reaches early access!

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04. Fedora 21. Debian 8 (or later) (64 bit)
Processor: An Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that's SSE2 capableMemory: 512 MB RAMStorage: 250 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: If your device is able to run a modern browser (Chrome. Safari. Firefox and the like). it should be good to run Increlution
Memory: 512 MB RAMStorage: 250 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: If your device is able to run a modern browser (Chrome. Safari. Firefox and the like). it should be good to run Increlution
Storage: 250 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: If your device is able to run a modern browser (Chrome. Safari. Firefox and the like). it should be good to run Increlution

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