After receiving some great feedback and bug reports I was able to track down and fix several pesky issues. 0.10a is a minor patch release to address some of these bugs and add a couple of smaller features. Check out the release notes below for a full break down of changes and fixes.

Release Notes

Updates

• Added global inventory display at top left
• Global Inventory button now toggles display of on screen inventory display
• Added Disable refuel button to power generator interface
• Added Show Info Panel button to colonist management screen
• Reduced negative decor effect of Wall Debris
• Additional resolutions for different aspect ratios now in settings
• Added sound effect for placing objects

Fixes

• Fixed incorrect gender icon for robots in colonist management screen
• Fixed a pathfinding issue that would randomly cause colonists to get stuck/run in place when generating a new path
• Fixed issue with light material color reverting to white when loading a save game or light source loses/regains power
• Fixed issue with miner becoming stuck if mining a tile on the edge of the map
• Resources dropped when mining should now appear on the floor of the tile that was mined instead of next to it
• Fixed issue with starting tutorial text not showing correctly on some resolutions
• Migrated hard coded text to language xml file

I’m very happy to say that the alpha 0.10 update is now available and it’s the first update on Steam! This update has a bunch of new content as well as several tweaks and bug fixes. A huge thanks to everyone who has provided feedback.

Decor

The colonists at the Mercury Facility now have a desire for beauty. Keep your colonists calm by providing decorations that will reduce the negative decor of the natural or industrial environment.  Utilizing the latest in decor overlay technology, manage the beauty of your facility and help keep colonists calm, and most importantly, productive.

Should colonists get completely stressed out they will no longer be a productive member of the team. Benches and chairs are a great way to offer some relaxation so those stressed out colonists can get back to work.

Crops

Your colonists have discovered an alien weed that they’ve aptly named Lumen Bulbus. A soft fibrous material is contained within the hard glowing outer shell that can be used to make cloth.

Tech Tree

The tech tree has been re-organized and a couple of new tech branches have been added. Recreation and some decorative objects now require data recovery before they can be constructed.

Controls

Edge scrolling has been added and can be toggled under settings. Selection lock will now unlock if you pan the camera, via keyboard or mouse, instead of having to close the objects info window. Selection lock can also be toggled off entirely under settings.

There are a lot of various updates, tweaks and fixes. Be sure to check out the full release notes below.

Release Notes

Features

• Various objects in the game now positively or negatively effect the facility decor
• New data visibility options at bottom right to toggle between power, water and decor data view modes. Decor view shows a graphic overlay indicating positive decor in green and negative decor in red.
• Colonists stress will increase or decrease as they walk into areas of negative/positive decor.
• New Lumen Bulbus crop which can be used at the bio-refiner to make cloth
• New bench and chair decorations which colonists will use to sit and relax. Amount of stress reduction while sitting down is effected by area decor.
• Re-organized some data recovery projects and some objects now require new data recovery projects before they are available.
• Can now pan camera by moving cursor to the edge of the screen.

Changes

• Updated plant graphic rotation in crop fields so that crops look a bit more varied and natural
• Updated visual appearance of Hemp crop
• Some objects now require cloth as a building material
• Colonists will no longer perform work if stress is at max
• Required Job Role for craft recipe now shown in craft stations.
• Bio-Refiner recipes now require botanist job role instead of engineer
• Colonists will now craft items at crafting stations using a round robin method.
• Selecting objects will still move the camera to target and follow the selection, but can be cancelled by using the keyboard or mouse to move the camera.
• Selection lock/follow can be toggled in settings.
• Vsync now enabled by default and can be toggled in settings
• New selection sound effects for colonists
• New background music in Main Menu

Fixes

• Optimized UI for increased performance on lower spec systems
• Quality setting now affects post processing filters
• Fixed issue with color correction causing strange screen colors on some video cards
• Fixed game crashing if colonist was unable to find a path when trying to refuel a generator
• Deconstructed objects should no longer drop items on non-walkable tiles. For example items dropped when deconstructing conduits under water tiles would temporarily make that tile walkable, leading to potentially stuck colonists.
• Fixed a pathfinding issue that would sometimes cause a colonist to become stuck trying to reach their destination
• Fixed issue with keyboard camera rotation working opposite to mouse camera rotation
• Fixed issue with colonists eating/sleep priorities

Mercury Fallen is now available on Steam and the response has been awesome. A huge thank you to everyone who has played Mercury Fallen and for the great feedback. I am deeply humbled by the amount of positivity the Steam community has shown me. I am very happy to see gamers enjoying Mercury Fallen and there is a lot more to come. I have been actively working on the next update which will include fun new content as well as several fixes to bugs that have been reported.

Test Builds

One of the benefits of Steam is the Beta Opt-In support which allows developers to have separate optional testing/preview branches of the game. These optional game branches are a great way for the community to get involved with testing the latest and greatest content. It also serves to reduce the amount of potential bugs/issues in versions that go public to everyone.

Before major updates of the game come out they will first be available in the optional testing branch on Steam so that users have the opportunity to help test the latest content before it goes live to to the main branch. If you’re interested in testing out the latest content and want to help track down bugs click here for more information.

Alpha version 0.10 is now available in the optional test build branch. For more information on what is in the new version click here.

Thank you again to everyone who has helped support Mercury Fallen so far. This is only the start and I look forward to working together to make Mercury Fallen the best it can be.

Mercury Fallen was first released on Itch.IO on April 7, 2017 as a prototype demo. Shortly after that a full early access release hit Itch.IO and the response has been amazing. On October 16, 2017 Mercury Fallen will be available for purchase on Steam and I’m super excited to continue to develop the game and grow the community. The Steam release is only the beginning. There is a lot more to come for Mercury Fallen and I’m very grateful to those that have supported the project so far.

This week I’ve been fighting off a cold which has slowed progress on the next update, but I wanted to go over some of the things I’ve been working on.

Decor

The plan has always been for decorative objects have a larger impact on game play and with the new decor system that is finally starting to happen. Various structure objects in the game will provide positive or negative decor to the surrounding tiles. As colonists walk around the positive/negative decor value will have a direct effect on their stress level. The uglier the environment the more stress a colonist will receive. Positive decor items, such as decorations, will help to reduce stress.

The biggest challenge I found when trying to implement this system was how best to visualize the decor of the environment. The end result was to create a color overlay which shows positive decor areas in green and negative decor areas in red. Areas that are white have no impact. I’ve added some new buttons to the bottom button bar to toggle different display modes for power, water and decor views.

Colonists will stop working entirely if their stress level is completely maxed out, which means managing decor and stress becomes more critical. In addition to decor I plan to add additional interactive stress reducing objects.

New and better crops

In addition to the new decor system I’ve improved the look of hemp and have started work on additional crops. The new glow bulb crop is currently planned to be used as an ingredient for cloth as well as a new meal recipe.

Those are just some of the things being worked on for the next update. What are your thoughts on the new features?