I am very excited to announce that Mercury Fallen Alpha 0.14 is now available on Steam! Alpha 0.14 brings a of new build-able objects, recipes, research, UI improvements and more. A huge thanks to the testers that provided bug reports and feedback during the Test Build phase.
A Bio-Lab room has been added as well as an algae farm, aeroponics farm and aquarium for growing various new crops. The aeroponics farm allows for faster growth and greater output for new and existing plant crops. You can also grow and harvest fish in the aquarium for food and bio-waste. Green algae is used as a food ingredient as well as an ingredient in plant nutrients required by the aeroponics farm.
With the addition of more botany/biology related tasks, the bio-refiner is now used by the engineer and not the botanist to better balance job tasks.
The research interface has been completely rebuilt as a visual tech tree. New research projects have also been added to unlock some of the new recipes/machines.
9 new food/meal recipes have been added as well as the cafeteria room. The cafeteria is now the place to put eating tables as well as food dispensers for meal storage. The fridge is for raw food ingredients only.
The food processor is required to turn some raw food ingredients into usable items for cooking. Meals no longer completely deplete the hunger meter, as the hunger meter is now based on nutrition and satiation values. Satiation is the percentage the hunger meter will deplete when a meal is consumed. Nutrition is added as an attribute that reduced how quickly the colonist will get hungry again. Nutrition decays over a few in-game hours.
The early game is a bit more challenging given the new food values, as colonists will generally eat low quality foods more often. Lower quality foods such as cooked potatoes are not very filling compared to high quality meals such as a hearty fish sandwich. To assist with early game play, the starting supply chest now contains emergency rations, which are non-craftable, but make for a very filling starting food supply.
Various production machines now have colonist rosters which allow players to manage which colonists can operate each machine. Colonists will only work at machines with an empty roster or a machine that has their name on the roster.
Colonist Portraits are now visible in the colonist info window and colonist management interface. Portraits are dynamic and will update when you set colonist outfit colors.
Check the full release notes below for all the new content, change and fixes added in Alpha 0.14.
I’m super excited to announce that Alpha 0.13 is now available on Steam! A lot of work has been put in to this update and there are many great content additions, changes and fixes.
Important Notes
While existing save games will still load, much of the new content will only appear when starting a new game.
Due to changes in how the settings file is stored, existing settings will reset to defaults.
When you start a new game, you will see that map generation now includes the ruined remains of the Mercury Facility. These existing facility rooms can be deconstructed for materials or re-purposed.
Item chests have been added that can be opened for additional materials as well as discovery items. Starting supply items are no longer contained in the elevator, but are in a supply chest next to the elevator that will need to be opened. Additionally, the power generator will contain some fuel when starting the game.
Discoveries are unique items that the player can find in item chests. These items are used to expand the story and some items are required for certain research projects. This is only the beginning of the discovery system and more discovery items will be added in future updates.
Discover new information about the Mercury Facility and uncover the story of the missing colonist by finding data logs in item chests.
Changes to the user interface also include a new notification system. Notices still appear at the top right, but are now icon buttons that can be hovered over for additional information. Notices will stay for much longer and can be dismissed by right clicking them.
Other interface changes include the replacement of text percentage with progress bars, Colonist Management has been renamed to Facility Management, and the update also fixes typos, optimizes UI performance, adds a discovery interface and more.
This release also improved performance when there are many colonists in the facility. Colonist planning logic was a bottleneck in previous versions, but it’s been revamped and in testing, over 100 colonists had a minimal impact on performance.
There are a lot of great additions, fixes and changes. Check out the full list below.
Another minor patch is now available on Steam to fix up a few additional issues. With these resolved I will now resume focus on the next major content release.
Also, Mercury Fallen is now available for purchase in all currencies that Steam supports.
As always a big thank you to those that have helped test this latest update.
I’m super duper excited to announce that Alpha 0.12 is now available on Steam! This update is packed with new content, updates and lots of fixes. While the priority system was certainly a focus for this update there is a lot of additional content that has gone in to this update.
The new job priority system allows you to set the priority order of job roles per colonist. This is visible in both the colonist info window and colonist management screen. Higher priority jobs will be performed before lower priority jobs.
This is just the start. Additional priority options will be coming in future updates
Object placement has been overhauled and a new visible footprint is shown when placing down objects. This new system helps to enforce proper walk areas for colonists as well as stopping colonists from walking through objects. More information about building objects can now be found in the in-game manual.
A new in-game manual has been added that can be access by opening the facility management screen and selecting manual from the top button bar. The manual is not content complete, but is a great starting point for new and existing players.
The Tech Printer machine has been added which is used, by the engineer, to create tech items such as electronics and mechanical parts. The smelter has been re-designed and a new storage container option makes it’s way in to the game.
I’ve added many sound effects for various actions/machines to help liven the game up a bit. There is still more to add, but this is a good first step towards a more audible environment.
Alpha 0.12 has a lot of great new additions, changes and bug fixes. Let me know what you think.
Features
Updates
Fixes
This update took longer than initially planned, but it’s packed with various new content, tweaks and fixes. I’m super excited to announce that Alpha 0.11 is now available on Steam.
Important Note:
Existing Save Games are not supported. Strongly advised to start a new game in Alpha 0.11.
Colonists have figured out how to make their very own robots. Robots can be constructed using the new Robot Assembler, after the required research is complete. When constructing a robot you can apply points to increase the robots starting Smarts, Muscles & Athletics. With additional research you can increase the amount of points you can spend each time you construct a robot.
Robots will now require recharging, which works in a similar way to colonists requiring sleep. The new recharge pad is where robots will go to recharge their power need.
The new Deep Driller bot can be constructed at the Robot Assembler and is the only machine capable of mining the remaining ore in the floor. Floor ore tiles can be marked for deep drilling by selecting them and clicking the new Enable Deep Mining button. Ore floor tiles will be replaced with dirt after they are finished being mined.
A new opening back story has been added to the game. In additional to this a new stasis capsule has appeared when starting a new game. This is the initial introduction of the planned story content for the Mercury Fallen. There is a lot more to come.
Features
Changes
Fixes
It’s taken longer than originally planned, but the test build for Alpha 0.11 is now available to check out on Steam. There have been various changes under and above the hood so this test build could be a bumpy ride. I’ll need your help to ensure everything works, and feels, right.
Robot charge pads and robot construction are the biggest new features, but there has been various changes and re-balancing across the board.
If you’re interested in helping test the latest, greatest, and possibly buggiest, version of the game then head on over to Steam and check it out.
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.
Updates
Fixes
Howdy folks! This is just a quick patch update to fix up a couple of things and further increase performance and stability. It really helps me out to get feedback about the game so keep that bug reporting and feedback coming.
The development focus, for the moment, is getting the game ready for the big Steam release. The game is currently in the review process over on Steam and I’ll have an official release date very soon!
This update took a bit longer than previous updates, but getting the new power/water generation working as intended was a bigger undertaking then I expected it to be. While existing save games are supported, some features work best on a fresh new game. There are a lot of great new features, changes and tweaks so without rambling let’s take a look.
I’m very excited to release alpha 0.08 which has some great new features and decorations. Alpha 0.08 available now on Itch.IO.