I do kinda wish there was a way to disable the text glow and only the text glow, since it is very intense and makes the text almost unreadable, but it's not a great compromise to disable every other visual effect just because one is very strong. That or reduce its intensity.
Also, based on the story, shouldn't there be no stars in the background, especially early on? It's sort of directly stated that all the other stars were gone.
I installed this game using the itch.io app and it installed the Neon 1.3.1 version... however when I hit launch MS Windows (10) says I need to download an app from the Microsoft Store to use the "itch-cave" link but the window is greyed out and the game is frozen in the background on a white screen in a window... I can confirm everything seems to work if I browse to the install directory and run it from there but that kinda' defeats the purpose of the all in one handy itch.io app! ;)
Thank you for what seems so far an interesting game :)
P.S. Yes, working around the problem as above does indeed break saves for me...
If you go to your Library in the itch.io app and right click on the icon for a game you can then choose to open the directory in explorer, this is the "install directory", once there you can double-click the game but it will be run as your account on the machine, not the itch one so you loose some protections from viruses, trojans and scams (you should turn on sandboxing mode in settings if you want even more protection) as well as it often changing the save location or breaking saves entirely... it is also just longer than using the app's "launch" button so not ideal!
It's a bit shit to dangle the end in front of people like that. Hours of waiting for absolutely nothing. Automation could sure be smoother, should be able to combine different multiplication buttons (Alt + Shift [5x + 10x] = 50x type thing) Feel like the order of the multiplication buttons should be reversed Ctrl as 5, Shift as 10, Alt as 100. It's the way every other game does it and it's the order most people would expect to use them because it's how frequently used those keys are.
Really don't like that patch ending. Stop it when automation happens not after a pointless grind with no reward or even activity in playing.
This is a fun tycoon, But the super convergence is currently unreachable in a reasonable amount if time. I would recommend adding more upgrades, maybe more constellations even. But at maximum efficiency in automation, I had left my computer running overnight and made only about 600k light. There needs to be more things to do before the Super Convergence, but until then, I can't complete the game.
Yes. That's most optimal. It yields highest light per minute and grows fastest as each convergence gives boost to light production, so it grows arithmetically. Seems slow but it does add up, each cycle has higher light/m.
The problem is that you need to have the game visible, at least in firefox. Can't change tab, nor even scroll to comments lol, it seems that simulation stops if you're not looking at it, so it's a bit of PIA to get it.
the “Project: Genesis” text writes outside the visible area, half-words on the bottom edge and a delay before showing the button that tells me more text was “typed” out-of-sight below the viewable area. :(
I don't know why it is but every time the colour fillers are going it seems to tank the rendering of anything else going on the browser, like any video on Youtube on the side. It only happens on the colour fill screen too and when actively present on the screen, so it's definitely a rendering issue.
Good game. Still seems like the best strategy is to set the automation to converge every time 1000 white is reached.
I've noticed that the automation on 1.3.1 sometimes still gets stuck in a suboptimal state, but only when I turn on all the visual effects. With lowest quality, it seems to work consistently.
Very good game so far. Reached end of content. The only thing that might require looking at (not saying its bad or anything) is for the current final goal it seems optimal to do like a bunch tiny ascensions as fast as possible which seems contrary to the other gameplay up to that point. Unless I missed something.
I'm working on Super Convergence now, and I have some more thoughts.
1. I love the text. Unlocking the first star in the Azure River, I got "THE ANTI-CREATOR: we have confirmed the nature of the antagonist" and I was locked in. That, combined with the slow fade and the cooling sun I'd already read about from the other two "first stars" . . . I mean. There was no way I could leave without finding out what it was all about. The data in the stars is all great, but that one moment was impeccable.
2. that said, the stars start to feel "cheap" pretty quickly. Unlocking a whole constellation in one convergence takes a lot of the impact out of the story for me; I lost the experience of asking "what does this [DATA CORRUPTED] say? Between this phrase and the next?" -- I could just find out. Immediately.
3. after devouring the whole story, I'm now left to babysit the engine for several days in order to get the Super Convergence. There's nothing left to discover. There are no more upgrades. The flashbang is used up. I would've liked a slower burn.
4. I would've liked to make the text bigger and turn off the glow effect. It was a bit hard to read as-is. EDIT: wahoo! I discovered you can turn off the glow by turning visual effects to "low" :D
5. running this game makes my PC get extremely hot. Like I said in my earlier comment, I don't know how much can be done to lighten that load -- but anything you can do, in that area, wouldn't go amiss.
6. more details about how each upgrade was affecting my production and consumption rates (and the amount of Light I'd get by converging) would've been hugely appreciated. "Base rate, x2 from [upgrade], x1.5 from [other upgrade], total," sort of thing.
7. I very much wish the automatic pip allocation would take pips out of white when it was full. Would stop using pips for any light that's both full and bereft of "downstream" nodes sucking stuff out of it. That would make it a lot more efficient to get up to full Resonance points.
I've ended up being quite critical, I think. I want to emphasize that I love every data entry. My biggest wish is just that I could find more lore crumbs . . . like, the shattered remnants of a planet? I don't know. I just want to read more.
Please make the Super Convergence treshold reachable in a reasonable amount of time, just 1M instead of 10M should be better since you can do NOTHING in the meantime
I do wish it wasn't trying to melt my PC. I don't know what kind of optimization is possible with the code, but if it could be made less demanding for weaker machines, I (and my weak machine) would appreciate that.
I'd appreciate more information about how the upgrades are working, too. Total production for a node, and then on mouse-over (or something), a rundown of which upgrades are reducing the drain on it / boosting its production from base. A similar breakdown for the amount of light I'm going to get from Convergence.
BUG: Online progress is tracked as cumulative for the entire play session and does not reset. I'm on the cusp of Super Convergence in less than two hours, please fix
so, i believe the offline timer doesn't take timezones into account properly, if i switch of the tab and immediatly switch back, i get 9 hours of offline time. I am currently in the CEST timezone, if that helps. I have not changed the date or time on my device in any way.
Could I make a minor aesthetic design request? Could you make the black dot and trail that swirls around the white convergence a rainbow instead? I think it'd be a really nice touch that matches the themes of the game really well.
Edit: Also, there is a major bug where if you click on another tab and then back, it'll count as going offline for over 8 hours, instantly filling all of your mixers.
BUG: The Star Chart upgrades that increase speed and efficiency, completely break the efficiency for said colour. Meaning that all other upgrades that affect that colour's efficiency are broken, with exception to the general efficiency upgrade in the production tab.
This affects gameplay, specially automation, as it no longer produces enough to complete the Production upgrades properly, without manual help.
Suggestion: I believe it would also be nice if automation would remove PIPs from a colour that is full and not being used, in a way, to fill all colours, instead of staying idle on white, for example
I like the story and some of the texts are really good.
Max Pips on prestige make all the pip upgrades meaningless.
The game flip flops between a ton of clicking and a lot of idling. Personally I like games which are one or the other, or which allow for some hybrid playstyle.
Maybe there could be a third automation setting that maximizes the lowest tier of color before moving on to the next one? Because the normal options don't really mesh well with purity
1. as others have mentioned, getting 10mil light for the super convergence takes AGES. slows the whole game down severely enough that i opted out of finishing the super convergence for now
2. after convergence, the PIP automation doesn't allow green to build up enough to finish buying all the upgrades - particularly the mixer efficiency upgrade which is really bad. it tries to run with a 200 point deficit
3. the glow effect on the text makes it really hard to read, especially with vision issues like mine that make white text hard to read at a baseline. the text kinda morphs into one long blob that i have to really squint at to read properly
otherwise i did enjoy what you have so far. i didnt have any issues understanding what to do, the lore is intriguing and i like the constellation system!
Maybe change the CTRL in hotkeys, as any click with CTRL pressed opens the context menu on macOS. I believe it's the same on Windows, but I gotta check that.
Pretty fun, but as other comments have said it is really slow. It took multiple hours of just waiting with nothing else left to do to reach the final 10 000 000 light.
Resonance is a bonus to Light gain based on each non-white essence. Meaning if you let all the tanks fill up before converging you gain more light. I could have explained it better, Thank you for the comment! :)
I'm enjoying this so far! It reminds me of the First Alkahistorian series (the 3rd chapter or side stage), just in the node layout and function. If I have anything to mention, the lack of a decimal for resource use notifiers can make it difficult to properly balance the production / consumption. The immediately shown costs when you unlock light is intimidating, but it makes sense once you get the scaling light / convergence node at the end of the constellation. It feels like pip scaling is a bit high, since *just* the first upgrade near doubles your possible pips. Really makes the convergences faster, at least. I'm still working on the first ring (I guess?) of constellations, but getting ~80 light / convergence.
Oops, forgot a bit. I really enjoy what bits of story I can see so far, it really reminds me of one of the SCP stories. I think it was related to pattern screamers? Something about the unmaking of anything that learns too much about the workings of the universe. I'll see if I can find the entry again.
Ah, lastly. It seems like some upgrades don't share the same color names as the main area? An early one is Violet being used to refer to the purple mixer, but later there's Chartreuse from the Burning Forge's upgrade tree. I think that one's for green?
No kidding! I hit my second prestige, thinking that non-white colors would help, and I got...two light. Where the next upgrade costs 50. I need to prestige twenty-five more times?
Yeah this needs explained better. If you click on a star in the star chart you can "Acquire Data" which will open up a few more stars in the constellation. These have smaller affordable upgrades.
1 mixer takes 0.5 of the previous resource after the upgrade. Meaning 6 mixers would take 3 resources, yet the previous resource is decreasing by +3.0s/-3.0/s even though it should be in equilibrium.
Looked like base consumption of combiners is 1.2 and 0.6 when upgraded; 5 users gave me 6 drain, 10 users caused 12 drain. Personally I thought the numbers are fine, but it's just not communicated to the player well, and that might've been the problem
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Liked the gameplay, art style and story!
But... it got too repetitive to get to the Super Convergence, decided to not pursue it.
kept me playing for a while good stuff
I do kinda wish there was a way to disable the text glow and only the text glow, since it is very intense and makes the text almost unreadable, but it's not a great compromise to disable every other visual effect just because one is very strong. That or reduce its intensity.
Also, based on the story, shouldn't there be no stars in the background, especially early on? It's sort of directly stated that all the other stars were gone.
I installed this game using the itch.io app and it installed the Neon 1.3.1 version... however when I hit launch MS Windows (10) says I need to download an app from the Microsoft Store to use the "itch-cave" link but the window is greyed out and the game is frozen in the background on a white screen in a window... I can confirm everything seems to work if I browse to the install directory and run it from there but that kinda' defeats the purpose of the all in one handy itch.io app! ;)
Thank you for what seems so far an interesting game :)
P.S. Yes, working around the problem as above does indeed break saves for me...
same problem here tho i don't know how to run it from the install directory. or know what a install directory is.
If you go to your Library in the itch.io app and right click on the icon for a game you can then choose to open the directory in explorer, this is the "install directory", once there you can double-click the game but it will be run as your account on the machine, not the itch one so you loose some protections from viruses, trojans and scams (you should turn on sandboxing mode in settings if you want even more protection) as well as it often changing the save location or breaking saves entirely... it is also just longer than using the app's "launch" button so not ideal!
It's a bit shit to dangle the end in front of people like that. Hours of waiting for absolutely nothing.
Automation could sure be smoother, should be able to combine different multiplication buttons (Alt + Shift [5x + 10x] = 50x type thing)
Feel like the order of the multiplication buttons should be reversed
Ctrl as 5, Shift as 10, Alt as 100. It's the way every other game does it and it's the order most people would expect to use them because it's how frequently used those keys are.
Really don't like that patch ending. Stop it when automation happens not after a pointless grind with no reward or even activity in playing.
This is a fun tycoon, But the super convergence is currently unreachable in a reasonable amount if time. I would recommend adding more upgrades, maybe more constellations even. But at maximum efficiency in automation, I had left my computer running overnight and made only about 600k light. There needs to be more things to do before the Super Convergence, but until then, I can't complete the game.
ur doing it wrong then, in like 3-4 hours i reached super convergence
Yeah, i'm getting 86k/minute currently. So 2 hours to Super Convergence. Your settings must be very sub-optimal.
Do you just set it to auto converge at 1k white or what?
Yes. That's most optimal. It yields highest light per minute and grows fastest as each convergence gives boost to light production, so it grows arithmetically. Seems slow but it does add up, each cycle has higher light/m.
The problem is that you need to have the game visible, at least in firefox. Can't change tab, nor even scroll to comments lol, it seems that simulation stops if you're not looking at it, so it's a bit of PIA to get it.
the “Project: Genesis” text writes outside the visible area, half-words on the bottom edge and a delay before showing the button that tells me more text was “typed” out-of-sight below the viewable area. :(
On pc, fullscreening solved this issue for me
I don't know why it is but every time the colour fillers are going it seems to tank the rendering of anything else going on the browser, like any video on Youtube on the side. It only happens on the colour fill screen too and when actively present on the screen, so it's definitely a rendering issue.
Good game. Still seems like the best strategy is to set the automation to converge every time 1000 white is reached.
I've noticed that the automation on 1.3.1 sometimes still gets stuck in a suboptimal state, but only when I turn on all the visual effects. With lowest quality, it seems to work consistently.
Hello, I really liked the game, I hope it will be released in Steam.
Why are there stars in the background of the star chart? The story makes it sound like there should only be the ones you make.
Excellent idle game.
Addicting game! Nice!
bug: when clicking away and clicking back, you get all of the time since the last time you clicked back, not since you clicked away.
I've been CAPITALIZING on this mechanic
great and simple game keep the good work
Very good game so far. Reached end of content. The only thing that might require looking at (not saying its bad or anything) is for the current final goal it seems optimal to do like a bunch tiny ascensions as fast as possible which seems contrary to the other gameplay up to that point. Unless I missed something.
Oh boy, that Production AI is SO screwed up -.-
Tagged to work on phone browser but the first generatior is missing when i load it in Chrome
mobile version would be cracked
I'm working on Super Convergence now, and I have some more thoughts.
1. I love the text. Unlocking the first star in the Azure River, I got "THE ANTI-CREATOR: we have confirmed the nature of the antagonist" and I was locked in. That, combined with the slow fade and the cooling sun I'd already read about from the other two "first stars" . . . I mean. There was no way I could leave without finding out what it was all about. The data in the stars is all great, but that one moment was impeccable.
2. that said, the stars start to feel "cheap" pretty quickly. Unlocking a whole constellation in one convergence takes a lot of the impact out of the story for me; I lost the experience of asking "what does this [DATA CORRUPTED] say? Between this phrase and the next?" -- I could just find out. Immediately.
3. after devouring the whole story, I'm now left to babysit the engine for several days in order to get the Super Convergence. There's nothing left to discover. There are no more upgrades. The flashbang is used up. I would've liked a slower burn.
4. I would've liked to make the text bigger and turn off the glow effect. It was a bit hard to read as-is. EDIT: wahoo! I discovered you can turn off the glow by turning visual effects to "low" :D
5. running this game makes my PC get extremely hot. Like I said in my earlier comment, I don't know how much can be done to lighten that load -- but anything you can do, in that area, wouldn't go amiss.
6. more details about how each upgrade was affecting my production and consumption rates (and the amount of Light I'd get by converging) would've been hugely appreciated. "Base rate, x2 from [upgrade], x1.5 from [other upgrade], total," sort of thing.
7. I very much wish the automatic pip allocation would take pips out of white when it was full. Would stop using pips for any light that's both full and bereft of "downstream" nodes sucking stuff out of it. That would make it a lot more efficient to get up to full Resonance points.
I've ended up being quite critical, I think. I want to emphasize that I love every data entry. My biggest wish is just that I could find more lore crumbs . . . like, the shattered remnants of a planet? I don't know. I just want to read more.
Please make the Super Convergence treshold reachable in a reasonable amount of time, just 1M instead of 10M should be better since you can do NOTHING in the meantime
I'm hooked on the story, for sure.
I do wish it wasn't trying to melt my PC. I don't know what kind of optimization is possible with the code, but if it could be made less demanding for weaker machines, I (and my weak machine) would appreciate that.
I'd appreciate more information about how the upgrades are working, too. Total production for a node, and then on mouse-over (or something), a rundown of which upgrades are reducing the drain on it / boosting its production from base. A similar breakdown for the amount of light I'm going to get from Convergence.
Bug: If I play on full screen for a while and then press ESC to exit full screen, it will give me all that time in offline progress
Thank you for reporting the bug! :)
Export doesn't work at all.
I second that. Click on "Export save" displays "Failed to copy save data to clipboard"
BUG: Online progress is tracked as cumulative for the entire play session and does not reset. I'm on the cusp of Super Convergence in less than two hours, please fix
so, i believe the offline timer doesn't take timezones into account properly, if i switch of the tab and immediatly switch back, i get 9 hours of offline time. I am currently in the CEST timezone, if that helps. I have not changed the date or time on my device in any way.
Could I make a minor aesthetic design request? Could you make the black dot and trail that swirls around the white convergence a rainbow instead? I think it'd be a really nice touch that matches the themes of the game really well.
Edit: Also, there is a major bug where if you click on another tab and then back, it'll count as going offline for over 8 hours, instantly filling all of your mixers.
BUG: The Star Chart upgrades that increase speed and efficiency, completely break the efficiency for said colour. Meaning that all other upgrades that affect that colour's efficiency are broken, with exception to the general efficiency upgrade in the production tab.
This affects gameplay, specially automation, as it no longer produces enough to complete the Production upgrades properly, without manual help.
Suggestion: I believe it would also be nice if automation would remove PIPs from a colour that is full and not being used, in a way, to fill all colours, instead of staying idle on white, for example
Seconding the request for automation to stop "idling" the pips.
Zoom and export save don't work for me.
I like the story and some of the texts are really good.
Max Pips on prestige make all the pip upgrades meaningless.
The game flip flops between a ton of clicking and a lot of idling. Personally I like games which are one or the other, or which allow for some hybrid playstyle.
Maybe there could be a third automation setting that maximizes the lowest tier of color before moving on to the next one? Because the normal options don't really mesh well with purity
Thanks for the game, I really enjoyed it!
Some minor things below, using firefox.
zooming doesnt work at star chart
scrolling in lists goes only top or bottom (for example history tab)
combined "used - gained" indicator would be nice
Convergence automation seems to be time-related even tho the value is in "Light units". For example 200k -> 2:28mins.
3 issues ive noticed:
1. as others have mentioned, getting 10mil light for the super convergence takes AGES. slows the whole game down severely enough that i opted out of finishing the super convergence for now
2. after convergence, the PIP automation doesn't allow green to build up enough to finish buying all the upgrades - particularly the mixer efficiency upgrade which is really bad. it tries to run with a 200 point deficit
3. the glow effect on the text makes it really hard to read, especially with vision issues like mine that make white text hard to read at a baseline. the text kinda morphs into one long blob that i have to really squint at to read properly
otherwise i did enjoy what you have so far. i didnt have any issues understanding what to do, the lore is intriguing and i like the constellation system!
Maybe change the CTRL in hotkeys, as any click with CTRL pressed opens the context menu on macOS. I believe it's the same on Windows, but I gotta check that.
Pretty fun, but as other comments have said it is really slow. It took multiple hours of just waiting with nothing else left to do to reach the final 10 000 000 light.
What is "Resonance" (that gives me additional light on prestige)?
Resonance is a bonus to Light gain based on each non-white essence. Meaning if you let all the tanks fill up before converging you gain more light. I could have explained it better, Thank you for the comment! :)
And purity bonus, exactly?
Purity seems to be a multiplier seems to very roughly scale by 1% for every 1k White Chroma you have, with diminishing returns.
As an example, I was able to get the follow Purity Bonus % for certain White Chroma totals:
I'm enjoying this so far! It reminds me of the First Alkahistorian series (the 3rd chapter or side stage), just in the node layout and function. If I have anything to mention, the lack of a decimal for resource use notifiers can make it difficult to properly balance the production / consumption. The immediately shown costs when you unlock light is intimidating, but it makes sense once you get the scaling light / convergence node at the end of the constellation. It feels like pip scaling is a bit high, since *just* the first upgrade near doubles your possible pips. Really makes the convergences faster, at least. I'm still working on the first ring (I guess?) of constellations, but getting ~80 light / convergence.
Oops, forgot a bit. I really enjoy what bits of story I can see so far, it really reminds me of one of the SCP stories. I think it was related to pattern screamers? Something about the unmaking of anything that learns too much about the workings of the universe. I'll see if I can find the entry again.
Ah, lastly. It seems like some upgrades don't share the same color names as the main area? An early one is Violet being used to refer to the purple mixer, but later there's Chartreuse from the Burning Forge's upgrade tree. I think that one's for green?
Thank you for your comments! These are remnants of testing around colors to use. I am very happy you noticed it so I can fix it :)
light gains are kinda slow
taking multiple prestiges just to buy a single upgrade
No kidding! I hit my second prestige, thinking that non-white colors would help, and I got...two light. Where the next upgrade costs 50. I need to prestige twenty-five more times?
The constellations (the small white dots) are a lot cheaper and help you get there
Wait they what? Obviously that wasn't at all clear...
Agree with you. I will make this clearer!
Yeah this needs explained better. If you click on a star in the star chart you can "Acquire Data" which will open up a few more stars in the constellation. These have smaller affordable upgrades.
Agreed! This is one of the things as a developer I miss, as it is "obviously" what to for me. I will ensure there is an tutorial for the Star Chart.
There's also something wrong with the math--I have 2k white, but only +1 light (even though at +1 per thousand, that should be, well, +2).
And is the font blurry for anyone else?
Thank you for the comment! You are correct, there is a bug in the first light gain, I will get it solved new update!
The math seems to be wrong.
1 mixer takes 0.5 of the previous resource after the upgrade. Meaning 6 mixers would take 3 resources, yet the previous resource is decreasing by +3.0s/-3.0/s even though it should be in equilibrium.
Thank you! I agree with you, I missed that entirely and will have it fixed!
Looked like base consumption of combiners is 1.2 and 0.6 when upgraded; 5 users gave me 6 drain, 10 users caused 12 drain.
Personally I thought the numbers are fine, but it's just not communicated to the player well, and that might've been the problem