The 2025 Update is now live!

12 Jul 2025Developer post

Source: Steam Community (opens in a new tab)

GOOD DAY ONE AND ALL.

It is finally time to put this update live, and I hope you have an amazing time with it.

Changelog notes are at the bottom of this post.

After 675 commits, 8 builds, ticking at least 190 todo-boxes, a good 40+ shaders, and over 3000 loops of playtesting... Making this update has been a refreshing visit, one that renewed some vigor in me with being able to DO polish, to take this existing game and add to it in ways that end up giving it some new character. In the almost-5 years since I made it, I've grown a lot as a gamedev with a bunch of new skills & creative eye. Bringing those lessons back to what helped kick off a lot of things for me has been a real joy. Some of the days making this update became hard tedium (making levels is regularly very hard for me to muster energy for), and some days it felt like the work kept going and continuing and meandering and persisting; But this end result feels better due to the longer timeline. Especially with how the original came about, I'm a whole lot less burned-out than the previous approach.

So, yeah. I hope it lands well for y'all (and for new players finding it from now! :D)

Changelog

App

- Updated to Unity 2022.3.50
- Set build version to 2.06
- Disabled 'Run in Background' setting

Splash

- Added an epilepsy warning panel before loading

- Intro, Outro, Group Select buttons have been moved
- Added new sprites and shaders for Intro, Outro, Group Select buttons
- Added new sprites, shaders, animations for Level Select Ring buttons and 'The Story Before' button
- Changed look of locked next group button state to be an outline and shadowed text
- Group pips under the Title now use a shader and reflect more states
- Group pips can now be clicked on to select the respective group
- Added an icon for Group 7’s Outro button to denote that it’s the core story’s outro
- Ring visuals now use a shader and have a touch of animation

Settings

- Added Rebindings tab, selectors and bindings for all gameplay controls
- Removed previous remapping panel
- Changed screen to be tabs rather than the left/right selector
- Added 'Darken area around gameplay core' accessibility option - this controls whether a shadow is rendered behind the puzzle level’s core, to help with reading the puzzle level
- Added 'Camera FOV' slider gameplay option - this controls the main game camera FOV, where 66 was the old value, 72 is the new value
- Added label texts to gameplay sliders
- Added 'Background Gameplay Overlay shader' graphics option - toggles whether to use the new shader effect behind gameplay or the previous simple overlay
- Added 'Background Interlude Overlay shader' graphics option - toggles whether to use the new shader effect behind the interlude, or the previous noise PostProcessing (which has been tweaked a little)
- Fix resolution options' refresh rates having extra decimal places
- Added two new sliders to control story text fade durations, and times between texts
- Added 'Show modifiers' toggle to gameplay tab for enabling/disabling modifier icons on characters

Credits

- Added Laura Romano and Ha-Thanh (MadameEtrange) to credits
- Added playtesters to credits

Game

- Added 'Shards of Time' group with 14 levels, Intro, Outro and 3 interludes
- Added Shard node
- Added 'Decision Fatigue' group with 14 levels, Intro, Outro and 3 interludes
- Added Router node
- Added gameplay & interlude music for new groups
- Added 11 achievements
- Including an achievement to fix a level in one loop. It IS possible - that's what inspired it :P
- Added music tracks for interludes for each non-gamejam group

Levels

- Fixed a dangling node without a connection in Gamejam Group Level 5
- Changed Fuse tutorial 2 by adding a node to help demonstrate behaviour
- Changed Time tutorial text to "Time nodes stay fixed, and add 10s to each loop (after the one they're unlocked on)"

General Gameplay

- Changed Camera FOV to be wider, to add perspective as you move around
- Increased maximum Camera zoom-out value
- Removed Camera zoom snapping during gameplay (Camera zoom will still reset on loop)
- Added effect and Post Processing for 1s time skips
- Added effect for a large time skip
- Changed Connection lines now use a new shader with added visual states
- Added Connection lines now have an added line to show when a line is ‘selected’ (for Switch and Router nodes)
- All nodes now have a new body texture
- All nodes now have their own colour states for Idle, Locked, Fixing, and Fixed.
- Changed lock symbol tints on nodes to help make them readable
- Added slight pop-up motion to node UI when moused over
- Added additional particles for when a node is being fixed
- Added small halo effect when a character is placed onto a requirement
- Added randomly generated decorative lines under the Level Core
- Added randomly generated decorative lines from each node to the Level Core
- Added a fill-in wiring shader underneath nodes that appears whenever a node is fixed for the first time
- Changed Student hotkey behaviour: when picking from students, grab a non-tired character, if there is one
- Fixed characters being grabbable via hotkey in the first game intro
- Fixed tutorial overlays redoing their fade-in on subsequent loops
- Some small fixes to how Nodes are setup, optimising level start times
- Fixed Julian & Jennefer not receiving a minor fix speed boost when placed together on a node
- Added shading to 3D meshes under nodes, giving them depth
- Added 3D meshes under a node will now change colour based on state, eg brighten when unlocked. Checkpoint nodes have a slightly different unlock colour.
- Added additional particles for whilst a node is being fixed
- Added new 3D mesh and shaders for Difficulty Resistors to all nodes.
- Added icons for characters that show whether they're being buffed by leads, and being buffed when working a node as a couple (this is disabled by default)
- Added a shadow background to node progress bars to help with seeing them on bright backgrounds

Node-Specific changes

Goal
- Added an aura shader around Goal nodes when fixed

Time
- Added an aura shader around Time nodes when fixed

Fuse
- Added when a Fuse node breaks, it will play the break effect for all downstream nodes that aren’t fixed, to show the chain being broken
- Added a noise for when a Fuse ticks it's grace period before breaking

Spinner
- Fixed spinners not being in a completed state at the start of a loop if downstream nodes all start fixed (ie for a Goal or Time node)
- Changed progress bar to change to a black colour when a Spinner is counting down

Switch
- Added mesh for Switch pointer
- Fixed Switches switching to fixed nodes
- Fixed Switches starting a loop pointing to a fixed node, if that node starts fixed

Gate
- Added shader for Gate node’s ring line, with a locked/fixed state

Briefcase
- Added an aura shader around Briefcase nodes when fixed
- Added tabs to the top of Briefcase nodes’ UI, to hint at the module count inside
- Added texture for internal lines between Briefcase modules
- Changed design for Briefcase modules
- Added Briefcase modules now scale up inside the node when fixable
- Changed node completed visuals to be more glowy with a shader
- Fixed Briefcase nodes picking roles that are not allowed (eg in the Tutorial levels)
- Fixed Briefcase nodes picking the same role in sequence
- Changed Briefcase modules where, if the node is locked for a short time, they would need fixing for a decimal value. They will now auto-complete when the node is unlocked again, within a small range
- Briefcases will not copy the role of a connected Router

UI

- Countdown clock now has a new look with a shader and text animation
- Added new pause icon for Countdown clock paused state
- Moved Skip-to-10s to be a button next to the Countdown clock
- Added new sprite for Skip-to-10s button
- Changed character info tooltips with portraits and a new tooltip design
- Added Character info tooltips will show whether a character is weakened
- Fixed a couple Students who were missing backstory lines in their tooltips
- Fixed Students missing unique node-fixed and loop speech bubble texts
- Added small icons for Briefcase and Time nodes to the Department Sheets to show the count of them in the level, which switch ‘on’ when a node is fixed
- Added countdown text into Escape popup
- Added input key texts above Escape popup buttons
- Changed speech bubbles to a different design with a shader and fade-out
- Changed design of left-hand additional buttons to be bevelled edges, not curved, to align with ui design
- Fixed some UI being visible at the bottom of the screen in interludes/outros
- Added darkened character role icons to their empty department sheet slots when a character is fixing a node
- Changed the top-left UI hints to be smaller, set names as bold, moved to the bottom-left of the screen, and fade-in rather than blink in.
- Added Goals counter to the left-hand-side of the UI
- Added a tooltip for the timer to point out that you can click on it to skip 1s
- Added light glows around Lead slots when they are giving a leadership bonus, and green '+' when both modifiers are active
- Changed 'Menu' to 'Exit to Menu' to reflect that it's a quit button. Increased width a bit.
- Changed new level title text formatting, added counting-in animation, added shadows to text
- Added 'New levels unlocked' text to Machine Fixed titles when you complete enough levels for the next group

SFX & Music

- Added new loop-ended sound for when you complete a level
- Tweaks to all music tracks
- Reduced volume of achievement unlocked clip
- Changed behaviour of music tracks with

Other

- Puzzle Level core now has a shader that fills in & particles as you fix goal/time/briefcase nodes in the level
- Changed overlay effect above the Lab background to use a new shader and look
- Added some more particle effects to the Lab background

Stories

- All characters now have a portrait
- Added shader for portraits
- Interludes, when rendering a flashback, use a new shader visual effect
- Intro and Outro now have new gradient background shaders
- Text fading and intervals can now be edited via the settings menu

Storyplayer

- Changed Texts to now have a dark black background to be more readable
- Added Buttons can now be picked with keyboard digits, Button UI now has a number on the left representing the digit
- Changed button design to be text on a white box, to be more readable and align with new text design
- Added Spacebar can now be pressed to skip text like mouse-click
- Changed Skip button alpha to be more transparent when idle

Game Outro

- Added character silhouettes throughout most camera angles, added car object to one angle
- Added Sun movement to coincide with the evening section of the story
- Added more camera angles throughout the story
- Some typo fixes
- Some writing edits
- Fixed machine particles being active if you load into the outro from the menu