I gave a pretty clear hint in the V0.10.0 patch notes, but if you want something a little less obvious there's only one place in the game you can enter text.
I'll be honest, I work on the game when my schedule and my motivation overlap, which isn't really conducive to even a rough update schedule. Could be next week, could be a few months, could be anywhere in between.
Just noticed a bug that happened, While I was paused and a floating slime was near me... the slime just started to... go through the ground? Though it's position would be... mostly corrected after this happens
Hey! Just got done with the game so far (v9.2). Overall a solid expansion of the first game! You seem well aware of the odd difficulty curve, which is about the only major issue I can see with the game so far. The characters, the dialogue, the art, and ESPECIALLY the sound design (the suit creaking is probably the best thing I didn't know I needed) are fantastic, as far I'm concerned. Really looking forward to playing the full release.
I could see an attack timer (or maybe a building or suit upgrade that gives you one) being a great addition, since I found myself waiting around for the next wave before starting any serious expansion projects. That and maybe more indication of things stats. Health bars for the slimes? Posted numbers for the attack power of defenses and the drone? Having energy consumption added to the description of every applicable building would be good, too, like the radio tower and teleporters. Just quality of life ideas. You've got a lovely game so far, thanks for sharing it with all of us!
(P.S.) Oh I nearly forgot! Sen seems to gradually lower throughout the playthrough. It must be very incremental, since he maybe halved in altitude over the course of 11 hours, which was when I finally noticed. I'm afraid I don't have much more info than that.
Huh, there must be a rounding issue with Sen's floating animation, that's funny. You're definitely right about the energy consumption numbers for the teleporters and the radio tower, I meant the put those in but I guess I just forgot. A wave timer might not be a bad idea either, I'll have to think of ways it could be incorporated into the UI. I want to keep the rest of the screen relatively clean, so I'm a bit opposed to adding more health bars and damage numbers, but putting that info in the build menu might help to compare relative values at least, I'd be willing to consider that.
Rather curious, as a general consensus, what is everyone's general methodology for going about setting up a manageable base?
For me, it's to go past the overhang, close enough where I can still get to the caves in a hurry, but far enough where I don't have to deal with getting ganged up on by the slimes. Especially since the left slime nest is like, 5-8 tiles away from the cave if you manage to get up there.
I then set up a metal mining job and energy generation so I can start mining crystals. Fun fact, you can mine crystals faster than the tier 1 and 2 mining machines so it saves resources and time. Not to mention it also means less buildings for the slimes.
I spend most of the time generating resources here, getting some upgrades and slowly pinching my way to the steam turbine. Then, that's when the real fun begins. Once I get the hab wall, it's wind turbines for days. In conjunction with the accumulator, it solves energy gathering pretty well for charging up crew members.
Though that forced me to have to make a freight elevator as it is the only thing that can carry the pilot and I am unable to to go to the ground. Due to there being less energy.
I then use hab walls to work my way to the overhang's top, the untouchable zone. The amount of effort to get here is kinda rewarding but at the same time not really. Due to how the wind turbines work, they count how many platforms are stacked under them, not the height layer of the map they are on. Therefore any turbines on top of the overhang don't gain the energy scaling which makes them better than most generators.
From there I feel like it would be smooth sailing if I did a run.
I kinda did the same thing, but I didn't bother with the freight elevator. I kinda just used the normal elevator to go up and fell offthe building to get to everything else I use that energy for.
Usually just for research and upgrades tbh. No reason to take that much energy up an elevator that way.
I like this game, I really do. I feel like it has a lot of potential. But I feel like you spend a lot more time having to fight off enemies instead of being able to build things without worrying about them destroying the stuff you've taken so much time to build so quickly. To me, it seems extremely net negative instead of rewarding when it comes to production in this game. Because not only are there so many enemies coming at once, but they can also very easily destroy stuff because of both quantity and the damage they can do no matter how upgraded your stuff is. It just feels like you are getting basically nowhere, and it makes it seem like the things you build is just a waste of time and resources. Setting up things to make other things be able to function while having to deal with enemies all at once... Very frustrating and just makes things like that seem pointless.
Beyond allowing for sprite replacement for the characters I don't have any plans for mod support. To be honest I'm not even sure how I would go about adding more in depth mod support.
Sorry for my poor English, I use a translator since I speak Spanish. I just hope the translation doesn't get the point across, because I don't want it to sound like just a complaint.
Um, I've read the comments, and I think it's clear that one of the main complaints is the slime issue. And, um, I think the slime generation is really a bit out of hand. While it's true that we currently have more defense tools, they are hampered by the energy issue, especially the entrance area into the cave. While I understand, as some mention, it was primarily planned as a trap, I still feel it's annoying having to go through that entire empty area and leave it mainly because of the spawn. I feel it's more an issue because of the energy lost during the transfer and the character change. It can be jarring to have to go through that empty area to get to the cave. While it can be corrected with structures late in the game, I don't know, it's somewhat jarring. Another point that, uh, found is the issue of red and purple slimes, the generation of mini slimes feels somewhat excessive, also in some cases even the red slime was far from the range of my turret, so I feel that putting a number that limits the amount of slimes that can generate is limited, also as many mention, the difference between past versions and version 0.9 is enormously felt, I spent the first game on hard difficulty and, in this one it is simply shocking, in late game I could barely raise my base, even moving further back from the cave, it was difficult to correctly plan the base or even raise it due to the slime issue, losing 2 mining points because the same slimes do not allow me to get close to them, I was lucky to be able to improve the suit enough so I could hold out, but it was still a problem, since in past versions the left spawn issue was a problem which made it necessary to go back to repair but, with some luck You could keep your base stable, but in this current version, no. It's no joke that slimes don't allow you to expand or improve things. I certainly feel like it's somewhat far from being at a "normal" difficulty level and feels more like playing on hard all the time.
I think I'll leave the game for now. However, I'll be on the lookout for new updates because I still love the game, the art and the mechanics. I have faith that it will be resolved over time. Because, as you said, it's part of balancing the game, and at the end of the day, these are things that take time. I'll anxiously await the day the difficulty selector is implemented. But at the same time, I don't want this to end on a sour note. I can only say that, even with its problems, it's a great game for something like feederism or fat fur. I really love the game, as well as the design of its characters. I've also followed your other games, such as the sowing and harvesting game. I don't intend to pressure you, just comment. I waited almost a year for an update. A few more months until everything is polished won't kill anyone, great game, keep it up
This game really needs either cables/wires, or option to make building generate energy to ONLY one structure, instead of always halving it and sharing with both structures - at its left and its right. There are places where i'd like to make my generator give energy to ONLY one thing and completely ignore something else. Like on this screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/iWi4P80 I really would do a lot for being able to make wind turbine next to left of my auto-miner, give energy to ONLY laser turret, because auto-miner is already powered by something else. This is crucial mechanic for game with so much micromanaging and i genuinely don't understand, why it's either missing, or it's never explained in game, how to do that.
It's mostly from me wanting to emphasize the difficulties the characters themselves are facing with power management through gameplay. No batteries beyond their own bodies, no cables for long distance transmission, not even simple distribution systems. I'll admit I would probably tweak some things now given my experience with developing this game, but those would require complete overhauls at this point, so the current power system is here to stay.
That specifically is probably doable with less intensive reworks of the code. I was more referring to automatically adjusting power given to buildings based on need. That would cause a whole slew of problems without a major rework.
press up ("w" by default). If you've played games where you had to move up to use a ladder, you'll feel silly when you try on the elevator (Unless, you've already done that by the time I tell you this, which'll make me feel silly.)
I want to love this, but I just can't in it's current state.
Played on 0.9.2
I've played Spacethumper 1 and enjoyed it a lot, so I'll be speaking from that baseline. Starting with the good, when I learned I got to play as 3 different characters I really looked forward to it! They've all got distinct designs and personalities and bounce off each other well, and it gives an immediate fun goal of seeing how big you can get all of them. Gameplay is also expanded massively in terms of what you can do - adding verticality gives you a whole new plane to build on, and there's not just a whole new layer of complexity added with them but multiple layers with the conditionals for the generators, solar does bad underneath platforms and caves, wind doesn't do great on the ground, elevators need space, and everything needs to be powered and needs something next to it, it's more than just using the power to create them in the first place now. It gives so much more to work with and around in planning your base and how you're gonna set up,especially when including how many more structures are now 2 tile wide, some 3tiles wide! Everything added and changed gives you a whole lot more to play around with compared to its predecessor, and I was really excited to try it all out
But, the game's just... irritating, to play, at least currently. On my first save, I took my time looking around a little, doing the tutorial, reading the dialog after hitting 200, talking with the people in the cave... when I left, I found my first slime. And this is where the trouble began.
I wanted to play whilst exploring what I'd been given. Building platforms, building wind turbines on them and seeing how well they worked, trying to build elevators and, mostly getting confused why they wouldn't work (I build the elevator underneath structures), and often switching characters to give everyone a turn. Eventually, what this resulted in was getting overran with slimes. As far as I can tell, they scale almost solely by how much time has passed, so taking my time with things and playing with all the new toys I'd been handed just came back to bite me until I ended up needing to run back and forth constantly repairing what defences I had, deciding then to just give up as I was making no progress and the waves were only getting harder. Two and a half hours on that save, a full research table, some suit upgrades, and I had to leave it all behind because I felt essentially softlocked.
I tried again tomorrow. Skipped through dialog as fast as I can, swapped straight to big green, and spent every single moment trying to build up as fast as I could. This time I was able to expand enough to actually explore a little, and realized that there was a lot more in both directions I had no idea about my first time around, especially to the right. Slowly I progressed up there, expanding my operation, and I think a little under 2 hours later I felt I'd done everything I could. Full research, full upgrades, and Mark III reactors with thousands of crystals all around with Mark III miners keeping plenty in surplus if needed. My defences were over the slimes' own nests and at this point, destroying them not long after I got there, usually only needing to replace the fortified wall placed directly over their nest and a few other repairs here and there. Things seemed simple now, and after an initial scan I decided to launch the wave.
Then the countdown started. I hadn't expected a countdown. I'd expected the scan to work like the first scan and be instant, though with this one summoning a wave from both ends as I was warned of aggrevating the local fauna. I'd set up defences and a teleporter so I could handle one on one end and teleport to the other to help with the rest, and suddenly my plan was moot because the second scan works differently without any warning. My defences couldn't handle multiples waves so close together and I lost everything, and I knew the slimes were still scaled up from how long I'd been playing. Trying to start from scratch would be next to impossible as I'd have no resource generation to help build, nevermind maintain, any defences of any kind. My save was too far back for me to care, so I quit once again, defeated.
It's very tempting to start up another run, but frankly, spending every single moment trying to build up as fast as you can is more stressful than fun, and I don't enjoy the pressure of feeling like I have to knowing that if I don't, my entire base will be destroyed and recovering it likely won't be possible as the difficulty will have scaled too much. Unlocking max elasticity didn't feel like a reward for hard work to be enjoyed, it felt like a requirement to have a chance of surviving the slime waves as they continued to get harder and harder. Even just getting the dialog for new weight thresholds felt mildly stressful as I'd seen before that it doesn't pause time, only stopping you taking in energy and stopping you in place. That's not efficient. That's a hazard against my base. Sure, I want to read it, but I want to get through it as fast as possible so I can be ready if an attack happens. How am I meant to enjoy the dialog, or any of the weight gain aspects of the game, if I have to spend every second trying to fortify myself as much as possible?
I know this can be something incredible. All the groundwork is there, and there's so much to experiment with that I imagine there are a practically infinite amount of bases that people can build. It's so full of promise, and I strongly, eagerly look forward to the next versions in hopes of seeing their improvement. But in it's current state, it's just too demanding of you to enjoy playing it. And no matter how much I daydream about playing it and what I could build, I've no interest in spending yet another evening feeling under constant pressure to keep moving else I lose everything. This is so, so close to being something great, there's just still plenty of tweaking to be done yet for it to get there.
Thank you for reading. I can't wait to see what you do next!
Played the newest update and I find it hilarious how wind turbines have become absolutely powerful but ironically impractical for mining except for one spot that requires so much micro management that it's comedic. Thanks to the all powerful energy accumulators it's possible to have an enormous amount of power in one specific spot. That's the area directly to the front of the cave with the crystal deposit. At the top of it specifically. This specific area I've noticed is... Let's just say awkward.
Okay, first let's start with how the crystal deposit is functionally a trap due to the fact that it is very close to the slime spawner on the left side. By very close I mean you're going to have slimes dropping on your head if you don't move away from that area asap. Not only is it unlikely that you'll be able to generate enough power to use the area effectively, but in the beginning of the game you can harvest crystals with your laser without having to get a mining drill. I like the design of this trap even if it is likely unintentional.
Note that I specifically say it is a trap and not a trap just for players. It is also a trap for slimes due to how their AI functions. The gap between the plateau and the cave roof is about three buildings in size. Due to this, if there is a building on the overhang, the slimes will become confused and attempt to get to that building even if they physically cannot get to it. So effectively it functions as a carrot on a stick only it's just hanging there, taunting the slimes.
Now getting there is another issue entirely. Which makes it even more awkward due to the fact that it is so close to the slime spawner and requires two hab wall layers to even get there. So this might be a reason why many players early game are having trouble, as most would be inclined to have their structures closer to the cave. At least this is how I see it. Just my perspective.
Can someone explain to me why every time there's a comment on the game's difficulty or someone asking for a peaceful mode, it gets downvoted to hell? I thought feedback and bug reports were greatly appreciated and all
I can't speak definitely for anyone since I usually ignore the votes on comments, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say it's because I give the same answer to the question every time so it gets a little repetitive if you're the kind of person who reads through the comments and gives them votes. I personally welcome the feedback as long as it's not "ur game is bad" type commentary.
This Game is lots of fun, glad to see you're updating it again, i still wish that there'd be a peaceful mode for this game like the previous one, since setting up a base instead of defending it all the time is the way i like to play it the most
Been enjoying the game so far! It has nice graphics and I like the ideas and game loop.
My main grievance is that the slimes seem to be too powerful and numerous at times. Also, is it possible to turn the turrets around? Whenever slimes attack from the West, I need to go eliminate them myself since the turrets won't turn around.
The turrets should be turning around when there's an enemy in range even if they all start out facing right. Is this happening for the gauss turrets as well or just the lasers?
It was happening with the regular turrets, but I found out the problem was I wasn't supplying them with enough energy with the windmill generators, that was my bad. Thank you for checking.
One thing I would like to suggest are icons above structures to let you know if they aren't getting power, it would make a good way to quickly know if you need to build more generators.
I'll admit, the change to the difficulty is noticeable from 0.8.0 to 0.9.1, not complaining, but I do like the challenge. It's just very brutal if you're new to the game. The left side is still monstrously dangerous in comparison to the right side, though I have noticed the right side is harder. My strategy mostly involves not using the mining machines because maxed out miner laser is a helpful tool in gathering resources quickly it's just faster than the mining drill. Gausses are... weird. They're seemingly better off used on flat surfaces against enemies that it can track. There's no denying their useage, but I haven't used MK 2 yet to confirm if they're useful when building up to the sides. My one annoyance is how the platform above the cave is set up and the fact that there isn't a floating bridge or something to easily get to the other side of it on the left side. It's what makes the left side of the map so dangerous, not only are they closer but they're far harder to deal with so the crystal deposit at the base is basically a trap. I've been having tons of fun trying to figure out how to gather enough resources to max everything out so I can start going to the tops. I only use one elevator though because it's easier to deal with than having multiple to be honest
The slimes attack sound on structures peaks really high, a lot louder than most of the other sound effects. Elevators are also another culprit of this. A difficulty setting much like everyone else already said is needed, especially since in this patch the left side spawns around 8-10 slimes at the same time, making short work of your base within seconds while tanking multiple turrets and one tapping one or even two structures per attack.
For the audio being too loud, for some reason the sound effects feed themselves into a feedback loop which means they double in volume after every single slime attack
Come on man, for the love of god, just put a difficulty slider or peaceful mode in already, I just want to play the game without having everything I built be destroyed by slimes all the time...
Once enemy balance is taken care of then I can start thinking about difficulty options. If I put them in now I would have no good gauge for if the standard game is too hard, since a good chunk of people would just give up at the first sign of challenge and switch to easy. This way I can actually tune things to be enjoyable for the average player, and then use that as a basis for an easy mode.
Look, I get it, you want to take care of enemy balance first, but if you want to do that and get more info from the player, you just need to ask them! Like, just go around the comments asking them about, or even better, why don't you make a survey for us to fill out? A survey every update or so would actually be the perfect gauge for a lot of things in the game, not just enemy difficulty.
Now, you said that if you put a difficulty option in now, 'a good chunk of people would just give up at the first sign of challenge and switch to easy', if that actually happens at some point in the future, the problem wouldn't be on the players giving up and switching to easy, it would be the thing that's causing them to do that!
Speaking of that, I think that the real problem isn't even enemy balance at this point, it's the combat! Like I already said before here in the comments, the combat is just dogshit, and I really don't mean that as an offense. The defensive buildings have no damage numbers and no range number anywhere, so the player doesn't really know what they do, it's just like Spacethumper 1 but with more enemies and defensive buildings, and in my view a sequel should be an improvement upon the first game, not more of the same...
I face such a problem that every time I start to heal the left or right side. Slime spawns in different places and this hinders progress. I did everything I could, I put up protection and weapons, but every time the slugs spoil one of the sides
The way the combat scales just... hurts me. I finally start to feel safe, reconstructing my energy production after the 30th MASSIVE slime-wave wiped out my entire base, and then another alert comes from the other end of the valley, and I have to waddle back to the cave to get the laser guy. I've barely been able to TOUCH the pilot
Please give us a difficulty slider... Or a way to curb the spawn-rate (plus, from what I can tell, the emp generators aren't worth it, that power could be spent on a laser turret)
I personally got to around 80% of the upgrades for buildings and around 20% for suit, but those are not anywhere near enough, since the slimes usually take down half the base at the bare minimum, which leaves them to build it all over again and until then the next, stronger wave appears. I managed to get stuff under control only after the 1 hour and 50 minute mark.
Personally I don't have an issue with the research tree, it's how the left side is designed that is the problem. Compare it to the right side and it's understandable.
Since I hadn't played since v0.7.2 I decided to go through the redone tutorial to see the potential new dialog... I dunno if its dialog that was recently added with v0.9, but the very moment I hit 200 energy so that I can build the Mk1 Auto-Miner, a chat starts up involving the Captain that i havn't actually met yet. Captain's first line even shows up in Tauma's orange color instead of green.
Very great game, played through it once or twice on V0.8.0 and gave it a try with the latest release V 0.9.0
I've found the changes to slimes make them significantly more difficult, annoyingly so. Even knowing about them ahead of time and setting up defenses wasn't enough, and it quickly reached a point where the hot air balloon looking ones would spawn baby slimes quicker than could be killed.
Not sure if it was the case in previous versions, but the sound effects for both the elevator moving and slimes dealing damage to structures are LOUD. I haven't changed the sound settings, and they're easily double or triple the loudness of other sound effects.
The increased energy transfer rate is quite noticeable and very welcome, as previously I'd need to spend quite awhile simply holding W to build things, which gets boring very quickly.
I'll have to give it another try later, as I only progressed right up before building the radio tower and didn't see what it does, but I'm looking forward to seeing the game move forward to completion!
1. The game isn't very clear on how you need to progress. The only hint they give is if you bring a full-weight character to the cave, and that's something you have no reason to do and which takes a long, long time.
2. there doesn't seem to be a way to place multiple towers without bringing up the menu. This could be fixed by bringing back the system from the first game where you shift-click.
3. It's annoying that machines will still hog half of a generator's energy even if they only need like 10 energy. It would be nice if power consumption maxed out at the optimal level and anything after that went to the other machine connected to the generator. This could even be implemented as a suit upgrade, where it gives you the ability to micromanage where the power from a generator goes.
Oh, and the research station should draw 15 power even if a player is next to the generator. It's annoying not being able to research bc your fat ass is blocking the solar panel.
The end of the game hasn't been implemented yet, the whole sequence with the cave collapse is going to be completely optional for those who want to go the extra mile with the weights (which you can also achieve by having multiple characters get fat as well, the combined weight is taken into account). It's going to remain optional for beating the game moving forward as well, but that's a subject for when I actually put out the next version with an actual end of the game implemented. As for the shift clicking, that is in the game, I'll have to double check the tutorial and make sure that I put it in there/made it clear that's an option. The power distribution thing is something I'd have to think about longer for what the best way to implement added complexity if that's something I even want for this game. After all, both building are "the other one" depending on which one you look at first. Food for thought though!
oh, I'm on laptop. Maybe the trackpad disables shift. Oops!
How I thought of it was: If the left one is fully powered, the right one gets the excess. If the right one is fully powered, the left one gets the excess. if both are fully powered, it doesn't really matter where the excess goes
It's just an idea I had. I wouldn't be angry if you didn't take the suggestion of some random stranger.
Oh, not to be the kid who says "what about the homework," but the descriptions of the defensive structures don't have the correct values for the energy requirements. I sincerely hope that the descriptions are flawed rather than the implementation, because I don't know if I could get through the cave when the minimum power for a defensive structure is 20/s
I'll be looking over the values for the energy description requirements, there's a lot of stuff I'm re-tuning with the combat.
The problem I ran into with implementing power in the way you described was that if you have alternating chains of generators and consumers the amounts each individual generator (and thus what they had left over for the next building) to fully power buildings would be variable, and would change based on stuff happening down the chain. Throw in the need for the player to absorb energy and it was quickly becoming more and more difficult to tell what was affecting each building's power at a glance, and was starting to need additional menus to either see what was happening or introduce manual fine tuning of power allocation. Stuff like moving a generator on the right of your base depowering the stuff on the left while leaving the middle alone so you don't see until you walk over there.
Possible to implement? Definitely, but it was starting to get more complicated to manage than what I wanted for this game's experience. But the suggestions are welcome! Even if they're something I've already tried out it gives me an excuse to ramble about game design.
hmm, maybe instead the player could control how much power goes to the left and how much power goes to the right. This would eliminate tha problem of important things happening offscreen with no indication, since a failure in power on one side of a grid wouldn't cause a outage on the opposite side of the grid. I just dislike dealing with the fact that building structures next to a generator will take away power from whatever's on the other side, even if the structure you built already gets power from somewhere else.
Welp, I've learned that you shouldn't build elevators up too high, or else they'd bug out like crazy. Also, is there an ending to the game? I've researched and upgraded everything and completed the cave section(Fun 2-hour adventure of me going, "Why doesn't that work?!" and "What the hell is going on with the elevators?!"), But all in all, I'm still having a lot of fun with the game.
Yeah elevators have been a thorn in my side in terms of buggies for a while. I have an idea of what might be happening if it's only when they're up high, but can you give some specifics of what's happening? Also the game does not have an ending yet, but an ending is coming! Just gotta stop getting sidetracked.
Well, I was building a multi-level base, and then I had a question, "How tall can I make my base?" So, I began to build hub walls up; it wasn't until I was about halfway up to the sky box that the elevator started disappearing and reappearing rapidly. I found a way to cheese it by standing on what I've already built and making a new floor above me. I did manage to make it to the world's height by doing this. Admittedly, I have no reason to build up that high, but I thought having a Let's Game it Out moment would be fun.
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What is the "end of the game" in this
Building and using the radio tower starts the end game sequence of events.
Is there anything else after I complete the scan?
Not to sound condescending, but are you reading the dialogue?
Nope.
I played the game so many times, I started skipping the dialogue.
Could I get a hint atleast on where the cheat codes go?
I gave a pretty clear hint in the V0.10.0 patch notes, but if you want something a little less obvious there's only one place in the game you can enter text.
Anyone have a good defense setup to deal with these waves?
there is no good defense. there is only slime.
What is wacatac.B!ml?
False positive that windows defender flags, it's a pretty common issue for gamemaker games.
RIP spacethumper2 v0.10.1.zip, slayed too close to the sun, got thundercunted by windows defender
thank you my liege
Im begging pls, where do I enter the codes straight up pleeeeeease
I made a meme to vent my stress in a 9+ hour file...
You are doing some illuminati shit to Dax. A+
in the background I did (in order of drawn references):
1. Starwalker ("being a rock is pissing me off")
2. sans' skull shape (I kinda didn't feel like making the full face with the shading)
3. Bill Cypher (funni trigle)
(cannot insert the bg asset, as I saved it as a .webp file :sob:)
also, sorry if it sounded insensitive. I was just unsure if you got those references or not :(
I didn't even realize sans was in there lol. I did suspect starwalker and bill though.
that's neat to hear
the background looks like trollface
i hope it's been long enough for me to ask, but what is/are the code(s) for the cheat(s)
The codes themselves or where to enter them? Right now you can get one for getting to the end of the game if that helps.
I think they're referring to the codes themselves, but now you got me curious about where to enter them as well.
the codes themselves yeah, unless you don't want to then nevermind
I've got some ideas in mind for how I'll be rolling those out, probably going to be a reward for beating certain difficulties or doing certain things.
when will the next update come out? just a rough estimate would be nice
I'll be honest, I work on the game when my schedule and my motivation overlap, which isn't really conducive to even a rough update schedule. Could be next week, could be a few months, could be anywhere in between.
ah, i see. great to know.
Just noticed a bug that happened, While I was paused and a floating slime was near me... the slime just started to... go through the ground? Though it's position would be... mostly corrected after this happens
Hey! Just got done with the game so far (v9.2). Overall a solid expansion of the first game! You seem well aware of the odd difficulty curve, which is about the only major issue I can see with the game so far. The characters, the dialogue, the art, and ESPECIALLY the sound design (the suit creaking is probably the best thing I didn't know I needed) are fantastic, as far I'm concerned. Really looking forward to playing the full release.
I could see an attack timer (or maybe a building or suit upgrade that gives you one) being a great addition, since I found myself waiting around for the next wave before starting any serious expansion projects. That and maybe more indication of things stats. Health bars for the slimes? Posted numbers for the attack power of defenses and the drone? Having energy consumption added to the description of every applicable building would be good, too, like the radio tower and teleporters. Just quality of life ideas. You've got a lovely game so far, thanks for sharing it with all of us!
(P.S.) Oh I nearly forgot! Sen seems to gradually lower throughout the playthrough. It must be very incremental, since he maybe halved in altitude over the course of 11 hours, which was when I finally noticed. I'm afraid I don't have much more info than that.
Huh, there must be a rounding issue with Sen's floating animation, that's funny. You're definitely right about the energy consumption numbers for the teleporters and the radio tower, I meant the put those in but I guess I just forgot. A wave timer might not be a bad idea either, I'll have to think of ways it could be incorporated into the UI. I want to keep the rest of the screen relatively clean, so I'm a bit opposed to adding more health bars and damage numbers, but putting that info in the build menu might help to compare relative values at least, I'd be willing to consider that.
Rather curious, as a general consensus, what is everyone's general methodology for going about setting up a manageable base?
For me, it's to go past the overhang, close enough where I can still get to the caves in a hurry, but far enough where I don't have to deal with getting ganged up on by the slimes. Especially since the left slime nest is like, 5-8 tiles away from the cave if you manage to get up there.
I then set up a metal mining job and energy generation so I can start mining crystals. Fun fact, you can mine crystals faster than the tier 1 and 2 mining machines so it saves resources and time. Not to mention it also means less buildings for the slimes.
I spend most of the time generating resources here, getting some upgrades and slowly pinching my way to the steam turbine. Then, that's when the real fun begins. Once I get the hab wall, it's wind turbines for days. In conjunction with the accumulator, it solves energy gathering pretty well for charging up crew members.
Though that forced me to have to make a freight elevator as it is the only thing that can carry the pilot and I am unable to to go to the ground. Due to there being less energy.
I then use hab walls to work my way to the overhang's top, the untouchable zone. The amount of effort to get here is kinda rewarding but at the same time not really. Due to how the wind turbines work, they count how many platforms are stacked under them, not the height layer of the map they are on. Therefore any turbines on top of the overhang don't gain the energy scaling which makes them better than most generators.
From there I feel like it would be smooth sailing if I did a run.
I kinda did the same thing, but I didn't bother with the freight elevator. I kinda just used the normal elevator to go up and fell offthe building to get to everything else I use that energy for.
Usually just for research and upgrades tbh. No reason to take that much energy up an elevator that way.
Usually for me it's not so much as taking that much energy up an elevator, it's usually down an elevator that I try to do it.
How does one access the cheat code?? I have been fumbling around to try and find it.
Try looking in the settings for somewhere you can input letters
Is there a cheat code??
Yeah, you have to beat the game first, there will be someone telling you the code, though Idk where to put it.
I like this game, I really do. I feel like it has a lot of potential. But I feel like you spend a lot more time having to fight off enemies instead of being able to build things without worrying about them destroying the stuff you've taken so much time to build so quickly. To me, it seems extremely net negative instead of rewarding when it comes to production in this game. Because not only are there so many enemies coming at once, but they can also very easily destroy stuff because of both quantity and the damage they can do no matter how upgraded your stuff is. It just feels like you are getting basically nowhere, and it makes it seem like the things you build is just a waste of time and resources. Setting up things to make other things be able to function while having to deal with enemies all at once... Very frustrating and just makes things like that seem pointless.
I think that one thing you could add is difficulties, like V1
For those who do not like fighting and want to do this without obstacles
do you have mod support? if not, would you want to add it?
Beyond allowing for sprite replacement for the characters I don't have any plans for mod support. To be honest I'm not even sure how I would go about adding more in depth mod support.
Sorry for my poor English, I use a translator since I speak Spanish. I just hope the translation doesn't get the point across, because I don't want it to sound like just a complaint.
Um, I've read the comments, and I think it's clear that one of the main complaints is the slime issue. And, um, I think the slime generation is really a bit out of hand. While it's true that we currently have more defense tools, they are hampered by the energy issue, especially the entrance area into the cave. While I understand, as some mention, it was primarily planned as a trap, I still feel it's annoying having to go through that entire empty area and leave it mainly because of the spawn. I feel it's more an issue because of the energy lost during the transfer and the character change. It can be jarring to have to go through that empty area to get to the cave. While it can be corrected with structures late in the game, I don't know, it's somewhat jarring. Another point that, uh, found is the issue of red and purple slimes, the generation of mini slimes feels somewhat excessive, also in some cases even the red slime was far from the range of my turret, so I feel that putting a number that limits the amount of slimes that can generate is limited, also as many mention, the difference between past versions and version 0.9 is enormously felt, I spent the first game on hard difficulty and, in this one it is simply shocking, in late game I could barely raise my base, even moving further back from the cave, it was difficult to correctly plan the base or even raise it due to the slime issue, losing 2 mining points because the same slimes do not allow me to get close to them, I was lucky to be able to improve the suit enough so I could hold out, but it was still a problem, since in past versions the left spawn issue was a problem which made it necessary to go back to repair but, with some luck You could keep your base stable, but in this current version, no. It's no joke that slimes don't allow you to expand or improve things. I certainly feel like it's somewhat far from being at a "normal" difficulty level and feels more like playing on hard all the time.
I think I'll leave the game for now. However, I'll be on the lookout for new updates because I still love the game, the art and the mechanics. I have faith that it will be resolved over time. Because, as you said, it's part of balancing the game, and at the end of the day, these are things that take time. I'll anxiously await the day the difficulty selector is implemented. But at the same time, I don't want this to end on a sour note. I can only say that, even with its problems, it's a great game for something like feederism or fat fur. I really love the game, as well as the design of its characters. I've also followed your other games, such as the sowing and harvesting game. I don't intend to pressure you, just comment. I waited almost a year for an update. A few more months until everything is polished won't kill anyone, great game, keep it up
Difficulties are coming soon, I've almost got the regular balance ironed out.
This game really needs either cables/wires, or option to make building generate energy to ONLY one structure, instead of always halving it and sharing with both structures - at its left and its right.
There are places where i'd like to make my generator give energy to ONLY one thing and completely ignore something else.
Like on this screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/iWi4P80
I really would do a lot for being able to make wind turbine next to left of my auto-miner, give energy to ONLY laser turret, because auto-miner is already powered by something else. This is crucial mechanic for game with so much micromanaging and i genuinely don't understand, why it's either missing, or it's never explained in game, how to do that.
It's mostly from me wanting to emphasize the difficulties the characters themselves are facing with power management through gameplay. No batteries beyond their own bodies, no cables for long distance transmission, not even simple distribution systems. I'll admit I would probably tweak some things now given my experience with developing this game, but those would require complete overhauls at this point, so the current power system is here to stay.
Even being able to make power source transfer energy to only left/right side would require complete overhaul of energy system?
That specifically is probably doable with less intensive reworks of the code. I was more referring to automatically adjusting power given to buildings based on need. That would cause a whole slew of problems without a major rework.
I found the problem, looks like elevator is allowed to be built partly in cave, but then it won't work.
How do i use elevator? Pressing e does nothing, my elevator IS powered with more than required optimal power.
press up ("w" by default). If you've played games where you had to move up to use a ladder, you'll feel silly when you try on the elevator (Unless, you've already done that by the time I tell you this, which'll make me feel silly.)
I want to love this, but I just can't in it's current state.
Played on 0.9.2
I've played Spacethumper 1 and enjoyed it a lot, so I'll be speaking from that baseline. Starting with the good, when I learned I got to play as 3 different characters I really looked forward to it! They've all got distinct designs and personalities and bounce off each other well, and it gives an immediate fun goal of seeing how big you can get all of them. Gameplay is also expanded massively in terms of what you can do - adding verticality gives you a whole new plane to build on, and there's not just a whole new layer of complexity added with them but multiple layers with the conditionals for the generators, solar does bad underneath platforms and caves, wind doesn't do great on the ground, elevators need space, and everything needs to be powered and needs something next to it, it's more than just using the power to create them in the first place now. It gives so much more to work with and around in planning your base and how you're gonna set up,especially when including how many more structures are now 2 tile wide, some 3tiles wide! Everything added and changed gives you a whole lot more to play around with compared to its predecessor, and I was really excited to try it all out
But, the game's just... irritating, to play, at least currently. On my first save, I took my time looking around a little, doing the tutorial, reading the dialog after hitting 200, talking with the people in the cave... when I left, I found my first slime. And this is where the trouble began.
I wanted to play whilst exploring what I'd been given. Building platforms, building wind turbines on them and seeing how well they worked, trying to build elevators and, mostly getting confused why they wouldn't work (I build the elevator underneath structures), and often switching characters to give everyone a turn. Eventually, what this resulted in was getting overran with slimes. As far as I can tell, they scale almost solely by how much time has passed, so taking my time with things and playing with all the new toys I'd been handed just came back to bite me until I ended up needing to run back and forth constantly repairing what defences I had, deciding then to just give up as I was making no progress and the waves were only getting harder. Two and a half hours on that save, a full research table, some suit upgrades, and I had to leave it all behind because I felt essentially softlocked.
I tried again tomorrow. Skipped through dialog as fast as I can, swapped straight to big green, and spent every single moment trying to build up as fast as I could. This time I was able to expand enough to actually explore a little, and realized that there was a lot more in both directions I had no idea about my first time around, especially to the right. Slowly I progressed up there, expanding my operation, and I think a little under 2 hours later I felt I'd done everything I could. Full research, full upgrades, and Mark III reactors with thousands of crystals all around with Mark III miners keeping plenty in surplus if needed. My defences were over the slimes' own nests and at this point, destroying them not long after I got there, usually only needing to replace the fortified wall placed directly over their nest and a few other repairs here and there. Things seemed simple now, and after an initial scan I decided to launch the wave.
Then the countdown started. I hadn't expected a countdown. I'd expected the scan to work like the first scan and be instant, though with this one summoning a wave from both ends as I was warned of aggrevating the local fauna. I'd set up defences and a teleporter so I could handle one on one end and teleport to the other to help with the rest, and suddenly my plan was moot because the second scan works differently without any warning. My defences couldn't handle multiples waves so close together and I lost everything, and I knew the slimes were still scaled up from how long I'd been playing. Trying to start from scratch would be next to impossible as I'd have no resource generation to help build, nevermind maintain, any defences of any kind. My save was too far back for me to care, so I quit once again, defeated.
It's very tempting to start up another run, but frankly, spending every single moment trying to build up as fast as you can is more stressful than fun, and I don't enjoy the pressure of feeling like I have to knowing that if I don't, my entire base will be destroyed and recovering it likely won't be possible as the difficulty will have scaled too much. Unlocking max elasticity didn't feel like a reward for hard work to be enjoyed, it felt like a requirement to have a chance of surviving the slime waves as they continued to get harder and harder. Even just getting the dialog for new weight thresholds felt mildly stressful as I'd seen before that it doesn't pause time, only stopping you taking in energy and stopping you in place. That's not efficient. That's a hazard against my base. Sure, I want to read it, but I want to get through it as fast as possible so I can be ready if an attack happens. How am I meant to enjoy the dialog, or any of the weight gain aspects of the game, if I have to spend every second trying to fortify myself as much as possible?
I know this can be something incredible. All the groundwork is there, and there's so much to experiment with that I imagine there are a practically infinite amount of bases that people can build. It's so full of promise, and I strongly, eagerly look forward to the next versions in hopes of seeing their improvement. But in it's current state, it's just too demanding of you to enjoy playing it. And no matter how much I daydream about playing it and what I could build, I've no interest in spending yet another evening feeling under constant pressure to keep moving else I lose everything. This is so, so close to being something great, there's just still plenty of tweaking to be done yet for it to get there.
Thank you for reading. I can't wait to see what you do next!
Ik this will never happen, but i hope one day the elasticity increases. 🤞
Played the newest update and I find it hilarious how wind turbines have become absolutely powerful but ironically impractical for mining except for one spot that requires so much micro management that it's comedic. Thanks to the all powerful energy accumulators it's possible to have an enormous amount of power in one specific spot. That's the area directly to the front of the cave with the crystal deposit. At the top of it specifically. This specific area I've noticed is... Let's just say awkward.
Okay, first let's start with how the crystal deposit is functionally a trap due to the fact that it is very close to the slime spawner on the left side. By very close I mean you're going to have slimes dropping on your head if you don't move away from that area asap. Not only is it unlikely that you'll be able to generate enough power to use the area effectively, but in the beginning of the game you can harvest crystals with your laser without having to get a mining drill. I like the design of this trap even if it is likely unintentional.
Note that I specifically say it is a trap and not a trap just for players. It is also a trap for slimes due to how their AI functions. The gap between the plateau and the cave roof is about three buildings in size. Due to this, if there is a building on the overhang, the slimes will become confused and attempt to get to that building even if they physically cannot get to it. So effectively it functions as a carrot on a stick only it's just hanging there, taunting the slimes.
Now getting there is another issue entirely. Which makes it even more awkward due to the fact that it is so close to the slime spawner and requires two hab wall layers to even get there. So this might be a reason why many players early game are having trouble, as most would be inclined to have their structures closer to the cave. At least this is how I see it. Just my perspective.
Can someone explain to me why every time there's a comment on the game's difficulty or someone asking for a peaceful mode, it gets downvoted to hell? I thought feedback and bug reports were greatly appreciated and all
I can't speak definitely for anyone since I usually ignore the votes on comments, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say it's because I give the same answer to the question every time so it gets a little repetitive if you're the kind of person who reads through the comments and gives them votes. I personally welcome the feedback as long as it's not "ur game is bad" type commentary.
This Game is lots of fun, glad to see you're updating it again, i still wish that there'd be a peaceful mode for this game like the previous one, since setting up a base instead of defending it all the time is the way i like to play it the most
Been enjoying the game so far! It has nice graphics and I like the ideas and game loop.
My main grievance is that the slimes seem to be too powerful and numerous at times. Also, is it possible to turn the turrets around? Whenever slimes attack from the West, I need to go eliminate them myself since the turrets won't turn around.
The turrets should be turning around when there's an enemy in range even if they all start out facing right. Is this happening for the gauss turrets as well or just the lasers?
It was happening with the regular turrets, but I found out the problem was I wasn't supplying them with enough energy with the windmill generators, that was my bad. Thank you for checking.
One thing I would like to suggest are icons above structures to let you know if they aren't getting power, it would make a good way to quickly know if you need to build more generators.
Yeah the turrets have weird tracking. Have to check the difference from the previous update and the latest update.
I'll admit, the change to the difficulty is noticeable from 0.8.0 to 0.9.1, not complaining, but I do like the challenge. It's just very brutal if you're new to the game. The left side is still monstrously dangerous in comparison to the right side, though I have noticed the right side is harder. My strategy mostly involves not using the mining machines because maxed out miner laser is a helpful tool in gathering resources quickly it's just faster than the mining drill. Gausses are... weird. They're seemingly better off used on flat surfaces against enemies that it can track. There's no denying their useage, but I haven't used MK 2 yet to confirm if they're useful when building up to the sides. My one annoyance is how the platform above the cave is set up and the fact that there isn't a floating bridge or something to easily get to the other side of it on the left side. It's what makes the left side of the map so dangerous, not only are they closer but they're far harder to deal with so the crystal deposit at the base is basically a trap. I've been having tons of fun trying to figure out how to gather enough resources to max everything out so I can start going to the tops. I only use one elevator though because it's easier to deal with than having multiple to be honest
The slimes attack sound on structures peaks really high, a lot louder than most of the other sound effects. Elevators are also another culprit of this. A difficulty setting much like everyone else already said is needed, especially since in this patch the left side spawns around 8-10 slimes at the same time, making short work of your base within seconds while tanking multiple turrets and one tapping one or even two structures per attack.
For the audio being too loud, for some reason the sound effects feed themselves into a feedback loop which means they double in volume after every single slime attack
Come on man, for the love of god, just put a difficulty slider or peaceful mode in already, I just want to play the game without having everything I built be destroyed by slimes all the time...
Once enemy balance is taken care of then I can start thinking about difficulty options. If I put them in now I would have no good gauge for if the standard game is too hard, since a good chunk of people would just give up at the first sign of challenge and switch to easy. This way I can actually tune things to be enjoyable for the average player, and then use that as a basis for an easy mode.
Look, I get it, you want to take care of enemy balance first, but if you want to do that and get more info from the player, you just need to ask them! Like, just go around the comments asking them about, or even better, why don't you make a survey for us to fill out? A survey every update or so would actually be the perfect gauge for a lot of things in the game, not just enemy difficulty.
Now, you said that if you put a difficulty option in now, 'a good chunk of people would just give up at the first sign of challenge and switch to easy', if that actually happens at some point in the future, the problem wouldn't be on the players giving up and switching to easy, it would be the thing that's causing them to do that!
Speaking of that, I think that the real problem isn't even enemy balance at this point, it's the combat! Like I already said before here in the comments, the combat is just dogshit, and I really don't mean that as an offense. The defensive buildings have no damage numbers and no range number anywhere, so the player doesn't really know what they do, it's just like Spacethumper 1 but with more enemies and defensive buildings, and in my view a sequel should be an improvement upon the first game, not more of the same...
Wow an update! I'm so glad to see this game hasn't been abandoned, been playing since Spacethumper 1!
Bug: Audio from the elevators underflows after a certain point, becoming far, *far* too loud.
can you eat the enemies?
other word vore?
Nope, no vore or eating slimes in this game.
k just wondering
this is despite the fact that I haven’t started to carry out the rear concerns about protecting the radio
I face such a problem that every time I start to heal the left or right side. Slime spawns in different places and this hinders progress. I did everything I could, I put up protection and weapons, but every time the slugs spoil one of the sides
The way the combat scales just... hurts me.
I finally start to feel safe, reconstructing my energy production after the 30th MASSIVE slime-wave wiped out my entire base, and then another alert comes from the other end of the valley, and I have to waddle back to the cave to get the laser guy. I've barely been able to TOUCH the pilot
Please give us a difficulty slider... Or a way to curb the spawn-rate
(plus, from what I can tell, the emp generators aren't worth it, that power could be spent on a laser turret)
How far did you get in the research tree after an hour and a half? Mostly asking to tinker around with balance.
I personally got to around 80% of the upgrades for buildings and around 20% for suit, but those are not anywhere near enough, since the slimes usually take down half the base at the bare minimum, which leaves them to build it all over again and until then the next, stronger wave appears. I managed to get stuff under control only after the 1 hour and 50 minute mark.
Personally I don't have an issue with the research tree, it's how the left side is designed that is the problem. Compare it to the right side and it's understandable.
so happy for the new update, though I am sad that there is no difficulty setting still but oh well, you did say it would take a long time afterall.
Since I hadn't played since v0.7.2 I decided to go through the redone tutorial to see the potential new dialog... I dunno if its dialog that was recently added with v0.9, but the very moment I hit 200 energy so that I can build the Mk1 Auto-Miner, a chat starts up involving the Captain that i havn't actually met yet. Captain's first line even shows up in Tauma's orange color instead of green.
I can see that this game definitely has a lot of potential, but my god, the combat is just dogshit...
Very great game, played through it once or twice on V0.8.0 and gave it a try with the latest release V 0.9.0
I've found the changes to slimes make them significantly more difficult, annoyingly so. Even knowing about them ahead of time and setting up defenses wasn't enough, and it quickly reached a point where the hot air balloon looking ones would spawn baby slimes quicker than could be killed.
Not sure if it was the case in previous versions, but the sound effects for both the elevator moving and slimes dealing damage to structures are LOUD. I haven't changed the sound settings, and they're easily double or triple the loudness of other sound effects.
The increased energy transfer rate is quite noticeable and very welcome, as previously I'd need to spend quite awhile simply holding W to build things, which gets boring very quickly.
I'll have to give it another try later, as I only progressed right up before building the radio tower and didn't see what it does, but I'm looking forward to seeing the game move forward to completion!
Great game, but there are a few annoyances.
1. The game isn't very clear on how you need to progress. The only hint they give is if you bring a full-weight character to the cave, and that's something you have no reason to do and which takes a long, long time.
2. there doesn't seem to be a way to place multiple towers without bringing up the menu. This could be fixed by bringing back the system from the first game where you shift-click.
3. It's annoying that machines will still hog half of a generator's energy even if they only need like 10 energy. It would be nice if power consumption maxed out at the optimal level and anything after that went to the other machine connected to the generator. This could even be implemented as a suit upgrade, where it gives you the ability to micromanage where the power from a generator goes.
Oh, and the research station should draw 15 power even if a player is next to the generator. It's annoying not being able to research bc your fat ass is blocking the solar panel.
The end of the game hasn't been implemented yet, the whole sequence with the cave collapse is going to be completely optional for those who want to go the extra mile with the weights (which you can also achieve by having multiple characters get fat as well, the combined weight is taken into account). It's going to remain optional for beating the game moving forward as well, but that's a subject for when I actually put out the next version with an actual end of the game implemented. As for the shift clicking, that is in the game, I'll have to double check the tutorial and make sure that I put it in there/made it clear that's an option. The power distribution thing is something I'd have to think about longer for what the best way to implement added complexity if that's something I even want for this game. After all, both building are "the other one" depending on which one you look at first. Food for thought though!
oh, I'm on laptop. Maybe the trackpad disables shift. Oops!
How I thought of it was: If the left one is fully powered, the right one gets the excess. If the right one is fully powered, the left one gets the excess. if both are fully powered, it doesn't really matter where the excess goes
It's just an idea I had. I wouldn't be angry if you didn't take the suggestion of some random stranger.
Oh, not to be the kid who says "what about the homework," but the descriptions of the defensive structures don't have the correct values for the energy requirements. I sincerely hope that the descriptions are flawed rather than the implementation, because I don't know if I could get through the cave when the minimum power for a defensive structure is 20/s
I'll be looking over the values for the energy description requirements, there's a lot of stuff I'm re-tuning with the combat.
The problem I ran into with implementing power in the way you described was that if you have alternating chains of generators and consumers the amounts each individual generator (and thus what they had left over for the next building) to fully power buildings would be variable, and would change based on stuff happening down the chain. Throw in the need for the player to absorb energy and it was quickly becoming more and more difficult to tell what was affecting each building's power at a glance, and was starting to need additional menus to either see what was happening or introduce manual fine tuning of power allocation. Stuff like moving a generator on the right of your base depowering the stuff on the left while leaving the middle alone so you don't see until you walk over there.
Possible to implement? Definitely, but it was starting to get more complicated to manage than what I wanted for this game's experience. But the suggestions are welcome! Even if they're something I've already tried out it gives me an excuse to ramble about game design.
hmm, maybe instead the player could control how much power goes to the left and how much power goes to the right. This would eliminate tha problem of important things happening offscreen with no indication, since a failure in power on one side of a grid wouldn't cause a outage on the opposite side of the grid. I just dislike dealing with the fact that building structures next to a generator will take away power from whatever's on the other side, even if the structure you built already gets power from somewhere else.
Welp, I've learned that you shouldn't build elevators up too high, or else they'd bug out like crazy. Also, is there an ending to the game? I've researched and upgraded everything and completed the cave section(Fun 2-hour adventure of me going, "Why doesn't that work?!" and "What the hell is going on with the elevators?!"), But all in all, I'm still having a lot of fun with the game.
Yeah elevators have been a thorn in my side in terms of buggies for a while. I have an idea of what might be happening if it's only when they're up high, but can you give some specifics of what's happening? Also the game does not have an ending yet, but an ending is coming! Just gotta stop getting sidetracked.
Well, I was building a multi-level base, and then I had a question, "How tall can I make my base?" So, I began to build hub walls up; it wasn't until I was about halfway up to the sky box that the elevator started disappearing and reappearing rapidly. I found a way to cheese it by standing on what I've already built and making a new floor above me. I did manage to make it to the world's height by doing this. Admittedly, I have no reason to build up that high, but I thought having a Let's Game it Out moment would be fun.
Yup, that's definitely the code I put in to enforce a vertical build limit acting weird. Another bug to squash!