It's time. Destination Ares is re-releasing imminently and will be available for purchase soon.
The game is also being permanently reduced in price! $19.99 / £19.99 / €19.99 -> $9.99 / £7.99 / €8.99 I will also be doing fewer sales these days, so I hope the reduced price makes up for that. Note that it might take a bit of time for the reduced price to propagate, but it should be there soon!
If you already own the game, you can get access to v1.1.0 now.
The New Destination Ares
This update, v1.1.0, is significant in some fundamental parts of the code. It will break any in-progress runs.
Difficulty Options, for the less masochistic
(Note: you still qualify for achievements while using these)
Resource Drain
- High (default), Low
Crew Skill
- Untrained (default), Skilled, Expert
Luck
- Even (default), Improved
Minigame Toggle
(hotly demanded!)
System Construction & Salvage
Build makeshift systems in-flight
when everything goes wrong! (Uses Science skill)
Break down old systems
for a few materials and parts! (Uses Mechanical skill)
New Events - what could go wrong?
Free a crewmember
from the jaws of the toilet's suction piece
Flood the atmos with vaporized fuel
when the air pressure is low
Turn an old corpse
into something useful
Use solar arrays
as a shield from micrometeoroids
Push a faulty fabricator to consume everything onboard
or die trying
Receive a definitely innocent memo from GuideBot
Fixes, Improvements, and Wildly Incoherent Changes
Started up minigame tutorial sooner
Sped up minigame tutorial
Made GuideBot harass you more often with snarky tips
"Broken" tooltip text now red
Overhauled event data structure internally
Updated dev tools
Unlocked all crew personalities from the beginning of the game; I apologize in advance if you roll a Chatty crewmember
Fixed - Crew sometimes abandoned ship secretly when they were supposed to die, were listed as "Survived"
"Pause" now slows the game to 1/500 speed, rather than perfect 0
Added a second way to enter the path to the secret ending
Some hard to press buttons are now, you know, easier to press
Your hidden AI core more consistently consumes energy (every 10 seconds)
Command skill is now more effective at preventing that passive energy drain, with the same diminishing returns
Base crew resilience to stress is lowered, but more consistent
Command skill increases stress resilience for all crew - so long as the crewmember(s) with the skill are capable of doing work
(No changes to bonus minigame time from Command skill)
Crew need to eat slightly more food and sleep slightly longer
Special crew with increased resilience to needs (i.e., the "skilled engineer" and "famous scientist") eat a little less and sleep faster, in addition to less often
The "wealthy doctor" gets a bonus point in Command
Choosing "high quality system retrofits" does more, including handing out keywords
Achievements should no longer unlock early
Known Bug
Rarely dead crew continue moving for awhile, drifting about the ship and/or swinging arms (definitely won't fix)
Let me know if you run into any new bugs, I might fix them again in another 4 or 5 years.
Destination Ares will be Re-Releasing
In 2020, I removed Destination Ares from all stores, including Steam.
A few months ago, I quit my job as a tech lead at a game company to start a new studio. While I'm waiting on admin stuff to go through, I've been touching up Destination Ares.
And so, I'm happy to announce: Destination Ares will be re-releasing this Spring.
This game had burnt me out. I haven't updated it since 2017, shortly after launch. It's both incredibly flawed, and incredibly niche. It never has and never will make me enough money to be worth spending any time on.
However, one of the game's fans reached out privately awhile ago, hoping I'd come back to DA one day. And, like all things that you hurt yourself loving, this game means too much to me to let it die so quietly.
Indeed, over the years I had occasionally come back to it when I felt a burst of inspiration. Much of that work never went anywhere and remains unfinished, but it started a base for the new update you'll see this Spring.
So far, the re-release will include:
new features!
in-flight construction
salvage of systems
new events!
hotly requested difficulty options!
and a minor amount of polish and bugfixing
It's still the same old masochistic and obtuse Destination Ares, and I look forward to giving it back to you.
Temporarily Not for Sale
Dear players,
Destination Ares is temporarily disabled for new purchases, effective immediately.
The ongoing situation in the US has become critical, and while self-care and relief from that pain is important, it is the opinion of this American developer & publisher that this game can exacerbate a person's stress, considering current events. It's not the time for a stressful story about fleeing oppressive regimes and questioning the nature of humanity.
Instead, putting resources and time into changing our broken systems, caring for ourselves and others in what's to come, and enabling others to do the same is paramount right now.
This week, I'll be taking Destination Ares to Boston for PAX East!
I scored a sweet opportunity with the Indie MEGABOOTH folks and will have a little station Thursday and Friday (April 5th and 6th), section 17070.
If you're going to be at PAX, come on by and meet me! I'll have stickers to give out, and you can show off your ridiculous and sadistic ship design skills. :kitchen:
Hope I get to meet some of you.
-Pat
Sales Pricing Structure
You may have noticed that Destination Ares has had suppressed sales prices on Steam.
This was an intentional experiment. :redscientist:
From launch onwards, every sale was 10% off, plus 1% per sale before it. So, the second sale was 11% and the sixth was 15%. My goal was to build a sense of consistency and transparency with my sales pricing structure.
Of course, there were two issues with this method.
First, I didn't tell anyone that I was doing this. :evafacepalm: Whoops, there goes the transparency part.
Second, 1% per sale is too slow for a game of this scale, if we consider how many Steam sales can be squeezed in a year. My rough estimate based on previous data is 12 sales per year (5 or 6 weeklongs + 4 seasonals + 2 or 3 randoms [like the Lunar New Year event that happened recently]). If Valve :2017meatball: ever reaches out to do a special promotion, this could go up slightly.
Still, that's only 22% off, max, by the game's launch anniversary, *if* I participated in every sale opportunity (which, for various reasons, doesn't always happen). 22% is a respectable discount, but doesn't light a candle against other pricing schedules.
I could see some games making that '1% per sale' work. It hasn't worked for this title, however.
So, I've decided to amend my strategy.
Step one: Let you all in on the secret.
Done.
Step two: Make up a bit for lost time.
This week and this week only, Destination Ares is 20% off on Steam.
Step three: :alarm:
Decide and announce the new pricing structure.
From now on, Destination Ares' sales price will add 3% each time.
Today it's 20%, next time it'll be 23%, then 26%, and so on.
It's not a dramatic increase from sale to sale, and it's not supposed to be!
I want you to be confident that you're getting a good deal when you buy this game that I put so much literal blood, sweat, and tears into making. Whether you buy it on sale or not, you should know what you're getting into, and part of that is knowing how much you could be paying.
However, if you're going to wait anyway, I don't want you to have to wait until the heat death of the universe. :bluemedic:
Hopefully, this will be the sweet spot.
Thanks for taking this ride with me.
Happy Launch! Here's a quick patch :)
This update is mostly Quality of Life, bringing in a bunch of fixes and improvements to clean up the experience. :redscientist:
Notably, crew will do off-task work more often. This should make the game demonstrably easier for less attentive AIs. (You still won't win. Git gud)
Patch:
Improvements
Shortened how long it takes before the minigame tutorial turns on
Slowed minigame tutorial down
Clarified wording in minigame tutorial
Improved clickability of minigame's "Return to Ship" button
Destroyed systems are now more recognizable in their tooltips
Increased how often crew will do off-task work. Should see more idle usage and repairs, especially with jobless crew
Fixed
Fixed some special loss events getting ignored if the player resumes a run after exiting the game
Fixed a couple achievement toggles (incl The Arean Trail. Grats if you got it free), though I suspect there's something else going on here
Fixed typo in one of the Madness possibilities
Fixed a bug in event management that had weird cascading effects
Fixed Loss events getting overridden
Fixed Loss events not spawning
Made some tweaks that hopefully prevent a rare, hard-to-reproduce crash
Fixed some blank crew chatter popping up
---
On a personal note, I'm glad to see the full game is well-liked — especially after a rough Early Access.
Sales haven't been enough, though. No one is surprised that getting visibility is not my strong suit. It seems that I am going to have to begin work on other projects; I've been working for nothing for too many years.
Still, I reserve the right to come back and add to this game at any time ;)
-Pat
LAUNCH
Today we leave Early Access.
Welcome players, new and old! I think you'll like what you find in Destination Ares.
By the way, Steam cards are here in time for launch!
Version 1.0.0 Patch Notes:
New Events <*> (Helpful) Critical Systems Repair: a chance to fix something destroyed or broken that you absolutely need to succeed
<*> (Helpful) Gained Experience: a chance to level up the crew or systems
<*> [SECRET] A Dark Truth: a shift in priorities
<*> (Standard) Hungry Crew
<*> (Standard) Electrical Surge
New Secret Achievements <*> "A Dark Truth"
<*> "Rigged and Armed"
<*> "Glitched Understanding"
Polish <*> Added custom victory results other than "Reached Destination"
<*> More fading, always more fading
Balance Changes <*> Reduced how quickly crew pass out from exhaustion, and how that affects their stress levels
<*> Also reduced odds of passing out from an accident (side effect: increased odds of being injured instead)
<*> Increased negative effects and possible results in Puketastic event
<*> Trimmed event timing to be a bit more accurate
<*> Events that feed crew are now more effective
Fixes <*> Character chatter that's all punctuation should once again show properly
<*> Game Over stats will set its correct height
<*> Achievement popups will actually stay on screen for a couple seconds
<*> Other minor things
Steam Trading Cards Added <*> 13 Cards; resources from the game
<*> 10 Backgrounds (4 common, 3 uncommon, 3 rare)
<*> 10 Emoticons (4 common, 3 uncommon, 3 rare)
<*> Oh, and some cheeky badges. I hear you like those
~~ Also included: ~~
v0.9.1 (Hotfix) <*> Fixed a crash
<*> Smoothed text chunk typing
<*> Colorized in-event dialogue
Incoming: v0.9.0
This is the last planned update before release on September 22nd!
Version 0.9.0 brings a bunch of polish to the table. Most of the focus is on a revamp of the new player experience, as well as improvements to the Game Over presentation. There's also a small bit of new content.
Tons more content coming for the launch!
v 0.9.0 Notes:
Beginner Experience Overhaul
Introducing your new frenemy: Guide Bot!
Ripped out the old tutorial
Fused together a second beginner ship: the Gerridae
Crafted a better (and more visible) explanation of the minigame
New Content
Fuel Line Pressure event
"Viking Funeral" Achievement
Game Over events
Polish
Slight gradient overlay
Ship naming input now has a red backdrop to match other UI elements
Talking happens in words and chunks, rather than each letter
Prettified the Game Over screen
Balance Changes
Radar now spends twice as much energy over time (doubled chance of burning energy)
Capped how far you can go off course
Bugs
Fixed ships being unlocked when they shouldn't be
I hope you like big, surprise updates... v0.8.0
This has been a whirlwind to make.
The imminent update brings a ton of overhauls and metagame progression, in addition to new content.
Expect a tutorial revamp and even more content in the next updates. Until then, enjoy!
Side note: Destination Ares' price will now be rising to it's release level, in anticipation of the upcoming launch. :)
Metagame Progression
<*> Unlock content by spending advancement points
<*> Gain advancement points from achievements
<*> Gain advancement points from completed runs
New Ships
<*> Caelifera, a tiny new starter ship for beginner players to learn the ropes
<*> Mantodea, a difficult but powerful ship for veterans
New Roles
<*> Electrician — +2 Mechanical when repairing systems that consume energy
<*> Maimed — Reduced movement speed
<*> Athlete — Increased movement speed, less likely to get maimed
<*> Military — increased priority when tasking (currently locked)
Balance Changes
<*> HUD Warnings about beds, toilets, and kitchens now better account for ignored systems
<*> Loneliness hits unconscious crew for less. Likely harder to get a death from it now, but also more likely to result in psychotic breaks (and dying while in a psychotic state)
<*> Nerfed total loneliness amount
<*> Added chance to become permanently maimed when falling unconcious from an injury
<*> Low mass ships stay on course a bit better
<*> Added storage leak HUD warning
<*> Helms lose a *little* less raw speed when adjusting the ship
<*> Events now give you all their resources (even if you can't store them)
<*> Fuel cells have 1 latent capacity (even when turned off, but not when broken), in addition to the capacity gained while turned on
<*> Reactors' 8 latent capacity now goes away when broken
<*> Increased driftiness of ship (go offcourse less)
<*> Crew will take more care of their needs
<*> Increased hunger resistance
<*> Reduced distance to Ares
Customization Options
<*> Personalities can now be chosen in ship building, under crew appearance
<*> Tons more ship stats unlockable: thrust, navigation, capacity, mechanical score, science score, command score, energy production, materials prod., oxygen recycling + prod., fuel prod., food prod., waste prod., and waste recycling
Fixes and Quality of Life Improvements
<*> Killed a crash bug that's been around since ancient times! (fk yeah!!)
<*> Cut the opening exposition down a bunch
<*> Unplaced objects now trashed from your hand when opening menus in ship building
<*> In-game achievement announcements
<*> Detrimental roles are now colored red in tooltips
<*> Event results now tracked correctly when result tags are off
<*> Mouse pings show regardless of wildly different scene setups
<*> Space dust is more uniform in speed (still a little differentiated for parallax)
<*> Camera controls more lenient and spacious
<*> Turned off system audios in ship building (it was annoying af)
<*> Turned base music levels down a bit
<*> More menu fading
<*> Added reminder on controls bar on how to lock it open
<*> A few minor HUD & UI tweaks
