Outpost on Syrinx cover
Outpost on Syrinx screenshot
Steam
Genre: Indie

Outpost on Syrinx

Update - September 4 2020
This update is mostly about improved User Interface elements. Much of the UI has been redone, and some minor UI/UX features have been added. In particular, some actions that the player probably doesn't want to accidentally do now require the shift key to be held down in addition to a mouse click. This includes destroying or recycling objects, and picking up up placed furniture and crafting stations.

Minor update - palettes
This minor update includes a new feature that didn't quite make it into the game in time for last week's update...a customizable color palette. Currently this is for light colors. Colors can be changed in the palette (including copying from the light currently being customized), and lights can quickly be assigned any of the palette colors. This should make it much easier to get consistent light colors for multiple lights, if for example, you want all your Lamp Posts to be the same customized color.

Also, there was a bug in the light color picker which made picking purple colors impossible. This is now fixed.

Update - August 7, 2020
This update is focused on decorative elements. There are a bunch of new items you can craft, such as furniture, light fixtures, and some outdoor elements. There is a new system which allows customizing the surface of most of these new items...in other words, changing the color and sometimes other aspects of the surface. Also, players can customize the colors of individual lights they create. Mostly unrelated to this, there is also a new upgrade Tier for player inventory (both your personal inventory and the storage locker), which results in 24 item slots.

All of this should allow you to make your home on Syrinx a bit more cozy and personalized!

Patch - July 2, 2020 (resolution fix)
Today's update is a small patch that should fix a UI issue (mostly black screen) for people running in high resolutions (above 1080 x 1920, up to 4k).

Update - June 25 2020
Cooking! Cooking has been added to the game. There is a Cooking Station now, which is used to create food items and for inventing new food recipes. Food provides a 'well fed' stat buff, and can be sold to hungry crew members on the Mothership, who are thrilled to get a taste of this new Syrinx cuisine that the player is inventing.

Each unique dish has it's own level of popularity, which affects the price it is sold for. This is randomized for each game, so that there is not a particular food recipe/combination of ingredients that provides the most profit. This means that there is not a single particular recipe that all players will always be trying to make and sell, thus giving a bit more variety and replayability to the game. Maybe your best seller will be Buttery Ginger Pancakes one game, and Sweet Fungi Steak in the next.

Update - May 30 2020

This update is mostly about adding some depth to the Sandbox aspect of the game, so that content made in the future can leverage some new systems.

RPG style stats are now in the game, such as Strength, Intellect, and Hit Points. These stats exist for all entities, not just the player characters, and this opens up lots of possibilities for other systems that might come later, such as combat systems.

Related to RPG stats, status effects have been added to the game. This covers basically anything that occurs over time that can affect the RPG stats (and other things). So, for example, having movement speed slowed for a while, or taking continual damage because you are 'on fire', or receiving extra Intellect due to some alien effect on your mind.

You can see your stats on the player information screen (hot key is 'p'), along with adjustments from any currently applied status effects.

Something I refer to as 'Strangeness' has been improved. An early influence on the game was the movie Yellow Submarine, with it's varied, stylized animation approach and general psychedelia. Previously that hasn't really been very present in the game, but there is more of it now. This is related to Status Effects, in the sense that a Status Effect can cause various 'Strangeness' effects to occur. There are a couple of instances of this in the early game, and eventually there could be lots more, making the whole game a bit more retro-psychedelic at times.

The options screen now includes an option to invert the Mouselook Y axis. This was a request from a player.

Additionally, there are various small bug fixes and improvements.

State of the Game - March 2020
Outpost On Syrinx is getting ready for the Early Access release! The tentative release date is May 1. I've been fixing bugs, polishing up lots of random things, and adding any features that seem important to have for an EA release (such as a versioning system for game saves, so that I can add features that need each save game to track, and hopefully player saves won't be destroyed by new save game versions).

A beta test has been going on for roughly a month. It's going well! Beta testers have been finding some bugs I didn't come across, and the testers are providing a nice variety of feedback. I've been putting a couple of the most requested features into the game, to improve things for the EA release.

A couple of great YouTubers have made gameplay videos recently, including:
video by GrillMasteh
video by GameZine

Closed Beta test - looking for a few players
There is a small closed Beta test going on, and I'm looking for a few more people to play and test out the game! If you are interested (and willing to provide feedback after playing the game), contact me at outpost@kevinalbers.com, ideally by the end of February.

State of the Game - December 2019
The largest chunk of time in the last few months has been spent on developing a couple of music gameplay systems. One of these is a classic DDR/Guitar Hero type rhythm game, adapted from a Rhythm game I released a decade ago on Xbox Community Games called Jammer. Originally any music gameplay was going to be a stretch goal for the project, but at this point I consider it one of the core pillars of the game. I always envisioned Syrinx as a very musical world, so I find adding music gameplay very gratifying, and I think it nicely supports a central theme of the game's setting. Also, it can be a nice little break from the core loop of gathering resources, crafting stuff, and exploring.

In general, I'm working towards an Early Access release and also some sort of 'pre-alpha test/game preview for streamers and YouTubers'. I've been doing some narrative development for one of the factions in the game, getting one of the main areas more complete so that it's worth going to, and connecting systems together so, for example, there is an in-game reason for players to do the rhythm game stuff (although the rhythm game stuff is essentially optional, like most activities in the game).

I'm probably going to push back the EA release date a bit, due mainly to adding more game systems. The new game systems all need content created, bug fixing etc. My current 'Wild Ass Guess' is an EA release in the first half of 2020. At this point I'm focused more on specific stuff I want to accomplish, and less on sticking to a particular schedule.

State of the game - September 2019
Alien critters! This was big deal for me. Early on, I assumed having detailed creatures was a stretch goal, because the modeling and animation work would be quite significant. I'm really happy to now have a few alien types in the game. They can add a lot to the game in terms of new interactions and activities.

I did some initial work on music gameplay systems. In particular, the basics of a 'call and response' type of gameplay are in. Some core aspects of the narrative are now in...mainly related game systems, such as spawning and special events. One 'zone' of the game has been expanded to about three times it size of a few months ago.

I'm still planning on an early 2020 Early Access release, with the possibility of some type of closed beta beforehand to hopefully eliminate bugs before the EA release. Overall, things are coming along quite nicely!
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