The Hermes Express cargo drones are available to all players with today's update v1.1.0!
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Free DLC Drone Danger introduces cargo drones – flying robots that are dangerous to hang around but can be used to solve new types of puzzles. Drone Danger is bringing you the Dark Souls of puzzle platforming with even more tricky situations and hilarious ways to die. Yes, this is a thinking-heavy puzzle game where things are chasing you and so won’t let you think. It doesn’t make sense. You should try it. :)
Drones are so hard, we made them optional
We've been playtesting Drones for 3 months now and we love the complexity they introduce to the vanilla game.
Since the levels are designed with an obstacle-based approach (instead of using pre-defined rooms), the 10 new puzzle types can now combine randomly with the 70 vanilla puzzles resulting in an exponential explosion of complexity and a vast number of crazy new situations.
Actually the game gets so hard with these flying hazards that we introduced the option to turn them off. You can re-enable Drones at any time in the Settings!
Drone Danger also introduces two new achievements, one for completing the game with Drones enabled and, pssst, a secret one :)
This is a great opportunity to jump back in the game, and in case you haven't already, please consider picking up a copy now :)
The first major update introducing Hermes Cargo Drones is coming out on March 6.
HERMES GLOBAL CARGO DRONES
By the end of the 21st century, Alfabeta Inc. has achieved its mission statement of organizing the world's matter and making it universally accessible and useful. Their algorithms have long figured out what everybody needs at any given time and so the vast majority of humans have signed up for Universal Matter Subscriptions, whereby Hermes Global Cargo Drones automatically fulfill every material need and desire 24/7.
After the global extinction event of 2087, nobody's around to cancel their subscriptions so the drones are roaming the planet, fulfilling orders on autopilot.
Like EPA's trusty landscaping robots, cargo drones are both your friends and foes at the same time. They are very dangerous to hang around and introduce many tricky situations that you can only overcome by positioning your robots carefully. However, you can also exploit the drones by jumping on top of them to fly around and reach higher places. Drones thus enable and introduce many new types of puzzles, which combine with the basic puzzles of vanilla Terraforming Earth in unexpected ways, massively expanding the experience.
We have been playtesting Drones for three months now and we are quite happy with the variety and the extra complexity they introduce to the basic game. They also really highlight the roguelike-like aspect of the game, where mistakes have grave consequences and you have to think quickly to stay alive.
INTERPOLATION: WHERE YOUR CANDID GAME DESIGNER IS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO THIS GAME REALLY IS FOR
This leads us to the realization that Terraforming Earth is not really a game for traditional puzzle lovers who like to take their time figuring out the puzzles at their own pace. Time pressure and dangerous things chasing you have gone out of vogue in the puzzle game genre for very good reasons. Solving the same puzzle level twice is excruciating, so killing the player and forcing them to restart is a very bad game design pattern indeed.
However, Terraforming Earth's level designer AI invents a whole new genre of puzzle games: the Roguelike Puzzle-Platformer. Since each level is freshly baked in your computer just for you, I can get away with making your life challenging and introducing permanent failure. By failing to solve an unfamiliar situation, you have learned an important lesson about the game (and the real world), which makes your following runs more manageable and that much richer. So and since each run is new and unique, there's no excruciating repetition. Just nearly endless learning and training your pattern-matching circuits for this game in particular and your problem-solving skills for life in general.
Terraforming Earth might not appeal to most traditional roguelike fans either, is what I'm grappling with lately. Since the combination of puzzles requires a fair amount of deliberate thinking, you can't rely on instinctive skill-of-hand alone to complete levels. Instead of simply getting good at combat you have to expend precious cognitive resources every time, in every situation. It's more like chess boxing where you have to master two wildly different disciplines to be successful. Like chess boxing, Terraforming Earth will likely have a very niche audience. After all, who on Earth enjoys pondering optimal chess moves while getting pounded in the ring? Who on Earth enjoys finding their way through intricate mazes while being chased down by deadly drones and nanobot swarms?
I do. I really do. And you might, too. We have no idea. This is a completely new gaming genre and it doesn't have a target audience yet.
CHALLENGES OPTIONAL
Our candid game designer's insecurities aside, Terraforming Earth appeals to a wide range of players. Perma-death, time pressure, and drones are all optional. You can complete the game without solving brutal Patient Zero maps (such as the one linked above under nanobot swarms).
Puzzle lovers can take their time and are rewarded with increasingly large and complex mazes, speedrunners can compete on weekly challenges, couples and families can take delight in the marvel of teamwork, explorers can find and promote cool maps for the community, environmentalists will love the theme and the stunning visuals of life returning to the planet, etc, etc.
OK, now that we have convinced everyone that Terraforming Earth is super fun, let's eagerly await the Drones' debut on March 6, 2020 :)
Meanwhile, you can buy Terraforming Earth right now and enjoy the vanilla edition with tons of puzzles, unique post-apocalyptic environments and a complete, crazy story about quirky robots and AI-risk!
Terraforming Earth is the first game ever to feature puzzle-platform levels designed by an AI. The generator is aware of our heroes' current capabilities and guarantees that all levels are solvable. However, it is not inconceivable that the level designer AI makes a mistake and the player ends up with an unsolvable level. There have been a few examples of this in the past and we fixed these issues as they came up.
To address more potential issues, we'd like to offer a $100 cash prize via PayPal for the first player who finds an unsolvable level.
You can report levels by selecting the "Report Level" option on the mission debrief screen. Or just simply select "Copy Level Link" from the main menu or the debrief screen and paste the link in the appropriate Community Forum topic.
If nobody can solve your level without losing robots within one week, you win the bounty!
Happy hunting, pioneers! :)
Terraforming Earth is Out Now!
Finally, your time has come to restore life on Earth! Terraforming Earth is out right now right here on Steam!
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Take control of Opi, Curi and Spiri, three specialized terraforming robots who find themselves in a bit of a situation as they witness all life suddenly disappearing from the Solar System. Their job is to unravel the mystery by working together, combining their different skills to overcome infinite generated levels.
Focusing on problem-solving and planning instead of rote memorization, Terraforming Earth creates unique situations every time you play – even the boss fights and the music are procedurally generated!
As of today, Terraforming Earth is launched in Early Access containing solo and local co-op modes and it should be treated as a full release in terms of polish and functionality. The full version of the game will be available in 6 months approximately and it will include more obstacles and enemy types.
Make sure to pick up a copy while the launch discount lasts!
Features
AI-generated levels
Optional challenges (permadeath and time-pressure)
A simple-to-understand but hard-to-optimize resource management meta-game
Level curation
Single-player
Local co-op multiplayer
Full controller support
A story about quirky robots and environmental catastrophes
Terraforming Earth is coming out tomorrow, so we thought we should share how we tackled the problem of generating infinite platform-puzzle levels. So this is it, the details behind Terraforming Earth's innovative level generator AI!
First, let's take a look at how most procedural platformers tackle level generation, a method that I call
Room-based level generation
Terraforming Earth is a roguelike puzzle platformer, a first of its kind. The closest thing I can compare it to is Spelunky. Spelunky, while not strictly a puzzle platformer, does create unique levels every time you play, using pre-defined room templates.
Many roguelikes do level generation using this technique, which we are going to call room-based level generation. The advantage of this approach is that the individual parts are separated, you only have to think about how you connect the rooms to their immediate neighbors, no need to mess with tricky dependencies further along the path to victory. You can play with an interactive version of Spelunky's level generator here, to get an idea of how it works in action: http://tinysubversions.com/spelunkyGen/
The main problem with this technique is that the amount of variation scales linearly with the number of room templates you make by hand. Once the player has exhausted the set of pre-defined rooms, the rooms start to look familiar and repetition rears its ugly head. The player is no longer forced to apply creative problem-solving to overcome unique situations. They can rely on experience and memorization to solve the room in the safest and most efficient way. Ultimately this results in the end of replayability.
Of course, this is fine for most roguelikes, since the game designer can introduce a ton of additional variations through different skills and weapon types. Room-based roguelikes are still a ton of fun.
Yet, I was wondering whether there's a different way. Since I was developing a platformer with some hard-core puzzling aspect, and since puzzles are notoriously one-trick ponies (meaning they are only fun once), I knew that I can't reuse puzzles constrained to pre-defined rooms.
Obstacle-based level generation
I realized that ultimately puzzles are not about what's inside the rooms, rather they're about getting from one room to the other. The obstacles between rooms, not the contents of the rooms, are what matter.
We'll call this approach obstacle-based level generation.
So but then how do you put together separate pre-defined obstacles in a way that is actually solvable?
We'll use an iterative approach, and start out with a room that's guaranteed to be solvable. We introduce new obstacles one at a time, making sure that the level stays solvable in each step.
I present to you a most excellent level.
The robots are guaranteed to be able to reach the purple exit marker. Not very interesting though, is it.
Time to introduce the first obstacle. First, the AI picks a random room to mangle. There's only one room now, so we pick it. Second, the AI picks a random object that it'll move in this iteration. Let's say it picks the exit portal. Third, it picks a random empty direction either horizontally or vertically. Let's say it moves the exit to the right. Fourth, it will pick a horizontal obstacle at random from a set of horizontal obstacles that the playing characters (the three robots) are able to overcome using their current skillset. Let's say a door that can be opened with a key.
So the AI spawns a new room to the right, moves the exit there, spawns a door in between the two rooms and spawns a key on the left side of the door. Now we have the most archetypical puzzle ever! 1) A physical barrier that denies access to the next room and 2) a solution that disables the barrier.
We can do the same loop one more time. Notice that the key is just another object that the generator AI can pick up, and move! The AI chooses a room at random, let's say the one with the key. It then picks a random direction, let's say to the left. Then it picks a random obstacle, that the heroes can overcome. Let's say a set of spikes that Curi can fly over. The AI creates the new room, moves the key there, and spawns the obstacle between the rooms.
Let's do it again, for the third time, just to drive the point home. This time the AI picks the robots themselves to move. It picks the down direction and an obstacle that involves a lawn-mower NPC the heroes can use to bounce their way up to what now became the second floor.
Note how the level stays solvable throughout this iterative process. The cool thing is that since the solutions to the puzzles are themselves objects that can be moved by the AI, this creates a lot of interdependence between the rooms. The key can be taken arbitrarily far away from its corresponding door. Even though you learn the pre-defined obstacles over time and realize that you need a certain object to pass the obstacle, you still have to figure out a way to acquire that object. The amount of variation scales exponentially with the number of pre-defined obstacles since the pre-defined pieces are now massively inter-dependent.
The results
Iterating this simple step many times results in huge, sprawling maps with lots of tricky situations and mind-boggling dependency graphs that's pretty fun to untangle. Watch how we (the creators of the game) struggle to solve this particular level to see the effectiveness of this approach.
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Many puzzled faces right there :) I think the fact that the generator AI still challenges their creators every week, even after all this time is a nice demonstration of the replay value that obstacle-based level generation creates. We many games will adopt this approach in the future, we would love to see more games that keep putting us in new situations every time we play.
Two Weeks Until Launch! (Also, Announcing Drone DLC)
Terraforming Earth launches in two weeks, and we are excited beyond words. Let me try to say something anyway! :)
So... After 2 years of full-time development, the game is fully polished and complete and stable and also, yeah, incredibly fun too! I've been playing this game every week for more than half a year now, and it still puzzles and surprises me every time. Check out the devstream archives to see for yourself.
Never in my life have I played a platform puzzler with such high replay value. I think this is mainly because our level generator doesn't use predefined rooms (as roguelikes usually do). Instead, it combines more than 70 predefined obstacles randomly with a high interdependence between them. This results in a lot of unexpected situations that we wouldn't have thought of even if we had spent 10 years on level design.
To demonstrate the power of this approach, let me tell you about last week's Creator Coop Devstream. We recently added six new experimental obstacle types, with a new kind of enemy (Cargo Drone!). Even though we completed more than 20 vanilla runs collectively, the new update took the difficulty up to a whole new level, so we ended up failing two runs in a row. Don't let the cute robots fool you, this game is HARD! Also, the main point is that we can quickly add new obstacles that explode the complexity of the game exponentially. Our goal is to keep roguelike and puzzle aficionados entertained all throughout 2020 and well, possibly the whole decade :)
Tune in from 3PM UTC (7AM Pacific) to today's Steam Broadcast, where I'm going to wrestle my way through even more even newer even more experimental obstacles! :)
The Drones still need some playtesting and balancing so they will be introduced by the free Drone DLC scheduled for February 28. Meanwhile, let's all wait for the Vanilla Early Access edition coming out in two weeks!
Even though we are launching in Early Access, the game should be treated as a full release in terms of polish and functionality. During Early Access, we are regularly adding new obstacles and enemies (such as the Drone DLC) to gradually increase the difficulty through the stratosphere. Take your seat in the Terraforming Earth rocket and fly with us!
Creator Co-op!
Every Thursday from 7AM PST, I am streaming runs of my game right here on Steam Broadcast. This week, my co-creators, Loci and Csabi will be joining me for a co-op run! Meet the minds behind the unique graphics of the game and let's have some fun together while we restore life on Earth with our robotic superheroes, Opi, Curi and Spiri!
EDIT: Yesterday's stream is archived on Youtube! Starting from 52:00 I'm introducing the team and we go on a few nice Patient Zero and Terraforming levels in a row, so if you can only watch for 10, 20 or 30 minutes, start here:
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Thanks for watching, everyone, we had a great time. Can't wait to see other players fool around on our desolate Earth, too. :)
Terraforming Earth is shaping up nicely and we can now confirm that it will be available for purchase on January 30, 2020.
The gameplay is now complete, generally bug-free and balanced. The game features many different obstacles and environments, infinite procedurally generated levels and over 6 days of background music composed with Google's Deep Learning technology. You can play for a week straight without hearing the same tune twice! (Please don't, though, that's clearly unhealthy.)
Terraforming Earth is the first game ever to apply procedural generation in platform puzzle level design. It is highly replayable as it puts you in unique situations every time you play. The focus is on creative problem-solving and planning instead of rote memorization.
We implemented a curation system similar to Mario Maker's to help you find the greatest hits of the automatic level designer. On the world map, you can choose between missions that are freshly generated for you, or missions starred by other players in the community. Your starred levels also appear on other players' map:
You have to use the main characters' unique skills in combination, switching between the robots. Finding the right tool for the job alone is fun, however, you can't beat playing co-op with your friends. With Steam Remote Play, you don't even have to sit on the same couch anymore! :)
After the launch, we will be updating the game for at least half a year, delivering new content that enriches the experience but won't change the core gameplay (basically free DLCs). We have many new puzzle ideas, worldbuilding elements and social features in the queue. We plan to prioritize between these based on your feedback.
Thanks for reading this announcement, please consider adding the game to your wishlist! :)
Solar Colonisation Front targets "Wireheads", "Psychonauts"
MAY 1, 2083, NY, Notorious space exploration initiative, the "Solar Colonisation Front" has launched a world-wide recruitment campaign calling for "Wireheads" and "Psychonauts" to join their efforts to colonize the Solar System.
Billboards like these have started to pop up all throughout the United States of Earth
Unless you've been living under a Martian rock, you must have noticed the massive societal changes brought forth by recent advances in entertainment technology. Given direct access to their reward centers, throngs of people are sucked into a life of hedonic pleasure. It's harder than ever to find people interested in moving the needle on Humankind's future.
Wireheading - the artificial stimulation of the brain to experience pleasure
"Look, lots of young folks spend all day jacked into the newest consoles and crazy meditation methods", says Adam Burns, terraforming specialist at SCF. "Through no fault of their own, these people have lost their sense of values. We'd like to show them there's another way of life. We'd like to show them that they are valuable."
Earlier this year, we have reported on the dire conditions new SCF recruits face. While the Front has denied accusations that they just load up greenhorns in a spacecraft and dump them on one of the Martian colonies to figure stuff out, the training they receive is minimal by modern standards. The harsh conditions settlers face on the colonies make it hard for people to get excited about the move.
Psychonaut - someone experimenting with altered states of consciousness
"Why would anyone sign up?" - asks Al W.G. Easton (28) - "Well yeah, OK, yes, I do spend most of my waking hours playing DOOM 40K, but that aside, I have everything here on Earth. Nobody has to work anymore, robots get everything done for us. Why don't we just send out the robots? Just leave me alone! Sorry gotta go, raid is on."
Easton's sentiment is shared by many of his generation. However, as Instructor Burns points out, robots are "not there yet". Lacking robust artificial intelligence, robots have to be controlled by human operators in-situ. "The light takes 3 minutes to get from Earth to Mars. To have any realistic reaction times, human operators have to do their jobs right next to the robots. There really is no way around that. The Galaxy won't colonize itself."
Watch this training video that was leaked from the Solar Colonization Front last month.
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Whatever happened to Instructor Burns in that above, they keep a pretty tight lid on it.
We will see how this turns out. If something about these ads has spoken to you, you can sign up at the nearest Solar Colonization Front Recruitment Bureau. The Universe awaits. What are you waiting for?
We love playing Terraforming Earth because we have seen that the generator AI can come up with some spectacular challenges. However, some reviewers have stopped playing the game before they got to the meatier parts because the generator started out with some mediocre levels.
To make a good first impression, we introduced a new game mode that we call Guided Mode for now. It consists of 43 handpicked levels carefully arranged to gradually teach new concepts and increase difficulty. This mode is also ideal for busy people who want to experience the story and the most important parts of the game before moving on to the next one. Yes, we are aware of the huge number of unplayed games in your Steam library ;)
The Selection Process
Our amazing community of alpha testers has collectively solved thousands of AI-generated levels and found 450 really awesome ones. We went through the list of human-approved stages one-by-one to find the best of the best. 43 levels have made it to the shortlist.
We now need YOU to play these 43 levels and give your 👍/ 👎 feedback on them to find the 20 best maps that make it into the Steam Early Access version. Sign up for the Beta Test here and receive a customized game build we've made specifically for the selection process. You'll get a sneak peek of the story, too! Sounds good? Cool, enroll NOW :) 👇
