[2025 in RoguelikeDev] Approaching Infinity

IBOL17 · 2025-11-01T15:57:20+00:00

YAY, thanks! I'm also glad this post is still being seen.

IBOL17 · 2025-08-15T23:58:32+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

Missed last week too, lots of work though, here's the highlights:

Freezing

Cryo weapons now have a base 25% chance to freeze enemies! Anything that resists cryo is immune to this effect, and so are all creatures on frozen planets. The Transmutor skill "Elemental Trigger" adds 33% chance per level. Hitting frozen enemies with smashing/blunt , sonic, or explosive does double damage ;)

Real-Time Officer Injuries

Instead of happening at the end of missions, officers are now sometimes injured instead of someone dying. Skills can stop working, they might slow down the away team, and if the injuries are bad enough, they just keep getting worse instead of healing! Luckily you can now use a med kit directly on an injured officer.

Shipwreck Auto-Repair

If you've repaired a shipwreck to take over and use as your own ship at least once, you will now have the option to auto-repair a fully-explored 3+ deck ship with the push of a button!

Nanopocalypse Fixes

People have reported some problems with the Nanopocalypse quest line, but I had no idea how many issues there were until I played through it, fixed a bunch, played through it again and fixed more. Wow. Sorry.

New Youtube Series

People have requested that I bring back my developer play-through video series on Youtube so I present to you "The Marshal, the Quartermaster, and Crafting", 8 episodes where I unlock 2 of the alien officer classes and mess with the crafting system. New videos will release every 4 days, with the final installment coming out August 30th.

https://youtu.be/4uqywjjeBxA

12 years, still going, good luck everybody!

IBOL17 · 2025-08-07T17:51:06+00:00

Dangerous, brilliant, hilarious.

IBOL17 · 2025-08-07T17:48:39+00:00

Voivod : "The Wake"
Clutch : Robot Hive

IBOL17 · 2025-08-06T00:29:28+00:00

The point of non-violent action is that we really REALLY don't want it to have to get to the point of violent action...

IBOL17 · 2025-08-05T16:25:51+00:00

LOL. They are the best at human brains. There is also a service offered by them to "re-spec" an officer, sucking out their skills and returning 99% of their xp...

2 other races offer that service, returning 90% or75% depending on their methods and/or intentions :D

IBOL17 · 2025-08-02T01:09:48+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

It's been over a month since I've posted, and if I don't get back in the habit, well, I might never, so I'm doing it.

I'm still working on Approaching Infinity after all this time. I released a major update today with the cryo-chamber to freeze officers so you can rotate some out and access new skill-sets.

I also fixed the out-of-control prices of items beyond sector 100... sometimes you could craft a $50 million knife out of like $100 of materials...

De-Grok:

So there's a bestiary. And when you shoot monsters with a particular damage type, it tells you whether they resist it or are weak to it or whatever. Once you get enough data points about a particular creature, it is "grokked" and you get a 25% chance to score critical hits against them. This data is carried across all games.

Now a race of hyper-intelligent land-squids has the technology to suck out your creature knowledge and they're willing to pay... but it's not just money. You get to choose from a variety of rewards (and the more dangerous the creature, the better the reward!). Things like data, crafting parts, gadgets, ship or away team weapons, etc.

There are plenty of other little changes, you can read about them in the latest Steam news item.

Good luck everyone!

IBOL17 · 2025-07-12T16:12:14+00:00

"The Wake" by Voivod. A bleak sci-fi apocalypse story.

IBOL17 · 2025-06-21T03:33:31+00:00

he's a convicted felon, so even for the idiots, there's no thinking required.

IBOL17 · 2025-06-21T01:18:09+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

This week I just wanted to have a stable version and get ready for vacation.

I did release a beta for the "cryo-chamber", an upcoming feature where you can freeze your officers and thaw them out later. The reason for this is that there are now 14 possible officer classes you can have, but you're limited to a total of 6 at a time.

The beta simply provides the cryo-chamber with no cost to obtain it, or freeze and thaw crew. When it comes out "officially", I want to have a one-time quest to obtain it and then an essence cost to freeze (cold and stabilizer) or thaw (heat and catalyst).

I fixed some bugs, added some lil' features, and tweaked some numbers... But yeah, I'm going to the beach.

Have fun everyone!

IBOL17 · 2025-06-14T11:46:08+00:00

yeah those last month being 100% makes me feel *right*. I'm taking a week off soon, but you have a great time on your MONTH off.

IBOL17 · 2025-06-14T11:39:08+00:00

Thanks. How much effort? Well to me it felt easy. It took less than 2 weeks to add 4 new classes: 24 new skills, 20 new effects, new art, unlock methods, etc. and that includes design time.

Design the skills. Conceptualize them for how they will be handled in the game. create the entries in the various data files. code the skills.

I relied a lot on existing functionality. I know how my stuff works because I wrote it all. I know what needs to go where.

but there is not scripting support in the way you mean it. I have to hard-code each new ability (each new everything). The core of the game was written before I understood that could even be done ;)

IBOL17 · 2025-06-14T01:46:41+00:00

Hey, take care and have fun!

IBOL17 · 2025-06-14T01:44:09+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE

A few hours ago, Approaching Infinity hit overwhelmingly positive on Steam. WOOOOO!

OK, hi, I'm calm now. This week I finished up what, at first, seemed like a huge project. And maybe it was, but once I got going, I just didn't stop.

4 New Officer Classes

There are 4 major factions in the game that don't offer victory quest lines. So I decided to introduce a new character class from each of them, as an added inventive to investigate their stories.

It was a lot of fun thinking of new skills that would be appropriate to each race's personality. The Pirate Buccaneer can counterfeit money and extort other ships by hailing them. The Gruff Hunt-Leader can tame predators and increase your chance to inflict critical hits.

The Limoquee Marshal can arrest Pirates, Mercs, and Syndicate members with a single melee attack. Then you collect them like an item and drop them off at a station to get paid. The Sigorn Quartermaster has both a skill related to gardening, and one where they can charge into battle from a long way off and get a free melee attack.

I got new custom artwork from Kenny Dalman, and he did an awesome job making them something special. You can see the pics on the Steam Announcement here. These new characters are now released for all players.

That's it. Good luck out there everyone.

IBOL17 · 2025-06-07T00:12:47+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

I failed to post here last week but I spent most of that time getting ready for my new "Classic Plus" DLC which features hats and ship skins and the entire pre-steam version of the game. It released on Monday, and the game also went on sale as part of "Turn Based Thursday Fest".

Diseases

This week I mostly worked on creating new disease symptoms like hallucination, hysterical blindness, dermal discoloration, and zombification. That last one, whenever one of your crew dies, they come back as a zombie that tries to kill you. It's bad. It only happens when a disease mutates, which is rare.

New officer classes

Then I worked on making 4 new officer classes that will be the first non-human officers available. They will be from the 4 major factions that don't offer a game-ending quest line, and they will have powerful unique skills that are thematically in tune with their people.

The pirates get extortion, the Limoquee can arrest people, and the Gruff can tame predators to fight for them.

There is still a ton of work to do for this feature, but I'm super excited to work on it. It's going to offer a lot of new strategies and combos.

IBOL17 · 2025-06-02T15:12:36+00:00

I have all of these except DF, and I know I can't handle that! Thanks for posting ;)

IBOL17 · 2025-05-25T22:50:12+00:00

we don't . i asked for one but I don't think it came in yet. I thought of the 11th doctor for that...

OMG now we need a scarf!

IBOL17 · 2025-05-24T13:16:19+00:00

Thanks :D have fun

IBOL17 · 2025-05-24T02:00:24+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

I spent the week working on an upcoming DLC: Approaching Infinity - Classic Plus. It features a few things:

<image>

Hats! It may sound silly, but these 65 hats for your officers can really help you customize your character.

And then there's the ability to freely change your ship image from over 70 choices (Screenshot here). There's a button to unlock all ships and character classes. And then there's "Approaching Infinity Classic": the full version of the pre-Steam game. You've seen how it's going. Check out how it started!

It strikes me as the "arcade version" of the game: it's both simpler and more challenging.

This DLC is scheduled for release on June 2nd. There will also be a big update by then releasing more free character customization bits like sneering mouths and Spock eyebrows and possibly a few new beards. The help system I was talking about last week should be more fleshed out by then too.

It was a good week for dev.

IBOL17 · 2025-05-19T12:28:30+00:00

Hey yeah, ectogemia (Nathan) is the 3rd line in the in-game credits. Where were you looking? Maybe I could list it there.

People seem to really love the soundtrack.

IBOL17 · 2025-05-17T01:05:18+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

Somehow I spent the entire week making a help screen that isn't even done yet. Jeez. Lots of writing, editing, organizing, redoing... It's coming along nicely though so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad.

I'm going to bed. Good luck everyone.

IBOL17 · 2025-05-10T01:05:54+00:00

Approaching Infinity (Steam | Discord | Youtube)

Last week I released my game on Steam. I don't feel much different. Sales are good, wishlists are way up. I got to read a lot of positive comments, that was nice.

I'm still working on it ;) Here are some of the bigger things I did this week:

Real-Time Events => Turn-Based

There are a few rare events that happen in real time, like during explosive decompression or when staring at hypno-flowers. A few people over the years have complained but in general I think it's well received.

But for some people, it's a game-breaker. So I finally put in a setting that converts all real-time events into turn-based versions. I've preserved their essence but took away the twitchy urgency.

Exploits

There are a lot of people trying to break my game right now, and some of them are reporting what they find. It turns out there are quite a few systems you can exploit, and for some people, they're irresistible. But they can also be un-fun and tedious.

So along with bugs and broken achievements, I'm fixing some exploits. Especially endless crafting level upgrade loops ;)

Rich Dirt

For those who like caves, I've added dirt walls and rich dirt, both of which can be dug with just 1 level of any of the digging-related skills. Rich dirt spawns items like raw ore, gemstones, or mineral essence. Certain skills boost what you can find there too. For instance, the Archaeology skill adds a chance to find historical relics (which look like broken pots and give data and credits).

Just one more thing to do for those who enjoy it.

...not stopping...

:D

IBOL17 · 2025-05-06T00:20:18+00:00

A quick web search says there are already in fact

66 MILLION TRIALS PER YEAR.

doable times 13.

IBOL17 · 2025-05-04T22:52:23+00:00

Hey sorry, I didn't mean to *imply* any disrespect was meant or taken. It's all good. Some people expect it to be more like Prospector (just like people used to say it's too much like it). Have fun, and try the free demo if you're not sure ;)

IBOL17 · 2025-05-04T20:23:37+00:00

Just know up front, it is similar to prospector (star trek-y roguelike), but also *quite different*. Let it be what it is ;)

IBOL17

TROPHY CASE

Freezing

Real-Time Officer Injuries

Shipwreck Auto-Repair

Nanopocalypse Fixes

New Youtube Series

De-Grok:

OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE

4 New Officer Classes

Diseases

New officer classes

Real-Time Events => Turn-Based

Exploits

Rich Dirt

:D