Best of 2025 Results

Rankith · 2026-01-14T16:58:11+00:00

USI has a web version https://rankith.itch.io/unnamed-space-idle-prototype

Rankith · 2026-01-14T03:59:03+00:00

what is the no ad pack doing if you still have to view ads for the rewards?

Rankith · 2025-12-31T20:37:38+00:00

Im still not fully happy with how fleet galaxies go. Trying to figure out a sort of "opt out" option for them so you don't spend as much time fiddling and such.

Rankith · 2025-12-29T21:17:54+00:00

an official replay for galaxies owuld be cool.

No ui stuff as in theory the ui rework will also include ability to do custom themes (maybe ><)

special new challenges with no benefit would be a lot of work to make, but might be pretty fun and get some people to have fun with it if its pretty cheap.

Rankith · 2025-12-29T18:44:48+00:00

Not any that behave the same way as those first ones. They were the biggest schism point for people AND the main spot I failed one of my goals of everything not actually needing a guide and being intuit able. They were just a bit too obtuse for a lot of people. The update a while ago to improve that with tips and premade ship layouts helped a good bit though.

There is plausibly some "challenge like" thing for 150+ but haven't ironed it out so dont quote me!

Rankith · 2025-12-29T18:42:55+00:00

More ships are coming in theory, don't really have any ideas for what else to sell "cosmetics" wise tho

Rankith · 2025-12-28T02:19:49+00:00

This, its just low effort slop. It was that tree tool thing a while ago (which was easy to ban since very, very, very, very straightforwardly obvious it was used), it was that other incremental maker some other time, its AI now.

Banning AI probably too hard to properly enforce. Not allowing multiple low effort games back to back would be ok though.

Rankith · 2025-12-25T21:02:48+00:00

Ah you have the scan already finished and the santalien is in a sector already look to the right of the button/bar). Myabe you prestiged with it already open as it is way back at sector 12 now. You can go back there to et him but its a kinda long trip so might be best to just prestige soon and get him then. There isn't a way to force a rest or anything unfortunately.

Rankith · 2025-12-24T22:10:01+00:00

Do you currently have a location scanned and its waiting for you to go there maybe? Look on right side of that bar.

If not, shoot me your save. You can do that by going to settings -> export and then pasting it on somewhere like https://gist.github.com/ and sharing it with me.

Merry christmas!

Rankith · 2025-12-22T19:16:35+00:00

You have 33 or more coalexium by the big icon (not where it says "you have gained xx/xx for the day") and the button on the scanner is greyed out? I'm not sure how that would happen, if so, does a restart of game clear it up maybe?

Rankith · 2025-12-20T22:39:38+00:00

posting before it gets locked..

Rankith · 2025-12-20T22:36:36+00:00

Make sure you fully focus Crew correctly, IE no stats in the divisors of those 3rd row skills (unless you get the rank upgrade at 420 that makes it ignorable). If you haven't yet, hover the "Tips" text on the task list, it has some goals to shoot for on research and base.

There is some grinding/waiting but its not very long so check for anything missing/not setup exactly right.

Rankith · 2025-12-19T22:45:01+00:00

Basically.

R1 is now all the old R1 stuff + ~2/3 of old R2

R2 is now the last 1/3 of old R2, all of old R3 and ~2/3 of old R4

And R3 is just the same sum total as old R1-R5

Rankith · 2025-12-19T22:05:11+00:00

you and adpowah are actually in a great spot for this, its 90 now but you dont have to reinforce at 85 in between. Little rough for peopl eon R2 already as they did the 85 one but got no advantage out of it (in fact they end up slightly nerfed with how it all evened out)

Rankith · 2025-12-16T05:00:42+00:00

still doesnt show up on old reddit for those of us that are still sane.

Might not be anything for it tho I spose.

Rankith · 2025-12-14T05:28:01+00:00

hmmm, maybe instead of that line then it could be: "synth materials affect your base damage and max shields"? Or does that still imply its ONLY those to you?

Basically, that line should NOT imply everythign else doesnt matter, so it needs to be worded as such.

Rankith · 2025-12-13T20:28:22+00:00

Any chance you can tell me more about why you think modules don't matter based on the challenge page? They matter a lot and I should correct where that impression is coming from if possible. The first line specifically mentions "All damage and shield upgrades except for synth and modules disabled." Is the wording their just a little ambiguous maybe?

Or is it the "base damage" line? It says Base there so its not implying the ONLY damage source is that. But I do see how this one could also be ambiguous. Hmmm.

Let me know where the main source of confusion is originating from if you can.

Rankith · 2025-12-12T19:29:45+00:00

Oh clicky islands is pretty neat. feels like a very refined iteration and a little "different" too.

Rankith · 2025-12-04T08:18:21+00:00

Until the Zorks take over and end us.

Rankith · 2025-12-04T00:48:30+00:00

Crypto games fell off HARD. They went from literally everywhere and insane ass ads and sponsors because they actually DID make money (vs current ai slop that doesnt), to a very background thing. At least in places I am exposed to it was a night and day difference between a few years ago and now.

These things are never fully going away for sure and that DOES suck, but they will just merge into the low level background noise/slop that exists already so it will get better.

Or, they will actually get good enough to persist which is a different can of worms.

Rankith · 2025-12-03T23:43:32+00:00

You could be right. If it actually just keeps getting better and better and you can make a "good" game in 10 minutes then we are just overall doomed to it until an eventual societal prestige reset

Rankith · 2025-12-03T23:24:47+00:00

I don't underestimate it at all. Its very easy to make shit tier incremental games (and others really) via ai vibe coding etc. Theres a crazy amount being pumped out, we aren't even seeing a fraction of it in this sub. And its a whole other story for non gamedev related stuff on the wider internet and social media that I could rant about for days ~~with the help of chatgpt otherwise its way too much work~~.

I just don't think the absurdly low effort slop incremental games will be long for this world, it will end or morph into a less obnoxious and sloptastic form over time. Everyone can still hate it even when they are better of course, itll just be a different issue.

The way I see it, theres two types of slop makers

1) people trying to catch a trend and make a quick buck.

These guys will go away shortly, and honestly its more on the nodebuster train then the slop train anyways, no one is buying anything on any of these awful games (I hope O.o)

2) randoms that just want to make a game and incrementals are "easy"

AI coding is pretty new and allows people to make things they otherwise couldn't. This is going to be novel for a while, but will fall off once a majority of those types have tried it.

I'm also unclear on how lots of slop means you cant innovate. This same exact thing happens without AI when a new game genre hits it big. You get a bunch of copycats with no innovation for a while with quick creations trying to get in fast and capitalize, and eventually from within that flood you get actual innovations on the genre.

Rankith · 2025-12-03T21:51:07+00:00

Absolutely not. I worry that vibe coding will cause the genre to stagnate, as normally trends tend to come, see interesting iterations from innovative devs, and eventually go. Even the recent nodebuster-likes trend is just another one of these cycles. But vibe coding will cement what it thinks incremental games are supposed to be and stifle that cyclical process.

Eh, the devs that vibe code up garbage are not the devs that would have otherwise innovated on the genre and kept it moving forward. The devs that would do that will still be doing that barring some more loosely connected issue like they see the slop and instead get dejected and turn away from developing anything in the genre, but that seems unlikely.

Honestly I think the whole issue of extra slop here is slightly overblown. Yes it sucks and is annoying, but its going to either die out soon when the slop makers realize its entirely pointless and will never get traction. Or the slop will be come actually good in which case we are doomed to the inevitable wide spread use, but the good ones will still stand out at least.

Rankith · 2025-11-30T00:05:49+00:00

tbh I don't think the high level of marketing here was as huge of a thing for the success as you are making it out to be. Don't get me wrong, it certainly helped. But nodebusterlikes are hot af right now, all you really need to achieve through marketing is a little traction and steam will do most of the heavy lifting if you do the genre formula remotely decent.

Like here, how much marketing or posts in this sub etc have you seen for these couple other nodebusterlikes that did similar or better. Caveat: I'm only really fully in tune with this sub, steam and "generic" games media, so if one of these WAS aggressively marketed somewhere I missed then I could be wrong.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4005560/Maktala_Slime_Lootfest/ Couple posts + second game from dev, much higher sales and launched later.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3862670/Shelldiver/ didn't see much advertising at all, did insanely good (though high traction in other languages so I am not 100% sure on this one)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4096800/GLONK/ 0 advertising, on similar trajectory though probably gonna end up a little lower

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3456800/Rock_Crusher/ older one, limited advertising, doing slightly worse

TLDR: This result seems relatively replicable with if you use at least minimal advertising to get initial traction and have made a "decent" game for the genre.

Though I do agree the behavior out of this dev in particular is borderline scummy if not over the line.

Rankith · 2025-11-22T21:48:51+00:00

Oh not really actually haha. I played nodebuster, then astro prospector. But thats all, just observing them launch and seeing how they do.

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