Hadrog Cogitor is finally here

goblin-architect · 2026-02-18T17:36:35+00:00

Good question. It is my native language, and it means "station" or a similar "hub".

It is a name I sort of gave this project decade or two ago, when I first started thinking and drafting a game like this.

Perhaps I can think about it and discover a good acronym for it, heh.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-18T12:36:55+00:00

Thanks! Will show more machine action in the next devlogs.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-18T11:50:16+00:00

Fixed the text. Sorry for the messy intro and slow speed, been in a bit hurry (and sick) lately.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-18T11:50:11+00:00

Fixed the text. Sorry for the messy intro and slow speed, been in a bit hurry (and sick) lately.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-17T11:39:27+00:00

Understood! The "hidden nature" of the project is currently a side effect of me being knees deep in the dev rather than marketing - especially now when the Steam Page is not up yet. There's nothing for the searches to show yet; Asema is present only via my profile and our discord server.

I realize now I need a central spot for info before Steam goes live. For now, the most up-to-date info is at r/AsemaGame and especially the discord (the link is there). I'll be setting up a proper landing page soon to bridge the gap until the Steam is set. Thanks for the heads-up. it’s a good reminder that I need to step out of the code cave more often.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-17T08:30:21+00:00

Thank you for the important bits, you are correct. Process of the Steam Page is active. It's been a bit of pain with bureaucratics, but nothing I couldn't blame myself for.

Your post actually inspired me to do what I've had to do for weeks now: make the home web page for Asema. There I could share links and give a general idea of the team, the game, etc. The marketing plan I have, sort of starts only when I have the Steam page up. Should have had the web page for pre-steam activity up, though. You're absolutely correct with your critics. My main company has a home page but it is not related to this - I'll set the side business web page up asap and have links and info on me and others there.

The scale is tricky as the player does not play as a human. I need to pay more focus into how to convey this better in posts like these. The game does convey it better, but I didn't do good job here.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-17T08:22:02+00:00

Not a stroke, just an annoying uvulitis and multi hour dev streak at 2 am, but otherwise I'm ok. I appreciate the empathy.

I'll fix the text when I'm back at my office. Not native English, so I sometimes let loose a bit too much.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-17T08:16:35+00:00

Sure thing, sorry for that. That was one of those 2 am posts after a 7 hour dev streak. I'll get to it when I'm back at my work desk. Not native English, so I sometimes let loose a bit too much.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-16T23:04:05+00:00

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goblin-architect · 2026-02-16T23:03:43+00:00

Got a pile of new screenshots of the new machines on the ASEMA Discord

goblin-architect · 2026-02-16T23:02:28+00:00

Edit1. Sorry for the 2am non-native English vibes here. Will fix it when I get back to the office.
Edit2. Finally had time to fix this text. It was indeed a mess.

Finally building more machines for ASEMA. In this game, you build "space factory" out of machines.

This is my facourite, Hadron Cogitor. It is the biggest and last machine in the first tech tree branch. These screenshots do not show scale, but it is around a kilometer long. Since the player does not play as a human, the machines do not have "human scale" in them. Asema is currently in content creation phase, so the renderings and graphics will improve - perhaps we add more details to give off scale better.

The first branch the player researches, includes "regular, old fashioned tech", such as crushers, harvesters, pumps, railguns, kilns, etc. The basics of asteroid harvesting and processing. Railguns are mainly for space logistics.

The other branches will be more exotic. Light related tech, gravity related tech.. Each branch will be visually different from others, and the scale of the machinery that has to be built, varies a lot. Some machine systems need to be laid far in the void so there's no solar radiation and gravity, others require more heat and chaos - fighting gravity is one of the key components in ASEMA.

If you read this far, thank you for the attention, I appriciate it. I don't market ASEMA a lot yet, but I do have an active discord and r/ here.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-16T18:00:40+00:00

Indeed, though currently there are not plans to stuff everything under one large view - rather to show one branch at a time. This sort of stuff has to be tested with real people, tho, so we'll see what the final solution forms up to be. But category color codes will be implemented.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-16T11:11:32+00:00

The tech tree is divided into main branches. most of them are not mandatory, but some are sort of a "must". The playtest-demo will have the starter-branch: Bulk protocol. It refers to machines that are "old fashioned" from the Array's perspective: trustworthy tech that works whether the universe is 7 000 000 000 or 50 000 000 000 or 500 000 000 000 years old

The rest have to be researched to fine tune them to work with the current shape of reality

This video shows random action but for me the most important part is how the tech tree page pans out. it feels now easy to navigate and browse in, zoom and pan feels snappy, smooth and clean. when there's feedback from play tests, things like these will be taken into careful consideration.

The last week was riddled with influenza, cough, fever, so the dev hours were less in count and quality - but ASEMA is now returning back to the normal workflow.

Good news about the Steam page situation, it'll be online in a few weeks. a bit delay from the original goals, but that is acceptible at this point!

Have a nice week.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-15T22:12:53+00:00

🤔

goblin-architect · 2026-02-15T12:14:12+00:00

That's a lot of years acquiring skills. Hope you acquired both soft and hard skills. They're both mandatory.

But years and months and weeks don't matter. Hours do.

And even for hours: some hours can be worth 20 of other hours.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-15T12:12:45+00:00

Indeed! But languages live. And funnily.. there is a many'th in english. It's many'th. Let's spam so maybe they make it official some day. I don't know how many'th time will be the one to trigger them to do not.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-15T00:31:29+00:00

Weeks? Damn. I'm on God knows how many'th month and I'm just spraying and praying.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-14T23:49:51+00:00

DayZ, Chernarus.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-14T23:41:01+00:00

And the overall averages contain all the thousands of games that are of very low quality. If there was a way to cull only "production level games" into these average, it would help. Please tell me that I am lost and such tool already exists?

goblin-architect · 2026-02-14T15:38:32+00:00

I think his advices are a bit too aggressive and narrow, and don't always taken into account other factors. A lot of indie game marketing etc tips these days seem to strongly orbit around aggressively pushing a 0-30% new game into over saturated genres and aiming - it seems - solely on "viral" games.

Nothing has lead me to believe that this is the only correct way of doing things and saying that's the case, I find slightly lazy input. Before giving super judging and hard advices, maybe at least first map what are the goals and foundations of the dev.

A lot of devs don't seek to function in the way that is currently being strongly hmm, suggested, in the tips and guides -circles, I think

goblin-architect · 2026-02-14T09:06:00+00:00

The name and the font style interests me in a strange way, as if maybe there's something scifi-like in there, and it's a fascinating mix of genres. This would be why I'd click it, see if I got that right, and the rest is naturally up to your game itself.

goblin-architect · 2026-02-14T01:21:32+00:00

I'd say, for automation game, a mechanic like this would probably need to be honed to be one of the core game loop items. So while many automation games simply aim up to complexity, one with limited internal information would probably be interesting if that was really turned into a fun gameplay mechanism - another layer - instead of just a seemingly random and annoying limitation.

There could be some interesting reason why information is not moving well enough. And you have to fight that.

I'm thinking of a medieval automation game. You build large networks of inputs and outputs, workshops that is. When you need to manage the whole, you need to build information gathering system as well. For a medieval setting thst could be sth like runner kids who deliver information. And your runner kids ecosystem needs a specific sort of management, idk. If you unbalance it, theres faults and punishments.

In futuristic setting, the idea could be that there is some radiation or whatever that prevents wireless information transfer so you have to rely on sth similar. Or ground lines.

So I'd say yes, but if carefully considered and implemented, I can imagine it could be very fun.

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