Lacuna Passage is out now on Steam Early Access

Lacuna Passage - the first-person, open world Mars exploration and survival game - launches for PC and Mac on Steam Early Access today. Check out the new Early Access launch trailer here: youtu.be/XbMXvPBOpFU

Having smashed its Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns with a superbly realized Martian setting, Lacuna Passage invites players to set foot on the Red Planet and experience what it will be like for those first adventurers. The game will release in two phases:

1. Survival Sandbox - Steam Early Access - Out Now
2. Story Mode - Full Steam Launch - In Development

Launching on Steam Early Access today, the Survival Sandbox mode of Lacuna Passage will challenge players’ technical smarts and problem-solving skills, as well as enabling early astronauts to test drive the core mechanics ahead of the arrival of Story Mode.

“I was hugely inspired by the 2012 landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars,” said Tyler Owen, founder and lead developer at Random Seed Games. “As I waited for the first images to beam back to Earth I realized that the closest I would ever get to walking the surface of the Red Planet and taking my own photos would be if I made a game where you could do just that. With Lacuna Passage we’re focused on creating a science-fiction interactive experience that will inspire others to get interested in space travel and science.”

What is Lacuna Passage?

Developed in Iowa, USA by Random Seed Games, Lacuna Passage is a Mars exploration and survival game based on real mission technology and Mars terrain from NASA satellite data. Here are some of the key features:

● Stunning first-person, open world of Martian exploration and survival.

● 25 square miles of explorable terrain generated from actual Mars satellite data.

● Survival mechanics based on real metrics like blood glucose, heart rate, caloric intake, and more.

● In-game photography that allows you to capture any moment and document your discoveries with higher quality than your PC or Mac can handle in real time.

● An immersive HUD that is accurate to potential future space exploration physical display technologies.

● A hauntingly beautiful dynamic soundtrack that responds to your actions.

● Survival Sandbox available now on Steam Early Access.

● A mysterious single-player story that encourages non-linear play (Story Mode) coming in a future update.

Survival Sandbox - Steam Early Access - Out Now

Waking in a landing pod, players must check their equipment and venture out onto the red Martian soil in search of a nearby habitat. With 25 square miles of the Red Planet to explore and survive, they must gather resources from randomized points-of- interest, supply caches and other habitats in order to continue their mission. Survival is more than just tracking status bars; maintaining life-support equipment is just as important as maintaining health. Players must carefully manage vital resources or they will find themselves stranded in the great red wasteland with no food, water, or oxygen. Chief among the available tools is the stunning photography feature, which allows the budding Martian adventurer to capture higher quality photos than their PC can handle in real time.

Story Mode - In Development

Jessica Rainer - the only survivor of the second manned mission to Mars - investigates the disappearance of the first. With several tools at her disposal, most importantly her skills of observation, Jessica needs to uncover mission logs, recorded audio files, and other physical clues left behind at critical mission locations in order to uncover the story. An interplanetary trail of breadcrumbs awaits. With 25 square miles of open terrain around the crash site to explore Jessica can’t explore blindly to find the missing crew of the Hermes. Will she simply try to survive and await rescue or will she put her own life on the line to discover the truth? In Lacuna Passage, time and the elements are your enemies...

Assets and info

● Steam Early Access page: store.steampowered.com/app/252090

● Early Access launch trailer: youtu.be/XbMXvPBOpFU

● Additional game info and press asset pack: lacunapassage.com/press

● Follow Lacuna Passage’s development on the devblog

● Check overall progress on the roadmap

Lacuna Passage is now available to purchase ($14.99, €14.99, £10.99) and download for PC and Mac in all countries on Steam Early Access.

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #74 - Gameplay Randomization and Release Window

This past month has been a lot of coding and very little asset creation. Which means that this month's update will not be that visually interesting, but it also means that we are getting to a very good spot with the development of the Survival Sandbox. And when I say we, what I really mean is I. I am the only full-time developer on the project right now and I handle a few other small contracted contributors. My brother Spencer who was working as our full-time art director has moved on to other employment since we have reached a point in development where a majority of the remaining work is not art related. He is still assisting with a few art tasks, but for the most part we are moving forward and looking ahead towards our release on Steam Early Access.

We have made mistakes in our development and hit unseen roadblocks that have set us back multiple times. We apologize to our followers and to our backers. Thankfully we are reaching the release horizon. A few months ago we put out a Development Roadmap that you can view to check our progress. But today we want to take that a step further by sharing our current release goals. Our hope is to have the Survival Sandbox released to our backers by the end of the year and available on Steam Early Access by April of 2017.

Since we are such a small team there is certainly a chance that something could come up that would prevent us from hitting our release goals, but I am doing everything in my power to deliver. No one wants you all to play the game more than I do. So, that being said, let's talk about what I've been working on to make that happen.

A huge part of the Survival Sandbox mode will be providing randomized gameplay so that players will have a highly replayable experience. In the past we have discussed some of these randomization details and this month I've finalized some of the time consuming aspects of the habitat randomization. I have just completed placing every solar panel mount, every habitat exterior module, every cabling flag, and every habitat support wheel. The status of every equipment component is now being randomized. Each of our nine habitat locations is now integrated fully into our randomization system. Only three of those nine will be spawned for any specific playthrough. Below is a collection of screenshots that highlight the variety of terrain that surrounds each of the nine possible spawn points.

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I am also working on the randomization of all the elements you will discover on your journey. Like I mentioned last month, I won't be sharing a lot of details about these discoveries since we want there to be an element of surprise for players, but I will show just a simple look at the tools we are using to fill these locations with interesting items for you to manage in your inventory.

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I won't get into the technical details, but you can see how we are working within randomization constraints to provide a compelling replayable experience. In the coming weeks we will be randomizing the interior of the habitats and filling in all the various discovery locations with interesting things to find.

Ultimately our goal is to provide a game that let's you experience a view of Mars that comes as close as it might feel for our first planetary explorers. And we really can't wait until you all get a chance to play it. Thanks for hanging with us.

TIMEframe - Featured in Multiplicidade Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Thanks to our friends at Gamesquare, TIMEframe was featured in a live music performance by Astromash for the Festival Multiplicidade audience in August of 2015. Unfortunately we were not able to make the trip down to Rio de Janeiro ourselves, but the pictures of the show look great! We also have a little video clip for you to check out.

TIMEframe - Development Recap

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We have taken time to explain many details about TIMEframe over the last few months, but most of that information is spread over several blog posts and Kickstarter updates. So today we are going to recap all the details and hopefully answer any questions you have.

Why is this update more than a week late?

My wife just recently got a new full time job that required us to move to Burlington, Iowa. After we got here our internet connection was spotty for a while and it took us time to settle in. Things are back up and running and we should be in a normal update schedule from now on.

Wait… what is TIMEframe again? I thought you were working on a Mars game?

TIMEframe is a simple exploration game set in a world where time is massively slowed down. It started as a Ludum Dare game which was made in a single weekend. It got the attention of several gaming websites and YouTube gamers who all had very positive things to say about. We eventually decided to put it up on Steam Greenlight to see if anyone had an interest in an updated version. TIMEframe was Greenlit in less than two weeks thanks in no small part to our Kickstarter backers from Lacuna Passage. However, we then had to put the updated version of TIMEframe on hold after we received the news that Lacuna Passage was accepted into the PAX East 2015 Indie MEGABOOTH. After we got back from Boston we transitioned back to the updated version of TIMEframe once again and we are now getting close to a release.

Why are you taking time off from development of Lacuna Passage to work on TIMEframe?

Making games costs money. Our Kickstarter for Lacuna Passage is still managing to fund a large part of development, but we don’t have much room for error in our budget. If we have more setbacks or unforeseen costs then Lacuna Passage may have difficulties getting finished.

TIMEframe is a much smaller project that we knew we could take to market is a much shorter time span. We will also effectively get to use TIMEframe as a learning experience for launching a product on Steam. We are getting practice with integrating Steam achievements, trading cards, and other elements of their API that we can apply later in Lacuna Passage. We will also get to learn more about the marketing side of launching a game on Steam. We would much rather learn the stumbling blocks now with TIMEframe than later with a larger title like Lacuna Passage. By the time that TIMEframe is finished and available on Steam we will only have lost about 2 months of development time, but we also potentially have a lot to gain.

Our hope is that the sales of TIMEframe will make our studio more financially stable and make the continued development of Lacuna Passage less stressful. Since my brother Spencer joined the team last year he has effectively been donating his time. Both of us would love to be able to afford more than ramen noodles and pop tarts. There is no guarantee that TIMEframe will provide any meaningful income, but we think that it is worth trying.

The updated version of TIMEframe is also our first official test run of our Unity music plugin Song Seed. We will also be using it for Lacuna Passage, but more importantly we are planning to release the plugin commercially on the Unity Asset Store. Hopefully this will be another source of supporting revenue for our studio.

So if this is an “updated” version of the old TIMEframe then what is new about it?

Here’s a pretty good list of everything that you have to look forward to in the new version:

• New polygonal terrain

  • Better matches our updated art style

• New foliage models and textures

  • Vertex manipulation for wind animation

• Improved water effects

  • Vertex manipulation for wind and waves

• 14 total explorable locations

  • 8 completely new locations

  • Old locations also have updated models and textures

• Better slow-motion effects

  • Previously listed vertex manipulation effects for foliage and water

  • New particle effects

  • New slow-motion physics objects

• New story content

  • Collectible artifacts

  • Unlockable historical texts

• 20+ minutes of music in an updated soundtrack

  • Live recorded string instruments

  • Uses our Song Seed Unity plugin for dynamic transitioning of tracks

• New settings screen

  • No default Unity launcher window (all options are in-game)

  • Volume control

  • Quality level options

  • Resolution and full screen settings

  • Look sensitivity, smoothing, and Field of View sliders

  • Xbox controller support

That sounds pretty cool. When will it be available?

We should be finished with the game in the next two weeks. At that time we will transition back to about 90% development time for Lacuna Passage. The other 10% we will spend on TIMEframe doing playtesting, fixing bugs, creating marketing images and trailers, sending review copies to press and YouTubers, etc. It’s uncertain right now exactly what the release date for TIMEframe will be, but early June is a good bet with a price between $5-10. If you are a Kickstarter backer for Lacuna Passage however, you will be getting a free copy of TIMEframe and the game’s soundtrack as a thank you for your patience with us.

If you have any more questions please feel free to ask in the comments.

Thanks,
Tyler Owen
Random Seed Games

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #25 - GDC Mega Update

Regretfully, it has been almost two months since our last official update. Well today I am remedying that with a really exciting post about my upcoming trip to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (actually I'm writing this from the airport on my way there). The team can’t wait to show our work to all the conference attendees, but I wanted to share with you first all the work we have done to prepare for this trip.

We have created a demo that we are calling Lacuna Passage Prologue which will serve as a sneak peek of what players will expect to see in the final game. It has story elements that tie into where the game will start, but the gameplay is more of a linear tutorial to introduce important concepts in a short time span for demonstration purposes. This Prologue content may or may not be incorporated into the final game. It depends a lot on the feedback we receive while at GDC and if we think it is valuable to the experience we want to create. Since a lot may change in the coming months we are not planning to distribute this content to backers prior to release, but we have created a video play through for you all to watch and added a bunch of new screenshots.

Lacuna Passage is an exploration and survival game set on Mars. This game is still in development. The content seen in this video was created specifically for demonstration at GDC 2014. For more information visit our website www.randomseedgames.com

We would love to hear what you think of the direction we are taking. If anyone is interested we might do a more in-depth run down of how we built this demo in a future devlog. This is a great opportunity for us to get even more people excited about Lacuna Passage who may never have heard of us before. Feel free to share the video or screenshots with your friends and family.

If anyone will be attending GDC and would like to play a live demonstration of the Prologue content you can email me at <contact [at] randomseedgames.com>. I will also be wearing bright red Lacuna Passage tshirts all week, so if you see me just flag me down!

Wish us luck!
Tyler Owen
Project Lead

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #12 - Soundtrack Preview #2

​We are very excited to share another sample of music from the Lacuna Passage soundtrack. All credit goes to our talented composer Clark Aboud.

Another sample of the music that will be featured in Lacuna Passage, an exploration and survival game set on Mars. Follow our development on our website http://www.randomseedgames.com. Music created by Clark Aboud (https://soundcloud.com/clarkaboud)

You will probably notice the new flood lights in the video. This is just one of many new assets that we are beginning to import into the game. These flood lights are interesting visual markers that can help you find your way at night.​ Some cloth physics are also on display here which we hope to use on things like flags and tarps sparingly throughout the game. We think that bit of movement makes the world feel more alive and reactive.

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #4 - Exaggeration vs Realism

Lacuna Passage is an open world game and that presents a specific set of design challenges. The largest of which is the problem of realism. The term "open world" is often linked with questions related to realism such as “How big is the world?”, “How fast does time pass?”, or “What things can I interact with?”. 

Reality has rules just like a game does, such as “what goes up must come down” or “there are 24 hours in a day”. You can’t break these rules no matter how hard you try, though you can introduce goals to turn reality into a game. For example, “get to work by 8AM every day or you’re fired”. The problem is that the goals set in reality often are not very fun. Lacuna Passage is predicated on a concept that could be simulated, but is slightly exaggerated to facilitate a story, increase player engagement, and decrease frustration.

I’ve already talked about the terrain in the game and how we are using real Mars data to form our landscapes, but at the same time we are fudging that data to present something more palatable to the player. True Mars landscapes are overwhelmingly expansive. In an exploration game like this, realism in relation to scale and distance would result in hours of walking just to reach that cool looking mountain in the distance… not exactly riveting gameplay. To combat this we are selectively shrinking the Mars landscapes on the distance scales while trying to preserve as much of the height scales as possible. This results in a much more varied terrain and much improved player travel times. The goal for the final game is to have the player be no more than two minutes away from a new and exciting vista. In the end we have a level of realism that is acceptable to the player without being a straight simulation.

Another important exaggeration that we are making in Lacuna Passage is in relation to time. Isolation and mortality are very important themes in the game and increasing the speed at which time passes tends to highlight them nicely. As of right now, one minute in the game equates to one hour in the real world. The Martian day is roughly equivalent to an Earth day so every 24 minutes of play a day will pass. Since another key gameplay system is survival this adds a sense of urgency to your choices. You can only survive about three real days without water so in the game you will have less than 90 minutes after you start your game to find a source of water or you will die. Even more importantly, an oxygen tank typically allows for real space expeditions that last roughly 9 hours, so in the game you will have to carefully monitor your oxygen levels and be sure you know your way back to base to replenish your supply. You might also think twice about running that distance since you will consume your oxygen more than twice as fast as you would just walking. I think this compressed time scale is the right choice for a game that otherwise does not task you with sharpshooting bad guys or any other skill-based gameplay contrivances. Time is your enemy.

Compressed scales of distance and time allow for a more engaging game world. One that reflects reality but is not bogged down with incessant accuracy. Lacuna Passage is not a space exploration simulator. It has a story to tell and wants the player to be rewarded for exploring.

Lacuna Passage - Devlog #3 - What the heck is Lacuna Passage?

Over the last couple of weeks I went into some detailed breakdowns of the terrain in my upcoming game Lacuna Passage. But I realized that I only briefly touched on what Lacuna Passage as a game will actually be. So, this week I’m going to take some time to do a breakdown what the game is really all about.

Here's an excerpt from our first devlog that explains what we hope to accomplish with the game:

I’ve always been a huge fan of space exploration and the recent success of the Mars Curiosity Rover inspired me to make a game that embodies the nature of exploration and discovery. Lacuna Passage is that game. I wanted to create an experience that might fulfill my own desire to set foot on another world, and for the last 6 months I’ve been researching and prototyping exactly how I might do that.

When I started the project I tried to get a sense for the types of games that have attempted this in the past. From what I noticed it seemed that many space exploration games focus on some kind of tension mechanic. You have limited oxygen, you are being hunted by mutant aliens, you are trying to survive or fight… Games like Dead Space, Metroid Prime, or Mass Effect, and many of these take place far in the future where we lose some context for the difficulty and high risks associated with space exploration. Everyone has a spaceship, and things like gravity, physics, and engineering are trivial matters. On the other end of the spectrum are the space simulators (Kerbal Space Program, Universe Sandbox) that don’t have a story to tell, they simple try to replicate the nature of space or space travel. There are very few games that sit in between those styles. I wanted to create something contemplative and awe-inspiring, not fear-inducing or pedantically accurate. I wanted to create an impressionist representation of modern space exploration. Think Dear Esther in space.

A potential design for the Mars space suits

Story

You are Jessica Rainer, the only survivor of the crashed Heracles Mars expedition, sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the very first Mars expedition, Hermes.

Gameplay

Exploration. Lacuna Passage is an open-world adventure. 25 square miles of treacherous Martian terrain littered with clues about the disappearance of the Hermes Mars Expedition.

Investigation. Photograph and document your journey. Follow the clues and piece together your own explanation to the events that unfolded on the red planet. Perhaps you can even find a way home. Share your discoveries, photo journals, and theories with other players online.

Navigation. Pay close attention to your instruments and keep track of your surroundings. The game will not hold your hand with arbitrary objective markers and many key locations will need to be manually recorded for reference. Careless explorers are sure to get themselves lost.

Survival. Food, water, and oxygen are in short supply on the planet’s surface. Even sleep is important in maintaining your stamina (and your sanity). Depicting a realistic passing of time is also important to the general theme of survival. Essentially the player is faced with defining their own goals. You can try to see how many days you can survive alone on Mars or you can try to see how fast you can solve the mysteries of the planet. Death in itself is not necessarily a fail condition in the game. Depending on your experience it may be a perfectly suitable ending to the story you have crafted for Jessica Rainer.

From Concept to Prototype

Of course, all of this conceptual content would be nothing without some substantial prototyping. Over the last few months I have been working hard on some crucial systems that will stand as the foundation for the experience inherent to Lacuna Passage.

Concept art of one of the habitat modules

Time of Day and atmospheric effects

There is a full day/night cycle with some beautiful atmospheric effects that emphasize the scale and the emptiness of the planet. We started with the base Unistorm Unity package and heavily modified it to fit the atmosphere of Mars.

Realistic first-person camera

Those space suits are heavy, and the goal of the camera is to help the player feel some of that weight. Especially as your stamina begins to fade and movement becomes more labored. We already have some great camera movement in the prototype courtesy of a modified Ultimate FPS Camera Unity package.

Terrain generated from real-world (Mars) geologic features

Every inch of the environment is lifted directly from real Mars terrain data provided by NASA satellites. Some of the features are composited together and scaled down to provide the player with more varied landscapes to explore. Find about more about the methods used for the terrain in our first two devlog posts.

In-game photography

Taking “screenshots” is directly incorporated into the story via the main character’s desire to investigate the disappearance of the Hermes crew with photography. Sometimes you will need to examine your photographs to gain clues about where to explore next. The goal here is to also encourage sharing stories online and collaborating on theories to some of the game’s more obtuse clues by having all in-game photos also saved out to the player’s harddrive.

Continued Progress

I'm excited with how far the game has come, but we also have a long ways to go. If Lacuna Passage is a game that interests you then I hope you continue to follow our progress on this blog or on Twitter. Cheers!