Lacuna Passage News

It’s time for Update 02 and we’re excited to share our progress on Lacuna Passage. In our last update we talked about the switch to Unreal Engine which allows us to create larger landscapes and build accurate maps from terrain data captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Let’s start this update with a look at a brand new map.

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Candor Chasma
Located in the heart of Valles Marineris, Candor Chasma is the deepest part of a giant canyon system that stretches across Mars. This map in the southwest quadrant of Candor Chasma, lies in a deep valley that is surrounded by harsh 5 kilometer tall canyon walls.



This wind swept terrain will be a challenge for even the most seasoned astronaut. We’ve been working hard to recreate such Martian frontiers so that you can explore them in detail.




Martian Habitats
Survival in harsh environments like Candor Chasma will require reliable habitats. The first humans on Mars won’t have the luxury of pre-built structures to live in. We’re building a brand new set of Habs that follow real constraints of what would be possible in the near future.



We’ve paid close attention to how Martian habitats would be constructed. They’re built from modular pieces that are designed to be packed into a rocket, transported to Mars, and assembled on-site. This also means we can create different habitat layouts for living quarters, research, rover repair and more!

Inside the Hab you'll be able to sip your coffee while shielded from the freezing temperatures and lack of breathable air. You might want to keep an eye on your life support systems to make sure it stays that way.



You’ll notice the airlock has been redesigned. That’s because we needed it to be modular. The new design makes sense for transport to Mars, and allows us to connect the airlock to different types of habitats.


Seamless Environments
As an added bonus to our redesign, you will now enter and exit habitats without any loading screens! This was a design challenge that we tackled head-on because it makes the gameplay a lot smoother and adds some fun possibilities.



Have a look through the Hab window to keep an eye on the weather outside.




Celestial System
We’ve continued to refine the celestial system ( detailed in Update 01 ). Along with planets and moons we’ll now simulate artificial Satellites in orbit, much like the ones in the HiRISE and MRO missions. You’ll be able to use these satellites for navigation & mapping. More details on this as we build out the system.




The Game Plan
We’ve been hard at work building a Mars that’s dynamic and true to reality. As we continue with development, the current store page and older discussions might seem disconnected from the new Lacuna Passage. The store will get a full overhaul once we’re ready to publish the new build. Developer updates will continue to drop every 2 months. The next update will set the launch window for our first playable build. Huge thanks to the community for your feedback, enthusiasm, and patience.

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Footnotes
This last screenshot captures Mars' largest moon Phobos setting over the dunes in Candor Chasma. You can see a silhouette of the canyon wall on the right, which rises up roughly 5 kilometers from the canyon floor.

Hi All,

Since acquiring Lacuna Passage we’ve been planning out and building our new direction for the game. Today we’d like to share this direction with you and show some of our development progress. The current version of Lacuna Passage (on Steam) captures a glimpse of what it’s like to be an Astronaut on Mars. Our development goal is to build on Tyler’s original concept, while revitalizing and greatly expanding the gameplay possibilities. To accomplish this we are making some big foundational changes.

Unreal Engine
Future versions of Lacuna Passage will be built in Unreal Engine. Switching over to Unreal was something we thought long and hard about. We’re not starting from scratch, in fact we already have a lot built out. While this decision does increase the amount of development work needed, it opens up a lot of great gameplay possibilities. The first of which is the ability to greatly increase the scale of the world.

Large Landscapes
Unreal enables us to create large seamless terrain with a high-level of detail on the ground. This will allow for much more exploration within the map, either on foot or in a Martian Rover. These new landscapes can represent an area of up to 64 square KM, meaning there will be much more area to explore in both sandbox or story missions.



Real Locations
Our custom tools allow us to process data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and create detailed landscapes within the game. All maps will now represent real locations on Mars, accurate to within a few meters! You’ll see real landmarks in the distance and you’ll be able to plot any Latitude-Longitude coordinate from the game on to a map of Mars.



The Martian Sky
We’ve built a brand new Martian sky with weather patterns, seasons, and atmospheric colors. This adds striking blue sunrises and sunsets to the martian days, wispy clouds and drifting martian dust. Depending on the time of year, and your surface lat-lon coordinates you will never catch the same sunrise or sunset twice. The weather and dust will also play in to your survival decisions, more details on this in future updates.



Celestial Objects
We’re now simulating celestial objects in the Solar system. This means if you're in the right place at the right time you’ll be able to watch Phobos or Demios eclipse the Sun, or marvel at the marble-like Jupiter or if you’re feeling sentimental even catch a glimpse of Earth and the Moon in orbit. The position of these objects in the sky will be physically accurate to the game time and your position on the Martian surface. It’s an astronomy nerd’s dream and it really conveys your place in the Solar System.



In Orbit
An additional benefit of our celestial system is that we’re now simulating things around the planet. This view from Mars orbit is physically accurate and has the ability to annotate moons, planetary bodies and constellations. We have some fun ideas for new gameplay based on the orbit simulation but more on that as it develops.



The Game Plan
Our development plan is to first build a richer survival Sandbox with the Unreal build of Lacuna Passage and then add a Story Campaign mode. For now we’ll post a dev update every 2 months. Thank you for being patient as we build out Mars. We have a lot of new things to share in our next update include new habs, locations and gameplay! Here’s a hint - the new hab will have some see-through windows.



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Footnotes
Our custom map creation tools allow us to consider almost any location on Mars for conversion to a game map. If you send us lat-lon coordinates we can take a look at the NASA data available and consider it for the game.

A couple months ago I had to make a very difficult announcement. Lacuna Passage was being put on ice. That decision was not made lightly and I kept looking for a solution that might allow the game to live on. Well, I’m happy to share that Lacuna Passage has found a new home. Effective immediately, Candescent Games is taking over development.

I’ve been communicating closely with Vilas Tewari and the team at Candescent Games in Burbank, California and the future looks bright for Lacuna Passage. This game has been very important to me and I wouldn’t trust it to just anyone. They have demonstrated a great understanding of the themes and design, and they have really impressed me with their ideas on how to improve upon that foundation.

I know the team at Candescent Games is excited to get their boots on Mars, but the important thing for me was that they were willing to let the current version of the game continue to exist as a separate archive branch on Steam - a snapshot of what Random Seed Games created. It should be fun to watch the game grow and become what I always hoped it could be. My work here is mostly finished, but I am looking forward to keeping in contact with the new team as they shape their own Martian future.

For my Kickstarter backers, the current version of the game is where I will be adding the remaining digital rewards and those changes will remain on the archive branch on Steam. Those changes may or may not carry over into later releases. I will also still be managing the remaining physical rewards so if you have any questions about those please direct them to [email protected].

I hope you will welcome Candescent Games as the new stewards of Lacuna Passage. Please be patient with them as they work to get all life support modules operational. Your mission is not over.

Sincerely,
Tyler Owen
Random Seed Games


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Dear players,

It’s my pleasure to announce that we - Candescent Games - will be carrying on development for Lacuna Passage. Tyler and his team at Random Seed Games have done a great job designing an absorbing Mars survival experience. On playing the early-access version I was struck by the promise of the gameplay mechanics, and the haunting beauty of the martian surface. My team and I are excited to fully realize this concept.

Candescent Games is an indie studio based in California. Our previous indie title, Tinertia, was launched on Steam and PlayStation4. We’re looking to bring the same level of innovation and polish to Lacuna Passage. Tyler will be in the loop throughout the development process. We want to make sure the game stays true to the core vision.

As Tyler mentioned, we will preserve the current version created by Random Seed Games and give players access to it on a Steam branch. Before we begin our task of building out the game, the team and I will spend 3-4 weeks planning the best path forward. While we have lots of ideas, we’re not going to make promises at this point. Instead we’d like to hear from you. Tell us about your likes and dislikes, favorite mechanics, issues, and what you’d like to see.

Mars is the next great frontier for mankind. We’d like Lacuna Passage to confidently place you on the harsh planet, and immerse you in the challenges that Martian astronauts would endure.

Sincerely,
Vilas Tewari
Candescent Games, Inc.

Version 0.65 just went live to add a long requested feature. Mouse input for datapad screens. There are two ways to use the mouse controls. First, you can just hold down the datapad key (E by default) and the UI will switch to fullscreen with mouse input enabled as long as you have the datapad key held down. It will close the datapad when you release the key. The second way is to open the datapad normally by just tapping the datapad button instead of holding it. This will bring up the datapad like you are used to and then you can press R to switch between keyboard controls and mouse controls.

Since the launch of Lacuna Passage on Steam Early Access I have put out 25 updates adding a wide variety of new features and improvements. Dust storms, rovers, scientific research, and more. This has all been done in an attempt to expand on the features that would support the eventual story mode. During this time, I have been the only full time employee working on Lacuna Passage.

I love this game. It has been a cornerstone of my life for the last few years. Since I started on this project my wife and I have moved three times, adopted a puppy, said goodbye to that puppy due to terminal health issues, said goodbye to two grandparents taken by cancer, had our first child, adopted another healthy puppy, and bought our first house. I can link back all of these events, happy and sad, to what stage of development the game was in at the time. They are inextricably linked in my memory.

When I started on this game I didn’t even know how to program. I’ve taught myself more and more over the course of development. And in that time, the indie game landscape has shifted substantially. The floodgates for selling on Steam burst open and everyone is on an even playing field. Unfortunately, that means my inexperience and lack of resources makes it extremely difficult to remain competitive enough to support continued development. The game is taking longer than I ever could have imagined it would take, and it isn’t selling near well enough for me to assist in supporting my family. No one wants this game to be finished more than I do, but at the end of 2018 I had to ask myself some hard questions. Would I continue to string along development while asking my family to make more sacrifices for me? Or was it time to move on?

I’m sure you can tell where this is going. Development of the story mode is now on indefinite hold. It’s unlikely that any major new feature additions will be worked on either. At the beginning of January I accepted a position as a Junior Programmer for a software development company. A moment that was more bitter than sweet for me and my family. I had to give up my dream of finishing this game, but I also wouldn’t have gotten the job without the experience I gained while making it. Now I have a more stable and secure source of income and my money-related stress and anxiety have greatly decreased.

Despite this new path ahead of me, I’m still devastated. I feel like I’m killing something that never got a real chance to live. And it’s my fault. I was naive, inexperienced, overzealous, and short-sighted. I want to apologize to everyone who is disappointed by this news. Especially to you, my original Kickstarter backers, who put their trust in me to deliver on the concept of a story-based Mars survival game, but also to everyone who has helped me along the way by providing feedback and suggestions that have dramatically improved the game from where it started. I literally would not be where I am today without you. I’m truly humbled.

So what happens now? Lacuna Passage will remain in the Steam Early Access program indefinitely. It’s true that I could make a dishonest cash grab by calling the game “finished” and take advantage of the “Version 1.0” launch window visibility on Steam. But I’m not going to do that. I have removed all references to the story mode from the store page and the game itself. I have clarified that development has halted in the description text on the store page, but it will remain available at its current price for those that understand what the game is and are still interested in playing. I will also be shutting down the official feedback forums. They incur a cost every month and from now on I will use the official Steam forums for bug reports. If serious bugs are found I will do my best to address them, but beyond that I can’t make any promises.

I’m not going to let this experience stop me from making games in the future. But from now on it will be much smaller hobbyist projects. Games like Lacuna Passage are just too big for someone like me to tackle. I’m sad that I didn’t reach my planned destination, but I don’t regret the journey it took me on. I hope that you have gotten something out of your investment in Lacuna Passage and in me.

Thank you,
Tyler Owen
Random Seed Games

I was intending for this update to go live to everyone before Christmas, but I ran into some last minute bugs that I didn't have time to fix before I travel. Instead of leaving you all empty handed during the holidays, I figured I would put it out on the public beta branch. To enable it, right click on the game in your library and select Properties. Then go to the Betas tab and select the public beta.

This is the preview for 0.65. It contains probably the most requested feature since the game launched. Mouse controls for the datapad. There are two ways to use the mouse controls. First, you can just hold down the datapad key (E by default) and the UI will switch to fullscreen with mouse input enabled as long as you have the datapad key held down. It will close the datapad when you release the key. The second way is to open the datapad normally by just tapping the datapad button instead of holding it. This will bring up the datapad like you are used to and then you can press R to switch between keyboard controls and mouse controls.

Now, the reason this is only a beta and not a general release is because there are still some control conflicts. Sometimes you won't be able to move after closing the datapad or it may get stuck between mouse or keyboard inputs. As far as I can tell these issues can usually be resolved by cycling the datapad button or the escape key, or a combination of the two. Obviously I will be working to resolve these issues before general release, but I wanted players to be able to mess around with the new controls over the holidays.

This seemingly small update took a very long time to implement. The entire game's UI was built specifically for keyboard exclusive input and so every UI screen had to be partially rebuilt on the back-end to enable mouse input. Yes, I probably should have worked on it this way from the beginning, but eventually the conflicts will be worked out and you can control the game in almost any way you wish when combined with the already existing key remapping and controller support.

There are a few other small fixes in this update that I will outline in a full changelog after the general release. Please let me know what you think!