Gentoo Rescue News

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Here's what's happening with Gentoo Rescue:

[h2]Thinky Awards[/h2]
Gentoo Rescue was nominated for three categories at the 2025 Thinky Awards!

• Game of the Year
  
• Best Challenging Game
  
• Best Puzzle Design
  

Thank you for everyone that put in nominations! It's amazing seeing my game next to so many heavy hitters in the genre. If you want to support further, do note that the GOTY category comes with a community vote. So please head over to their page and vote for Gentoo Rescue!


[h2]Puzzle Depot[/h2]
The Gentookeeper bundle (with Glowkeeper) has been extended to include another great 2025 puzzle game, Puzzle Depot. The bundle is active now with a 10% bonus discount, and you can get this discount even if you already own some of the three games. We were surprised to see that Steam doesn't let us easily rename the bundle, but hopefully in a few days this will become the Gentookeeper Depot bundle.


[h2]Soundtrack[/h2]
The full OST of Gentoo Rescue is now available. It's only $2, and can be obtained at a small discount of 5% if you buy it with the game.


[h2]Winter Steam Sale[/h2]
Gentoo Rescue is 15% off until January 5th. It's a great late Christmas gift!


[h2]Patches[/h2]
Updates 1.1.3 and 1.1.4 both went in recently. If you haven't played for a while, definitely check back to see a 1-2 new puzzles and a bonus. Also check out the community levelpacks on Steam Workshop! There is so much content that I'm struggling to keep up...

Puzzle changes

• Made Transplant.Inductive easier by giving no option but to use the cane to change the parity of the traps.
• Moved Transplant.Base so that it must be played before Inductive.
  

New features

• Locks for levels that contain a colored pinwheel will now have a rainbow glow. This fixes a design issue with some metapuzzles, and I regret that it took so long for me to realize such a simple fix!
  
• Updated block icon in puzzle editor. Also added keyword BLOCK for it.
  

Bugfixes

• Journal entry for importing to multiple animals now correctly unlocks if the import removes multiple items.
  

This patch has been in the works for the last two months. It has ballooned in size to become quite a big patch. I hope you enjoy! This wouldn't have been possible without all of the feedback that I've been receiving on Discord, on the Steam forums, on my Twitch stream, and elsewhere. Please keep it coming :)

A little over a month ago I made post about all of the hype that was building around Gentoo Rescue. At that time the game had 81 reviews, and I was hoping to hit the 100-review threshold. Well I was blown away from the response, as Gentoo Rescue now has 154 reviews! Thank you so much for the support
There have been some requests for me to make the game's OST available, so I'd like to announce that it'll be available within a week or two. Other than that, I don't have anything official to mention. Please stop by the discord server or my stream (links above) to say hi!

New content

• A new puzzle called Boomerang in Crowdsurf.
  
• A new (post Replication) bonus solution for Exfiltration.
  

Puzzle changes

• Changed animal colors in Tango, NAG, and Mutual.
  
• Removed extra tile from Thrusters.
  
• Removed useless column from Exfiltration.
  
• Changed Crowdsurf to make room for new puzzle.
  

New features

• Support ultrawide aspect ratios.
  
• Show saved (post Inception) exports in export popup even when an export is disallowed.
  
• Don't show (post Replication) bonus solutions and percentages until Replication has been beaten, for real.
  
• Don't show (final ending) the game end animation and message when loading the solved state on initial load or on undo.
  
• Open "end popup" when beating any instance of the hub puzzle. Only relevant for custom levelpacks.
  
• Set better defaults for puzzle editor hotkeys.
  
• Puzzle editor hotkeys can now be customized.
  
• You can now record journal entries for your custom puzzles that require importing.
  
• Animal colors (including grey) can now be fully customized by hue/saturation/value sliders.
  
• Added new "Colors" settings submenu.
  
• Support usage of " in puzzle names and hints for custom levels.
  
• Added 180 degree rotation function to puzzle editor.
  
• Special puzzle editor testing bind ctrl+shift+A to complete a puzzle with all exports will now also unlock all imports.
  

Bugfixes

• Settings entry labels are now responsive to mouse hover.
  
• Don't show the "journal entry count" at the bottom of the journal/hint menu when the hint submenu is open.
  
• Fix animal from being deselected when 5+ moves were queued. This mainly affects players on low end machines with a 30 fps cap.
  
• Fix rare bug where entering a new world while a lock is exploding could cause a different lock to be glowing.
  
• Fix rare bug where spamming redos of (post Inception) exports could cause animals to become very tiny.
  
• Fix rare bug where animations for an item that was just (post Pickpocket) stolen by a mask (in the same move) would not play properly.
  
• Handle scroll clipping in the custom levelpack menu.
  
• Fix bug where exiting the solver would sometimes change the puzzle that was being solved.
  
• Fix bug in puzzle editor where an item discarded during testing would be gone from the puzzle upon returning to edit mode.
  
• Fix bug in puzzle editor where it was possible to surpass the 12 row, 20 column limit on puzzles using the rotation functions.
  
• Fix bug in puzzle editor UI that let players combine incompatible tile elements like trap and cracked tile or sublevel and export.
  
• A removed item can no longer be added to custom levels by editing the JSON file. Steam Workshop levelpack "hmmmmm" (or something like that) will now be unplayable.
  
• It is no longer possible to redo past the win state of a puzzle. Steam Workshop levelpack "jank" will now be impossible.
  
• Fix journal entry for (post Crowdsurf) spring launch bounce not unlocking if the animal just picked up the spring from the block it is bouncing off of.
  
• Fix rare bug where (post Transplant/Contraband) importing into puzzle with multiple animal instances could sometimes not apply the import for every instance.
  
• Catch and show error message for infinite loop caused by bug found in custom levelpack Combine.
  
• Fix typo in (post game) end message.
  

Misc

• Credit Michelle Caldeira for Portuguese translation of the Steam page.
  
• Sort animals in (post Transplant/Contraband) import/export menu by item based on when (roughly) the item is encountered.
  
• Time text in end screen will now be gold if everything else is.
  
• Added "[cheat]" tag to "Allow skipping" gameplay toggle.
  
• Hints were improved for SO MANY LEVELS. Thanks for the feedback!
  

[p]Before getting into everything else, please note that Gentoo Rescue will be 20% off November 3 - November 17 to celebrate all of the below. This will be the biggest and longest sale yet, so don't let your friends miss this opportunity! Also, remember that you can get even deeper discounts by purchasing (or completing) either of the bundles:[/p]

• [p]Gentoo's Demon Wormholes: With 2023 and 2024 Thinky Award winners Can of Wormholes and Maxwell's puzzling demon.[/p]
• [p]Gentookeeper: With 2025's Glowkeeper, which is another underrated title that I highly recommend![/p]

[p]Why? Because so much is happening all at once![/p]

• [p]Aliensrock, a popular puzzle YouTuber, has uploaded an (in progress) playlist of Gentoo Rescue on their channel! Their videos are always entertaining, so it has been a pleasure to watch him play. I want to welcome all of the new players to our Discord server, and encourage everyone to try out some of our amazing community levelpacks on the Steam Workshop once they've completed the main game. Go check out their videos, and share some love with likes and comments, especially to the Gentoo Rescue videos.[/p]
• [p]We're now at 81 reviews, with a quick burst of 15+ from the last few weeks! This is undoubtedly due to the new attention from Aliensrock, so I'm incredibly grateful to him and everyone that has taken the time to leave a review. I think getting to 100 (and beyond) is a real possibility. Hopefully this barrage of events will get us there soon![/p]
• [p]The talks and schedule for Thinky Con 2025 have been released. I will be speaking on the opening day of the conference (Wednesday, November 5) about the puzzle solver I built for Gentoo Rescue. There are many other amazing talks on the schedule, so don't miss it! Okay, it's actually not big deal if you miss it because they'll have all the talks available on YouTube afterwards.[/p]
• [p]Gentoo Rescue will be part of 3 separate Steam events in the next two weeks![/p]
  • [p]DevGAMM Awards Celebration runs November 3 - November 9. I don't know if Gentoo Rescue actually won anything, but I'm so proud to see it accepted into this event.[/p]
  • [p]Metroidvania Fusion Festival runs November 3 - November 9. Metroidvania enthusiasts are (rightfully) very skeptical about games claiming to be metroidvanias. I designed parts of Gentoo Rescue through a metroidvania (and partially metroidbrainia) lens, so I'm excited to participate alongside more traditional examples in the genre.[/p]
  • [p]Animal Fest runs November 10 - November 17. Save the penguins![/p]

[p]Anything else?[/p]

• [p]There are so many custom levelpacks on Steam Workshop now that I've decided to start curating my favorites. Check out this collection of Dev picks![/p]
• [p]I started streaming more regularly, and will continue to do so for a few days per week. Give me a follow and come say hi! I've played some puzzle games (including Gentoo Rescue custom levels), some competitive games, and other variety (including talk prep and some game dev). I'll actually be competing in a chill Silksong any% race with a few friends on Saturday, November 8 at (I think) 11am PST, so that should be fun![/p]
• [p]I played around with Godot and made a silly October themed game Witch Cauldron. It's a free puzzly platformer on Itch.[/p]
• [p]Due to all of this renewed interest in Gentoo Rescue, I am excited to say that I'll be returning to post-launch development in November. I have a long list of small fixes to make, so expect at least one more patch this year. Maybe more?[/p]
• [p]The Discord server has grown from all of this renewed interest, so I've started making it more organized. This has involved a few special roles, one of which is for those that have "solved something in-game without any reward". Players can earn this reward by messaging me the secret message. I'd like to give our small community a comfortable home to hang out, so all suggestions are welcome![/p]

[p]I've taken a small break from Gentoo Rescue development, but I'm back with a relatively large "small update". Most new features and bugfixes are for custom levelpacks, but there's also a new puzzle being added to the main game. Before going into details, I want to officially announce that Gentoo Rescue is now part of two Steam bundles! Definitely check them out if you're already a fan of Gentoo Rescue. Also, be sure to recommend Gentoo Rescue to anyone that has enjoyed these other puzzle games!

[/p]

• [p] Gentoo's Demon Wormholes with Thinky Award winners Can of Wormholes and Maxwell's puzzling demon.
  [/p]
• [p] Gentookeeper with another great 2025 puzzle game Glowkeeper.
  [/p]

[p]
Puzzle changes
[/p]

• [p] Adding an endgame optional puzzle called Pogo based off of the interaction from the puzzle Bypass in workshop levelpack Levels that shouldn't exist by Mountebank. It also has a bit of a Hollow Knight (and Silksong) inspiration, which may be evident from the name.
  [/p]

[p]
Bigger features
[/p]

• [p] The game will now autoload your solution to the hub puzzle, if it exists and if your saved inputs are empty. There was previously no way to recover your solution to a hub puzzle. This is more relevant for custom levelpacks, which might just be a single standalone level.
  [/p]
• [p] A teleporter that goes to itself is now officially supported. How do you think it will work? Try it out in the puzzle editor, or in some of the custom levelpacks. \[Another shoutout to Mountebank for discovering this through editing the puzzle files manually!]
  [/p]

[p]
Smaller features
[/p]

• [p] Moved "Undo or Reset" bind prompts from the center of the screen to the top.
  [/p]
• [p] Added A/B/C/D/E/F letter icons to button, gate, and trap icons used in hints.
  [/p]
• [p] End game popup for custom levels no longer shows the message intended for the main game.
  [/p]
• [p] The ending lock break animation can now be canceled with redo. It was already cancelable with undo.
  [/p]

[p]
Bugfixes
[/p]

• [p] Fixed journal entry record button in the puzzle editor.
  [/p]
• [p] Removed item particle effects that would linger past an undo or reset.
  [/p]
• [p] Fixed a bug where the import/export prompt would not show for levels with no imports while an animal is moving.
  [/p]
• [p] Fixed (I think) an inconsistent bug that made it possible to import with grey animal. If this ever happened to you, then this bugfix should retroactively remove them.
  [/p]
• [p] Bind prompts at the top of the screen (which were in the early levels of the game) will no longer be shown in custom levelpacks.
  [/p]
• [p] Improved the beginning of the launch animation for animals that will bounce.
  [/p]
• [p] Lessened the desynchronization between game logic and animations that can occur for very long moves involving many teleporters. This is still technically an issue at very fast movement speeds, but for normal speeds it should match very well now even for the longest Rube Goldberg machines that you can create in the editor.
  [/p]
• [p] Fixed the speed of (Lemniscate.Rift spoiler) animals that are bouncing off of teleporting animals to match that of a normal bounce.
  [/p]