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Chimera Capsule News

Demo 2 Coming Soon - HUGE UPDATE

Hey there!

It's been a while!
Sorry for the lack of news (it's been 7 months!), Null and I are still working on Chimera Capsule, and a lot has happened in the meantime. Things took longer than we thought!

As we were making progress on the demo update, which we initially wanted to release by the end of 2024, development slowed down and it became clear to us that the game and demo needed more depth, characters and polish, far beyond a simple update.
So we returned to our kitchen, picked up momentum, and COOKED!

MASSIVE Demo Update On The Horizon!


Honestly, it's closer to a completely new, reworked demo than an update!
It will reflect something much closer to what you can expect at release this year.

We're trying to get it done ASAP, aiming for this month.

While you wait, here's a preview of what's coming!
This is a work in progress and the final result is subject to change.



New window borders! The game now sports a brand new, integrated look!

New dungeon! The demo will feature the first 5 floors of the Necrospire.

And yes, those two are indeed new Chimeras!
The Beast, and Anestasia. An obsessive and mysterious assassin bunny bride, and the strongest and smartest Oni nurse!
One makes them bleed, and the other puts them to sleep with her huge hammer!





A complete rework of the Quarters window with better UX!
Minions, Chimeras and your Ingredients inventory now each have their own screen, and Fusion has a little cutscene!

This comes with a new Inspect screen that shows more in-depth info and stats.

...And as you can see, Null_Skull made new gorgeous character illustrations.
Every Chimera now has her own portrait!



New Chimera dialogue and lore!

Chimeras now have their sets of dialogue, from random chatter when you select them to expressing their surprise after a Fusion.
They refer to you in their own way and have very colorful personalities! Make sure to check them all out when the update releases!
Some of them are a bit unhinged, though...

But enough about Chimeras, what about Minions?

Complete Minion Gameplay Overhaul!


The Workshop is being replaced by The Backyard, an entirely new gathering minigame!
Here's a rough peek:



The previous owner of the Remote Laboratory made the mistake of dumping all of their alchemical byproducts in the yard behind the building, that were then absorbed by the soil over the years, turning an otherwise green pasture into a grove of legendary alchemical plants!
Their sap is made of refined Prima Materia, and their fruits, when picked by someone with a heart free of sin, take the form of whatever they desire.

So Magnum had the great idea of sending Minions to gather them! But here's the catch, all they think about is food!

This is the new way to gather basic upgrade ingredients in Chimera Capsule!

Prepare a group of Minions, similarly to Chimera Squads, and send them away!
They have new gathering-related stats (Efficiency, Movement, Sight and Luck). Mix and match them to fit your needs and playstyle!
You can let them do their thing, or manage them by hand to focus on specific plants.
Different plants yield different ingredient types, Prima Materia, and even sometimes random dungeon ingredients.

...But that's not all!



There is a new Partner system, allowing you to pair Chimeras with Minions!
This grants bonuses to your Squad during an Expedition, and works similarly to an equipment system.

When transmuted, each Minion comes with a Partner Bonus stat type (Power, Health, Bonus Damage, Critical Chance, Critical Multiplier) that grants two bonuses: A fixed one that scales with the Minion's level, and an additional, random one. And yes, you read me right, the game now has critical hits! And don't worry, enemies can't naturally crit.

When fusing Minions, you keep the first one's bonus only. I am also experimenting with a Trait system that adds fun and powerful passive effects, we'll see if this makes it in!

In total, the update adds 4 new Chimeras and 6 new Minions.
This includes the Harpy and flying book you can see in this screenshot.

And yes, if you've already played the original demo, you will recognize a playable Nebula here!
In fact, there is another new mechanic I haven't mentioned:
After you beat her for the first time, Nebula will regularly visit the Lab for a friendly chat, at random intervals.
Her presence allows you to transmute a special Chimera version of her!



Sketch by Null_Skull

There is so much more I'd love to show and announce, but that'll have to wait!
For those of you who would like to get further involved with us and Chimera Capsule, or just want to follow the game's development, we are going to launch a Discord server along with the update, keep your eyes peeled!

By the way, we're in the currently ongoing Creature Collector Fest!

Thank you for following and supporting us so far, it means the world to us!
Wishlist & Follow: Store Page
Feedback & Questions: Steam Discussions


See you in the Lab!

- Talops

Next Fest Demo - Patch 0.2.4 (Drag & Drop)

Hey there! How was your Next Fest?

Ours went better than expected, for such a small game with absolutely no marketing.
It was a really eye-opening experience, thanks to your feedbacks! So many little things we could have never thought of!
Thank you so much for playing the demo and giving us your opinions!

It was pretty hectic, and a break was largely due, so we took a week off and came back in full force to deliver a new quality of life update to Chimera Capsule, the last one before our big upcoming content update.

New Features


  • Drag & Drop ! You can now click-and-hold on any "slot" that contains a homunculus (including Workshop and Squad slots!) into any non-Quarters slot and it will assign the unit accordingly. It also includes swapping two Minions with each other directly in the Workbench screen, or Chimeras in the same squad. Of course, the previous click-based workflow still works as well!
    This was a very highly requested and much needed feature that should make the game much more ergonomic to play.

  • Added game-wide window re-focus. When no game window is focused (for instance, after clicking on your browser, Discord or Steam), focusing on one of the windows again, by clicking or alt-tabbing, will now show all windows instead of just one. This also applies to minimized windows.
    A lot of people were bothered by the fact that they had to click on all 4 game windows through their task bar every time they full-screened any other app. I hope this addresses it!

  • In the Settings screen, added a toggle for game-wide window re-focus.

  • Added a Window tab in the Settings.


Changes


  • (Chimera) Poxie: Relief (Skill 2) will now target the ally with the lowest HP percentage (previously targeted based on flat values).

  • Workshop: Changed workshop titles to A B C instead of 1 2 3, and the top-left corner of unit slots will now display both workbench and assigned slot. Previously 1/2/3, now A1/A3/B2/C1/etc.

  • Lowered Elusive Root levelup requirements.

  • Lowered Meat Chunk levelup requirements for Minions.

  • Lowered Experience Nacho levelup requirements for Chimeras.
    These two changes will make it more meaningful to focus on either upgrading Minions or Chimeras first, and will give a higher impact to your first transmutations.

  • Temporarily changed some requirements for Lv5>6 Homunculi, in preparation for the upcoming content update. It is now possible to reach Lv6 after clearing the demo's currently available content.

  • Changed some tooltips and parts of Magnum's tutorial dialogue to reflect the addition of the drag and drop feature.

  • Reworked dialogue text display progression. It now looks less jittery and should be easier to read as it writes itself.

  • Added a "tutorial hand" to the Transmute 5 button during the tutorial.


Fixes
  • (Minion) Fidgety Salaryman: Tooltip displayed the wrong loot, now properly indicates 1-3 Spaghetti.

  • In the battle screen, heals now properly display the healed amount.

  • Minor text box line ending fixes.


If you are encountering issues with the new update on Linux, please poke us on the Steam Discussion board!

What's Next

The 0.3 update, coming this month!
In short: A new (partial) dungeon, new Homunculi, and a Quarters overhaul!

We have a few other things in store for a 0.4, after which updates will slow down until the game is released.
We will also be giving you ways to stay in touch with us and get informed of the game's development through regular update posts, such as a Discord server!
In the meantime, the Steam Discussions board is still the place if you want to send us feedback. As always, we are very thankful!

Oh and, Happy Halloween!

- Talops

Next Fest Demo - Patch 0.2.3 (QoL)

Hey there!

Are you enjoying the Next Fest?
After a short break, I am back with more highly requested features!

Changelog


  • Your Quarters screen now displays Homunculi in order from Tier, Type and Level!
    This is a temporary measure while waiting for the UI overhaul of the Quarters and Workshop windows I am currently working on.

  • You can now snap (magnetize) windows to each other! It is an experimental feature which you can toggle in the settings.
    Due to engine limitations, I cannot register clicks on a window's title bar, so your currently held window will flicker a bit when snapping. This is normal behavior and will be fixed in a future update, when custom title bars will be added.
    The Lab window does not snap to others, as it is the main window. This is intended, but if people request it I can easily change it.
    In the future, I would like to add a feature that allows you to move all secondary windows along with the Lab one!

  • The game now saves and remembers window positions!
    If one of your windows becomes unreachable, you can reset window positions in the settings.
    If the main window is unreachable, please check the pinned softlock solutions thread in the game's Steam Discussions board.

  • More scaling values have been added: x3 and x4 (which is defaulted to on 8k displays).

  • You can now reset your settings to their default values!

  • Your Homunculi now have neat mouse-over tooltips!
    They display stats, lore, and Minion ingredient gathering info! This data will be more conveniently displayed in the upcoming UI overhaul.

  • Maximum ingredient yield for some Minions has been increased.



What's Next


The next big change will be an overhaul of workbench and squad interactions by adding Drag & Drop and allowing unit swapping on the same window!
This should be way more ergonomic than having to click on an empty slot and then on your target.
It will come with fixes for a few minor bugs I found, and some UX changes.

Afterwards, there are two big things that are planned: The Quarters overhaul, and...
[h2]New content![/h2]

The new content will include the first 5 floors of the Necrospire, along with at least one new Chimera with a very fun kit!
This will be an opportunity for you to make real use of your T2 Chimeras' second ability!

Please look forward to it!
And as always, if you have any feedback, find any bugs, or if any of the new features don't work for you, please give me a poke on the discussions board! I read and try to respond to every post, and greatly appreciate your returns!


- Talops

Next Fest Demo - Patch 0.2.2 (Upscaling & More!)

Hello again!

I went pretty hard today to provide you with some very requested, urgent changes!
This includes the one thing that has been requested to me the most: A Window Scale setting!
You should now be able to comfortably play the game on larger screens.
I had to make compromises however, since the game is in pixelart, going for anything else than a power of two actually breaks the grid!
So in order to work with x1.5 scaling, for instance, a filtering setting was pretty much needed.
These are the new options:
  • Scaling: 1x (Native), 1.5x (Destructive Upscaled), 2x (Native Upscaled)
  • Filtering: Nearest (Crisp but leads to inaccuracies on non-native scaling values), Linear (No inaccuracy but blurry result and has eventual small visual artifacts).

I recommend 1x Nearest for FHD 1080p resolutions (1920x1080 screens and the likes) or below, 1.5x Linear for QHD 1440p (2560x1440), 2x Nearest for 4k and above.

Please let me know if you need more options, such as x3 or x4!
And as always, any feedback or bug report on the Steam Discussions board is very welcome, we really appreciate your support!

I will be focusing on fixing some of the more minor bugs we found in the next update, as well as more quality of life and usability features. Ideally, things related to window management and positioning.
Then... More content! There are quite a few things I wanted to add to the demo that we had to cut for its release. Hopefully, I will be able to add these while this Next Fest is still going!

Changelog


[h2]New Features[/h2]
  • Added a new Display tab to the settings menu.
  • Under Display settings, added a new Window Scale setting, allowing the player to set the scaling factor of the game's windows between x1, x1.5 and x2.
  • Under Display settings, added a new Filtering setting, allowing the player to choose between Nearest and Linear options, which affect the way things are rendered when Window Scale is set to a value above 1x.
  • Added a new Gameplay tab to the settings menu.
  • Under Gameplay settings, added a setting to toggle Beginner Tooltips. When toggled off, some of the more intrusive mouse-over tooltips that are intended to guide new players, will not display anymore.
  • Added a lot of new tooltips, including both lore and gameplay information. These have been added to most buttons in the game, as well as Expedition locations that now (temporarily) display the ingredients that can be found in their "floors".
  • Added tooltips to settings, this will help clear up what each setting does.

[h2]Changes[/h2]
  • Made mouse-over tooltips much more responsive and consistent. This also affects the stability of most fade-in and fade-out animations in the game.
  • Re-ordered squad slots to better reflect positions on battle, so the rightmost slot is assigned to the front Chimera, and so on.


[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]
  • Fixed a Minion upgrade requirement bug, in which Lv1 Minions required only 5 Nachos despite the requirement display showing the intended values.
  • Fixed a critical bug in which failing to upgrade a Minion or Chimera would still consume ingredients.


That is all, have fun with the demo!

- Talops

Next Fest Demo - Patch 0.2.1

Hey there!

Here is the very first patch for the Chimera Capsule Steam Next Fest Demo!
These changes target the most common soft-locking issue, some unintended upgrade requirements, and an increase in tutorial quality.
Please update and restart your game, especially if you were hit by the soft-lock below!

Changelog
  • Fixed a critical soft-lock in the tutorial, in which you were able to stealth-transmute your 5 first units if you were pressing certain keys (initially used for debugging during development, which I left there and forgot about... oops!) during the intro sequence. This led to you being out of Prima Materia in the stage of the tutorial that required you to perform your first transmutation.

  • Added a tutorial pointer to the Quarters-shaped back button in the Transmutation screen.
  • Similarly, added a tutorial pointer to the Starlit Woods Observatory "button" in the Expedition map.

  • Changed the Upgrade requirements from Lv5 to Lv6 (Tier 2) for both Chimeras and Minions, from a few Nachos (used during development) to some pretty silly Tier 2 ingredients.
    This will prevent players from levelling up past 5, as intended, due to one of the ingredients only being accessible in the second dungeon, the Necrospire, currently unavailable in the demo (...for now!).


Going forward


I will introduce more fixes in the upcoming days, after I've had proper sleep after this pretty hectic weekend.
You can consult the game's Steam Discussions Board for a roadmap of the changes that are currently planned, as well as an F.A.Q. post.

Some playtesters have come across a softlock issue that looped Magnum's dialogue during the Expedition part of the tutorial (where you go on your first two Starlit Woods runs) that seems to involve the Retreat flag in some way, that I haven't been able to reproduce.
If you come across any softlock such as this one, I would be very thankful if you could tell me about it in the Discussions Board. Please be as detailed as possible regarding the order and chronology in which you did things, and what happened afterwards.

Thank you for playing our demo in this jam-packed Next Fest, NLL_SKLL and I really appreciate it, we hope you will enjoy it!

- Talops