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Lacuna Passage is out now on Steam Early Access

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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.

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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