With the server shutdown I have changed the default endpoint to localhost as I still get charged for DNS requests.

Changed Disable AI Generation to default to true

Added text in popup to remind people its recommended to turn off AI Generation.

Added a button to unlock online based achievements.

The servers will be shutdown sometime between now and Christmas and the GitHub pages will be updated with references to database dumps if anyone wants to host their own version (which can be used by running with the flag --endpoint <YOUR ENDPOINT>).

Thank you to everyone who has given the game a go, i hope you had at least 3 minutes and 24 seconds of enjoyment from it.

Its been nearly 6 months and it was fun making this, however the costs of running it with little to no return and no where for it to go from here, unfortunately i will be shutting the servers down. This will happen sometime in the next month.

The game will stay on steam, however the online features will only work if someone else (or yourself) chooses to host it. Features to use a custom server are already in-built into the game itself.


The frontend[github.com] and backend[github.com] services of the game will be available on Github. Full database of combinations will be made available on the backend Github at some point, but it still needs to be formatted.

While making the game there were plenty of times I came across someone asking 'how do I do x thing' in regards to steam games and nodejs, then a few months later saying 'it's solved' without actually providing any information on how it was done. Hopefully the code can help anyone learning to how some things work.

Currently the server is designed to be launched in a heroku instance, or locally but there are plenty of undocumented gotchas, this is by no means a plug and play alternative but its what I can provide.

Thank you again for everyone that gave this game a go, sorry if this wasn't how you expected this game to end. Look forward to the future games I make (hopefully offline ones that don't require streams of money to keep afloat xD)

Fixed crash when server isn't available.
Fixed missing languages.
Added server shutdown message.

Added some more checks to language loading to prevent the base items from not loading.


Full Explanation:

A few people have noted that they have no items when they first load the game, i am still unable to replicate this issue but have taken a deep dive into the code.

This update addresses a possible cause if the language database file fails to load or if it loads in the wrong order, no items will load. I have made it so that Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Time, Life will always exist no matter the state of the loaded file.

This won't stop the other reports of items disappearing, but hopefully it lowers the chance of anything like this happening.



I am now working on a 'Send Feedback' button to make it easier to submit logs so that i can properly see what is actually happening, but that will take some time as it requires some server backend work.

Some may have noticed (some may not have) the server has been having issues translating for the last 12 hours but it wasn't being reported by my monitoring. It should be fixed now but i am sorry i didn't see it earlier

Almost had the update go clean, i forgot to remove some things from the local recipe list to match the server.

I know the updates have been few and far between, but the update is finally here.

With all the changes, this game has basically been rewritten from the ground up.

• Put the AI in its place (it should now generate things that make more sense)
  
• Fixed element dissapearing when copy key was released
  
• Optimized side list sort and filter to work better with thousands of items
  
• Fixed issue with database files being overwritten after failing to load (it will now opt to not save instead of overwriting)
  
• Completely overhauled data storage to reduce filesizes and load times.
  
• Refined quit behaviour to hopefully close correctly all the time now.
  
• Fixed rate limit errors showing as 'unknown' (or not at all)
  
• Fixed dragging copied element to side menu removing the source as well.
  
• Fixed a bunch of visual bugs with either color or layout (more noticable with the supporter theme)
  
• Fixed smaller issues relating to item storage and visual bugs
  
• Fixed error and debug logging not being available (you can now pass --logLevel <level>) to help with issue reporting

• Moved menu items into a side menu
  
• Moved some statistics server side, now there are save based and user based statistics (the user statistics are the accurate ones)

Freeplay mode is a new mode that allows you to input custom starting items. It also:

• Uses the same AI as standard mode
  
• Has a 1000x bump to the max depth cap on combines
  
• Allows for more characters and numbers in the items

This mode costs credits to use and is a completely optional part of the game for people who are committed and want to support the game.



These 2 new modes provide 4 items as a target with credit rewards (may change in the future), something to strive for when you dont know what other game to play :).

These items are divided into groups. These numbers may be altered in the future if they are too hard etc.

• Easy: Base recipe with a depth of 2-25
  
• Medium: Base / AI recipe with a depth of 2-100
  
• Hard: Base / AI recipe with a depth of 100-1000
  
• Random: Completely random item

Support the game with items from the store, from some themes (sorry im no designer but i tried my best) to items to help combining.

Credits will only be used in freeplay mode, see the top right of the screen for how many credits you have

• Added performance list setting, this list is not as pretty but will improve performance when scrolling through thousands of items (but IMO at that point searching is easier)

I still believe this game is yet to reach its full potential. I already have some ideas i have had that i want to put to users to get some feedback:

• Leaderboards (the backend is already prepared for it)
  
• Wiki race style competitions with friends
  
• Speedrun timer (goes along with the first idea)
  
• Co-op profiles.
  
• Favorite / Hide items in list

It seems crazy to release the full game with known issues, but these are minor things that require a huge ratio of time to figure out / fix compared to leaving them in. If they bring more issues then i will fix them sooner.

• Credits amount will sometimes de-sync when spam crafting items, or adding new items. This is only visual.

Fixed crash when background is unknown


Fixed some other small things relating to the update of the game, during the next week i will be migrating the database and moving the server to the new version, there may be downtime during this if i mess it up. Hopefully all goes smoothly.

I will post on Steam and Discord within the hour if I mess something up.