Loopbound news & patch notes

Loopbound — v0.5.9

Forest

• Added a conditional shortcut (alternative to building the bridge). You need to visit the area to unlock it.

UI

• Added Visions (included the first 8 of them).
• Grammar and text corrections.
• Header buttons available in the "What Happened?" screen.
• Improved tutorial.

Core

• Reset Cycle no longer takes you to the previous death screen.
• (Internal) Auto-eat now prefers foods that satisfy more resource needs simultaneously.

Yellow

• Severely reduced the mastery threshold for "Harvest fresh dates".
• Slightly reduced the mastery threshold for "Fill waterskins at fountain".

Loopbound — v0.5.8

Automation

• Priority system reworked: numeric priority now overrides category order. You can make any fabrication or exploration action run before gathering actions by setting a higher priority.
• Default effective priorities: gathering actions start at 20, fabrication at 10, exploration at 0. You can override any action above or below these defaults.
• Existing saves are automatically migrated on first load. No manual action needed. Priorities may show higher numbers than before — this is intentional to preserve previous behavior. You can adjust them freely.
• Priority input now accepts direct number entry (max 50). Arrow buttons change ±1; hold Ctrl and click for ±10.
• Automation mode button: left-click cycles through available modes; right-click opens the selection menu.
• New buttons to set/unset all automations in a world/category.

UI

• Reset cycle has been rebuilt: now it resets to exactly the same situation you were when starting the cycle.
• New button: Reset World — resets to exactly the same situation you were when starting the current world.
• Export/import to/from file.
• Permanent XP is now gained in a 1/1 ratio with cycle XP, but the experience needed to next permanent level is multiplied by 10 also. This is a cosmetic change; it does not affect gameplay or balance.
• Actions added with the emergency for food mechanism are marked with a warning icon.
• Release notes tab in settings.
• Fixed several tutorial issues.

Core

• (Internal) Action time rounded to 0.1s.
• (Internal) Progress bar would show 100% after pausing the game at the moment (0.1s) an action completed.
• (Internal) If top-up inventory for food ends exactly at the same time the resource is eaten, it should keep gathering.
• Severely reduced export size.

Gray Zone (Maze)

• The Give Up button now performs a Reset World instead of ending the cycle.

Forest

• Vines and Sturdy Logs are available until the bridge is crossed.

Yellow

• Cannot leave the oasis without helping to tan hides.
• Water rations do not appear in the inventory until helping to tan hides.

• milestones now are sorted by cycle
• added zoom level up to 150%
• chronicle drop down background color
• ordering of actions in automation/priorities tab now has a default setting (discovery order, and distance order in gray)
• you can export the game right after dying

• emergency auto-eat is not being added if the action is currently being executed (even with a x2,x3 or top up the inventory)
• oneTime actions cannot stack
• settings are kept after importing
• edge case for actions with food value reduction.

• hunt lizards doesn’t depend on any action
• indicator in decay when hydration is 0

• one more soft-lock fixed

• cactus fruits : removed, they were a 'trap' resource, but they were in the game much earlier than they should have been, as they appear before the player gets the hang of the mechanics.
• Hunt small birds : execution time has been reduced.

• wide layout (allows to have the chronicle always on top).
• automation type and priority UIs are both in the action list now.There are more changes to come in next patches regarding usability of the Automation/Priority panels.
• prioritites higher than 10 will be set to 10 which is now the maximum value
• number of cycles in milestones displays properly (it was one less than it should)
• untranslated text when entering new zone
• tooltip for special training icons was partially hidden under the actions list.
• (internal) added labels for accessibility
• now you can see what happened when you died.

• special training actions moved to “exploration” category.

• now you cannot upgrade the camp in ruins without building it first.
• automated drink tasks now start a bit earlier, so you are not left with 0 hydration.

• removed all known soft-locking issues (but not the ones I don’t know 😉 )

• dark (gray) mode

• corrected formulas in help section that were outdated
• visual effects setting was being reseted after ending a cycle
• updated some narrative texts.
• new setting for “automations to start as inactive when buying them”
• window keeping its state instead of starting always maximized
• improved stats (added time spent per world, but will not be accurate for ongoing games)
• milestone info, recorded info when ending worlds (it wll not gather info for already completed worlds)
• changed the way advanced info is shown in tooltips

• timer adjusted (there were 100ms. missing)
• map improvements
• improved german translations

Loopbound is now in Early Access.

WHAT'S IN EA

• 3 new regions beyond the starting area (~20–30 hours of content)

• Each region has its own theme and unique mechanic

• Recommended order by difficulty: yellow → green → gray. Any order works; you can switch regions freely between cycles.

THE 3 REGIONS

1. Very direct and fairly linear, but not just a matter of moving forward: which resources you automate or disable matters. Recommended for getting familiar with the game.

2. Less direct; choose between different routes to complete it (all routes must be traversed). A bit more open than the first — you're not pushed to a single path — but order doesn't change things drastically.

3. Very open (within the core mechanics). Likely the most open region in the full game. My favorite, but not recommended first. I originally didn't plan to include it in EA, but couldn't resist.

DEMO

The demo will always be available. If you haven't tried it yet, that's still the best way to see if the game is for you.

SAVE COMPATIBILITY

• Demo saves from before the EA release cannot be imported.

• The demo will be updated so new saves (from the updated demo onward) can be imported into EA.

• EA → full release: save import is not guaranteed; it depends on how much the final version changes.

WHAT CHANGED SINCE THE DEMO (based on player feedback)

Bugs: GPU usage, extra tick on full inventory, tutorial windows blocking actions, automation edge cases, missing translations, backdrop flickering, action naming, horizontal scroll bar.

QoL: bulk automation (x2, x3…), remaining time on started actions, buy automation from task list, improved tooltips (settings), start cycle paused (settings), chronicle improvements, pause indicator, inventory colors, resource icons on gather actions, map highlight on shortcuts, small marker showing which skill is leveling up (Skills panel).

Appearance: new Retro interface look (Settings → Appearance), alongside Modern.

Balance: mastery reduces action time by 10%, doubled temporal essence per cycle, many action/time/XP tweaks.

BALANCE DURING EA

Balance parameters may still be adjusted during Early Access if really needed — I'll try to avoid that as much as possible.

Feedback welcome on Discord (https://discord.gg/2mj6XsegUq) or Steam Discussions (https://steamcommunity.com/app/4437600/discussions/).

This demo build matches the Early Access version that will launch soon.

SAVE COMPATIBILITY

• Saves from older demo builds are not compatible with this update.

• New saves created in this demo will be compatible with Early Access when it is released.

If you had a demo save from before this update, you’ll need to start a new run.

WHAT CHANGED (same as upcoming EA; based on demo player feedback)

Bugs: GPU usage, extra tick on full inventory, tutorial windows blocking actions, automation edge cases, missing translations, backdrop flickering, action naming, horizontal scroll bar.

QoL: bulk automation (x2, x3…), remaining time on started actions, buy automation from task list, improved tooltips (settings), start cycle paused (settings), chronicle improvements, pause indicator, inventory colors, resource icons on gather actions, map highlight on shortcuts, small marker showing which skill is leveling up (Skills panel).

Appearance: new **Retro** interface look (Settings → Appearance), alongside **Modern**.

Balance: mastery reduces action time by 10%, doubled temporal essence per cycle, many action/time/XP tweaks. It is strongly recommended to stop the demo (or keep a save file) when the end of teh content is reached, otherwise when importing the game into EA you'll be overpowered ( it will be ok, but content is not originally designed that way )