Quantum Odyssey news & patch notes

We had a terrible bug in which all texts were spilling out thanks to a new steamdeck regex we introduced in the large patch to autodetect and change certain texts depending on if the player is using a deck or not

-now fixed. Sorry for having to see so many badly formatted texts! You can reset your progress using the X button in the profile section if you feel this bug gave you any trouble.

-QI team

PS. Linux native build coming tomorrow!

Dear Seekers,

The game is ready to teach anyone quantum with 0 background in algebra or anything. Game is almost done and we are preparing for Full Launch.

🚀 Full Release Status

• No longer feels like an Early Access title

• Content ~99% complete

  • Over 56 patches so far, it became super hard to find something new I'd like to patch now

  • Improved learning curve based on a year of analytics!!

  • Major refinements to reduce cognitive overload

  • If you tried it early, now is the perfect time to return. You can reset your account!

• Stable & polished

  • No known bugs (but feel free to go on a bug hunt)

We've been working on this patch for over a year now. This ties up content that we asked many of you on Discord to test on our development branches and so far so good. It's a scary moment for us to launch this, since we are a small team and the content is so vast that it has become simply impossible to test everything. If you find a bug doing anything in the game, please immediately let us know!

The game has been designed around user interaction, so to make it work entirely offline took some work (and now on macOS too!). We decided eventually to go with something that maximizes your experience and brings you no hassle. Pretty much your internet connection does not disturb your gameplay experience. If your net goes down game continues working offline, the moment your net is back up everything comes back to normal (puzzle metrics and so on, you won't lose any progress).

🍎 macOS Fully Deployed

• macOS version is now live

• Fully optimized experience across supported Mac devices

• What everyone’s been waiting for is finally here.. now is it bug free? Let us know!

📡 Offline Mode Fully Deployed

• The game now fully supports offline play, even on unstable connections

• Automatically syncs with your online account when a stable connection is detected, updating progress and metrics

• You can now reset your user progress and start from the beginning (click the X on your Profile screen)

🎮 Steam Deck Support

• Automatic detection of Steam Deck

• UI and controls now adapt to Steam Deck layout

• Multiple controller navigation issues fixed

• Improved overall Steam Deck experience (UI, controls, performance)

• Added platform-specific adjustments for tutorials and settings

• Currently in the process of receiving Steam Deck Verified (Green Check)

⚙️ Performance & UI

• Added Graphics Quality settings:

  • Performance (optimized for integrated GPUs)

  • High Fidelity

• Added high refresh rate support (up to 144Hz) with VSync in High Fidelity mode

• Added:

  • 4 colorblind modes

  • 4 UI & font scaling options

• Fixed memory leaks and improved lifecycle management

• Reduced redundant API calls and improved request routing, less memory usage

• Introduced some bugs for you to find them

UI Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed pause menu selection not updating correctly after hover

• Fixed vault tooltip appearing briefly when entering the star map

• Fixed UI elements remaining visible when they shouldn’t

• Improved layout consistency across multiple panels

• Fixed UI scaling issues causing glitches or blocked interactions

• Fixed Borderless mode not staying maximized on a second monitor

🧩 Gameplay & Systems

• Fixed vaults not appearing after returning from the star map

• Fixed vaults not rendering after transitions (state rehydration issue)

• Bounty count now correctly reflects star map configuration

• Fixed bounty node synchronization issues

• Improved connection handling in the main menu

Puzzle & Circuit Improvements

• Circuit configuration now opens correctly at puzzle start

• Circuit tab now retains its state between puzzles

• Added new content and made existing one easier

• New rants about entanglement, cats, decoherence

🔊 Audio & Visual Fixes

• Fixed audio routing in preload scene (mixer output)

• Removed startup audio artifacts and unnecessary playback loops

• Fixed video scaling to properly match display height

🌍 What’s Still Coming

• Translations for 12+ languages

  • Looking for volunteers!

Dear Seekers,

We’ve finally added an offline mode to Quantum Odyssey (FOR NOW only on Development branch, as there could still be untested bugs!)

The game was always built around interaction... comparing solutions, hacking vaults, sharing creations and stuff like so basically a full zachlike experience. But not everyone has a stable connection, and that was a real limitation.

Now the game can switch automatically between offline and online. You don’t need to do anything. Work done offline will sync once you’re back online, so nothing gets lost.

Offline mode is currently available ONLY on the Development branch. If you want to try it:

• Right-click Quantum Odyssey in your Library

• Go to Properties → Betas

• Select the Development branch and update

You can also reset your player account now (for the moment, tokens and achievements are preserved).

There are also a lot of improvements to tutorials and puzzles.. we’ve been refining the experience across the board.

Greetings, Seekers.

This update focuses on making your journey through the world of QO more accessible and intuitive. We’ve heard your feedback regarding readability, carefully watched your progression with the content to adjust the learning curve, and we’re excited to bring these quality-of-life improvements to the game.

Accessibility & UI

• UI Scaling: Added a new "UI Scaling" toggle in the Settings menu. You can now choose between 4 different scaling options to ensure text and interface elements fit your preference.

• This update drastically improves the experience for Steam Deck users and those playing on smaller displays.

• The game now fully supports 4 color blind modes, ensuring that visual puzzles and cues are accessible to all players.

• Interface elements (including fonts) can now be scaled as large as your resolution allows.

Gameplay & Content

• Increased the physical size of the Forge area.

• Added a new Sage Letter to the second tutorial to deepen the lore and guidance.

• Revised existing letters and documentation to better reflect recent content changes.

• Implemented automatic camera movement for specific actions to provide better cinematic context and clarity.

• We’ve tweaked several puzzles and clarified explanations to ensure a smoother difficulty progression for new Seekers.

In the Pipeline

We are hard at work on the following features for future updates:

• Offline Mode * Progression Reset (New Game options)

• Localization (Expanded language support)

• New Platforms: Native ports for Linux and macOS

• New end-game cinematic

Dear Seekers,

-new animations for cases where complex numbers are uneven

-revamped the letter system: new content, new letters, can now be scrolled while written

-improved the learning curve for the first 20 modules by analyzing where people get stuck

-the puzzles where people were once getting stuck are now a bit more intuitive

Many people without any background in mathematics who finished the game!

This is really cool - the game does it's job. Content is almost ready for V1.0 release.

Please support this project by leaving a steam review!

I'd like also to bring people's attention to two awesome streams of the game:

(stream of the game of a physics teacher with over 400h in)

(Khan academy style quantum mechanics using QO)

We play through the Quantum Odyssey campaign and continue the quest to uncover all the secrets of the universe.

Patch Notes – Color Blind Accessibility Update (Beta)

This update introduces color blind accessibility options aimed at improving clarity, contrast, and visual consistency across the entire game. Even without enabling a color blind filter, many players should notice general visibility improvements.

What’s new

• Color Blind Modes added to Settings

  • Tested against the three main types of color blindness:

    • Protanopia

    • Deuteranopia

    • Tritanopia

Visual improvements

• Clearer distinction between the four core quantum colors

• Consistent color logic in simulations

  • Real components use blue tones

  • Imaginary components use yellow tones

  • Previously, negative real values could visually resemble imaginary components in some situations

• Updated gate icons and supporting graphics

  • Improved contrast

  • Better visual consistency across the UI

• Circuit Machine frame adjusted

  • More neutral appearance

  • Reduced visual distraction so focus stays on the circuit itself

Important note – Beta status

This feature is currently in beta.

Color blindness simulations were created using a mix of Photoshop filters and online tools. While a lot of care went into tuning contrast and values, simulations are not a perfect substitute for real world perception. Small differences in how individuals perceive color may still cause issues in certain edge cases.

• If something looks confusing

• If two colors are still hard to distinguish

• If a filter makes things worse instead of better

  Please report it! Feedback here is extremely valuable.

This was a very fiddly update to get right, and real player input will help refine it further.

Some changes to wording and puzzle setups, as always - super happy to see though that newcomers are now advancing more than ever in the quest to master quantum computing.

And before I forget:

Merry Christmas everyone! 🎄

If Quantum Odyssey clicks for you, consider gifting it to a friend and leaving a Steam review. Every review genuinely makes a difference. Thank you! ^_^

Dear Seekers,

Paula Marie has returned through a time capsule to be opened for those seeking a casual, relaxed and narrated history lesson into how humanity started with processing information. You'll learn about bits, bitstrings and how to build simple circuits, simply sit back and relax and let Paula cover everything for you. This should really open the game up for those absolute beginners (who haven't seen a 01 before).

We also introduced holding right click to pan camera around, it should feel similar to any editing software you might use in the past. WASD is still there, but given some people are left handed this should really improve on their experience. Thanks everyone for testing this behavior on the steam deck.

This month hopefully (finally) game will also be playable offline.

As always, looking forward to hear your feedback and let's make QO immortal together.

I’ve seen far too many Seekers get stuck at the tutorial. I believe it's my fault and I am finding ways to improve on this. It's fascinating to see that most people who put over two hours in, end up going 20h+, hence my goal is simple: to make the first 30 minutes feel like a casual, approachable experience, definitely not the "hardest puzzle game ever made", as some may have pointed out many patches ago.

Two new wordless challenges have been added to create a more fluid on-boarding experience. These focus purely on what the gates do. Only in part three of the series will you explore why they do what they do.

Beyond that, you’ll also find improvements to dialogue and several updated encyclopedia entries.

Oh, and one more change: Paula Marie has taken a leave, entrusting her tutorial duties to the Sage of Axioms. Hopefully later this week we'll be adding a bunch more features requested by our community on Discord.

Do also take a minute to review this project on Steam, this really helps communicate what the game does, perhaps even better than the current trailer and long descriptions (I hope soon I'll get the space to work on these too).

See you in the quantum realm! Hopefully from next year we can kick off our first competitions!

Seeker, it is time to test your command over invisible threads of logic.

Have you ever longed to whisper a possibility into one qubit… only to watch it collapse into certainty on another? Now you will practice the true art of teleporting information, where superposition becomes a message, and entanglement becomes your path.

• Added a new challenge path for SWAP. Let's see Prove you can master swapping quantum information!

• Small changes to dialogues and encyclopedia as usual.

• Offline mode wip.

• Next week we'll improve input controls which hopefully will solve the NE panning problem some experience using controllers.

• Custom gate behavior improvements, now you know what they do when used in circuits.

Someone said once science is built on the "shoulders of giants". I know it was intended as a pun and I'm using it out of context but I'll go with it anyway. The giants of today are our living professors, physicists, computer scientists and mathematicians that actively keep the fields growing and distillate knowledge in ways (incomprehensible science papers, or succinct, using metaphors, whatever it takes) that we can understand it in our modern era. I never thought it would be so hard to find actual quotes from contemporary scientists, I always thought that opinions are like nipples, everyone has one. Turns out, the people closest to the work often say the least, while those farthest from it have an opinion on everything.

The main thing in this patch is a complete overhaul of the quote system in tutorials. Each puzzle now has a quote (sometimes more than one, from different scientists that never even got the chance to work together!) that exists there to enforce the lesson the tutorial puzzle is giving beyond what the Sages have to say. The old system had quotes from yoga teachers sneak in our random quote system about quantum physics and after this patch they left the server. The new quotes have been tediously researched and hand-picked to fit the tutorial puzzles. There still is room for improvement, but we are getting there.

Speaking of the server, we are gradually taking stuff to be playable offline. It will take some time but progress is made. Seeing how people play QO has helped (and continues to) a TON in making sure the learning curve is smoothened, puzzles do what they intend to (teach a concept) and are solvable by people with different backgrounds including those who are not even here to learn quantum mechanics but simply enjoy some good open-ended puzzle solving.

I'd advise everyone to redo the lessons in the first two rings (what gamers call tutorials) on Quantum Computing/ Physics. This patch brings a lot of small changes in how information is presented to you over the first 3 hours of play (the most important ones tbh. You will either feel you are learning quantum in a way you haven't had the chance before or want to alt+f4, this is why the intros still remain for me the most important thing to ensure they do their job).

Soon(ish):

QO Offline mode, font size and colorblind settings

Dear Seekers,

We've heard you. You'd like to be able to play Quantum Odyssey without an internet connection, hence we are preparing to rollout features tin two phases hat allow for it to happen:

Phase 1: Asynchronous Gameplay Flow

We're introducing a system where you no longer have to necessarily wait for the server to respond with your score and XP after each puzzle. These updates will be handled asynchronously, letting you move straight to the next puzzle. This should improve the experience of players on spotty internet connections!

Phase 2: Fully Offline Mode

We’re planning to support full offline play, where all progress is saved locally and synced to the server once you're back online. This means you’ll be able to enjoy the game uninterrupted, even without an internet connection

We are also now doing research for implementing features that support colorblind, font scaling and keeping an eye out if after the latest patch there are still folks who's laptops heat up. If I am missing anything, do let me know!