The Mobius Machine news & patch notes

Hello Everyone, After the very positive reception that version 1.1 has had, we are now presenting version 1.2. Even if this release is not as game changing as 1.1, it adds a few features that improve the game significantly.

Workshop Revamp

The workshop was quite a large area, and because it had no map, the feedback we got from people was that it was sometimes difficult to navigate. We've now split it in 3 distinct sections, that are communicated via doorways, making everything a lot simpler.

• Workbench Area. This is where you can craft items, save the game and access shortcuts. There are no NPCs here, and the distances to the Sector 01 Water section, Sector 02 and Sector 06 shortcuts have been significantly reduced.
• Lab. You access this from a doorway on top of the Workbench. It is a separate area and it has all the explanation of the various types of globular forms.
• Proving Ground This is also a separate area accessed from another doorway on top of the Workbench. It has the Weapon Overdrive, the training bots and the various scrap boxes that are unlocked with the various weapons.

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/814412082178945c35a81a1b217c56a65cf6beef.png

Crumble Block Redesign

Crumble blocks (the ones that break when you step on them), now have a distinct visual pattern, so you can distinguish them in any lighting conditions. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/e694c40b64a972f3af6df5810df4bacf619a7ceb.png

Sector 01 Save Point improvements

- There is now a new Save Point north of the location where you get the Thruster. This reduces the distance you have to travel if you die when fighting the Floater Broadmother that guards it. - The Save Point east of the Workshop, is much easier to find and is clearly signposted.

Optimizations to Ultra quality mode

Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field settings tweaked in Ultra quality mode. This should produce smoother frame rates when playing the game in 4K in Ultra settings.

UI improvements

In workbench window, in the list of items to craft, there is now an extrapolator icon next to the ones that require it. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/4541ffbce97d3ced5c1fa6bd3110eb7e8a82a421.png In the Chronostabilizer info window, scrap and extrapolator icons are now properly aligned.

Map layout improvements

- Minimize the unexplorable areas in the map by adding blocks which the player can use as contact point to jump and glide using the parachute. Also added few scrap boxes to reward the exploration. - Added new shortcuts in Sectors 02 and 05. - Made some 1 way paths 2 way in Sectors 02, 03 and 07. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/e9fa52411e7601fe749158b5149a6ed8a9111094.gif

Cosmetic

Added a few new non-interactive props in several sectors: Various antennas, dead colonists and alien growths. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/a4be9caa04eaf74a961d49cb690cfe7ad730beab.png

Fixes

- Fixed issue causing energy sometimes to drop to 0 when crafting items. - Removed "Where am I? Am I dead?" text from load cutscene as it wasn't being triggered right, and it's very tricky to fix. - Fixed issue with one of the ancient floaters not activating if the player stayed on the edge of the gameplay area. - Added more energy drops for training bots and drones, so the player can use the overdrive more exhaustively while fight them. - Removed redundant signposting for the control room in Sector 01 which doesn’t make too much sense after the layout changes we made post launch. - Training Drone Feeder scaled to minimize clipping with Training Drones. Let us know your feedback!

This is a quick fix for 2 issues introduced in 1.1.0 - Fix for crash in retro mode sometimes when picking up Attractor in West Floating Forest - Fix for excavator sometimes spawning two feeders in the same location

Hello Everyone, Update 1.1 is now here, this adds quite a few things to the game, based on user's feedback.

New Ending

There is now a good ending in the game. We won't reveal more details here, but for existing players if you go back to the ending area, there will be some clues there.

New Items

• Extrapolator. This is an item that allows the player to craft an item using 2 blueprints only. There are 3 of these they are located in sectors 01, 02 and 03. These allow the player to upgrade items faster in the early game. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/11a6175d2bbb44ba5c961b5f51218d94de7d20b9.png
• Chronostabilizer. This is an item that is said to repair broken space time configurations. The player will have to connect the dots and find out what the item is for. There are 3 blueprint fragments for this scattered in interesting places, to encourage exploration.

New Bosses

• Caddisfly. This is a new boss at the beginning of Sector 02. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/2b6dd0dc7ff21af8391f0c7314712cb7dbc86ea4.png
• Excavator. This is a new boss at the beginning of Sector 03. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/08e9ee70230aad73168a03bb4d798505f8387a47.png Each of these bosses is guarding an Extrapolator which allows the player to upgrade their inventory faster early on in the game.

Breadcrumbs

In Standard mode, these track the player previous locations before they acquire the map of each sector. The path decays if the player dies (decreasing the opacity or the size of the dots). {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/b8612aab3b16bdb9beff8629eede531b572fca35.png

Blueprint Icons

Blueprints that have not been picked up, are now automatically marked on the map. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/2798ed0673fc1a6802415d70e6f3ffb9ea2b4f1d.png

New Fast Travel

• There are 2 new teleporters, they are in sectors 02 and 05.
• There are 2 new Workshop shortcuts near the new bosses.
• Existing workshop shortcuts are now shorter, and have no NPCs in them, so they are more practical.

New Cutscenes

• In Sector 01, the first time the player sees a signpost.
• In Sector 01, the first time the player sees the Workshop.
• In both Sector 02 entrances, introducing the sector.
• In Sector 03 main entrance, introducing the sector.
• In Sector 07 reminding the player of the monster in the dream.
• Tweaked text for cutscene after first teleport.

New Information Displays

• In Sector 03 entrance, explaining what happened to the mining facilities.
• In Sector 03 near the flooded area, explaining where to get the diving gear, or recommending that the player upgrades their weapons if they already have the Weight Belt.
• In Sector 04, in the central area, explaining where to get the underwater thruster, or giving hints about how to use it if the player already has it.

Layout

• Made Workshop shortcut after Giant Floater way smaller and without NPCs.
• Make Workshop Shortcut to the water section in Sector01 shorter and without NPCs. Move aquatic training bots section out of the way.
• Simplified shortcut from Workshop to Sector 05.

Tweaks/Fixes

• Reduced scrap cost of all attractor levels, and levels 2-4 of secondary weapons.
• Added 26 new large scrap boxes. 13 replace medium boxes and 13 small boxes. This adds to a total of 2080 more scrap in the world, mostly in later sectors.
• Blueprints and Blueprint Fragments for stats are now green.
• Changed the loot for the Elite Dangler Bot so it gives more Scrap.
• When reloading game without dying once, you don’t get the save point cutscene.

Thank you everyone for your support, and we are looking forward to your feedback. The Madruga Works Team.

Hello all, After the first two initial updates with various fixes, we are now working on a content update for the game. We've been listening to player feedback and we want to make a few further improvements to some areas.

New Bosses

We are adding 2 new bosses to the early part of Sectors 02 and 03. We believe this is the part of the game that ATM is a bit more sparse in content and we want to improve that.

New Item: The Extrapolator

These two new bosses will be guarding one of these each. This is a single use item that allows you to craft any item with only 2 blueprint fragments (instead of the usual 3). This way we are giving the player the chance to upgrade items a bit faster in the early game, which we believe is needed. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/11a6175d2bbb44ba5c961b5f51218d94de7d20b9.png

New Ending

We are adding a good ending to the game. After finishing the game regularly, there will be a way to unlock a new ending. This will require exploring the world a bit more, there are some cool areas in some of the sectors that we want to player to see.

Breadcrumbs

In standard mode, before you unlock the map for a new area, the player will be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, that will make navigation a bit easier. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/b8612aab3b16bdb9beff8629eede531b572fca35.png

Marking blueprints on the map

From now on every time you see a blueprint in-game, it will get marked on the map. This way you know where all the missing fragments are once you get new gear that allows you to reach them. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/2798ed0673fc1a6802415d70e6f3ffb9ea2b4f1d.png

More fast travel

We already added more fast travel in update 1.0.2, but we are adding some more in some new areas.

A bit more lore

The game is never going to be story heavy, but we want to add a couple more bits of information for people to learn a bit more about the world.

A couple of hints

We are adding some information displays in critical parts of the map, in order to guide some players that seem to get stuck in certain places. We are being very careful not to spoil the sense of exploration in the game.

Fixes

We have a list if various fixes and quality of life improvements we want to make as well. We expect to have this ready in a couple of months from now. Thank you everyone! If anyone has any feedback we would love to hear it. Martiño.

Hello all, This is our second update for the game, we have added some new mini-bosses to increase variety, made a few map layout changes and more.

Changelist

New Mini-Bosses

We added 3 new Mini-Bosses to add a bit more variety to the NPCs guarding blueprints, and avoid over-using the existing Combat Bot and Floater Zombie. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/44250494/567ad911ddf4e1b376ade68728749c36c2232cef.png

• Elite Floater. This is a large floater with two attacks: sometimes it throws 3 acid projectiles at the player, and sometimes it spawns an explosive floater. We've replaced some of the Floater Zombies in the early levels with this, as it is not an overly difficult NPC.
• Battle Bot. This is a variant of the Combat Bot, but with a different attack pattern, it sometimes fires two seeking projectiles, and sometimes it rams the player. We've replaced some of Combat Bots in later sectors with this variant.
• Elite Dangler Bot. This is a large dangler bot that spawns jumping mines. We've replaced some of Combat Bots in Sector 03 with this.

Map layout changes

• Added a new Save Point in Sector 04 at the beginning, when coming in the direction of the Sector 03 boss (just before the Crinoid section).
• Added a canister on top of control room in Sector 04 to allow the player to reach the roof and prevent excessive backtracking.
• Added a doorway to come back from the top of Sector 07, just before the final boss.
• Added a shortcut in the Workshop so the player can avoid the aquatic training bots section.
• It is now required to have the underwater thruster to access the floating plant to Sector 06 in the Workshop.
• Changed layout in the area after Sector 01 boss, so the player always walks in front of the workshop shortcut.
• Shortcut from Sector 03 to Sector 01, that leads to underwater section in Sector 01, is now accessible from both directions.
• Extra signposting for control room added in difficult platform section in Sector 03.
• Tweaks to the top area in Sector 07 so the player can backtrack up to the top of the tower from the exterior once they activate the external shortcuts.
• Canister removed in the top right entrance for Sector 04, so the player can traverse it in both directions from the start.
• Tweaks to some NPC placements which were a bit unfair

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Glitch In animated structures when coming out of Save Point or Teleporter.
• Fixed lighting glitch when going out of tunnel using vertical thruster, in entrance to Sector 06.
• Fixed issue that would allow the player to always do damage to the Sub Rob if targeting the right hatch with the Mortar Module.
• Fixed Workbench UI glitch.
• Fixed player aiming in the wrong direction if jumping into a wall while holding fire.
• Now blocks linked to mechanical NPCs have a proper explosion VFX

Thank you everyone for your support, we would love to hear your feedback. Martiño.

Hello Everyone, We've now enabled cloud saves for the game. - You can disable them by going to the Library > Right click on "The Mobius Machine" > Properties > Steam Cloud. - For people that have been playing on two devices already, you might want to backup your saves, as the Steam Cloud will likely overwrite the saves in one of the devices with the ones in the other one. Saves are here: %USERPROFILE%\Documents\The Mobius Machine\Saves Let us know about any issues, or feedback! Martiño.

Hello all! As promised, we've been listening to player's feedback since launch and we are now releasing the first update for the game. This patch focuses mostly in streamlining map layout to avoid excessive backtracking and quality of life improvements.

Changelist

New fast travel locations

• New fast travel location added near Sector 02 boss. It can be used both before or after defeating the boss.
• New fast travel location added in Sector 03 inside the island in the water area near the boss, it can also be used before or after the boss fight.

Map layout changes

Sector 01

• There is now a section of type 2 crumble blocks to the right of the explosive canister that opens the right side entrance to the Workshop area, that has to be crossed using the Thruster. This will prevent new players from getting too lost if they skipped the Control Room, as you have to go via the Control Room to get the thruster.
• The difficult platforming area below the Workshop is now blocked with an Electric Barrier that requires the Sniper module to open. This will prevent new players from getting there, falling of the platforms and have to do a ton of backtracking. There is now a platform below and an explosive canister that will decrease backtracking time.
• The two one-way shortcuts near the Carapaces area have now been made two-way.

Sector 02

• In the platforming area with tendrils at the beginning of the sector, there is now an extensible ladder half way through it, to reduce backtracking if you fall near the end.
• The area near the boss has been altered, so it's pretty much impossible to miss.

Sector 03

• Two new extensible ladders have been added to the cannon platforms section (the one over water, near the boss).

Sector 04

• It's no longer possible to get to Sector 04 without the Weight Belt, as this would cause most players to get lost and have to do a ton of backtracking to get out.
• There are now two extra extensible ladders in the platforming section leading to the Control Room to reduce backtracking if you fall into the water.

Sector 05

• If you enter Sector 05 without the vertical thruster and parachute (through the entrance west of the Crash Site), you can now only access the initial room, and then need to get out via Sector 01 or Sector 03. This is to prevent players getting lost in Sector 05 without much gear at the beginning of the game.
• The control panel blocking the exit to the South East section of the sector has been removed, so the player can leave via Sector 01 without having previously opened the gate from the other side.
• It's now possible to get out of the east room to the central one by just using the climbing axe (vertical thruster no longer required).
• More signposting near the Control Room so the player doesn't miss it if they are nearby.

Sector 06

• The Control Panel blocking south west entrance to the sector has been removed, this allows the player to leave the sector through there if they have entered through Sector 02 or Sector 07.
• More signposting near the Control Room so the player doesn't miss it if they are nearby.

Sector 07

• Added extensible ladder near Control Room, so the player can get back to the Workshop area quicker when accessing this area at the beginning of the game.

Steam Deck

• Made some optimizations in the shadow maps for Medium and Low quality settings, what will improve performance.

Quality of Life improvements

• You can now place up to 50 markers in the map (up from 25).

Stability

• Fix for rare crash when placing map markers.
• Fix for rare crash when settings file got corrupted.

Let us know what do you think! Martiño.

Hi All! This is a fix for the startup crash some users were experiencing. Thanks!

Hello All, Finally after 3 years of development The Mobius Machine is out now! We would love to get your feedback! Thanks! Martiño.

Hello Everyone, We are super excited that after 3 long years of development The Mobius Machine is going to be released next Friday! Game will released at 10:00 AM CET (01:00 AM PST). The reason for this is we want to be at the office and monitor everything to make sure there are no issues. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Martiño.

Hi all, We've just unveiled the official trailer for The Mobius Machine! This shows footage of some of the various sectors, some of the core mechanics, and also a sneak peak at some boss fights The Mobius Machine is coming out on Match 1st.

Hello Everyone, The Mobius Machine beta is now over. Thank you to everyone that helped us with this process, we've received a ton of feedback and made a many gameplay and balance improvements. We've also detected and fixed a bunch of bugs. This all will hopefully make the launch much smoother and fun for everyone. Thanks! Martiño.

Hello Eveyone, The Mobius Machine beta will be ending on January 7th (Sunday). We will give access to the last batch of people today. The whole beta process has been extremely useful:

• We've tweaked the game map layout to streamline it and make sure that there aren't places where the player gets trapped or has to backtrack too much.
• We've made it easier to move around by adding more shortcuts to the Workshop.
• Fixed some important bugs.
• Tweaked the amount of Scrap in the world and the scrap amounts required to craft items.
• A ton of other fixes.

Thank you to everyone that is helping us with this, The Mobius Machine will be a better game thanks to you! Martiño.

We've just added the first batch of people to the beta. If you haven't received a notification yet don't worry, we will be adding more people throughout this week! Remember you can still sign up for the beta in our store page, we will be adding more people regularly until the end of the beta on January 2nd. Let us know what you think about the game in the forums. Thank you everyone for participating.

You can now sign up for the beta in our Steam page. We will grant access in batches of 100 people, starting December 4th. Beta will run until January 2nd. In the beta you will get to play the full game, in a probably not completely balanced state. We are now in the process of fixing bugs and making sure the difficulty is right. We would love to get everyone's feedback! Martiño.

The Mobius Machine Demo is now available! Finally we can share a bit of playable content with everyone! The demo features the intro/tutorial section and a bit of Sector 1, it should take most people about 45 mins to complete give or take. This is more a preview than a demo, meaning that we will keep on making improvements to the game until we launch. Let us know about any feedback you might have! We have a special forum for this here. The demo will be available all through the Steam Next Fest, and a week after that, make sure to play the demo before October 23rd! Martiño.

Hello Everyone, We are finally ready to announce our next project: The Mobius Machine. We've been working on this project full time for about two years now, and are finally at a point were we can share the news! The Mobius Machine is a classic 2D adventure game, but with 3D graphics. The game features exploration and combat in equal measure, you crashland on alien planet and have to explore it and fight your way through it to escape. This is our shot at the Action/Adventure/Metroidvania genre, but with a few twists:

• You can move/jump around freely while shooting in any direction. We've worked really hard to make this nice to play on both Gamepad and Mouse + Keyboard.
• We've created a large interconnected 3D word (with 2D movement), that you you can explore freely without any loading screens.
• The game mechanics change quite a bit during the experience, you start being able to just run/jump/fire, and then you progressively gain more mobility when you discover new gear.

Some of you might be wondering why the change of genre, and why not make another city builder game. We love city builders, and we don't rule out making more in the future, but right now we decided to go for a different challenge! We are aiming to release on March 1st 2024, there will be a public beta at some point. We will be posting regular updates on Twitter and on the community section on Steam. Check out the Alpha Gameplay Teaser (everything in this trailer is Work In Progress). Thank you all! Martiño.