Development log
Sterium ·
Updates to DEEPER, its free browser demo and the website. The full game is paid and remains in development.
This first log brings together the website changes recorded in October. Website presentation updates are not new features added to the playable demo.
· A guide for your first colony
The new how-to-play guide explains mining orders, ladders, lighting, food, beds and fearful colonists. It also separates the demo’s Crystal Hollows endpoint from the full game’s 1,500-metre objective.
Both language versions now make the distinction clearer: the demo is free; the full game is paid and still in development. The site’s pixel fonts, colors, moving cave background and automatic gameplay scenes are unchanged.
· A playable demo and a larger cave gallery
The English and Spanish homepages gained a direct link to play the free demo in the browser, with nothing to install. The demo reaches the Crystal Hollows. The full game’s store remains unavailable while development continues; its displayed $5 USD price is planned, not an open preorder.
The gallery presents four large PNG views: Fungal Depths, Crystal Hollows, Sunken Ruins and Magma Core. Each biome has its own heading and short description. The gallery shows the wider game world, not four regions all included in the demo.
· Colonies in motion
The website’s gameplay viewer runs the game’s simulation and renderer instead of playing a recorded video. Six scenes loop automatically: a crystal colony, crawlers, sporelings, a fungal outpost, a crystal golem and fire imps.
The colony scenes combine excavation, bed construction, farming and defense. Standalone fights run faster, while the camera tours the settlements. A rendering correction smooths the camera’s small movements without blurring the pixel art.
These are prepared test situations running fresh simulations, not recordings of earlier test sessions. Movement and outcomes can vary. The viewer has no scene picker, playback controls, timers or combat counters.