Rescue Mode! Bring me home!

Takeoff in 3, 2, 1.0 !

We are officially out of early access with the release of Tin Can 1.0 !
It is said that in space, nobody can hear you scream, and if you are seeking the
ultimate thrill we encourage you to check out all our new content!
This has been quite an adventure and we are happy to have worked alongside you all. We hope you will enjoy this version of the game as much as we enjoyed making it.
As usual do not hesitate to leave us your feedback, reviews and other comments!

Since the early access release, we’ve added the following content:

– Second Pod (Relay Station)
– New Event
– Fire and Leaks
– Storage
– Rescue Mode
– Improved Soundtrack
– Scenario Editor
– Revamped Medusa Pod
– New Physical Interactions
– Improved Graphics
– Tutorials (4 improved tutorials, now)
– Challenges
– New Achievements
– A Few Easter Eggs 😉
– Re-balancing
– Lots of Debug and Various Small Improvements
– VR is Underway and Available in Alpha

We have a lot more in store if things go well so keep an eye open for future announcements!

As discussed previously, we are working on Tin Can’s VR mode and it will be released as a free DLC in the next few months. You can still play the old VR alpha version through the launch options.
We’ll be looking for beta testers so do not hesitate to join our Discord for more information about that!

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Come and Meet us on Twitch!

Meet us on Twitch on the 24th, at 6pm EST, for us to thank you and to discuss what’s coming!
It has already been a month since the 1.0 release of Tin Can, our first game, and we still can’t believe we’ve gone this far!

We could not have done it without our community ✨ and for that we thank you for helping us turn that unique concept into reality.More than 30,000 of you attempted to survive in space in our old Tin Can
70,000 have wishlisted the game and might jump aboard in the future
90% of you have enjoyed going through cosmic hell
And in the end you helped us confirm that there is indeed interest for micro oriented space games

📢 For all of this, we thank you, and we invite you to join us on Twitch on the 24th at 6pm EST.
We will talk about the development of Tin Can and give you a glimpse of what you can expect from us in the future!

William & Clement

Fixed:
– Asteroids in “No Touching” are now more agressive
– Players can no longer survive without doing anything in the first scenario of rescue mode
– Asteroids not triggering in scenario editor
– Murphy’s law being too random

Changed:
– Fire extinguisher is no longer magic
– No more objects being dropped on asteroid impact. It was too messy and caused too many issues. It might come back later on if we manage to balance it properly

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Fascinated by both space and technology

The Origine – Origine

I’ve always been fascinated by both space and technology. Some in my family would say I was born to love it. My birth announcement card, drawn by my mother, showed me as baby astronaut sitting on an asteroid among the stars and the planets. When I found out about it, almost twenty years later, I was flabbergasted. Space is my life. Just thinking about the cosmos makes me shiver. This vast infinity of wonders, so much bigger than the world we live in. Full of everything that exists and that we know almost nothing about.

Our planet is a drop of water in the ocean of existence. Astronauts are the explorers of this infinity, flying where no living creature has even gone before thanks to machines that are made of the combined knowledge of thousands of years of human progress. We’re not supposed to be there. Space lacks everything that life needs to survive.

There is no air to breathe, nothing to protect you from extreme temperatures or radiation. There is no gravity to keep you on the ground and to stop your muscles from melting over time. And yet, thanks to technology, people can go up there, and survive. They can see and experience the impossible. Twelve humans went to the moon and came back, walked on the surface of another world and looked into the sky only to see the Earth not bigger than their thumbs when extending their arms. They were walking on a ground that people had been looking at from a distance for thousands of years without ever being able to even think about reaching it. Some people still don’t believe our species has done it.

Fascinated by both space and technology

As you can imagine, growing up as a child I was fascinated by both space and technology, science fiction movies and tv shows depicting people travelling in space. More than that, I was fascinated about anything that could go wrong out there. Not because I like to see poor astronauts suffer and die in the void, but rather because it highlighted what is required to keep them alive, how much their survival depends on the complex technologies carrying them. A single one dysfunctioning and death comes knocking on the hull. So the sound of alarms in a lonely ship, along with the vision of astronauts bravely thinking their way out, using science and engineering to survive, these are what comes into my mind when people ask me what I am passionate about.

If I had been given the choice as a child I would have decided to become an inventor. I would have built the spaceships of the future. Unfortunately, I was told I was far too bad in maths to do such a thing. So, not wanting to let go of my dream, and loving fiction as much as reality, I decided I’d work as an artist of some sort. If I couldn’t build a real spaceship maybe I could make a damn convincing fake one!

Game Design

So I studied 3d art, and then Game Design. I realised very early that videogames were the best way to express myself. I could literally create an artificial reality where I’d be free to explore my passion for space and technology. I could create a simulated spaceship that would act like it would be real. I’d be able to walk inside it, press every button and make them do whatever I wanted them to do. Of course, life doesn’t always take you where you want. For five years I worked for a company I co-founded with some of my friends.

While it was an amazing experience, I was spending more time making virtual visits for real estate rather than working on my dream projects. A few months ago I decided to leave that company to realize a project that had been in my mind for a long time. This is when I met Clément. I told him about what I wanted to do and it picked his interest. With his support, the Tin Can project was started. Time to build my dreams!

I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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Oxygen O2 !

When I first started thinking about how the air would work in the escape pod, I thought it would be relatively easy to make.

I was visualising it as a simple percentage of oxygen, 100% being perfect and 0% being death. Of course I wanted players to experience the effects of the lack of oxygen, and not just losing health and dying when the oxygen would get too low.

So after a bit or research I discovered that it was called hypoxia, and I found out it started when below 17% of oxygen at a pressure of one bar (normal pressure at sea level).

This also lead me to the discovery of hyperoxia, meaning an excess of oxygen in the blood.

Both lead to certain symptoms and eventually to death and I thought it would be extremely interesting to implement these symptoms into the game.

Unless monitoring the oxygen levels with the instruments inside the pod the player would not have any indication on them and would be unaware of anything wrong until the first symptoms would appear. Dizziness (unstable camera and controls), slower movements, visions issues, all of them getting worse over time until the player would fall unconscious and eventually die.

The idea

I really liked the idea, so I started looking for the percentage that would lead to the different symptoms and how fast they would kill a human being.

This is when I realised it was much more complex than I anticipated, but also a lot more interesting.

So for example hypoxia is a lack of oxygen in our blood, but the level of oxygen in the air that leads to hypoxia depends on pressure levels. This means that if 20% of oxygen under 1 bar would be ideal, 20% of Oxygen/O2 under a lower pressure would lead to hypoxia. In the same way, a 100% of oxygen under 1 bar would lead to hyperoxia and eventually death, but 100% under a lower pressure could be sustainable, and that was actually commonly done in space flights to allow for a lighter and simpler atmosphere. Of course, with a 100% oxygen atmosphere, even at a lower pressure, fire becomes a much bigger issue. Terrible? Yes. Interesting? Damn yes! Who wouldn’t want to play a game where a bad oxygen mix would burn you alive with any spark?

Realistism

So to be able to have a kind of realistic system I needed to add a pressure variable to the game and find a way to link it to the percentage of oxygen to determine if the air is breathable.

At first I thought it would be relatively easy. I would just have to find the simple linear formula that links pressure to oxygen percentage and voilà!

But, alas, I found out that the formula I would need was not only complex but not linear at all. It looked more like a weird curve than a nice smooth line. Much harder to implement properly as you might imagine.

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This is Not a Drill

This is Not a Drill !

You are adrift and fighting to survive with your dwindling resources for a while now. You have already sacrificed the artificial gravity for spare parts for the vital systems. Currently floating around your pod, along with a bunch of nuts, access panels and garbage, making your movements slower and more complex.

You don’t have anything to eat anymore. Your stomach makes awful noises and your visions is troubled.

Suddenly, an alarm starts ringing. You realize that it is the main generator alarm. You are about to get to put your hands on the insides of that system when you realize that you took it’s alarm about ten minutes ago to replace the broken one from the oxygen generator. This is the system that is now ringing. You get close to it and are horrified to find out that it’s screen is only showing an incomprehensible error code. It can only mean one thing : The main computer is offline and cannot translate errors for you. You grab the escape pod operation manual floating nearby and look for the code.

And now?

The answer to your question is right in front of you, and it is scary. The oxygen generator is not being supplied with water anymore. You check its pump but nothing seems to be wrong with it. The alarm has now been ringing for about ten minutes and is driving you mad. You disconnect it for a bit of tranquility and you go toward the water distribution system. You open its panel with your wrench and smoke is suddenly released from behind it. The system is not being cooled down anymore and is overheating ! You don’t have the time to fix anything when it suddenly catches fire and ignites a pack of rations that was floating nearby. The pod is now filled with flames and many alarms start ringing. The fire extinguishers do not start, you took components from them a while ago.

You run towards the airlock and open it. The air starts escaping the pod, the flames are quickly gone. It isn’t such a stupid idea, but you loose consciousness and die because of the cold and lack of oxygen. This is Not a Drill !

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