Howdy Folks!

A huge thanks for all the great feedback and support. Since the last major content update, I’ve been pushing out a bunch of smaller updates that have added some great new features such a crop/mining management, dragging dimension info as well as various tweaks and fixes.

The next major content update, however, is the big one. It’s the 1.0 release of the game which means Mercury Fallen will be leaving early access. I wanted to cover some of the content coming in 1.0 and what happens moving forward.

Surface Resources

A new surface resource will be added and will be required for late/final game construction. This new xeno salvage will require a special crafting machine to process it into a usable crafting ingredient. Additionally, the resource will require a surface structure to extract salvage from ancient ruin sites.

Story & Missions

The final chapter of the game will include a series of new missions and POI locations. These missions will culminate in a final goal and an “end” game. You will still be able to continue playing your save game even after completion of the final mission.

The final collection of data logs from Alex Kenner will also become discoverable.

Achievements

A whole bunch of in-game achievements are being added to Mercury Fallen as well as a new achievements interface allowing you to easily view your progress in game.

And More…

Additionally there will be new decorations, mechanics and various other smaller additions, tweaks and changes.

What Now?

Even after the 1.0 update, I will continue to support Mercury Fallen with any bug fixes and tweaks. I can’t speak to any further major content releases or possible DLC at this time, but I would like to talk a bit about the development of Mercury Fallen. This is something I’ve never talked about previously and generally feel uncomfortable discussing, but I wanted to show a bit of the reality of indie game development, especially for those who may be interested in indie game development themselves.

Mercury Fallen is listed as being developed and published by Nitrous Butterfly. Nitrous Butterfly, and Mercury Fallen, are owned and created by one person… me… Tim Pelham. I’ve created, developed, or integrated all of the content for Mercury Fallen including programming, artwork, sounds, music, writing, and more.

Mercury Fallen has been largely successful for a small solo-developed game with zero budget, but I’ll be the first to say it’s been in early access for far too long. The scope of Mercury Fallen grew a bit bigger than it should have for a solo project, but I’m very proud of what I’ve created. Mercury Fallen is well-rated, but has not generated enough sales to comfortably sustain such a long development cycle.

Since its initial release in 2017 Mercury Fallen has had 9,780 total sales. Accounting for price changes, discounted sales and platform fees the game has generated just over $100,000 in sales between Steam and Itch.IO. That number does not reflect marketing, software purchases, and other business costs. The game has been in development for going on six years now so that’s an average income of roughly $16,500/year. The actual income fluctuates wildly over the course of a year and can be far more or far less than the average. So far this year the total net income has been around $3,500 which has caused a bit of a struggle. I have, however, managed to maintain working full-time on Mercury Fallen throughout its development due to my low overhead and some outside support.

I mention all of this as my goal has always been to work on future projects after the release of Mercury Fallen. Ideally projects with a smaller scope. In fact, I’ve already started prototyping a new game idea, which is a post apocalyptic cleaning simulation game inspired by games such as Viscera Cleanup Detail and PowerWash Simulator. I’m not sure I’ll have the funds to continue its development as it stands currently, but be sure to let me know if it’s the type of game you might be interested in.

The Mercury Fallen 1.0 update is still on track and in active development. Thank you so much for all the amazing support and feedback over the years. It’s been an honor to create an experience that has been enjoyed by so many.

Support The Dev

If you would like to help support me, Mercury Fallen and future projects be sure to tell everyone to grab a copy of Mercury Fallen, grab some Mercury Fallen Merch or support me on Patreon for as little as $1/month. A huge thank you to my Patreon supporters!

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