- 1.2.3 - Tweaks from 1.2, performance improvements, big typo fixes - 17 August 2026
It's great to see how much love the community continues to show for the game. I see it in so many ways: your playtime your discussions, questions, and issue reporting your content and views on YouTube/Twitch your custom levelpacks uploaded to Steam Workshop your reviews and additional recommendations outside of Steam So it's about time that I've returned the favor and released the next patch, which primarily fixes some things I broke in 1.2. But it also contains some new features that I plan to build on in the next patch. Aside from this, I'm excited to announce that Simplified Chinese translation of the level names and hints is very close! I think it's realistic that the next patch will include these, and so the game can finally be marked on Steam as supporting Simplified Chinese. Of course, all credit goes to our fellow community member, post-launch contributor, and custom levelpack c…
- 1.2.2 - Small UI fixes - 15 June 2026
It's been great seeing old players return to the game for some more penguin puzzling. Thanks to everyone that has shown support for the 1.2 Anniversary Update and our appearance in the Thinky Direct! Here's the trailer in case you missed it. Usually after a big update there will be a few small follow-ups and this update is no exception. MacOS build is here (which was missing for 1.2.1), and the first two bullet points below are important to remove some UI friction. But otherwise this is one of the smallest updates since launch. Patch notes Journal entry NEW now fades on hover instead of disappearing completely. Update wording on (post-Replication) bonus solutions for Movement and Ground Rules to clarify what counts as a move. Permute colors in Moonwalk.Reciprocity to prevent pointless (post-Transplant) import from even being possible. Remove all saved (post-Transplant) imports for the n…
- 1.2.1 - More puzzle tweaks (Windows/Linux only) - 8 June 2026
Hello! Originally I had plans to include these changes in a bigger patch that will drop once Simplified Chinese translation of all hints and puzzle names is finalized. However I did not want to delay some of these changes (particularly to G and Diplopia since they were introduced in 1.2.0), so I'm pushing it out now to Windows and Linux users. It takes quite a bit more work to get builds ready for MacOS, so that will be coming later this week. (I'll edit this post once that's done.) Edit: Instead of getting 1.2.1 ready for MacOS, I decided to just release 1.2.2 on all platforms. Puzzle changes Add destructible wall to G to force the more interesting solution. Tweak G.Blocked to make one export path different from the solve path. Rename G.Blocked to Diplopia to emphasize some of its unique properties. Change Foreboding to make its secret not required to reach endgame puzzle. Remove hamme…
- 1.2 - Anniversary Update - 28 May 2026
The second major update is here! Here's the exclusive trailer for the Thinky Direct in case you missed it. Before anything else, I have a note for returning players. There's one thing that will be a little confusing if you're loading your old save. I recommend checking out the world Pass to see if you see anything suspicious. After investigating that, you can reveal this spoiler. Each world has a secret puzzle. Most of them won't appear as secret to you because you've already beaten them. Secret puzzles are generally challenging puzzles that ramp complexity, as opposed to showcasey endgame levels that are about something new (and not secret). That is all, enjoy! Now for the rest of the announcement: This update is by far the biggest yet, particularly when it comes to the puzzle changes, so I want to give some of the design goals behind it. Explore some more crazy, emergent ideas that th…
- Happy 1-year Anniversary! - 22 May 2026
A year ago my goal for Gentoo Rescue was 100 reviews and 1k units sold. Thanks to your word of mouth, we're sitting well over both of these thresholds. So while the penguins blow out their candle, I want to thank everyone in the community for the tremendous support! There's some exciting news coming soon as part of the Thinky Direct, which takes place on May 28. Check out the livestream stream on YouTube for so many amazing announcements, and be sure to continue spreading the penguin propaganda to anyone that'll listen. See you soon!
- Game Awards, Localization, and more - 19 March 2026
Hey everyone, it's about time for a small news update. Game awards I'm really excited to share that Gentoo Rescue won two big awards last month! The first was the "Best Challenging Game" award at The 3rd Annual Thinky Awards hosted by Thinky Games. Gentoo Rescue was also a runner-up for the "Best Puzzle Design" and "Game of the Year" awards at the same event. I'm really grateful to everyone that nominated Gentoo Rescue for these categories. It's crazy to see it among other winners, including giants like Blue Prince. Definitely be sure to check out all of the other games appearing in the awards. You'll certainly find some hidden gems! Later in the month I was surprised to be contacted by Lizard Kun, a content creator for indie games on Bilibili. They have quite a large audience among the Chinese community, so it was great to see that Gentoo Rescue won the "Best Systemic Puzzle Game" (or…
- 1.1.5 - New puzzle, Inception Tweaks, Improved UI, and Bugfixes - 4 February 2026
The results from the Thinky Awards will be announced later today, so I thought it would be appropriate to drop this patch now. If you're available at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm UTC today (February 4th), then please tune into the Thinky Games stream to cheer on Gentoo Rescue. It is nominated for Game of the Year, Best Puzzle Design, and Best Challenging Game. Here's a link to the YouTube stream. In other news, I've been slowly working my way through all the custom levelpacks uploaded to Steam Workshop. It's been really fun, and I've been really impressed with how much creativity the community has been able to squeeze out of their levels. Definitely check them out and/or try your hand at creating your own, if you haven't already! We're up to 177 Steam reviews with 100% positive rating! Thanks so much for the support! I never imagined the game would be this successful, so it's very likely th…
- Intel x86 Mac Support Fixed! - 2 January 2026
It only came to my attention a couple of days ago that the Mac build was completely broken on older Intel x86 Macs. Luckily this was fairly easy to fix, and a new Mac build for 1.1.4 has been pushed. This has actually been a problem since I added Mac support ~4 months ago, but presumably players on older Macs refunded without reaching out. For this, I owe a special thanks to @eap314 in the discord server for raising the issue to my attention and being available to test! Since it's impossible for me to make an announcement about only a single thing, I'll use this as a gentle reminder for everyone to go vote for Gentoo Rescue at the Thinky Awards. The deadline is Sunday 23:59 UTC. Thanks so much to all of the support! Anyway, that's all for now. Happy new year!
- Thinky Awards Nominations (including GOTY!) and Steam Bundle Updates - 25 December 2025
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Here's what's happening with Gentoo Rescue: Thinky Awards Gentoo Rescue was nominated for three categories at the 2025 Thinky Awards! Game of the Year Best Challenging Game Best Puzzle Design Thank you for everyone that put in nominations! It's amazing seeing my game next to so many heavy hitters in the genre. If you want to support further, do note that the GOTY category comes with a community vote. So please head over to their page and vote for Gentoo Rescue! Puzzle Depot The Gentookeeper bundle (with Glowkeeper) has been extended to include another great 2025 puzzle game, Puzzle Depot. The bundle is active now with a 10% bonus discount, and you can get this discount even if you already own some of the three games. We were surprised to see that Steam doesn't let us easily rename the bundle, but hopefully in a few days this will become the Gentookeep…
- 1.1.4 - Glowing locks and minor changes to early Transplant - 21 December 2025
Puzzle changes Made Transplant.Inductive easier by giving no option but to use the cane to change the parity of the traps. Moved Transplant.Base so that it must be played before Inductive. New features Locks for levels that contain a colored pinwheel will now have a rainbow glow. This fixes a design issue with some metapuzzles, and I regret that it took so long for me to realize such a simple fix! Updated block icon in puzzle editor. Also added keyword BLOCK for it. Bugfixes Journal entry for importing to multiple animals now correctly unlocks if the import removes multiple items.
- 1.1.3 - New puzzle, widescreen support, more custom colors, and more - 15 December 2025
This patch has been in the works for the last two months. It has ballooned in size to become quite a big patch. I hope you enjoy! This wouldn't have been possible without all of the feedback that I've been receiving on Discord, on the Steam forums, on my Twitch stream, and elsewhere. Please keep it coming :) A little over a month ago I made post about all of the hype that was building around Gentoo Rescue. At that time the game had 81 reviews, and I was hoping to hit the 100-review threshold. Well I was blown away from the response, as Gentoo Rescue now has 154 reviews! Thank you so much for the support
- Aliensrock, ThinkyCon 2025, festivals, and more! - 3 November 2025
Before getting into everything else, please note that Gentoo Rescue will be 20% off November 3 - November 17 to celebrate all of the below. This will be the biggest and longest sale yet, so don't let your friends miss this opportunity! Also, remember that you can get even deeper discounts by purchasing (or completing) either of the bundles:Gentoo's Demon Wormholes: With 2023 and 2024 Thinky Award winners Can of Wormholes and Maxwell's puzzling demon.Gentookeeper: With 2025's Glowkeeper, which is another underrated title that I highly recommend!Why? Because so much is happening all at once!Aliensrock, a popular puzzle YouTuber, has uploaded an (in progress) playlist of Gentoo Rescue on their channel! Their videos are always entertaining, so it has been a pleasure to watch him play. I want to welcome all of the new players to our Discord server, and encourage everyone to try out some of o…
- 1.1.2 - Hollow Knight inspired puzzle, some new features, and bugfixes - 15 September 2025
I've taken a small break from Gentoo Rescue development, but I'm back with a relatively large "small update". Most new features and bugfixes are for custom levelpacks, but there's also a new puzzle being added to the main game. Before going into details, I want to officially announce that Gentoo Rescue is now part of two Steam bundles! Definitely check them out if you're already a fan of Gentoo Rescue. Also, be sure to recommend Gentoo Rescue to anyone that has enjoyed these other puzzle games! Gentoo's Demon Wormholes with Thinky Award winners Can of Wormholes and Maxwell's puzzling demon. Gentookeeper with another great 2025 puzzle game Glowkeeper. Puzzle changes Adding an endgame optional puzzle called Pogo based off of the interaction from the puzzle Bypass in workshop levelpack Levels that shouldn't exist by Mountebank. It also has a bit of a Hollow Knight (and Silksong) inspiratio…
- 1.1.1 - Bugfixes - 25 August 2025
I've been streaming daily since the major patch and have had some time to play a few of the workshop levels. I've had a fun time with meta in The Dragon, and also had this wonderful moment from Levels that shouldn't exist: (Big spoilers) https://www.twitch.tv/jagriff/clip/ZealousSpookyOilCeilingCat-9SPm5hkd3gKEM9UK Definitely check these out once you've completed the main game! It's the last day of the 20% discount, so I wanted to squeeze in this small patch that fixes some bugs introduced in the major patch last week. These are mostly relevant for custom levelpacks, although the visual bug could be observed in the main game. Fixed a visual bug where loading a puzzle while animals are in motion could cause them to show up in the loaded puzzle. Fixed a bug where sometimes a puzzle under a grey animal could be mistakenly marked as visited after an export. Fixed a bug where the hub and sub…
- 1.1.0 - Workshop Levelpacks, MacOS Support, performance improvements, and more! - 19 August 2025
That's right, it's Gentoosday! This is a huge patch that contains over a month of small updates, as well as some exciting new features like Steam Workshop and MacOS Support. I am incredibly grateful for all of your support that has allowed me to continue work on the game post-release. Steam workshop There are already several levelpacks on the workshop now, and I look forward for more to come! There is a new main menu button "Custom". The first time you select this, you'll directed to the Steam workshop page for Gentoo Rescue. There you can subscribe to custom levelpacks, which can can be played through the "Custom" menu. One can also bypass Steam workshop by manually installing a custom levelpack into the directory: ` /GentooRescue/Custom/`. Note that custom levelpacks installed this way will use the name of their hub level as the name of the levelpack, and that this name should not cla…
- Milestones, development, and demo - 31 July 2025
It's been over a month since the last patch, so I wanted to make a quick post to keep everyone updated on what's happened and what's coming.Very Positive on SteamThe game received its 50th review a few weeks ago, and currently sits at 55 reviews with 100% positive ratings. I'm very excited about this milestone because reviews are really the best way for the game to grow and reach more people. Thank you for the support! The next milestone is "Overwhelmingly Positive " at 500 reviews, so there's quite a bit of work to do...Playable for Steam DeckSeveral players have reported a smooth experience on Steam Deck, so I've been eagerly waiting for Valve's compatibility review. It finally happened, and now Gentoo Rescue sits at Playable. Valve highlighted that some text might be too small, so that's something I will be addressing in the next patch.Thinky Games ArticleThinky Games published an ar…
- 1.0.7 - Undo/Redo repetition change and some bugfixes - 28 June 2025
One more round of bugfixes before I transition to new features. Unless something higher priority comes up, the next patch will focus on improving the custom levelpack experience with a dedicated menu and custom level progress saving. On a separate note, Gentoo Rescue is currently part of the Steam Summer Sale for 10% off. If you are enjoying the game, please recommend it to others while it's a bit cheaper. Input Repeated undo/redo that occur from holding the bind will no longer perform the undo/redo of a reset. This makes it easier to undo/redo back to the start/end of a solution without accidentally going past a reset. Non-repeated undos/redos can still undo/redo a reset, of course. Changed default keyboard bind of advanced bind "Slow" from Shift to Alt. Shift clashes with WASD, which means you could not move with WASD while slowing unless you specifically added binds "Shift+W" for mov…
- 1.0.6 - Dragging and moonwalking - 19 June 2025
Patch 6 is here! I'm hoping I can finally get time to start improving the custom levelpack experience and add Steam Workshop support. No promises on any timeline because I am still prioritizing QoL suggestions, and addressing any points of unintended friction. Hearing your feedback and watching gameplay videos/streams has been very helpful for further improving the game, so keep sending those my way! Speaking of custom levels, we already have a few community members creating them. Until Steam Workshop is ready, join the Discord to play and share custom levels. As we start to get more, I would like to do some regular streams, say 1-2 times per month, where I play some community levels. Also I want to give a shout-out to Discord user StarlitEternity who has routed and completed a low% run of the game's "true ending". They managed to reach this ending while only completing 55 levels for a…
- 1.0.5 - Hints, grid lines, and Lemniscate improvement - 15 June 2025
The 5th patch is here! Sorry for the delay - work was really hectic this week. We're a week away from the 1-monthiversary, and only 13 reviews away from the magic number of 50 required for "Very Positive". Please continue to help spread the game around to other puzzle enthusiasts. Puzzle changes Added hints for remaining levels. I am done! Feedback for improvements is still welcome, of course. Moved the yellow goal location on Lemniscate. The old version was straight-forward from the starting position, but it was very easy for players to accidentally fall into an impossible state without realizing it. This is one of the biggest sins in puzzle design, and it should not occur unless the "realizing it" step is part of the main idea of the puzzle. In this case it wasn't. Added 2 fog tiles to Pivots. This increases the uniqueness of the puzzle, making it more deducible. Misc (Post-Inception)…
- Gentoo Rescue is a puzzle game with twists that will melt your mind that I'm too stupid for - 11 June 2025
Gentoo Rescue from Jagriff seems simple on the surface but it's a real brain melting puzzle game that's well worth your time. Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/06/gentoo-rescue-is-a-puzzle-game-with-twists-that-will-melt-your-mind-that-im-too-stupid-for/
