- Beta 17.1 "X0-1V1.1" - 25 August 2026
Bigger, better, more X0-1V1! That's the general theme here for Beta 17.1, a pit stop of enhancements and expanded content on the way to a much bigger Beta 18. We've seen lots of crazy X0-1V1 runs since since the "god-not-god of chaos" became a reality in the previous release, not too surprising since they're not only the latest hot new thing, but also accessible right from the start and fully compatible with all other factions and routes. As a surprise release there were quite a few patches in its first weeks (seven in all!), including fixes, QoL, and balance changes. Once that settled down I then had more time to put together some new features to round out the experience, and here they are :D More Chaos is Inevitable Even though Beta 17 already included over a hundred unique effects and even more subvariations, there is such a broad range of possibilities when it comes to X0-1V1 that t…
- Beta 17 "X0-1V1" - 23 June 2026
Have you played DCSS? (Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup) If not, then you should definitely consider trying it, a major roguelike in constant development for even longer than Cogmind, and a great game among those which sent me on my own quest to explore the roguelike genre in 2009 and shortly thereafter start creating some of my own. DCSS is similar to Cogmind in that it's a balanced tactical experience, so the two games have always had some player overlap either as we send our players in that direction, or welcome them over from that community (including even a number of DCSS developers throughout the years). Now what does that have to do with Beta 17... Well, DCSS is a traditional fantasy RL, and within it are gods you can worship to spice things up, usually for the better. Considering the player overlap, naturally many are familiar with a lot of DCSS content, and one god in particular, Xom,…
- Beta 16.1 "Unchained More" - 10 February 2026
Ironically for a release dubbed "Unchained More," and one that includes an even wider variety of Unchained personalities and tech, folks are generally going to be seeing them "less" overall xD. This is due to the inevitable arrival of CY-PHR, who we'll get to further below... First though, wow it's been years since we saw a minor version number! Beta 16.1 adds a fair bit of content, but is built primarily to expand upon and improve the beginnings of the new expansion started with Beta 16, which ideally would have been released with this stuff included, but I put it out early to avoid keeping you all waiting too long (plus of course the large number of new achievements alone would provide plenty of diversions!). This release therefore focuses on rounding out the overall Unchained experience before we head into adding their HQ and also, yes, yet more of them ;) Sci-fi Fans While I won't b…
- Annual Review: Year 12 of the Cogmind - 18 December 2025
Cogmind's 12th annual review is available over on the dev blog, summarizing a year featuring two major releases that finished off one expansion while kick-starting another. 2025 added a significant new map, over 100 new items, and Cogmind's 10th unique ending concluding the UFD plot line. A new batch of achievements also caught us up with seven years of new content. And the first members of the Unchained have arrived! (lots more coming on that front) Read more about all that and check out player art and more in the full post. Beta 16.1 is around the corner, focused on, yep, more content and improved Unchained systems to go along with them as they evolve towards better integration into the world :D
- Beta 16 "The Unchained" - 22 October 2025
A new expansion begins! Our Beta 16 eponymous opponents are upon us... With them comes upgraded Scanalyzer functionality for all, and a batch of over 200 more achievements to catch us up with the last seven years of ever-expanding content. Hard to believe I've been working on Cogmind full time for 12 years now, with still several major releases planned out, but given the trajectory of recent versions as we arrive at and continue to explore increasingly extreme possibilities, I'm really looking forward to what's coming :) Today let's get started with the changelog, then dive into demos and some of the more interesting topics within... Changelog Cogmind Beta 16 "The Unchained" (251021) changelog (excerpt): -----( HIGHLIGHTS )----- NEW: 228 more achievements covering new content since 2018, spanning plot, style, challenges, and more NEW: 5 Unchained NEW: 21 new items NEW: 17 turrets and dr…
- Beta 15 "0bPrime" - 6 May 2025
https://i.imgur.com/epnHgYa.png The epic conclusion to the UFD expansion is here, bringing with it a major new map, 100 new items, and Cogmind's 10th unique ending! Within you'll also find a huge range of other updates, notably including Extermination and Assault squads without free tracking to Cogmind?! As usual I'll be avoiding content spoilers (and there are a heck of a lot of surprises to spoil), but following the changelog below will be describing and demonstrating some of other the new features, while also providing some useful background info before you get started. Changelog Cogmind Beta 15 "0bPrime" (250505) changelog (excerpt): -----( HIGHLIGHTS )----- NEW: Branch map "" NEW: 100 new items NEW: 1 new ending (total = 10) NEW: Additional optional boss and alternative extended challenge MOD: Extermination/assault squads no longer automatically track directly to Cogmind's position…
- Annual Review: Year 11 of the Cogmind - 20 December 2024
https://i.imgur.com/gpnnhSP.jpeg Cogmind's 11th annual review is available over on the dev blog, summarizing a year of massive updates on both the interface and content side. We got larger fonts, map zooming, multiple UI layouts, a whole new faction and two new maps, with much more to come just around the corner. Inside you'll also find some dev stats and a selection of community content from art to popular videos and streams. The upcoming Beta 15 is already a significant update in its current state and shaping up to be a great release for players old and new alike!
- Beta 14 "United Federation of Derelicts" - 6 August 2024
https://i.imgur.com/UZoVaRJ.png THE UFD HAS ARRIVED. A whole new faction introducing new robot classes, mechanics, and a huge collection of lore and dialogue across many dozens of new encounters. This expansion includes 83 new items for you to find, salvage, steal, fabricate, or piece together, most featuring new mechanics and thereby further enhancing your existing build ideas or enabling a range of fresh alternatives. Beta 14 comes a little later than planned, essentially since this release is bigger than planned, having added about 7 weeks of work on extra features beyond what I'd set out to do as described in Cogmind Vision 2025, where you can still read about yet more coming releases. The biggest chunk of that extra time can be attributed to yet another architectural overhaul, but this time it wasn't the interface like we got with map zooming and multiple UI layout options in Beta…
- Cogmind Vision 2025 - 1 April 2024
Not long after the release (and seventh and final patch) of our latest major new version, Beta 13 "Zoom All The Things", I'd like to do something I've never done here before: talk more about the future. This is only something I tend to do with frequent players on Discord, or patrons, and even then only in the broadest strokes or occasional disjointed details since anything is subject to change and I don't want to accidentally mislead anyone or create too much unnecessary hype for things that have no specific timeline. But in my own notes I do always have a fairly clear plan for the future, if one that sometimes still shifts around according to near-term priorities (for example our latest adventures in map zooming and upscaled UI layouts). Preferring to write and share information about features that are already completed, for many years now I've subscribed more to a "deliver, then descr…
- Cogmind Beta 13 patch 240318 - 18 March 2024
We have a new Beta 13 patch, this time with Modal layout QoL enhancements, and some more fixes for new issues. If you recall, back when I planned to release the new layout feature for Beta 13, I wasn't sure if it would be feasible to also release so-called "Phase 4," the even more extreme Modal layout. While I did manage to squeeze it in under the deadline, there wasn't as much time to finalize the best possible version of it, specifically with regard to the top-center "multiconsole" area. This past week after finishing a bunch of other Cogmind-related work, I've been able to give that area some more love and it's now gotten a redesign more suited to that layout, rather than being hacked together from what was there before :P As a minor patch, existing Beta 13 saves/runs in progress are fully compatible. Cogmind Beta 13 patch 240318 changelog: NEW: 6 new font options at size 16, Terminu…
- Cogmind Expansion, Price Increase "Coming Soon" - 11 March 2024
It's finally time! For 1.0? No, of course not (that we hit it back in 2017 is just a poorly kept secret), what I mean is raising the price to better reflect what Cogmind is: hundreds of hours of content and lovingly-crafted roguelike adventure and storytelling. I don't explicitly advertise the worldbuilding's diversity and surprises, since that is best left to discovery, but it's been enough to challenge and entertain some folks for even thousands of hours. (Cogmind's screenshots represent only a small fraction of what you'll really find out there, for the reality you'd have to check out spoiler sections of the community, or some videos/streams.) And the scope continues to grow. I've dedicated more than the past decade of my life to full-time development of Cogmind. Just me, since it's not like this could support additional folks--it can only barely cover frugal old me :P. I will hopefu…
- Cogmind Beta 13 patches 240229/240304 - 4 March 2024
A few days back I put out a first little patch for the huge Beta 13 "Zoom All The Things" release and left a link to the changelog/notes in the main announcement comments (minor things and save-compatible). This time we're back with an even bigger patch with some new QoL features, so I figured I'd combine news of the two with an actual patch announcement here to catch you all up on the latest features. There were a few little QoL things I really wanted to get out the door for Beta 13 right before release day, but despite working into the wee hours of the morning, there wasn't quite enough time... So instead I've worked into the wee hours of the morning for the entire past week to bring you these two patches xD Cogmind Beta 13 patch 240229 changelog: NEW: Popup notification for Options menu settings that require restart/new run to take effect NEW: Some meta info and events obtained via T…
- Beta 13 "Zoom All The Things" - 27 February 2024
https://i.imgur.com/f0muPhE.gif WARNING: Upscaled and zoomable Cogmind has landed :D Beta 13 is here, and with it comes larger text and the ability to double the map tile size on the fly, including a huge range of supporting QoL features. Yeah there's a new map, new items and some new bots, but our primary focus today is expanding the range of displays suitable for playing Cogmind, and one way to achieve that is to provide multiple new UI layouts capable of squeezing the terminal data from 60 rows down to 45. Before examining the sizeable changelog as a whole, let's jump right in with demos of our main features! Everything Gets Bigger Cogmind's original full-size layout is still a thing, now dubbed the "Non-modal" UI layout in the Options menu, and it is in this layout that the new map zoom feature is likely the most useful, as you can see here: https://i.imgur.com/NJy2gmg.png That part…
- SITREP Saturday #55: Upscaled Modal Interface - 24 February 2024
https://i.imgur.com/276xdRP.png Early this month I introduced Cogmind's first new upscaled layout option, then immediately followed up with development of our second new option! While the other option (to become the new player default) is "Semi-modal," we'll now have a third and even more extreme "Modal" layout which, as you can see in the sample above, hides away the top-side consoles in order to reclaim more of the map view. That sample screenshot happens to be taken with optional map zoom activated as well--although I think the upscaled grid size across the board means modal layout players are less likely to need or want to zoom the map, the function is of course available and the new zoom-related QoL will come in especially useful. With the top-side consoles hidden, message/combat logs can be opened and read in full as usual, but for convenience they'll also show temporarily over th…
- SITREP Saturday #54: Map Zoom QoL - 16 February 2024
https://i.imgur.com/4ljXH5b.png I recently finished my Adventures in Map Zooming series over on the dev blog, and the most recent and final part covers what is from a player perspective the most important zooming-related topic: QoL! You can read the full article for every detail, but this being a set of vital new features I figure it's worth providing a quick summary here in announcement form as well. https://i.imgur.com/M7Tx7YC.png Before we get to that, another important notice: Since last week's introduction of a new fully-upscaled UI layout, I also had the opportunity to stream that layout and demonstrate it in action while talking about its various features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4pS_sph2Q Work on modal layouts has continued this week, including the addition of our third even more modal variant I know some you have been looking forward to as well. Yep, the "Phase 4" UI…
- SITREP Saturday #53: Full UI Upscaling - 3 February 2024
https://i.imgur.com/3krgr0c.png With map zooming and lots of other work already complete and ready for the upcoming Beta 13 release, early last month I began building the optional new UI layout to make everything larger! I first shared the specifications last year, and more recently have been writing about them as relevant architectural work got underway in earnest. That series began with the new year, where you can read in Part 1 about the history and theory behind Cogmind's UI layout, where it's been and where it's going. https://i.imgur.com/nxFIWnV.png The current layout will continue to exist as an option, generally being the most efficient way to play, but we'll be getting a new default layout that increases the size of everything across the board by 33%. In other words, for example those of you using size 18 fonts and tiles (the majority of players), will instead be using size 24…
- Annual Review: Year 10 of the Cogmind - 22 December 2023
https://i.imgur.com/4GKvh6O.jpg Well then, we're well into Cogmind's 10th year now xD As is tradition I've put up an annual review over on the dev blog, looking back over this year's milestones and also giving a heads up about what's to come. Check that out for more details about larger fonts, map zooming, the Scraptown expansion and more. Worth extracting here is the video from my stream this week, in which I do the first real playtest of map zooming and related features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB4NV3UzyaY (Unannounced impromptu stream, and I was playing in the dev build, so in that sense not quite a typical stream, or even typical play since I was just fooling around, but... still didn't die despite doing a bunch of random stuff and wasting turns demonstrating features or causing chaos, was fun :P)
- SITREP Saturday #52: Zoom In - 25 November 2023
https://i.imgur.com/C5ilWTP.png In the last SITREP (Another Big Bang) I already gave a general intro to the expansions coming to Cogmind, including Subcaves, Scraptown, the improved combat log, and lots and lots of new tech embodied in more than 100 items to come. Since then I've been working on implementing more of that stuff, specifically having completed over 100 of those new items, some of them incredibly involved--there's definitely something in there for everyone :) Over on the dev blog I've been picking out a select few mechanics to write about and tide you over until all the new toys are in your hands, so I thought I'd offer a quick summary of those progress updates here to let you know. (Also there's a surprise at the end :D) "Post-Balance" Cogmind Item Expansion This article introduces the series with info about where Cogmind item development goes from here, a review of balanc…
- SITREP Saturday #51: Another Big Bang - 1 September 2023
https://i.imgur.com/WDhTcVv.png The world is expanding, again! Beta 13 is adding more maps, and that means... more lore, NPCS, and lots (LOTS) more tech. Nearly 100 new items are coming, together with multiple new bots, new AI behaviors, dozens of new encounters... all the sorts of things one needs to keep new maps interesting and replayable. I'm glad at the decision to have released Beta 12 as a standalone when it happened (Scrap Engine, Garrisons, ECA, etc). Even though some of it was technically not yet fully integrated into the lore, it would otherwise have been quite a long wait for all this stuff without much in between to keep it fresh, except perhaps the possibility of special events, but I'm avoiding such detours for now in order to be able to focus on this sizeable expansion, Cogmind's largest to date. Consider it a major post-1.0 expansion (with its own complete arc), just wi…
- Cogmind Beta 12 (230310) - 10 March 2023
I hope the scrap gods are treating you well, or the garrison encounter gods, whichever the case may be! In the week since the latest major Beta 12 release went out, I've been working on some adjustments on the side. Saves are compatible, hence no new minor version number, just a new build number... Cogmind Beta 12 (230310) changelog: MOD: DSFs now remain accessible even after emerging from a Garrison MOD: Encrypted Comm Array explicitly fries itself in more plot situations MOD: Weapon constructs take projectile count into account when setting or updating critical strike values MOD: Weapon constructs lose Burn critical effect if heatTransfer negated through some other means MOD: Spotters only care about armed hostiles MOD: Cargo Storage integrity increased from 700 to 1000 FIX: Zionite tip regarding Spotter behavior still gave Recycling map location despite Beta 12 rewrite FIX: One Relay…
