THE OMEGA REACH v1.2.0
Greetings curators!
I’m excited to share the latest update for THE OMEGA REACH. This jam-packed release culminates a month of new features, enhancements, and fixes created for Making Games Accessible. Many thanks to our jam organizing team for putting on this chill mid-year jam—and encouraging our community to keep working on their game accessibility projects!
Continue reading for an overview of its key features, the Steam reveal trailer, my interview with Unsyted Radio about the project, the full patch notes, and what’s coming next. Enjoy!
Key features
- Cellar expansion. Discover over a dozen new tiles which introduce new mechanics and modifiers to your cellar runs. Make an earthen wish at the fountain, acquire greed from the armory, and enter deeper floors from the descent. Explore three floors of increasing complexity with a tiny surprise at the end.
- New worlds. Could the universe get any weirder? Reach ring galaxies, brown dwarfs, and primordial black holes! Beware that this may change some of your existing discoveries.
- New options. Interact with objects and play your instruments with new support for MIDI devices. Immerse yourself with a new mode which reduces visual and screen reader clutter. And tweak the mix to your liking with more volume sliders.
- New rooms. What’s coming in the full Steam release? Soon you will collect noteworthy treasures in the reliquary and auction off your collection to start again from the emporium. You may enter these rooms while they are still under construction.
Steam announcement trailer
Did you know that THE OMEGA REACH is coming to Steam?
When it was featured at Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2026, it gathered nearly 2,000 wishlists! The soft launch of the Steam page for the showcase led with this short trailer:
The trailer is comprised of 14 quick shots which showcase a little bit of everything. It begins by zooming into a Mars-like planet all the way from the the horizon. It continues by showcasing its various rooms and conversations, interspersed by short instrumental solos in the gallery. You may notice a new logo at the end, which was made using the Calvus typeface by Yann Prélat.
This trailer was a pleasure to make, coming together rather quickly in an afternoon. (By contrast, trailers for Periphery Synthetic are rather time-consuming and painstaking.) It required new tools, whose development led directly to the new immersive mode and volume sliders. Overall, I’m happy with the template it provides for when I’ll eventually need to update it with the latest additions. By then, I might even figure out the best export settings to preserve my projects’ distinct visual styles without artefacts!
Unsyted Radio interview
Following its initial submission to Games for Blind Gamers 5, I was delighted to be invited to chat with Chad Bouton of Unsyted Radio about the project. The episode we recorded is part of a larger series of interviews with the developers of our jam’s highest-rated entries:
It was my pleasure to speak with Chad about the project and dive deeper into the development processes and philosophies of my projects. I especially appreciated hearing how he takes games like Periphery Synthetic on the road with him to demonstrate the power of accessibility in games. Honestly, the discussion illustrated precisely why Chad is an irreplaceable addition to our jam organizing team. I’m looking forward to working with him on Games for Blind Gamers 6 and beyond.
Next steps
On October 19, 2026, a demo for THE OMEGA REACH will be playable at Steam Next Fest. Currently, my plan is for this build to serve as that demo. However, I foresee a hotfix or two to polish it further and address any bugs. For example, it would be helpful to add unique sounds to certain tiles in the cellar. You will get those updates as they become available.
From there, preparing for the full Steam release will be my main focus. I anticipate that the emporium will prototype quickly but iterate often, from a simple text prompt to an interactive minigame. Yet, the reliquary will take more creative energy with its unique instruments and flowery paragraphs of lore. And, in my opinion, a proper Steam release also needs achievements (and possibly workshop support).
While I’m unable to announce an exact release date, it will likely be in the second half of 2027. I’m still considering how to price the project, but it will be similar to my other projects: as affordable as a coffee. ☕ And unlike my past projects that are paid, I intend to keep the source code available.
I’m eager to share more progress updates on this project. But, in the meantime, I’m aware that I have unfinished business elsewhere.
Thanks for playing!
v1.2.0 changes
- Added the emporium.
- Added the reliquary.
- Added a new galaxy type.
- Added a new star type.
- Added a new planet and moon type.
- Added donations for playing instruments in the gallery.
- Added fourteen new unique tiles to the cellar.
- Added three new floors to the cellar.
- Added random layouts to the cellar.
- Added a new resource to the cellar.
- Added a toggle for immersive mode.
- Added support for MIDI input.
- Added a slider for drone volume.
- Added a slider for effect volume.
- Added demo limitations dialogs to explain what’s missing.
- Improved input projections for the gamepad.
- Tracked time playing each instrument.
- Inverted the input at the horizon.
- Animated object rotations when transitioning scenes.
- Highlighted credits, sanity, and new resources in dialogs.
- Lit moons from same light source as their planets.
- Made the reach audible from the gallery and stockroom.
- Improved the animations in existing rooms.
- Closed the stockroom when the shopkeeper would never return.
- Fixed a looping conversation in the lobby.
- Found a new font for the logo.
- Updated the manual accordingly.
- Updated desktop builds to Electron 42.