Hello Station Captains!

Four weeks ago we launched the Beta of Progress Station, our new incremental sci-fi browser game. Today we’re back with our first big Beta patch! 

As we are working towards our final version and release on November 22, 2025, we wanted to release some improvements and features early, so you can play a polished version of the game. We’d love to hear your feedback!

Play the Beta now: Progress Station on itch.io

Check out the full list of changes below.

Balance & Progression

• Adjusted the base game speed, reducing it by 25%

  • “Slower progress in my incremental game?!”
    We hear you, but we noticed the game moved too fast to feel rewarding. We’re testing 75% speed for now. If it feels too slow, we’ll speed it up again, promise!

• Changed how Heat works

  • Set base Heat to 0. Having a constant source of growth is no longer required to keep your population stable.
  • Heat now accelerates steadily if Damage is higher than Military instead of instantly jumping up or down. Heat above 0 is accompanied by a visual warning.

• Increased level requirements:

  • I.S.A.S.M. and Captain’s Quarters operations from Level 10 to Level 20
  • Increased Tier 2 operation requirements from Level 10 to Level 100
  • Increased Tier 3 operation requirements from Level 10 to Level 200
  • Increased Galactic Secret operation from Level 10 to Level 500

• Adjusted our maximum HP formula to shorten high-level Battles

  • This reduces the amount of enemy HP by up to 40% (for a wave of 1000)

• Adjusted unlocks and progression:

  • Pocket Laboratory now unlocks after defeating 20 Nova Fly waves instead of requiring Research.
  • Quarters Module now unlocks after visiting the Crystal Gardens.
  • Defense Module now unlocks after visiting the Whispering Moons.
  • Starlight Enclave now unlocks with the Location tab, instead of requiring 10 defeated Astrogoblin waves.
  • Renamed Safe Zone to Ex-Nova Mines.

QoL & General Improvements

• Added a boss timer element. Long pressing the boss timer allows you to let the boss appear early. The boss timer acceleration becomes available on the second run.
• Added Attribute coloring and icons across the UI for better readability and orientation.
• Resorted and rename columns in the Battles tab for improved clarity.
• Made the Attributes tab accessible from the start (click the Attribute row in the header).
• Attributes tab now lists the combined multiplicative Military bonus from won battles instead of listing them individually.
• Modules can now be toggled active or inactive by clicking anywhere on the Module header.
• Adjusted the inactive Module header background color for better visibility.
• Requirements for operations from the Galactic Secrets shop now only appear after unlocking it.
• Your Station Name now automatically gets incremental numbers added to its name after a run. You can still change the name manually.
• Heat now displays decimal values.
• Improved scroll behavior on itch.io, reducing the instances where scrolling down would scroll the game out of view.
• Renamed Kung Fu Manual to Battle Station Manual. It was just too quirky :D

Fixes

• Fixed performance issue that could show up during longer play sessions (Whoops!). For some technical background on the issue check the description below.
• Improved overall performance (especially on mobile and when idling).
• Fixed Mechano Maker Module applying an additive instead of multiplicative bonus to Growth.
• Fixed tooltip layering issues that could block popup interaction.
• Won battles no longer incorrectly display a danger value of 200.

Tell us what you think! We’re actively balancing and improving based on your feedback.

The full release is coming November 22, 2025, with new content, VFX, soundtrack, and a fully optimized mobile version.

For those of you keeping up with Progress Station, we originally planned the release for November 15. We have moved that date back by a week, taking the edge off on our end and giving us more time to respond to your feedback. Pre-orders will be refunded, if you somehow managed to pre-order this free game.

You can play the Beta now on itch.io: Progress Station on itch.io
and check out the source code here: Progress Station on GitHub 

Thanks again for playing and testing with us!

Kringel Games Team

Addendum: Memory Leak technical explanation

Like every game, Progress Station has a game loop running under the hood. Since idle games are designed to run in the background, we used a technique that allows the browser to execute its game loop in the background (via a web worker). Unfortunately, this is quite wasteful and also leads to a memory leak in our implementation (super technical: All changed DOM elements may remain referenced by this service worker, which means they are never unloaded and memory consumption multiplies).

What we have changed now: Instead of a loop that always runs in the background in a forced and hacky way, our loop slows down and can even pause. The next iteration then “simply” makes up for the time since the last execution. However, because this is literally the heart (as the pacemaker) of the entire game, it came with quite the changes to the game’s core. We tested this new game loop now for quite some time and are confident that it works, but with any change of that scale there is always a risk of unexpected side-effects.