Glean

The in-game videos don't load. I can play the game, but when I try to watch a video it just goes to the loading screen and stays there. Something wrong with the game, or my system?

Cute, very well done and thought out, but just too long for me. Far too many pieces to discover and crafting them is a real pain at the end and has you navigating menus for needlessly too long.

I'm using Windows 7, Firefox 13.0.1, Flash version 11.3.300.257. I might try IE or Chrome, to see if they work.

It doesn't work in IE or Chrome either.
Would a filter possibly be blocking it? I have a content filter that doesn't allow me onto social networking or media sharing sites. Could that be an issue?

Interesting. I loved Motherlode, and I like the variations that have come out since. However, I'm struggling to like this game. It loses me on the interface. It feels very cumbersome. The game doesn't very clearly tell you what you really need in order to craft certain things or even what a recipe does do. For example, after digging for awhile on one of the planets, the game told me a new recipe was unlocked, but upon going to the crafting interface, and the recipe tab, I couldn't figure out what had been unlocked. To say the least, I was very confused and it was at that point I decided to give up. I wish I could understand it better.

The upgrade/crafting system is too complex. Small/medium/large deposits of Material X, however you refer to them, should just become a certain amount of Material X when you get around to crafting. That alone would reduce the material list by about 30%.

After that, once you've researched refined materials/technologies they can be reduced to a basic material requirement for the purposes of crafting. For instance, if it takes 3 bits of Material X to make an X-Bar, and then 3 X-Bars and a bit of Material Y to make a Widget, then the Useless Upgrade that requires 3 Widgets to make should instead require the Widget technology along with 27 bits of Material X and 3 bits of Material Y.

Without all the needless complications of getting this bit and that bit and combining them to make another bit that you need with more of the prior bits and a bob to make the thing that you need three of along with several other bits, bobs, and thingies to get a +1 to Smacking Game Developers Upside the Head.

Great comment, Tenzhi.

I really enjoyed this game, more so than Motherlode (which I've replayed). I like the ability to mine from a jump, including directly above you - makes maneuvering through the planetoids and grabbing the material you want far easier.

However, in addition to the extreme complexity of the crafting towards the end, it is clear that most of the drill upgrades are completely unnecessary. I declared the game "done" even before reaching level 3 upgrades on all components.

I think incorporating some of Tenzhi's suggestions, along with some tweaks to the difficulty balance might just get me to replay this one.

I agree with most of the comments above, that the crafting system is a bit too complex. I'm still enjoying the game, and am challenged by finding the right sizes of minerals - i.e., find a medium X, split it into 2 small X's for a specific recipe, then need another small or medium X to make the next recipe. Hasn't gotten frustrating yet.

What I'm frustrated about now is that I can't seem to drill anymore. I'm full of fuel, fully repaired, but can't drill on any of the planets. Everything else seems to work; it's almost like I've sold my drill! Anyone have any ideas? I've reloaded the game a couple of times.

Behold... the power of posting!

I agree with most of the previous posters. There is no clear goal, the controls are a bit sticky, and it is overly complicated.

Really not liking the system. I have looked and looked, where do I find Obsidian at and what does it look like? Either it's too deep for me to find without upgrading and I can't upgrade without getting the mod that requires obsidian, or I am blind. Thee lave blobs are too deep too...

@bluegriffin18: You get obsidian from lava pockets. To drill into a lava pocket, you have to empty it with vibrations caused from drilling near it. You can instead use dynamite on the lava pocket.

It's kind of annoying that the drill amount and drill vibrations upgrades actually make it harder to deal with lava pockets.

I have a question...

Like the others, I was excited for yet another mining game... well, intrigued at least.

I agree with the comments above - crafting is really cumbersome, and the animations really slow down the game play.

I did a little test, and the drill animation was between 2 and 3 seconds for this game. I compared that to Mega Miner, which had around a 1.5 second drill animation. Add in the fact that you have to "jump drill" to get to some spots, which invariably means 1 or 2 misses, and more tedium just to complete the game's basic task.

Where do you find lava? I want to build an engineering bay, but it requires lava (and obsidian), and I have been all over the volcanic planets and have not seen any lava.

Nevermind, I found a bunch of lava pockets maybe 10 seconds after I posted that question!

Is anyone else having problems finding Titanium? I need it to craft but I can't seem to find it.

I did it! And had fun doing it too!

Personally I had no real trouble with the way the game works. You have to hand-craft each component or sub-component using the materials you mine. Taking away any part of that would change the game a lot and make the goals easier. I did come up with one idea though I hope the author will consider:

So say the next task is upgrading Drill Amount from three to four. To do so requires 1 Strong Iron Bar and there are 0 available. Also though, Cooling needs to be upgraded from four to five and also needs 1 Strong Iron Bar, and Utility Slots four to five needs 1 as well. Surveying all these Engineering tasks indicates 3 Strong Iron Bar are obviously going to be needed. Each could be crafted in turn as the tasks are confronted, but it's far more efficient to craft 3 at the same time.

So, I'd really like to see the indicator under Strong Iron Bar not read 0/1 as it does today, but instead 0/1(3). It would be in keeping with the design of the game and address the complaint of having to work too hard to achieve the goals.

And a back button would be swell too :) Good job and thanks for the fun!

Wjess, no spoiler tags needed as you're missing a basic part of the game that I missed too for quite awhile.

Look at your objectives, it will tell you what you need to find next -- lost, hidden, whatever objects. They are in canisters and if you click the objective it will tell you what levels you need to search.

Find those canisters, get the unique stuff they contain and you'll get new recipes to Research for the parts you need to make the next modules. Basically you're filling in the ?'s while mining for the raw materials.

Good luck!

Titanium is about as rare as it gets. Go to the Cargo Bay and click on Tiny Titanium Nugget, it tells us where they are located -- Volcanic and Nir and at depth 100 to 160. I recall being stuck for awhile needing titanium and not being able to get down to 100 and find any...

...and you're right, @unknown poster with the funky link, even when you can mine at that level it's just really rare.

I'm not sure if the version I played (on Kongregate) is any different than the one hosted here, but I had no problems with it regarding where to find materials or the interface. Everything seemed pretty clear to me, and I thought the crafting system was a neat mechanic, even if it got a little tedious near the very end, but that was only because at that point I was building several upgrades at a time.

I rather liked the plot, though I wish the logs would show up in sequential order no matter which artifact you found. The end was definitely pretty lackluster, but it's obvious that it's because there's a sequel or two planned, and I'll be looking forward to them!

...did anyone else reduce a planet to nothing but empty space (other than the platform your ship is on), or was it just me? XD

[The version hosted here (v1.50) is the same version as what's up on Kong. -Jay]

I'm a huge fan of crafting games, and I'm certainly loving Glean. Even the comparatively technical crafting system, which some players aren't enjoying, is something I'm finding thoroughly engaging.

It's such a complex enough, and so visually refined, that people easily would have paid $50 for something like this just a decade ago.

Essentially my only gripe is how the nod towards monochrome graphics came out - I could do with seeing my inventory items in full color, though I understand the tie-in with the storyline.

With a crafting system this involved, it really gives pause for thought about how the structure of crafting games could be used to teach the intricacies of, say, electronics circuits and components, or manufacturing-oriented chemistry, in a really fun way.

Quite the success! It's become one of my immediate favorites.

Aaaand...it's no longer working. MochiAds appears to be breaking it - the game never loads. Sigh. And just when I was beginning to enjoy it!

I love the way that when it rides the thermals to the surface, the little bot looks just like the crab on the cover of Prodigy's The Fat of the Land. Positively exultant!

Okay, is there an actual ending to this game? I found all the artifacts, watched all the videos, and finished all the upgrades, and then...

Am I missing something?

I agree with Archie. It isn't working for me either. I'm using Firefox 13.0.1 on Windows XP, with Flash version 11.3.300.262. It never gets past the ad which disappears then the play button never fills so you're stuck there. Bummer.

Its working for me on Firefox 12 and 13.0.01, flash player 11.3.300.257, so I don't think Firefox is the problem this time.

It turns out I'm having a problem loading any games that have that play now button at the bottom. I think it has something to do with Mochi or something. They start to load but then the bar at the bottom disappears and the play now button goes grey, then nothing happens. It says its loading but it isn't. If anyone could help me I'd really appreciate it because it is really limiting the number of games I can play. I've tried clearing my cookies and I've made sure my flash is up-to-date. So any help would be appreciated!

I have similar issues
Thus I tried and seemed to find a disturbing method that works

It seems you must first disable all ad blockers and social media blockers

Refresh the page, and then make sure your game window is active

Here's the most important step: DO NOT click away from the window. You MUST watch the entire ad from start to finish without clicking anywhere else. (Any single instance of having the window not focus before the ad is finished completely will result in "Play Now button" BSOD after the ad finishes playing)

Unless I am missing something, therefore I found MochiAds are so evil forcing everyone to watch their ads just to get into the game itself

And for some reason, more and more games featured in jayisgames seemed to feature mochi ads, which makes them not easily accessible

I might have missed some details, please correct me if I happened to have made a misconception, thanks!

I didn't have any ad or social media blockers on, but I did try disabling my Avast antivirus, as well as all my browser add-ons except for flash. This didn't work.

I also did what you said and never strayed from the window. That didn't work. I believe the ad is malfunctioning as it never plays. It goes to start but then it stops and the play now button goes grey.

I understand totally why there needs to be ads for games, (who wants to work for free eh?) but in this case I think it is these Mochi ads that are interfering with any game that they are on.

I'm sure this isn't the case with everyone otherwise more people would be looking for a solution like I am. Thanks for your help Halogen. If anyone else could help that would be awesome!

I love mining games. It's been a long time since i've played a good one (since Motherlode). Thanks! I have a few suggestions to make a more enjoyable experience- At the end of the game I would like to have played a final world different from the rest, possibly a boss stage. Having to upgrade the ship to travel underwater to play the waterworld and explore that large metal structure would have been an excellent way to end the game. I like the idea of using the minerals to craft the upgrades even though i found the process of crafting a bit tedious and boring. And upgrades should not have made my ship nearly invincible. Play is more exciting when danger is still present. I wonder if cave-ins could have made the game a little more exciting(think BoulderDash).

Folks, there IS an ending to this game!

Thanks Josh! That's at least slightly more satisfying.

Thanks a lot Jay! Its good to know Its not me that is the problem, I guess misery loves company, lol! Glad to know you are seeking a solution. If it helps, my location is Ontario Canada.

Once I got over the interface and somewhat intimidating crafting system, I really began to enjoy this game. Much like Motherlode (which I also loved), but still refreshing.

I did have one pretty serious problem, though. Due to the fact that the inventory full notification doesn't appear until a second or so after the last ore is put into the cargo, I drilled right on through the ore that filled my hold and right into an artifact (which was then not picked up due to the fact that my cargo was full). After emptying my load and returning back to the artifact, I still couldn't recover it. I get the feeling that this is going to leave me hurting for a component later, and I've already invested quite a bit of time into the game. Does anyone have any sort of fix or advice for this?

I think there are more capsules than there are artifacts... so regarding my last post, I think my issue was not as much of a problem as I thought it was.