Helio-3 The Lab
Split atoms. Build systems. Quantize. Repeat.
Helio-3 is a physics-driven incremental game where the playfield itself is the machine.
Inject particles, trigger reactions, generate energy and progressively turn a chaotic atomic playground into an increasingly powerful system.
Every run lets you improve your current setup. When you're ready, Quantize your progress to earn PP and unlock permanent upgrades in the Lab.
We are currently in the open testing phase!
How it works
- Interact with the field - split, attract and repel nuclei directly.
- Generate eV - use reactions to build your run economy.
- Upgrade - improve Fusion, Fission and passive systems.
- Quantize - reset your run in exchange for permanent PP.
- Build the Lab - unlock long-term progression between runs.
Current state
Helio-3 is currently in active development.
The game is playable on:
- Windows
- Linux
- Web browser
Feedback about progression, balance and usability is very welcome.
Playtesting
Try one run without Quantizing and another using the prestige system. I'm especially interested in feedback about:
- Progression speed
- eV / PP balance
- Upgrade readability
- The Quantization loop
- Overall UI clarity
Official Helio-3 website
Playtest information and downloads
More projects by Luipy
Made with Godot · Developed by Luipy & WarKuarto
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- DevLog9: New Active Perk14 hours ago
- DevLog8: New Post-Game & Achievements1 day ago
- DevLog7; Released a DEMO!5 days ago
- DevLog6: Refactor...7 days ago
- DevLog5: SuperNodes7 days ago
- DevLog5: Title Pause & Settings7 days ago
- DevLog4: Bye left rail & Hello Light7 days ago
- DevLog3: The Quantum Skill Tree7 days ago
Comments
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Great game so far! I've not played too much but i do love the physics and the combinations of atoms. Its exceedingly satisfying to merge them. I love the upgrades and I think they feel quite balanced, They don't seem to overpowered at all which makes you want to use the upgrade tree. But overall great game for how much I've played so far. I'm definitely going to be playing more :)
Thank you for your feedback ;D
The biggest challenge we face is understanding and balancing the game properly. Your comment helps us a lot, especially in reaching that point where players don’t mind having to prestige, but the upgrades are still useful at the same time. That’s a great point.
Thanks again,
Have a nice day.
I fused the two hydrogen into a helium and now I can't seem to do anything else. No number go up, nothing I sling it at or click on does anything.
Oh wait I just fissioned, never mind
In desperate need of an optimization pass. +1 to the stability issues that others mention as well. The ability to toggle some of the particle effects and sound and such would also be nice so that my fans aren't working overtime.
Hi sopimusician!
There is already an option in the settings menu to turn off sound, music and effects such the particles!
Have you tried playing the game as an executable or in the browser? We haven’t applied any optimizations for the browser version yet… but we’ll get to that as soon as possible!
Thanks a lot for your feedback, have a nice day.
Oh man, my apologies! I completely missed those menu options! They did help tremendously on the browser version when used, but I have also now switched to the desktop version. Thanks for the reply and addictive game, have a nice day too!
over all, very solid as a demo. bugs: only one major one, game freeze/crashed seemingly at random.
other issues: reloading the game basically removes all bought atoms, which would be fine, except it doesn't reset the price as well. (easily fixable by just adding all atoms together to see there total, storing that, then spawning the atoms at there most fussed). also antimatter is a bit bad because it can connect without player interaction which can destroy a atom the player wanted to keep (easily fixable by making it only enter the "combustible" state after the player launches it manually).
pros: allowing early gain of multiple prestige points at once is super nice as a QOL. overall game play loop is fun. upgrades are all fairly unique/varied.
personal: it feels like progression is a bit slow. even after a few prestige the growth scale only changes from the thousands to the tens of thousands, which is a bit disappointing. (one thing other games do is include achievements that give boosts as a reward)
Hi notnamesam!
Wow, thank you so much in advance for taking the time to really try out our demo and give us your feedback.
We’re going to look for solutions to the crashes you mentioned. Did you test it in the browser or via the executable? We know it runs very poorly in the browser; it was never our intention to release it for the web…
The first step will be to implement a system that outputs error logs to make debugging easier!
Losing the atoms is intentional, but we hadn’t realized how annoying it is, and neither about this error regarding the injection price, good catch.
We’ve already tweaked the antimatter mechanics to make them less of a hassle, but your idea is much better!
Regarding progression: That is what we are looking for most in this demo, help understanding how to get the progression right. We’ll get to work on it, making it faster, more fun, and more rewarding.
Thank you very much for your feedback.
Have a nice day.
I also feel like there's too much momentum lost when an Antimatter hits a high valued orb, maybe instead of deleting the orb it could reduce it one or two levels?
I also don't really understand how the reward from the anti-matter is calculated. Sometimes it seems super small, and other times its incredibly huge
Hi nathanfohkens,
I completely agree with your take on antimatter; we’ve discussed this topic at length, and your feedback is very helpful to us.
We’ve modified how antimatter rewards you several times, and in this build Sep 12, it depends on how much it costs you to inject a new atom, undoubtedly a “weak” and unintuitive mechanic that also isn’t well explained…
Thank you very much for your feedback and for taking the time to get this far in the run. We’ll take immediate action to improve the gameplay experience!
Have a nice day!
It's a very good here, i really like, plus it's addicting, if i had money, i would drop some, but in term of money, we don't have money, but keep going it's really goo
Right now, your message means a lot to us, really.
Thank you so much for trying it out!
Have a nice day.
can u do some upgrade that splits the balls automatic?
Hi Zidrelcade!
There are already several upgrades that automatically “split” atoms!
For example:
But these upgrades are from the quantum tree, not the regular upgrades.
Do you think a regular upgrade or some new mechanic would be nice?
Thanks for your comment!
I think that an upgrade from the regular tree to increase spontaneous fission would go a long way to making the game feeling a bit more "exciting".
If you're ever looking for inspiration or to see how other similar games have done it, you can check Atomic Test: Incremental by JC - QuantumGames or MergeMaxxing by corbcorp.
Thank you so much again for your feedback and recommendations, we’ll definitely take them into action ;D
Have a nice day.