Startup Process

A metroidvania where you never get stronger. You only choose how you bootstrap yourself next.

You wake up inside a larger version of yourself. You are a bootstrapper: a small square robot whose one job is to start that larger self up. The self you start is the one you play in the next loop.

One loop

1. Wake at a boot point. Explore, pull levers, step on plates, connect terminals — open what this loop’s body can open.
2. Find a broken panel and recover the permission key for one module.
3. Return to any boot panel you have found and set three modules and a spawn point for the next you.
4. Press start. The camera pulls back until the whole map is one small part of the body outside. Then that body lights up, and it’s yours.

Every loop, doors close again and bridges return to where they were. What carries over is permissions, boot points, the map, and what you have read. You progress by knowing the place better.

Three modules, eight selves

Each module has two settings and neither is the upgrade. The three lights on your head show what you currently are.

• Load — Heavy presses weight plates but jumps low and sinks some platforms. Light jumps higher and can’t trigger anything by weight.
• Conductivity — Insulated walks through arcs but can’t close a circuit. Conductive connects terminals and powered platforms, and gets thrown back by arcs.
• Magnetism — Off walks past magnetic walls. On rides walls and rails to places nothing else reaches, and sticks to every magnetic wall it touches.

The same room reads differently for each of the eight configurations. A setting that opens one path usually closes another, so no single loop can take everything: decide where this one is going before you press start.

What’s in it

• One continuous 100×48 map: 27 rooms, a shaft running through several zones, 7 boot points
• No death and no combat. A wrong turn costs you the loop, not the save
• An endgame of three verifications, each a route-planning problem across the whole map
• A story told through 15 terminal logs and one predecessor who has already finished the job — every rule of the loop has a reason in the fiction, and the ending leaves some questions open on purpose

About this build

Started by a team of three for NetEase MINI-GAME 2026, and still in development — This download is the original jam build, made in Unreal Engine; a reworked version is in progress, and I’m continuing it on my own. About 50 minutes to the ending.

Language: Simplified Chinese only. The story is text-heavy; English is not available yet.

Controls: WASD / arrow keys move · Space jump · F interact · Esc pause · Q / E switch between the boot panel and the story pages

Credits

• yzsdr — team lead, game design (map, mechanics, story), programming (loop state & saves, boot panel & map UI, mechanism reset, terminals & dialogue), post-jam polish
• Yao Mingzhe 姚明哲 — art
• Kong Qinjun 孔钦俊 — programming

Design breakdown (Chinese) · Trailer & gameplay

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中文简介

不靠“变强”推进的类银河城：每一轮，你决定更大的自己如何启动。

你在更大的自己体内醒来。你是一台方形的小机器人，身份是“启动子”，负责把它启动；被启动的那个更大的自己，就是你下一轮操控的角色。

每一轮，你探索地图、扳动机关，从损坏的面板里取回一个模块的权限密钥，再回到启动面板，为下一轮的自己选好三项配置和出生点。按下启动，镜头一路拉远：整张地图只是外面那个自己体内的一小块。

载荷、导电、磁性，三个模块各有两档，没有哪一档是升级版，组合出八种自己。新的一轮里机关全部归位，留下来的只有权限、启动点、地图记录和读过的日志。同一个房间，换一种配置就是另一种走法；打开一条路的配置，往往会关上另一条。

• 一张 100×48 的连续地图：27 个房间、7 个启动点
• 不会死亡，没有战斗；走错了，代价只是这一轮
• 终局的三处验证，每一处都是一道横跨全图的路线规划题
• 故事散在 15 条终端日志和一位“前辈”的对话里；循环里的每条规则在设定中都有说法，结局刻意留白

2026 网易 MINI-GAME 参赛作品（3 人）。此处为 Jam 版（Unreal Engine），重制版仍在开发中。通关约 50 分钟。

操作：WASD / 方向键移动 · 空格跳跃 · F 交互 · Esc 暂停 · Q / E 切换启动面板与剧情页

制作：yzsdr（队长、策划：地图 / 机制 / 剧情，程序，Jam 后打磨）· 姚明哲（美术）· 孔钦俊（程序）