Old Tech, Dead Tech

co-authored: @artilor901z

Please leave comments


I noticed that many rated my game and left without comments. Please do so, I'd really like to know what you think, feel about the game, and possibly have some communication.

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SPOILERS!!!!!


Many commented that the game is difficult to understand, so below are some instructions. I recommend check this out during playing.

BuildingWhat it does
Altar (祭坛)Sacrifice dead techs to get rewards. In the beginning, you get resources. Later in the game, you mainly use it to get rid of the dead and get adult techs who possess fleshskill for certain facilities.
House (房子)Cheap population: each house spawns one old tech when built; when they die (~60s lifespan) a new one spawns (30s CD)
Lumber Mill (伐木场)Techs produce wood into the mill's own storage (up to 500). Adults make 1 log / 1.5s, elders are 20% slower.
Mine (矿场)Same as the mill, but stone: 1 stone / 2s per adult worker.
Crematory (火葬场)Auto-cremates ground corpses when the mortuary is full. Corpses wait inside (up to 5, rot frozen); techs haul in 20 wood to light a 60s burn — corpses added mid-burn vanish instantly.
Mortuary (停尸房)Stores up to 20 corpses with rot frozen (no plague while stored). The corpse hub: altar, dissectory and furnace all draw from here.
Dissectory (解剖室)Dissects one corpse at a time (10s each) into 20 flesh, stored inside (up to 500). Your main flesh source.
School (学校)A skilled adult or old tech volunteers as teacher; teens learn their skill (chance based on intelligence).
Institute (研究所)Fleshcrafters research rites: *Anatomy Atlas* (10 pts, 100 flesh per pt) unlocks the Flesh Rite; *Summoning Liturgy* (15 pts, 100 essence) unlocks the Blood Rite.
Incubator (培育所)A worker turns 50 flesh into a baby tech (25s). The second population source — babies grow through teen to adult.
Flesh Furnace (血肉熔炉)Fleshcrafters forge a corpse + 100 flesh + 50 essence into a puppet: never eats or ages, haul-only. When materials are ready it auto-collects 1 corpse.
Sacrificing Ground (活祭台)Captures one living victim tech from the age group you pick (a strong adult/old tech or puppet carries them in). A fleshcrafter sacrifices one every 15s for essence stored in the altar — baby 10 / teen 6 / adult 4 / elder 2 — and each sacrifice expands the map by one ring.


So, bassically:
- build Lumber Mill and Mine to guarantee basic resources.
- build Houses and Incubator to guarantee population and corpse production.
- build Mortuary, Crematory and Dissectory to process the body and avoid plague.
- build other things to progress.

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Introduction


A small settlement sim where nothing that walks in will walk out. Techs grow old here and die.

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​Your houses deliver old techs: creaky, pixel-sized, sixty seconds from the grave. They chop, mine, haul, and then lie down where they stand. Everything you build runs on what they leave behind.

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Every corpse is a decision.


- Feed it to the altar.
The god eats, and when its appetite is satisfied it sends a blessing: a grown adult born with Fleshcraft, and one more ring of land. The appetite grows every time.
- Send it to the dissection room.
Corpses become flesh. Flesh builds things, feeds research, and breeds new workers in the incubator.
- Burn it.
Rotting bodies draw flies, stink, and eventually plague.

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Stack to survive. Costs climb fast. Build facilities to keep up the pace, and build houses and incubators for hands and a steady supply of the dead.

Rites and oracles. Research the Anatomical Atlas, gather the materials, and the next sacrifice completes the rite. Complete the rites to push progress​ forward.

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Features


- pixel creatures: every tech has a 5×5 genome and a bloodline hue; corpses rot pixel by pixel.
- Whip a tech to make it work twice as fast for thirty seconds. It will not thank you.
- Priorities and a job queue: set a building to 5 and your workers drop everything for it; press × to pause the altar and starve the god on purpose.
- A goals panel that always shows your next step, a knowledge codex that fills in as you discover things, and a short on-screen tutorial.
- Chinese / English, switchable in one click.

Comments20

hammeredzombie
hammeredzombie19 Oct 2026, 19:42
the amount of text relative to the depth of gameplay is unbalanced, theres a lot more text than interactions. also being able to zoom in and out on such a small map doesnt really serve a point. the tutorial was nice and straightforward though although once i finished it, i didnt feel the need to keep playing.
crotonyl_alcohol
crotonyl_alcoholauthor20 Oct 2026, 00:31
@hammeredzombie Thanks for playing and for pointing out the issues. Wehaven’t had time to polish all the text yet. I’d like to ask about “the need to keep playing” — do you mean the game didn’t make you want to keep playing, or that you weren’t sure what to do after the tutorial?
hammeredzombie
hammeredzombie20 Oct 2026, 15:11
@crotonyl-alcohol a bit of both, the tutorial around mechanics was straight forward and got me playing quick, but i barely read any text (which i dont think i can be blamed for) so once i was in the main game i felt i had already played the whole game loop since i was expecting more of the same.
crotonyl_alcohol
crotonyl_alcoholauthor20 Oct 2026, 15:57
@hammeredzombie We have added a goal list to show what to do next, and deleted some unnecessary texts. Hope you can try and give some more advice.
Maxwell_Eliseev2820 Oct 2026, 16:25
Well, this game turned out to be very difficult for me, but it was fun.
Septah20 Oct 2026, 16:28
neat! love incremental games and it gives me the same vibe
but i think the beginning is a bit too slow
bit020 Oct 2026, 18:35
Cool game, an insane amount of content for just 3 days, and I like the low res pixel art look as well! However, it did take me quite a bit of time to understand how the game works(and I still don't fully get it). There's a ton of text on screen and the tutorial doesn't do a great job at explaining what the game is about in my oppinion.
Shikaka2920 Oct 2026, 20:31
Honestly, it’s surprising how many mechanics this game has. You could practically turn it into a strategy game—or something like RimWorld :)
Pretty cool.
FireSlash
FireSlash20 Oct 2026, 22:19
Quite a lot going on here. Content wise there's a lot of depth, and the game loop seems fairly solid and complete.

I did find it less clear how certain buildings worked, the tutorial either didn't mention them, or I missed it due to the density of the text. It feels like the UI design needs to be a bit more coherent for a game of this complexity, but in a Jam it's pretty easy for things to spiral out of control and end up needing a refactor you just don't have time for.

Despite this I found it pretty fun. I turned the speed up in a few spots to move progress, but generally found it a pretty good experience.

Nice work!
crotonyl_alcohol
crotonyl_alcoholauthor21 Oct 2026, 02:11
@maxwell-eliseev28 @bit0 @fireslash Thanks for playing! I'd like to know what the most confusing part is during your play.
Basically, the techs can do the work by themselves, and automatically transport resources to requiring buildings.

The Crematory consumes 20 wood pre minute, and during the burning process, it can burn the dead techs immediately.
MagicalBerry
MagicalBerry21 Oct 2026, 02:59
It’s a little tricky to figure out how to play at first, but overall, it’s pretty good!
Lvdou2nd21 Oct 2026, 03:07
I really like this kind of idle production game with a slightly creepy atmosphere, though I couldn't quite see the connection to the theme. It also felt a bit repetitive after a while. That said, the workers' behavior, task priorities, and building details are all very well done. It's a polished game with a lot of care put into it.
crotonyl_alcohol
crotonyl_alcoholauthor21 Oct 2026, 03:20
@lvdou2nd Tech as short for technician LOL. I checked the meanings for the word and came up with this evil idea immediately.
pro4
pro421 Oct 2026, 04:18
Wow, you managed to cram a lot of content into this game! It took me a little bit to get used to it, but by the time I figured out what was going on, I was drowning in festering corpses lol. Cool concept and great execution!
21 Oct 2026, 13:13
Someday I'll actually beat this game
wai_wd21 Oct 2026, 15:34
It's a bit text-heavy and quite hard to get into. I couldn't quite push through it, sorry guys. Still a cool concept though
Div00
Div0021 Oct 2026, 16:47
Interesting twist on the theme with old techs living, working and dying as your population. The text to gameplay balance seems to need work, but adding a goal list sounds like a good fix. Good luck polishing it!
anima_animus049
anima_animus04921 Oct 2026, 19:10
我感觉现在的引导对我来说挺清楚的!美术风格也很符合old tech的主题,逐步搭建起来的过程也不错!不过因为我前期地图规划不太好,后面想改建筑位置好像也改不了了,稍微有一点可惜TVT。如果加上音乐和音效的配合应该会更有趣,很有意思的创意!
The instruction is good for me to understand, and the art style is also good, align with the theme of "old tech", also I love the progress of gradually setting everything up! However, since my initial map planning wasn't quite good, I couldn't adjust the building positions later on, which is a bit of a pity :(. It would be even more fun and interesting with music and sound effects added. After all, it's a great creative idea!
anima_animus049
anima_animus04921 Oct 2026, 19:10
同时我也遇到了一些比如材料已经准备充足但是工人要很久才去搬运的情况,对于后期建造要的材料比较多的情况也感觉稍微有一点漫长?不太清楚具体是怎么判定的,或许能主动设置会好一点。
I also encountered situations where materials were already fully prepared, but workers took a long time to start moving them. For cases requiring a large amount of materials later in the process, it felt somewhat prolonged. I'm not entirely sure how exactly this is determined, but perhaps taking the initiative to set things up would be better.
Ganktronics21 Oct 2026, 20:04
The UI could use a little overhaul. It feels very basic in that, which is offputting given how much stuff there is in the game. It's also a lot for a jam game. I would've liked some sounds, since it's not a quick little game and there's a lot in it, it's noticeable that it's missing even a "click" sound.

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