Hello looters, here is the news from the dungeon’s depths.

Still alive and well

First, let me reassure you, the project is well and alive. I know I don’t communicate enough about the project, and some people have started to worry it may be abandoned. But don’t worry, the game is not done, but it’s no longer far from it. I’m sorry I’m still not able to organize my time correctly to give news more consistently.

Why is this taking so long? Well, the whole issue is that I (naively) decided to make, alone, one of the most complex genres of game. An immersive sim dungeon crawler demands a huge amount of features, variety, and content, and all of it needs to work in symbiosis to deliver the intended experience. Cutting things isn’t easy, because the cooking requires precise care, and removing something could break the desired experience. But after all that time, most systems and content are done, what’s left is polishing, balancing, and wrapping it right.

I hope this big update, along with some new screenshots and videos, keeps your interest alive. It’s coming together, slowly but surely. :)

Level 1–4 polish complete

In fact, I recently “completed” the polish of the first half of the game. The levels all reached my goals in terms of content and design. Sure, there are still a few issues here and there, that I correct regularly based on the playtester feedback and bug reports. And even if there are still a lot of things I would love to do for those levels, I’m proud of the result. Half the game is now locked, no major rework planned, and will now focus on the other half of the game.

But wait, does that mean we need one more year of polish for the other half? Well, it should be faster. First, most of the polish I did was global and affected all aspects of the game, so the second part already was improved. Then, the first levels needed more work, whereas the other levels are already very close to final. So there is “not that much” to do to reach the release candidate. After that, there will still be “incompressible time” for localization and a few other things that can only be done when the game is ready.

Here are some gameplay clips of the game, showcasing various environments and features. Note how the first sequence, looting the trapped tomb room, is solved in two different ways.

More sand, more puzzles

In addition to correcting the design issues raised by testers, notably the castle main flow (thanks a lot Alban for raising them!), and adding “more sand” (i.e. gaming situations, see previous post), the first levels were improved in several ways. One nice little addition is the ability to break some of the wall tombs, or stained glass, that reveal a few secrets here and there.

One of the other important things I added to the first levels is a few “classic puzzles”. Even if the game is an “immersive sim”, meaning that there should always be several ways to progress and overcome obstacles, and so that “closed puzzles” are a bit contrary to this design philosophy, I still wanted to add a few of them, mainly for “flavor” and storytelling. Plus, some of those puzzles can, in fact, be overcome by creative ways without solving them.

Pocket heaven

Hidden in the dungeon, there are several “optional challenges”, that reward the player with some trophies. For a long time I was struggling to find a good reward for them, that would not break the gameplay balance or make them almost mandatory to progress. But still, I wanted to reward you enough to get you motivated to find them.

After some prototyping, I recently added the Pocket Heaven. It’s a totally customizable personal place, with an entrance next to the shop, where you can do some housing, stash your stuff, and rest a bit. It comes with a creation wand, to place objects wherever you want, a customization wand, to change for instance the carpet or tapestry colors, and a destruction wand to clean. Finding enough trophies will unlock that place, and finding more trophies will unlock new rooms and customization capabilities.

One of the room when you first enter it:

Making some space:

Placing objects:

My new room:

This feature is still under evaluation, meaning that I still need more playtesting and thinking to fully validate its integration to the game, notably on its effect on the game pacing. But currently, not only this is extra fun to create your own personal space and organize your loot in it, but in fact it creates a particularly welcome rest, after some stressing exploration of the dark trapped dungeon, so the break of the game flow could actually be a good thing for pacing. Plus, some testers already love this feature so much they would hate me if I removed it… ^^

The good thing is that this feature was particularly easy and quick to do, so its current impact on the planning was really minimal, but it brings a lot of value for players, and a lot of possibilities.

See the feature in action (there is still a little work to do for visuals and sounds):

Light & Shadows

One of the game levels I’m currently polishing has a strong link with lighting (well, it’s called “The Temple of Light”), and to polish it visually I started to work a bit more on some lighting techniques. While most of the dungeon is dark, this one has really intense lights and needed more than the standard lighting.

So, I finally started to experiment with some “global illumination”, a way to have light “bounce” and create nice dim lights in concave places. This technique has a really minimal visual impact on most levels since they are mostly in darkness, this is why I didn’t really look after it for a long time. Here are some results, what do you think ?

Also, I adapted a “soft shadow” shader asset to make it work with my own shadow optimizer to have nice soft shadows, and I love it. My two concerns are first, obviously, to get a minimal impact on performances, at least to have settings to tweak it, with no cost for low settings and high end PCs can make their PC heat the room for winter. The second is that it slightly changes the visual style. I’m really fan of those shadows, but sometimes I wonder if you, the players, who liked a lot the “old school vibe” of the current style, would also like those soft shadows. Here are some comparison screenshots. So, what do you think? Is it a good direction?

Comparison before (hard shadows) and after (new soft shadows):

Here are more screenshots of the new shadows:

Quality of life features

A lot of attention was also given to quality of life improvements. The shopkeeper now offers a (paid!) recovery service, in case you die and have a hard time recovering your previous corpse to loot it.

The wand usage has been improved, notably player inputs. Some wands capacities have been extended, and you will have a lot to enjoy with them.

The difficulty settings now can customize the penalty of dying, which is how much your inventory is damaged after dying (or dying again before recovering your corpse). This add a nice level of tension for people looking after some challenge.

After some time, I finally decided to add an (optional) quick save system. Even if this goes a bit against the core design, notably because dying is fully integrated and part of the game, you can enable quick save at any time, after I display you a big warning message telling you you should not do it. That way, if you want to have fun, or for accessibility reasons, you can use it, and enjoy the game the way you want.

Finally, the “no spider” option finally replaces them with another monster, so you can enjoy a spider-free game while having a challenge.

Debug, refactor, optimization

Like always, a lot of work can not really be shown, as it’s debug, refactor, solving issues here and there, improving this or that. Notably, I did a complete refactor of the save system, for better performances and flexibility. This was done months before the Pocket Heaven feature, but this save improvement actually made it possible to code in a few minutes the ability to save the whole housing system.

Playtest

You still there? So, you might be interested in this. I’m looking for new beta testers. Not just people who want to play early, but people ready to deal with bugs, give pertinent and honest feedback, and help move the game forward. Recording your playthrough is a big plus, especially with webcam on, so I can watch and analyse it. Slots are extremely limited, because I don’t want to be drowned in feedback I can’t process. To be clear, I’ll give priority to the most active people on Discord that already have shown an interest in helping, notably by providing feedback. It also comes with a simple NDA; you’ll agree not to share content publicly. If you’re just curious to play, better wait for the final release, to play the polished and complete game. If you’re interested, register here, and you might be in the next tester wave.

Roadmap

So, the game is not done, but it’s no longer far from it. I will continue the game polish on the second half, improving the game based on feedback. Then will come the localization, and other release stuff.