Devlog September 2026

Autumn is in full swing here in Norway, with colorful leaves and dark evenings, as September comes to a close. With everything changing around us as winter approaches, we found it to be a fitting time to try a different format for the devlog. Going forward, we will have a more unified devlog for the whole team, rather than the more individual approach with each team member. We welcome feedback on this new format, even if it is to request that we go back to how it was before.

Yearly art challenge
Our yearly art challenge was announced in the last week of September with new prompts. We see a great deal of talented people share their creative work in our Discord server, so we hope as many as possible will participate in this year's challenge to share the love for art and creativity. More information about the art challenge can be found on our Instagram and Discord server.

Eldheim map
The work on the map is entering its final stages, at last! Time has been spent on matching each part to its neighbor, making sure they are the correct scale and that rivers and paths line up. Using this map will make it easier to terraform the terrain in Unity with regards to buildings, plots, and arenas. Below are images of two of the parts that have been worked on this month. The darker green areas with tree icons show forested areas, and the yellow areas indicate fields. Roads, trails, and rivers are visible as well, with the white parts around being mountains or water. Adjustments will of course be made when it is created in 3D, as the buildings are very simple shapes only meant to illustrate that there will be something there.

In the images, you can see the area around Eldheim town, as well as the stables. Can you see where they can be connected to each other? And these are only two parts of the map. It has been time consuming work, but it has also been rewarding. Working on the map has had the additional effect of making us think even deeper about the potential history of the world. The more connections we can sneak in, the better, as it will create a more alive and believable world. A lot of work has been put into the story so far, but we are always looking for ways to improve it.

Horse controller
The code that handles how each horse should look was finally done last month, so this month has been spent on the horse controller and everything that comes with it. This has mostly consisted of enabling systems again while only changing what is absolutely necessary. The code for the horse controller needed to be changed slightly on account of Unity deprecating an interface that it used. This change also had to be made for the character controller earlier this year, so the process was already familiar.

With everything being in DOTS now, the code for controlling the animations have had to be rewritten. The positive side to this is that it actually becomes easier to manage the animations since all the needed data is on the DOTS side. When we had the character and horse models as game objects, we had to use a hybrid system to retrieve the relevant data from DOTS to know what animation to play. That step is no longer needed, making the process and the code much smoother.

This is also true for IK (Inverse Kinematics), which is another part that has been worked on this month. We use IK to make the character sit on the horse and follow its movements, so it is important to have it set up properly. The last part to get the horse back into the game is the interaction system. After all, the player can't ride the horse if they can't interact with it. With that being the case, work on re-enabling the interaction system has begun and will continue into October.

UI
We took the leap and upgraded to Unity 6.5 this month. This version of Unity introduces a change in how the UI is accessed through code. The old method is still supported, but it will eventually be removed. Converting to the new method turned out to not be as straightforward as we had hoped, so we have decided to wait with it for now. This will give us more time to become familiar with the changes, which in turn will make the process easier.

UV and textures
We are always trying to improve our skills and learn new ones. Some time this month has been spent on trying different techniques for UV mapping and texturing, as well as some research into different shaders. The main focus has been on tileable textures and how to achieve the best results without making any obvious seams. Textures can take a lot of space, so we have also looked into a technique called channel packing to help us optimize the textures. This technique can help us save space and reduce the size of the game's build as it reduces the number of texture maps needed.

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Please be aware that the content featured in these devlogs represents an ongoing work in progress and may be subject to further changes. We are committed to continuously developing and refining our game. To stay informed about the latest updates and connect with the rest of the Astride community, we invite you to join our dedicated Discord server community here! For additional information about Astride, please visit our official website.