Greetings, Steam community! Long time no speak. It's been quiet in the asylum which, all things considered, is always good news. With new inmates arriving and getting acquainted with the game every month, there's been practically no issues reported and everyone is enjoying a delightful stay in the Hanwell premises.
Speaking of which...
A year in the ASYLUM!
Phew. It dawned on me during the past weekend that it's been a whole year since we launched the game. Unbelievable; these days it feels like we're speedrunning through life. It's not you, things are really fast-paced now. I mean, it's not even late March and it already feels like we should be wrapping up 2026. Take me back to the corridors of Hanwell with their eternal quietness and decay!
Anyway, the overall balance during this past year has been really good. I appreciated and enjoyed reading the reviews, even the negative ones, as most have been thoughtful and eloquent. That's uncommon these days. I don't think anyone expected ASYLUM to be an overwhelmingly positive game (certainly not me), but here we are still sitting at very positive, nearing 400 reviews. I won't rehash stuff that was discussed in past updates (especially this retrospective here) but I consider the overall balance to be solid. It's mighty difficult to pass certain store thresholds these days —both for big budget titles and indies— and even rarer for a quirky adventure game like this to reach moderate success.
And, by the way, I agree with most criticisms and positive impressions!
Discount time!
It's only appropriate to celebrate a full year of madness with a glowing discount. Spring for some, autumn for others, even winter and summer too, but sheer horror should be accessible to everyone. So if you were waiting to pull the plug and pay a visit to Hanwell, now is a good time!
Coming attractions!
While we've been teasing these upcoming materials for a while, I'd like to reassure you they're still in the works:
🎬 A Tour of Hanwell documentary, featuring footage from our early visit to a local mental institution with certain discoveries that made it to the game. We're aiming to create something special here.
🎨 Art Book, which won't be a mere collection of high resolution images, but also early WIP assets, stuff that didn't make it to the game, real photos of asylums that inspired the architecture of the building, and more trivia. Think The ASYLUM Files but extended with much more images and notes.
🎶 Extended soundtrack, with several early demos and outtakes, which will be an upgrade for current purchases.
📦 Big box physical edition for the hardcore fans among you is also happening and will feature the above materials and then some.
🐧 Last but not least, the native Linux port. This has presented an unexpected bag of pain and, while Proton has served well to Linux users, we're still committed to the native version that was promised. Linux seems to be the future after all.
Of course, new Senscape games are in the works, which will be properly teased when the time comes and we're very happy with their progression. I think you'll be happy too.
Rant mode ON and a PSA
Given the current state of affairs in the game industry and ongoing controversies, here's a commitment:
We vow to never resort to AI tools, not even during concept phase. We reject such shortcuts, let alone automatization to rework visual art crafted by our team members.
You see, it's one thing to use DLSS to improve resolutions and remove visual artifacts for the sake of performance, but it's something very different and darker to have a tech stack making creative decisions for you, which in the end are dictated by a corporation not necessarily aligned with your vision. It's rotten to the core.
Strictly speaking for me here, not the whole Senscape team, but I loathe this tech and all it represents today. Calling it "AI" in the first place is manipulative and misleading, which should already speak volumes about the whole philosophy behind it. As Ted Chiang cleverly put it, it's nothing else than "applied statistics": lots and lots of information digested and regurgitated in a convenient way, most of it lifted from actual work that was created by people like you and me. Performing this at an industrial scale while companies like Google still penalize said people, treating them like thieves for using just a bunch of seconds from a copyrighted song in a YouTube video... well, it's cheeky. To say the least. You could say a bunch of companies should be penalized in turn now, so yeah, keep the backlash coming. Don't stop.
Consider I'm someone who grew up surrounded by gadgets and was glued to a screen most of the time. I've also been excited about most technological breakthroughs until recently, but this is crossing a line. You are the one supposed to control tools, not the other way around. Also, there's absolute zero chance this thing will attain any degree of consciousness. Whoever is suggesting that is full of crap, including prominent CEOs.
So while I can see some positive applications of "AI", for example in the realm of medicine, astronomy, personal hobbies (when used responsibly), improving public transit, even auditing pipelines in general, including software, right now it's being used in the worst possible ways. So we're not using or endorsing it in any way.
That's it. End of rant 😶
Scratches coming to ScummVM!
And finally, another of those things that were promised a long time ago and is slowly becoming a reality: I'm little by little reimplementing the Scratches engine on ScummVM. If you're not familiar with it, this software is a boon for fans of adventures and there's a good chance you unknowingly used it while playing a port of an old title.
The first task to get acquainted with its framework was to port the very first Scratches teaser with a much simpler engine. And so far so good! There's even proof, here:
I can't tell when this will be ready, but I'm hoping it won't be long until the first two long forgotten teasers are playable. Things planned are the much coveted widescreen support, higher resolutions, better typography, and perhaps a few surprises.
And thus we reach the end of today's update. Until next time, and have fun playing games! 👋
—Agustín