Tawa: Lost in Time – Two Weeks of Progress
Hi everyone!
The last two weeks have been very busy on Tawa: Lost in Time. Most of the work has focused on polishing the game, improving Naya and Tawa, fixing technical issues, and preparing the project for its next stage.
Naya & Tawa
Naya continues to receive a lot of attention.
I have been refining her implementation across the different levels, fixing character setup issues and improving the way she interacts with the environments.
Tawa has also received several improvements, especially regarding his movement, follow behaviour and navigation. Some situations where Tawa could lose the player, get stuck or have trouble finding a valid NavMesh area have been investigated and improved.
The goal is to make travelling with both characters feel much more natural.
More Life for Naya
I also started experimenting with additional secondary animations for Naya.
Her tail now has more natural physics and movement, and I have been working on adding subtle motion to elements such as her ears and upper body.
These are small details, but they make the character feel much more alive when standing still or moving through the world.
There is still some tuning to do, but the results are already much closer to what I want for her.
Enemy & Creature AI
A large part of development has once again been dedicated to AI.
Several issues involving enemies and creatures have been addressed:
improved NavMesh detection and rebuilding
better recognition of different terrain layers
fixes for enemies failing to attack when close to the player
improvements to death behaviour and animations
adjustments to prefab and enemy configuration
improvements to creature movement and navigation between environments
The ecosystem remains an important part of Tawa: Lost in Time, with creatures not simply existing as decorations but reacting to the player and to other animals.
Level & Environment Polish
The existing levels have continued to receive additional polish.
I have been checking terrain navigation, ruins, vegetation, materials and scene configuration to make sure everything behaves correctly both inside the Unity Editor and in the final build.
Some rendering issues were particularly tricky because certain materials looked correct in Play Mode but behaved differently after building the game.
These kinds of problems are not always very visible from the outside, but solving them is an important part of making the game stable.
UI, Inventory & Gameplay Systems
Work also continued on several gameplay systems.
The inventory and shop systems received more testing and fixes, including issues related to opening and closing interfaces, mouse control and interactions that could sometimes prevent Naya from attacking afterwards.
Other systems being checked include:
health and stamina
quest markers
minimap behaviour
character cameras
coins and shop interactions
loading between scenes
save/load behaviour
teleportation safeguards for companions that move too far away
There are still a few systems that need additional polish, but the overall game structure is becoming much more stable.
Steam Achievements
Another recent step has been preparing the Steam achievement system for Tawa: Lost in Time.
The achievements are now being organised and imported into Steamworks, which is another small but important step toward making the Steam version of the game more complete.
Preparing Tawa for Showcases
Alongside development, I have also been preparing Tawa: Lost in Time for several indie game events and showcases.
New gameplay footage, screenshots, key visuals and trailers have been prepared for submissions.
The game has already been submitted to several events, and more opportunities are currently being explored.
It is exciting — and a little strange — to see the project slowly moving from something that mostly existed inside Unity toward something that can actually be presented to players and event organisers.
Creating More Around the World of Tawa
I have also been spending more time developing the visual identity surrounding the game.
This includes new artwork of Naya and Tawa, sketches, character studies and illustrations inspired by the different environments of the game.
Naya in particular is becoming a much more defined character, both visually and within the story.
What's Next?
The next major objective remains polish.
Rather than constantly adding new systems, I want to continue stabilising what already exists:
finish remaining AI fixes
improve Naya and Tawa's animations
continue polishing the levels
fix remaining inventory/UI problems
improve performance and build stability
continue preparing achievements
improve presentation for upcoming showcases
There is still a lot of work ahead, but every week Tawa: Lost in Time is getting closer to the experience I originally imagined.
Thank you to everyone following the project, watching the videos, wishlisting the game and supporting its development.
See you in the next devlog! 🦊🦖🌿
Tawa: Lost in Time