Hello people of the Unseen!
It’s that time of the month yet again! And this time, I’ve got a lot to show…
But first, I want to mention something… small… nothing too major… just the fact Chapter III might be in a releasable state towards the end of the year… nothing much.
Okay in all seriousness, I’m not joking when I say Chapter III is progressing much faster than Chapter I and II, so much so I’m actually one third of the way through the chapter!
And it’s because of this speed, I might be able to release two chapters this year!
But… take all of this with the BIGGEST GRAIN OF SALT POSSIBLE… because game dev always has a knife sharpened and ready to plunge deep into my back at a moments notice.
But, if everything goes according to plan… we could possibly have an October release on our hands.
But anyways, what’s new with Chapter III? Let’s find out!
FEELING FREEZY AND BREEZY
Brrr… when did it get so c-c-c-cold!?
Oh wait… I think I know what’s going on, we’ve made it out of the Forlorn Warehouse, and now we’ve crossed over into the freezing cold, Ventilation Chambers!
But why is this place so… freezy? And what’s with the breezy bit of the title? Well, it’s a long story…
One summer, The Lab got a wee bit warm.
And so, seeing no other solution, the people of The Lab decided to overclock their high tech cooling system to a dangerous level, and in the process they accidentally ruined the entire thing.
This overclocking led to an artificial weather phenomenon forming within the Ventilation Chambers, and now… the consequences are clear…
Every few moments, a strong, artificial blizzard hits the chambers, wiping out every living being that is caught in its wake.
But, luckily for you, the folks on the Maintenance Team saw how deadly these blizzards were and they installed loads of Space Heaters around that nullify the effects of the blizzards to protect unfortunate souls such as yourself.
And hey, maybe if you’re lucky, you can find the control centre for this place and put everything back into balance…
All you need to do now is keep moving… you wouldn’t want what happened back in the warehouse to happen again…
PICKUP PLEASE
Next, let’s talk about something pre-existing… no clue if that’s the right word for this but PICKUP SCREENS!
What is a pickup screen you ask? Well, let me explain.
In Depths Unseen, Chapter I and II, there exists multiple moments where Winston stops for a short moment, picks some object up, and goes back to normal.
These objects are things like train parts, fuses, that sort of thing, nothing much.
But now, they have screens tied to them! So now you can actually tell what you just picked up!
I know, lots of words to explain one thing but here’s the TL;DR:
Items now have shiny screens that appear telling you what you got.
But, what else is there to talk about?
…
No we can’t talk about what happened in the warehouse… that would be spoilers… let’s talk about pipes instead.
THE PIPES IN QUESTION
What do you think Depths Unseen is missing?
If you said acid, then you’d be correct!
But why would a giant lab complex require acid? No clue, that bit of the lore hasn’t been written yet, rule of cool y’know?
But wait a moment, weren’t we just in the cold? Why is there acid in the Ventilation Chambers?
Well, this isn’t the Ventilation Chambers any more, it’s the Pipe Network!
This network is, as the name suggests, full of pipes.
Pipes that carry acid, water, whatever needs to be pumped, stored, or flushed.
What’s that? There’s more than just acid to worry about? Oh, I see…
…let’s take a look shall we?
WHAT LURKS IN THE SHADOWS…
Have I shown off a single living being other than Winston in this saga of dives? I don’t believe I have!
Let’s change that yeah? Meet the Scuttlers!
These glorified moving platforms do… well, just that, they move! Backwards and forwards, over… and over… and over… an- yeah you get it.
These gentle giants are completely harmless, hiding within their makeshift shells when they sense danger.
And hey! If you can keep your footing on their shifting shells, perhaps you can hitch a ride!
Just uh… watch out for the… uh…
…Snapper.
Let’s talk about this thing.
This fiendish little beast lurks in the acid, waiting for the perfect moment to… well… snap!
It’s also definitely worth mentioning that this wasn’t my own idea.
That’s right! This is the second creature to be initially designed by someone else.
The first creature to be designed by another was Butterbean, who was designed by my sister, who also so happens to have done some animation work for the game!
But the Snapper, it was designed by my good friend, Vertimis on Discord!
He was kind enough to draw up some creature concepts.
It's also worth mentioning Vertimis also provided the trash compactor sound for Chapter II’s compactor sequence!
He also did some awesome fan art as well, which I have featured in previous dives.
I will admit though, this little bit of credit for both of them was LONG OVERDUE.
Both of them have been amazing during this project’s existence, and I’m insanely grateful to have both of them in the community.
TL;DR:
Vertimis and my sister are awesome.
But… this Snapper, he looks… familiar?
Yeah, familiar… almost like he’s a smaller version of another experiment.
One we’ve… encountered before.
*sigh* fine… we’ll talk about what happened in the warehouse.
…YEARNS TO BE SEEN
Right, let’s address the giant, man eating fish in the room.
You know him, you love him, everyone welcome back our favourite friend… Valtrinx.
That’s right, Valtrinx, the flopping fish from Chapter I is back for seconds, and he’s still hungry for that tasty flesh of yours…
I actually brought him back around the time the last dive aired, but I couldn’t find a way to fit him into any of the sections.
But, here he is now!
Back for more, and hungry for gore.
Ah hem, anyways… we’ll leave our little cameo actor to his own devices for a while.
Maybe we’ll see him again soon…?
Anyways, that’s enough of an info-dump for me… let’s get to that fun fact shall we?
FUN FACT
Now… forgive me when I say this, but I couldn’t actually come up with a good fun fact for this one…
I know I know, how lame is that?! No juicy fun fact for the 10th dive? Boo! Tomato emoji! 🍅
Three tomatoes! 🍅🍅🍅 For Chapter III!
But how about this, I’ll share some fun internal names and you can judge whether or not they are a good substitute… if not… you may throw more tomatoes. 🍅
Here are some names I pulled from my magic hat:
- “details because unity wanted this to be an anim” (random details in C1-R2
- “SneakyTrigger >:)” (Crack in the Unseen trigger in Chapter I)
- “Fadermanmk 2” (something related to the screen "fade" effect)
- “Dude_YEARNING_Animation.anim” (Guy fiddling with the vending machine in Chapter I)
- “ROOMPIGMisery.anim” (roompig :D)
Okay, that’s all the funny names I have for now.
There are definitely more, 100% in Chapter III, but I’ll hold off sharing any of those ones until after it releases.
Maybe for Dev Dive #20?
But, enough of these silly names, let’s discuss what I’ll be hopefully working on next month!
NEXT MONTH ON DEPTHS UNSEEN
Alrighty then, let’s look into our crystal ball and ask it… what’s next?
As we continue our trek through the Pipe Network, we’ll encounter more and more acid, maybe even a way to control it somehow, then, only then will we be home free to discover what lays beyond in the Rig Mines… maybe we’ll even find someone to help us… mayhaps that’s what Xenolix meant when he said to “seek out 2.0.” 👀
Hmm, I’m sure that’ll probably mean something soon… we’ll have to see!
I also want to mention I’ll be attempting to upgrade the settings menu next month as well.
Adding additions such as… proper… volume control and… in game settings…
Riveting stuff.
But anyways, this concludes our 10th dive into the Unseen.
I want to mention before we end off that the second episode of Behind the Depths aired this month!
You can watch it on YouTube, and discover why and how the Angler Droids were made!
I also want to again shoutout the folks who have been supporting Depths Unseen as of late, your continued support means the world to me, even though I may have lost my review score (a lot of the reviews are just bots so it doesn’t matter anyway, I can’t really do anything about them dirty clankers, but it still kinda sucks we lost a review :/), I’m still glad I have folks who love this project as much as I do.
Thank you people of the Unseen, you’re all great, see you all next month!
Have fun with Depths Unseen!