Development progress

The final game will consist of 3.5 areas(with Outpost from the demo being one of them) and I’m happy to announce that 2.75 of them are READY!

Depths

After publishing the demo I started making the part of the game I was excited for the most - The Depths. It is a dark abandoned part of the outpost that you would reach through the door that ends the demo.

Horror games are supposed to be dark, right? And have rusty stuff in them. I’m so good at this.

Depths are originally eerily still and dark, so dark in fact that you’ll receive an improved flashlight to use in the dark areas.

However, the depths will not stay dormant forever. You’ll have to bring this space to life to uncover its deepest secrets(and progress through the game). Its machinery will, undoubtebly, make your life harder but it is the only way to open the paths you need.

See that thing in the upper-left corner? You are going to hate them.

This area will have the most important reveals in the story and (hopefully) some strong narrative moments. It is, after all, my first time writing a complete story, but I am trying my best to make it meaningful and interesting to follow. Generally, I found a lot of respect for the horror genre throughout the development, mostly because of how much potential there is to tell a good story.

Outside

I don’t want to say directly where that is, even though it may be painfully easy to guess. But you’ll spend more time outside near the end of the game and that’s the area i was working on for the past week. It’s not long, somewhat of a corridor actually, so that’s why I count it as 0.25 of an area in my count of 3.5 total. But is is very atmospheric!

I even added a few features to the outside segments to improve immersion, those being footprints in the snow and vapor from the character’s breath. I really want you to experience the natural outside segments as something distinct from the claustrophobic man-made confines of the outpost.

Monster

I worked on the Monster a lot since the demo, but that work has mostly been fixing the bugs and edge cases in its logic. Mostly! It also learned a new move that will unlock later in the game. Watch where you walk! (Though I suppose the same goes for buckets. If you are afraid of buckets by the end of the game, I accomplished my goal as a game designer)

Conclusion

It’s surreal to say, but I’m nearing the end of the development. The game will be done pretty soon! I really hope it lives up to your(and my) expectations. The development has been going really smooth for what, 9 months already? I guess it shows that I’ve been doing this for 8 years. It is kind of crazy that it’s my first commercial game but hey, better late than never.

Oh man, I really have been making this thing for 9 months already, I really have to go wrap it up.