Working on the new demo for A Storied Life: Tabitha - Dev Log #3

A New Room

Firstly, we’ve added an extra room – The Master Bedroom. This room gives you more of an insight into Tabitha later in life compared to the other two rooms, and it was one of the earliest rooms we designed. Steam post image A New Mode

We’ve added Relaxed Mode. We felt this was an important optional mode to implement to appeal to those players who may want to focus more on the story aspect than the extra challenge presented by having to consider the weight of packed items. Relaxed Mode removes the weight restrictions on all items and gives you unlimited packing supplies, which you can toggle on or off individually in the accessibility settings for a more tailored gameplay experience.

Additional Languages and Accessibility Features

You’ll find more accessibility features in the game settings including UI scaling, dyslexia friendly fonts, and item highlight, allowing you to identify interactable items more easily for those who need it. We’ve also localised the demo into additional languages which we’re sure will make a lot of you very happy based on requests from the previous demo. Big shout out to our amazing localisation team because this is not an easy game to localise. Steam post image

Improved Features and Extra Mechanics

We’ve made a few improvements from the last demo based on player feedback (thank you, we really appreciate you!), so you’ll find some extra tutorials offering guidance early in the demo around key features and mechanics.

One thing we were able to implement in this demo is envelopes which allow you fold paper items, not only reducing the weight, for example by removing them from a frame, but also takes up less precious space in your box.

Another highly requested feature was to be able to sell more items at auction. We're pleased to say we have indeed added the ability to buy more boxes, allowing you to sell multiple items and giving you the chance to not only rehome some of Tabitha’s valuables, but also earn yourself some extra spending money towards a nice holiday at the end of it all.

You’ll also come across small keys in some rooms. This was something that we added to encourage exploration, discovery, and moments of joy within the rooms as players unlock cupboards and drawers.

Collectibles and Achievements coming soon

There’s also the Collectibles system which isn’t fully implemented yet, but the demo gives you a sneak peek at what you can expect. For those completionists and achievement hunters out there, you’ll have hundreds of items and associated words to find, 11 characters and relationships to discover and 13 secrets to uncover. We can’t wait for you to seek them all out in the full game when it releases later this year.

Steam post image We’re really looking forward to people playing the new demo and seeing what you think of it, but that’s not all. We’ll have some more exciting announcements coming very soon so make sure you Wishlist the game to stay updated.

In the media

Also, A Storied Life: Tabitha was featured in a great article in Creative Bloq, where our concept artist Lucia and studio director Terry talk in-depth about the process behind the game and show off some early iterations and work in progress. If you’d love a further peek behind the scenes, you can read the article here:

https://www.creativebloq.com/3d/video-game-design/this-indie-game-turns-watercolour-art-into-playable-puzzle-spaces

Join us on Discord

Stay tuned for more updates in the very near future, and if you’re on Discord, come and join us. - The Tabitha Team