What's next

Since the launch of Abject Abyss, I’ve been working hard on my next game.

I’m not quite ready to fully announce what it is yet, but I’ve got a little bit of info I can give.

As a reminder, this is not a sequel. I need a break from Sci-Fi.

Interactable objects to throw around

First big change, Game#2 will have physics!

I specifically didn’t try to do this in Abject Abyss because I knew it’d be too much work for my first game. Now, I feel more confident.

It’s still going to be a pain in the ass, but it adds so much to the tactility of the world. It's tricky to sell an objects weight and material through this kind of interaction, but it’s going quite well so far. This also includes destructible objects, which is even more work!

Swinging Doors

The doors are physics based now too, so you'll need to use the mouse or thumbstick to swing them open and closed. This technique was popularized by Frictional, who's games are obviously a big inspiration for me. It took a while to figure out how to get it working, but I got there in the end. (Good thing I know what a dot-product is now.)

More mechanical depth

I am trying to give the gameplay more depth than Abject Abyss had. It’s still a first person horror adventure, but I want players to have more agency than last time. I'm sure I'll have to cut back on my most ambitious ideas, as I always do, but development is already going a lot smoother than Abject Abyss's early days. I built this one systems first. I didn't make a single art asset until I had the big new features working. Now that they're in, I'm building out some test zones to get the atmosphere and art-style sorted out.

Like I said up top, I’m not ready to properly announce anything yet. I also don’t want to get too much into the lore or setting, but these images might give you some idea of the vibe.

Huge thanks again to all the people who've played Abject Abyss! I literally couldn't have afforded to make this next game without your help.