Greetings from a twisted plane in the further regions of experience! Wow, that last update was quite well received. It’s safe to say it was our most popular post ever.
Full notes
Full ASYLUM update
Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.
What changed
0 fixes1 addition5 changes0 removals
Balance
Compatibility
UI and audio
changedGreetings from a twisted plane in the further regions of experience! Wow, that last update was quite well received. It’s safe to say it was our most popular post ever. There’s no chance we can live up to that… but we can always try! There’s a great deal of stuff I’m going to discuss today, so expect a rather neurotic writeup. But let’s start with the major bit of news this week…
changedWE HAVE A GAME!ASYLUM is now playable from beginning to end, a milestone that understandably makes up very happy (and relieved!). We’re anxious yet afraid to perform a full playthrough — consider we’ve been working on this project for 10 years and how intimidating it will feel to play it for the first time. No matter how we feel, though, that playthrough is happening soon, and I’m thrilled to report the individual portions we played are terrific and up to the standards we set for ourselves. Keep in mind we don’t consider this beta yet, just the implementation of the whole game logic. Some portions still have mockup assets and we’re now swiftly working to replace them with the real deal. I mean, while it would be a decidedly unique experience, we won’t release the game like this:
changedOLD SCHOOL ADVENTURE GAMINGSo, all puzzles are implemented! During this process, we took a bunch of days to revise the entire game design, balance things up a bit, and make sure pacing is tight. For instance, we decided to keep the first third of the game fairly linear, after which it becomes more challenging and hugely non-linear. Reason is that we want to make you feel acquainted with the environment and mechanics before leaving you to your own devices. One thing I learned from Scratches is that people don’t like wandering aimlessly, so we’ll only open up the entire asylum for you once you have a good sense of direction and what to do next.
changedOLD SCHOOL ADVENTURE GAMINGInterestingly, the game is far more puzzle-oriented than we originally anticipated. It was only recently —after taking a step back and looking at the big picture— that we realized the puzzle density is fairly high, without ever being overwhelming. We’re positive fans will love the brain teasers we designed here — a few even feel like throwbacks to classic adventures. I spoke about this a bit last time: ASYLUM combines the design philosophy behind Infocom adventures with modern game design sensibilities. It may be the closest you’ll ever play to a graphical text adventure (without dead ends and sudden deaths, that is). Check out the flowchart sample to give you an idea of how the game branches in later stages, and keep mind this is just one tenth of the whole chart!
changedWHAT NEXT?Besides concluding the game logic, recent areas of work included the dialogue system, inventory, and interface in general. We consider all of these aspects final now, though we expect another wave of feedback from Kickstarter backers. There’s always room for more tweaks, but the “shell” of the game is pretty much done. Keep reading for interesting glimpses of what we did.
addedWHAT NEXT?From now on, we’ll focus on implementing the last critical assets required to reach beta. Beyond that point, the greater volume of work will involve adding further non-essential details (readable stuff, easter eggs, feedback lines, etc), sound
ASYLUM changes
changedGreetings from a twisted plane in the further regions of experience! Wow, that last update was quite well received. It’s safe to say it was our most popular post ever. There’s no chance we can live up to that… but we can always try! There’s a great deal of stuff I’m going to discuss today, so expect a rather neurotic writeup. But let’s start with the major bit of news this week…
changedASYLUM is now playable from beginning to end, a milestone that understandably makes up very happy (and relieved!). We’re anxious yet afraid to perform a full playthrough — consider we’ve been working on this project for 10 years and how intimidating it will feel to play it for the first time. No matter how we feel, though, that playthrough is happening soon, and I’m thrilled to report the individual portions we played are terrific and up to the standards we set for ourselves. Keep in mind we don’t consider this beta yet, just the implementation of the whole game logic. Some portions still have mockup assets and we’re now swiftly working to replace them with the real deal. I mean, while it would be a decidedly unique experience, we won’t release the game like this:
changedSo, all puzzles are implemented! During this process, we took a bunch of days to revise the entire game design, balance things up a bit, and make sure pacing is tight. For instance, we decided to keep the first third of the game fairly linear, after which it becomes more challenging and hugely non-linear. Reason is that we want to make you feel acquainted with the environment and mechanics before leaving you to your own devices. One thing I learned from Scratches is that people don’t like wandering aimlessly, so we’ll only open up the entire asylum for you once you have a good sense of direction and what to do next.
changedInterestingly, the game is far more puzzle-oriented than we originally anticipated. It was only recently —after taking a step back and looking at the big picture— that we realized the puzzle density is fairly high, without ever being overwhelming. We’re positive fans will love the brain teasers we designed here — a few even feel like throwbacks to classic adventures. I spoke about this a bit last time: ASYLUM combines the design philosophy behind Infocom adventures with modern game design sensibilities. It may be the closest you’ll ever play to a graphical text adventure (without dead ends and sudden deaths, that is). Check out the flowchart sample to give you an idea of how the game branches in later stages, and keep mind this is just one tenth of the whole chart!
changedBesides concluding the game logic, recent areas of work included the dialogue system, inventory, and interface in general. We consider all of these aspects final now, though we expect another wave of feedback from Kickstarter backers. There’s always room for more tweaks, but the “shell” of the game is pretty much done. Keep reading for interesting glimpses of what we did.
Greetings from a twisted plane in the further regions of experience! Wow, that last update was quite well received. It’s safe to say it was our most popular post ever. There’s no chance we can live up to that… but we can always try! There’s a great deal of stuff I’m going to discuss today, so expect a rather neurotic writeup. But let’s start with the major bit of news this week…
WE HAVE A GAME!
ASYLUM is now playable from beginning to end, a milestone that understandably makes up very happy (and relieved!). We’re anxious yet afraid to perform a full playthrough — consider we’ve been working on this project for 10 years and how intimidating it will feel to play it for the first time. No matter how we feel, though, that playthrough is happening soon, and I’m thrilled to report the individual portions we played are terrific and up to the standards we set for ourselves. Keep in mind we don’t consider this beta yet, just the implementation of the whole game logic. Some portions still have mockup assets and we’re now swiftly working to replace them with the real deal. I mean, while it would be a decidedly unique experience, we won’t release the game like this:
Haha, imagine your face if we did… and our severed heads in retaliation.
OLD SCHOOL ADVENTURE GAMING
So, all puzzles are implemented! During this process, we took a bunch of days to revise the entire game design, balance things up a bit, and make sure pacing is tight. For instance, we decided to keep the first third of the game fairly linear, after which it becomes more challenging and hugely non-linear. Reason is that we want to make you feel acquainted with the environment and mechanics before leaving you to your own devices. One thing I learned from Scratches is that people don’t like wandering aimlessly, so we’ll only open up the entire asylum for you once you have a good sense of direction and what to do next.
Interestingly, the game is far more puzzle-oriented than we originally anticipated. It was only recently —after taking a step back and looking at the big picture— that we realized the puzzle density is fairly high, without ever being overwhelming. We’re positive fans will love the brain teasers we designed here — a few even feel like throwbacks to classic adventures. I spoke about this a bit last time: ASYLUM combines the design philosophy behind Infocom adventures with modern game design sensibilities. It may be the closest you’ll ever play to a graphical text adventure (without dead ends and sudden deaths, that is). Check out the flowchart sample to give you an idea of how the game branches in later stages, and keep mind this is just one tenth of the whole chart!
WHAT NEXT?
Besides concluding the game logic, recent areas of work included the dialogue system, inventory, and interface in general. We consider all of these aspects final now, though we expect another wave of feedback from Kickstarter backers. There’s always room for more tweaks, but the “shell” of the game is pretty much done. Keep reading for interesting glimpses of what we did.
From now on, we’ll focus on implementing the last critical assets required to reach beta. Beyond that point, the greater volume of work will involve adding further non-essential details (readable stuff, easter eggs, feedback lines, etc), sound
