Steam News24 February 20224y ago

Upcoming Release

The game will be out on February 25th. As of right now you will be able to play the first three chapters, atleast a few hours before release. Down below more about the development.

In this update3

Full notes

Full Awakened: Dark Space update

Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.

What changed

1 fix3 additions2 changes0 removals

UI and audio
Fixes
Events
Gameplay

addedDevelopmentI basically started all over kept parts of the already present story but pushed it way further. Visually, sound design and story-telling. I made hundreds of new assets to create a really grungy and dark environment. I cannot even express how much better the game feels.

fixedDevelopmentThen I was arguing for a while whether I release the game in steps as chapters, but I found myself always working on multiple chapters at once, going back and forth to make sure everything is as consistent as possible. This would not have been possible with fixed releases, also it felt like early access doesn't work too well for a horror game, unless it maybe is an online experience and not entirely focusing on story building. And even though it was early access, making significant potential story changes later down the line felt wrong.

addedDevelopmentAbility to add events like this

addedDevelopmentThat is why I just focused on finishing the whole experience making it as good as possible, adding more and more small "things". You basically can find something in almost every corner of the game.

changedWhat to expectAt the same time I went for less is more. Atmosphere is more important than anything. There aren't super complex puzzles that hinder progress they are all quite simple, always supported by either voice over, sound effects or visual effects to lead you into the right direction. I felt like this would make a better experience rather than artificially lengthen the game in places and taking away what it makes interesting, revealing more and more of the world.

changedWhat to expectThat's why the game has almost no User Interface and it doesn't really need any.

Awakened: Dark Space changes

addedI basically started all over kept parts of the already present story but pushed it way further. Visually, sound design and story-telling. I made hundreds of new assets to create a really grungy and dark environment. I cannot even express how much better the game feels.

fixedThen I was arguing for a while whether I release the game in steps as chapters, but I found myself always working on multiple chapters at once, going back and forth to make sure everything is as consistent as possible. This would not have been possible with fixed releases, also it felt like early access doesn't work too well for a horror game, unless it maybe is an online experience and not entirely focusing on story building. And even though it was early access, making significant potential story changes later down the line felt wrong.

addedAbility to add events like this

addedThat is why I just focused on finishing the whole experience making it as good as possible, adding more and more small "things". You basically can find something in almost every corner of the game.

changedAt the same time I went for less is more. Atmosphere is more important than anything. There aren't super complex puzzles that hinder progress they are all quite simple, always supported by either voice over, sound effects or visual effects to lead you into the right direction. I felt like this would make a better experience rather than artificially lengthen the game in places and taking away what it makes interesting, revealing more and more of the world.

The game will be out on February 25th.

As of right now you will be able to play the first three chapters, atleast a few hours before release. Down below more about the development.

I will talk about the development process and why I decided to do it this way and also what the game is going to be like.

Game Idea

On of my first ideas was to make a more like survival experience merged with story but I felt like this wasn't really what I wanted and the truth is, it wasn't really good either. So I went back to the drawing board and back to my initial idea.

Making a horror game that focuses entirely on story and atmosphere. (Inspiration Firewatch but just way darker and set in my own universe)

You may wonder why I didn't do this right from the start. The truth is I felt like I wasn't able to pull it off back then. But I said to myself: "I rather work on something I really want to make no matter how hard it may be." And so I did give it my absolutely all.

Development

I basically started all over kept parts of the already present story but pushed it way further. Visually, sound design and story-telling. I made hundreds of new assets to create a really grungy and dark environment. I cannot even express how much better the game feels.

Small impression

Then I was arguing for a while whether I release the game in steps as chapters, but I found myself always working on multiple chapters at once, going back and forth to make sure everything is as consistent as possible. This would not have been possible with fixed releases, also it felt like early access doesn't work too well for a horror game, unless it maybe is an online experience and not entirely focusing on story building. And even though it was early access, making significant potential story changes later down the line felt wrong.

Ability to add events like this

That is why I just focused on finishing the whole experience making it as good as possible, adding more and more small "things". You basically can find something in almost every corner of the game.

What to expect

The game is divided into chapters slowly unraveling more of the storylines.(There are quite a few) I wanted to give the area Crystal Woods as much depth as possible in terms of an area that actually feels like it has history and is not just there to have "something".

At the same time I went for less is more. Atmosphere is more important than anything. There aren't super complex puzzles that hinder progress they are all quite simple, always supported by either voice over, sound effects or visual effects to lead you into the right direction. I felt like this would make a better experience rather than artificially lengthen the game in places and taking away what it makes interesting, revealing more and more of the world.

Everything is connected in some ways

That's why the game has almost no User Interface and it doesn't really need any.

Examining Objects

And last but not least it is also going to be really scary.

I hope you will be able to enjoy the journey and origin story of the Dark Space universe that I'm working on and hopefully more games in the future.

Cheers, Leon Drace

Source

Steam News / 24 February 2022

Open original post

Changelog.gg summarizes and formats this update. How we read updates.