Devlog 3

The new demo is now live.

Which means players can finally experience the game.

It also means they can now discover bugs with a level of efficiency I can only describe as supernatural.

The first few days after release have mostly consisted of me saying:

"How did that even happen?"

followed shortly by:

"Oh. That's how."

Packaging Is Not The Same Game

One of the stranger lessons from development is that a game can work perfectly inside Unreal Engine...

...and then develop entirely new personality traits once packaged.

Controller issues appeared.

Random freezes appeared.

Things that had worked for weeks suddenly looked at me and said:

"No."

Fortunately most of the problems have been tracked down and fixed.

The downside is that every fix creates a brief period where I stare at the screen waiting for a completely different system to break.

This is apparently called game development.

The Demo Is Finally Real

For a long time Primus Numen existed mostly as systems.

Pathfinding.

Combat calculations.

AI decision making.

Grid logic.

Numbers.

Thousands and thousands of numbers.

The demo finally feels like an actual game.

You recruit a Minotaur.

You fight Medusa.

You summon the Nexus Beast.

You win.

Or more accurately:

You survive the consequences of your decisions long enough to reach the victory screen.

Which feels close enough.

The Nexus Beast Is Still Weird

One of my favourite parts of the game remains the Nexus Beast.

Six heroes combine together to create a giant creature that changes based on the classes that formed it.

Every time I work on this system I become slightly less certain it was a sensible idea.

Which is usually a sign that it's worth keeping.

The transformation now feels much closer to what I originally imagined.

Bigger.

Louder.

More dramatic.

More likely to make players wonder what else is hiding later in the game.

Bug Of The Week 🏆

This week's winner goes to:

"Controller support works perfectly... but only if Steam knows about the game."

The controller itself was fine.

The game was fine.

Steam was fine.

The combination of all three was apparently a delicate diplomatic agreement.

Thankfully resolved.

Mostly.

Probably.

What Comes Next

Fix the remaining demo bugs

Improve controller support

Continue polishing the battle flow

Add more rewards and progression systems

Start building toward Early Access content

And most importantly:

Try very hard not to discover any new catastrophic bugs five minutes before uploading another build.

Again.

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded, tested, wishlisted, reported bugs, or simply followed the project.

Every bit of feedback helps.

Even the bug reports that make me question reality.

More soon.