Red Rain Devlog #1

Hi everyone! I hope you all have been doing well. :)

I first wanted to start by saying thank you for wishlisting Red Rain on Steam! Your support means so much to all of us, and we can’t wait to share this wonderful game with you all!

For those of you who are new here, I’m Haley! I’ve been a writer at Small Loan Studios since 2024, working on titles such as The Ouroboros Express, the upcoming The Tūn-Gāst of Oakshaw, and now Red Rain, where I’ve had the great privilege of serving as the Creative and Narrative Director on the project. Our team is all-volunteer, and we’re primarily made up of entry and junior-level developers (devs) working to hone our craft, get some strong portfolio pieces under our belts, and learn what it’s like to actually make a game. This has been my first time working as a Game Director, and it truly has been one of the most rewarding, challenging, and meaningful experiences I’ve ever had in my life (which is kind of crazy to think about…well, write about, I should say).

So, again. Thank you for being here. We’ve been working so hard on this game since last May (!), and we have a lot of exciting updates to show you:

What’s New:

Demo

We officially have a working demo!!! It currently features the first 20-30 minutes of gameplay and is more or less our “tutorial” section. We’ve been playtesting it internally and workshopping the combat and level design based on player feedback, and we’ve made a lot of really fantastic progress on it these past few weeks!

With that being said (and if you’ve made it this far into reading), we are actually looking for play testers right now. If you’d be interested at all in testing for Red Rain, you can sign up HERE. You’d be expected to play through the demo section and answer some questions, so expected time commitment would be around 1-2 hours.

Narrative Implementation

When Red Rain was first announced on Steam, only some of our cutscenes had been properly implemented (many just had two characters facing each other and saying dialogue). We now have nearly all of our cutscenes blocked out and implemented correctly in-engine. Shoutout to our programming team for getting that done and to our team of writers for creating some wonderful scenes!

Art, Animation, and UI

All of the game’s MVP (minimum viable product) art, animations, and UI are completed and in-engine – we’re just adding little polishing touches here and there. One big change that I want to call out is that the colors are a bit darker and more toned down from when we announced our game. This was a decision our Art director Fiona and I made to have the “look” of the game complement the darker themes and “survivalist” gameplay more. Changing the color palette and updating all of our assets is not an easy task, so a huge thank you to Fiona, Lola, and all of our talented artists who worked so hard to make the game look so good.

Trailer

And, of course, we have a (very short) teaser trailer! Hopefully, this gives you a brief glimpse into the story, setting, and characters of Red Rain! Stay tuned for more trailers, clips, and highlights to come – especially ones that showcase our gameplay!

What We’re Working on:

Balancing! Balancing! Balancing!

As I mentioned earlier, we’ve gotten some really great feedback from our internal testers and are taking that into account as we balance the game. Particularly, we’ve been adjusting our enemies (wolves) to make them a bit easier, and we’ve been adding more forest coverage to hide behind, so players can choose to either fight their way through levels or use stealth to get by (or a combination of both). (Side note: For those of you who aren’t in game dev, balancing is exactly what it sounds like – making the game so that it isn’t too easy or hard – just challenging enough to be fun!). Shoutout to our amazing Design Lead Mica for spearheading this!

New Mechanics

We have two new mechanics that we’re now polishing (well, one of them is not necessarily new, but it is newly implemented!). We have a “crouch” mechanic, so players can press a button to bend down and hide behind objects. We also have a “mudball throw” mechanic, so when the player is standing over a patch of mud, they can pick up the mud and throw it at wolves in order to stun them. Since these functions were just added, we’re currently squashing any bugs that come up with them as well as incorporating them into our overall gameplay flow.

The Final Boss

Who knew that the final boss in our game would also be the final boss in our development pipeline! This level is a beast; it combines stealth, combat, and all of the mechanics that players have learned throughout the game, as well as it has multiple cutscenes and the narrative climax of the story. Putting it all together in a way that’s not only narratively satisfying but also satisfying from a combat perspective has been…challenging, to say the least. But we’re very close to having a “rough draft” of it, and once we have that, it should be smooth sailing from there! Huge shout out to our programmers Ransom and Jess for working so hard on it!

And…I think that’s it (well, most of it – unless you want me to keep writing forever!). If you stayed this long then I truly appreciate you for taking the time to read along and be a part of our community. And I will try to send out updates a bit more frequently, especially as we get closer to launch!

I hope you all have a great week ahead of you! Grateful to have you here. ❤️

With love,

-Haley