From the Forge Volume 2

This two weeks just sped by!

Have you made the most of your year, so far?

We can safely say we have, and as we approach the halfway point of 2026, our entire focus has been on preparations for our second round of playtesting, which we are planning to host in the first half of July. Here’s a peak into what we’ve been building.

A Living, Hostile Ecosystem

As we venture deeper into the development of Rinthine, the Labyrinth has begun to feel less like a series of isolated rooms and more like a living ecosystem. We’ve added a lot of plantlife, atmospheric effects, and as mentioned last week, areas with water features. That said, the life hidden in the maze is also evolving, and now not only can certain mobs chase you from room to room, our tech designers have implemented new mob behavior that now allows them to interact with one-another in various ways (which you’ll just have to see in-game during playtesting, if you register!)

Tools, Trinkets, and Tactics

Surviving the depths requires more than just brute force, though - you’ve gotta be careful and plan. We’ve implemented a robust new equipment system, allowing you to customize your playstyle. We’ve added items that offer movement modifiers, crop freshness preservation, lighting, and defensive traits. How you prepare will dictate how long you survive, and fishing, for example, allows you to find food in the rooms that have fishy inhabitants, but mechanics have been overworked, complete with varying difficulties and rarities, so swinging tools nearby or approaching too aggressively will send fish darting away, so you have to be careful doing this, too!

Steam post image

Cultivating the Dark

For those looking to put down roots, agriculture within the Labyrinth has seen significant updates. Persimmons and garlic can now be cultivated, and if you keep your trees properly watered, they will yield infinite harvests. Neglect them, however, and dehydrated crops will wither, leaving behind only remnants like fibers or logs. We've also finalized the models and mechanics for pickling jars - allowing you to preserve your hard-earned food. We’ve also made some changes to our mysterious Chronolith, meaning more and more, we’re allowing players to bend the environment of the Labyrinth - and maybe even time itself - to their will.

And there is plenty of it to explore: we've added over 18 new room variations, including mysterious [REDACTED] rooms, and procedurally generated [REDACTED] rooms!

For all of these changes, a lot of work goes into things that the player will never see - and things the player won't even be remotely affected by, but helps the team push out content more quickly and smoothly.

One of our talented tech designers explained how some of that looked this sprint:

Internal Tools:

Players will never see these directly, but we've put some effort into improving our editor workflow. For example, every item in our game is represented by an ID that looks like a phone number. Our designers have worked with them for so long that they’ve actually started memorizing which item corresponds to which number! To fix this, I made a simple tool that converts those numbers into actual item names. It has massively improved clarity and prevented mistakes. It honestly reminded me of this scene from 'The Matrix'.

The "Simple" Mechanics:

A mundane feature or item can take days to design and implement. Take the bedroll, for example. Aside from the concept art, 3D models, sounds, VFX, and UI systems already built for it, a designer still has to answer a ton of fun edge case questions:

1. Does the player intuitively know what a bedroll does just by looking at it?

2. Is the player invincible while sleeping?

3. Can the player sleep during the day? How long can they sleep? Is it a fixed duration, or just until the next day?

4. Can two players sleep on the same bed? Can one player sleep while the other stays awake? What happens if they try to respawn at the exact same time?

5. Can a player sleep when they are hungry? If so, do they still take starvation damage while asleep?

6. Can a player sleep when there are enemies nearby? What if the enemies are close but haven't aggro'd or spotted the player yet?

These are all questions a game designer must ask as they build even the simplest of features, and if that kind of thing interests you, you should totally check out this fun article on game design problems: The Door Problem of Game Design. It's excellent for anyone interested in game design, and especially for those wondering what different jobs exist within games. Spoiler: there are a lot of jobs to do when making a game. One of those, is telling folks about our game!

Going Global

Finally, while we build the digital world, we are also preparing to bring Rinthine into the real one once again, this time going to Europe and Asia! We've been busy finalizing everything from enamel pins and merch, crafting map-marker sticker sheets and brochures, and gathering our gear for upcoming conventions. We mentioned you can meet us at Gamescom in Germany but we're also thrilled to announce we will be at Tokyo Game Show (TGS) in Chiba, Japan! We can’t wait to meet and make international fans,and your engagement, support, and patience continue to fuel this project. Every piece of code written, every animation smoothed, and every room generated is to ensure that when you finally step into the dark, it will be an adventure worth having. If you want to be a part of helping define that experience for future Wayfinders, please hop in Discord and register for playtesting! See you in the Labyrinth. — The Rinthine Team