Explore Darkness

After another long pause, I've been able to resume development on SenS and the work done for the last few months is now available and playable in this new update.

If everything is still in early state and subject to multiple changes along the development, it is now possible to experience some layers of the exploration gameplay. The game systems currently available allow to explore the Unstable Zone, areas that may change when in shadow, and so open or close the access to others parts. Using the Luces, small ephemeral pick-able sphere of light, you can navigate safely in the Unstable Zone. Enlightening your path and keeping track of your progression to be able to come back, or else you may get lost into the Darkness and eventually disappear...

At the moment, you mainly can discover a few unique safe places hidden inside the Unstable Zone, but if everything goes fine there will be a lot more things to discover in next updates. New places and objects to collect, some making the exploration easier, some others giving player new capacities or giving information about the world and history. Many other game mechanics are planned.

As a solo developer, and with very limited resources, it's complicated to keep on regular updates with significant improvements and new content, but as always, I do my best to make this game come to life. I hope I'll be able to progress enough to publish more updates, more often (it should be easy considering the last update was over a year ago :). There is already new Unique Places waiting to be added into the game, but it also takes time to build an interesting level design to reach those, as well as coding and debugging new features to improve the gameplay up to what I have in mind. That's why I eventually didn't included these others places, I had too much things to fix and to adjust, so it would have taken a few more months for that update to be ready. Apart from that, I would love to improve the visual quality on the level art, effects, sounds and music, but it's also very time consuming and I prioritize the work on the overall game experience, living the game art in unfinished state for now.

Note that the game systems currently available and the ones to come are still in prototype stage, that means they may not always work correctly and some bugs can be expected. That also means on some aspect I didn't code them the way they should be, I sometimes fake the intended behavior, in order to test them, to make adjustments them and to have a better overview of the asset and features required in order to later be able to properly develop these systems as they should be.

Here a list of know issues in this build:

-the level streaming method may cause some stutters and micro freezes.

-Luce "nest" (spawners) are placeholders.

-Light detection in the Unstable Zones is only done based on the light radius, for now it doesn't take account of occluding geometries so the player and places in darkness may be considered as enlightened.

-Luce thumbnails in the inventory are currently bugged, they don't reflect the actual level of energy remaining.

-The game don't yet save progress, it would be irrelevant at this stage considering the amount of playable time and the fact that game systems will evolve a lot. But as long as you don't come back to the main menu and you don't exit the game, your progress are kept so you can reach the end of the "demo" even when you die.

I'm curious about your experience, whether you enjoy or not the new elements in the game, don't hesitate to give some feedback and ask questions on Steam forum and on Discord. It really helps a lot !

Thank you very much for playing and supporting the development ! You can help even more by talking about it, sharing news, or offering the game as present to your friends.

Here the progress log since preview build v0.008 : 2026-01-12

-Hotfix for the Update 0.008.

-Blocked remaining access to unwanted areas in LoneLuminousBuilding.

-Added Tuto texts for the use and interact controls.

-Disabled the possibility to jump while already in air.

2026-01-11

-More bug fixing and play testing for the build.

-Update 0.008 is live on steam!

2026-01-10 -Nightmare build phase...

-Fixed many issues and finally made the build !

2026-01-09

-End "Teasing" and "mission" setup. -Visual adjustments. -Falling damage and stamina adjustments.

2026-01-07

-Integration of UZ tuto levels in main with level streaming settup + Many adjustments on EnviroTriggers and PP Volumes to work fine with updated sytems...

-Adjusted the Enviro System to remove PPvolumes as they were not blending correctly. -Added in UZ triggers and Place Elements a PP volume system.

2026-01-06

-work on UZ tuto provisary ending zone.

2026-01-05 -Work on "HolesInFacades" and integration in UZ tuto zone.

-Added "idle" sound to Luce's Light Print.

2026-01-04 -Work on "HolesInFacades". 2026-01-02 -Created "HolesInFacades" unique place.

2025-12-31

-Luce inventory thumbnail and several images to see charge amout in inventory but it's bugged...

2025-12-30

-Fixed: possessed objects are now destroyed when player dies.

-Created "Facade interior" places.

2025-12-29

-Updated LD adding traps.

2025-12-28

-Player damage system and FX.

-Player Falling damage.

-Kill Player Proxymity Trigger.

-IntangibleBlock BP and material.

2025-12-22

-Fixed issue when in inventory player was dragging Luce that was dying.

-Level art on the hub after Luce tuto2.

2025-12-21

-Fixed inventory swapping item issues. -Fixed Luce detection issues with UZ/PEL when manipulated in inventory and hands.

-Adjustment on Luce shader to better reflect remaining energy.

2025-12-19

-New place: Lone Luminous Building.

2025-12-18

-Created some buildings prefabs.

-Fixed some bugs...........

2025-12

-LD: Started levels Tuto Luce and UZ + integration in the main game.

-Improving/fixing Places Elements and Place Structures...

-UZ triggers.

-Provisary "Death" system and FX, provisary bed Check point.

2025-11

-Improving/fixing Places Elements and Place Structures, Luce and Luce Nest.

-PEL kits proto and ShfS1

2025-09

-Work on Organic Windows Wall

-Instance Mesh Attractors and spawners

2025-08

-New place: Organic Windows Wall

2025-07

-New place: Confined Arches Nexus

2025-06

-New place: Organic Arches

2024-11-05

-Place elements, Place Element Structures WIP

2024-10-20

-Work on organic archi

2024-09-11

-Luce sounds and Luce Light Print

2024-09-09

-Luce particle effects for various actions and states

2024-09-03

-Disabled hardware ray tracing features for performance issues and to avoid volumetric shadow bug and shadow artifacts

-Corrected settings selectors for AA mode and quality

2024-08-19

-Added sound volumes with reverb settings in The Beginning area.

-Fixed texture resolution issues caused by virtual texture (which is disabled for now)

2024-08-18

-Merged The Beginning and its extention

-Splitted the whole into sublevels

-Environement system and triggers settup in The Begining

2024-08-17

• Created "Environment Proxy Trigger" for ingame interactions with Environment System

2024-08-16

-Created "Environment System" for easy in editor and runtime manipulation of Fog, SkyLight and Directional Light

2024-08-14

-Created "Generic proximity trigger" with in/out fire event, cooldown, max trigger limit, overlaping type of actor filters

2024-08-13

-"The beginning" extended completed

2024-08-11 -Added Provisory player foot steps sounds

2024-08-08

-Progress on the "beginning" extention

2024-08-01

-Improved and optimized "Spline mesh BP" with HISM and Transform variation along the spline