Dev Log #02: Action - Reaction

Hi everyone,

It's been a long hiatus since March. Development on the game has been slow, sometimes tedious.

As a freelancer, I've been working on developing immersive interactive experiences, which has consumed most of my time these past months. It's often hard to find energy for Solitary Ash after those projects. I'm working in small increments, trying to stay focused on tasks and push the development forward bit by bit.

Over the years, because of my freelance projects and life, Solitary Ash has become more of a passion project than a commercial one. I'm still motivated to continue working on it, not for financial reasons, but because I feel the stories in the game hold a mirror to our present world, the environmental changes we face, and the new dynamics of our society.

HOW IT'S GOING:

Story:

The world of Solitary Ash has grown exponentially and matured over development. Many threads and backstories make more sense now. I still struggle to balance storytelling elements and dialogue without succumbing to the dreaded exposition dump that everyone cringes. There are many interactive story hotspots and landmarks to explore in the game, I'm using environmental storytelling to let the player discover tidbits about this ever-changing world. NPCs can influence their communities, and interactions with the main character might drastically change their lives.

When I started working on this game, I didn't plan a major saga or political feud at its center but sometimes things develop into a different direction. I wanted the Player to uncover the mystery of the world and what happened to it.

I'm using the"amnesia"trope because I think it gives Players the opportunity to put their spin on the main character's story while giving them agency to embody Joltuk. To explore, influence the world and characters around him through moral choices. I also want the world to be"reactive"to the Player and what they decide to act upon, so Joltuk's story will also be shaped in return.

The core idea was (and still is) to be "a fly on the wall" (or rather, on the backpack of the main character) to go on a journey through a devastated world that was fundamentally broken but found a way to survive against all odds. The idea isn't new, and it's been done before by bigger and better teams with more experience. My goal is to take the player on a personal journey and offer an interactive narrative experience as a reward. Narrative exploration adventure. No level ups, no shooting enemies, no improving skills or weapons.

Demo:

Earlier this year, I was working on a playable demo for Solitary Ash. I had previously tested an unreleased vertical slice with an audience - mainly as an incentive for potential investors. But I found myself trapped in a frustrating loop: endlessly polishing based on feedback, trying to make it perfect, never quite reaching a point where I felt ready to release it as a proper Steam demo.

It was demoralizing. I was stuck on a creative plateau, so I decided to pause the demo and take a step back. I needed to refocus my energy on the bigger picture - the complete game experience.

As I mentioned in my previous dev log, Solitary Ash started as a Game Jam project at the end of 2017. To showcase the game's features and style to investors, I needed a proof of concept - so I dove straight into creating that vertical slice. On and off, it took quite a while to finish. Testing took even longer.

I was lucky to be part of both large game dev and narrative communities. The testing process was intense: gathering feedback, iterating on it, testing again, gathering more feedback. It was rough, but I was able to get it to a point where I felt it was "good" and I managed to stay focused because it was a "contained" project I could actually finish. But even though I never properly mapped out the scope of the entire game, my mind kept expanding the world behind the scenes.

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After testing the vertical slice, I tried to secure funding to begin full production. I had several promising conversations with interested investors and publishers - there were glimmers of hope - but ultimately those discussions didn't work out. They all involved taking on a managerial role, building a larger team, working under tight delivery deadlines, and shifting the project's milestones and scope in ways that didn't align with my vision.

As the world and story grew in my head, the structure stretched into several distinct chapters. I love solo development for its freedom: have fun, experiment & test faster, keep things focused, embrace "less is more." Solo dev lets me just make something without layers of approval. But as the game's scope kept growing, I faced a hard reality: I'd needed to cut large chunks of the experience, or reconsider whether this was still a project I could tackle on my own.

Until now, I've never actually prototyped all the chapters to test the flow of the complete game and estimate how long this journey would really take. I'm finally making that plan - building a rough prototype so I can see the full scope of Solitary Ash's future.

Future:

I'm also rethinking how to release Solitary Ash in a way that's sustainable for solo development. Rather than waiting 4-5 years to release everything at once, I'm exploring options that would let Players experience the game sooner while I continue developing. I'll share more concrete details once I've finished the full prototype and have a clearer picture of production timelines. For now, my focus is on getting that first playable build ready to share with the community.

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I'll keep you updated on how things progress. This is a passion project, and I'll continue developing and iterating the prototype. I'll be back with more Solitary Ash news in 2026—and hopefully a playable build.

All the best!