Update log
Full The Wilds of Dacrima: Field Notes from a Poorly Supervised Alchemist and his Unruly Clockwork Companion update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Repeated intro
Greetings Alchemists!!
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- UI and audio
- Balance
There has been a lot of rumblings and movement in Dacrima this month.
New creatures have made certain biomes their home, we are due an influx of potential explorers testing the waters and the final zone has miraculously materialised.
ALPHA ACT 1 PLAYTEST As many of you may have already seen on our Discord or Steam announcements, We are running a limited playtest, open to all, between the dates of July 10th-15th.
There has been a lot of development within Project Grove since we released the Prologue such as:
Upgrade to Unreal Engine 5
Movement mechanics
UI/UX improvements
New wildlife
Changes to potions
Graphical enhancements
As well as much more, the playtest will allow players to explore and roam Act 1 of our Alpha build and provide useful feedback on our development in the future.
If you would like the opportunity to take part in this playtest, sign up using the link below
Applications for the Alpha Act 1 Playtest are now closed. To be the first to hear about future playtest events, join our Discord with the links below.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE There are many new creatures flying, crawling, bounding and glowing in Dacrima in the most recent build.
Here are a few to feast your eyes on:
Sky whale
Manta ray
Puffing squirrels
Glowing deers
Cockney spiders
Jellyfish
Platypus
We’ve really enjoyed seeing this part of our game come to life, having animals roaming across Dacrima gives another layer to the game and seeing how some interact with different potions is COOL.
MASTER OF PUPPETS For this quarter we’ve been working on finalising potions relating to the Airius ingredient.
This entailed improving the Cloud potion, as we realised the UX wasn’t fun for many players (who found it quiet nauseous ! We’ve also built out the Puppet potion, which allows you to inhabit different Flora, Fauna and even L-P1N!
There’s a mixture of different use cases for this potion and we’re trying to ensure there’s a level of balance - for example, you can inhabit the puffer squirrel, however you can’t fly indefinitely with it and you must float up via geysers.
We’re really chuffed with how this potion is coming along and it’s moment for us where the ‘exploration’ side of Project Grove feels really rewarding and fun.
NO PLACE LIKE BIOME We’ve got the final zone (AKA level) of the game in sight.
We had concepted this out last year, but when it came to blocking out the level earlier this year it felt a bit.. flat.
We didn’t have a great sense of ‘wow’ and this part of the game deserves a dramatic setting for a myriad of reasons. So we got down to concepting it out, figuring out what felt grandiose and what had a distinct aesthetic compared to the other zones of the game.
Once we agreed on the direction, Tom set about blocking out the zone and we’re incredibly happy with it so far. There’s still some technical hurdles to tackle with a zone like this, but we’re really please with what’s been achieved since we re-concepted it!
THATS ALL FOLKS We wanted to thank you all your love, support and for welcoming Jordan into the herd with open arms.
He has a task on
Source