Steam News26 October 20258mo ago

Dev Log 1

Greetings travelers! Dustin here, I am the designer on Vintergard. This is the first Dev Log for Vintergard. Lets start with some background. I am a solo game developer working part time.

Full notes

Full Vintergard update

Read the full published notes in a cleaner layout. The original post stays linked below.

Repeated intro

Greetings travelers! Dustin here, I am the designer on Vintergard. This is the first Dev Log for Vintergard. Lets start with some background. I am a solo game developer working part time. Vintergard will be my first commercial game release. I have no formal game development training outside of some video tutorials and game design books. So I am learning as I go. So far I have made a few simple games which I have posted on Itch.io. I am very passionate about games and game development and hope to transition to doing this full time in the near future.

What changed

1 fix1 addition1 change0 removals

Events
Gameplay

changedI first started prototyping Vintergard in 2018 under the working title Castlegate (The game is heavily inspired by the original Shadowgate). I initially envisioned Vintergard as a 2D game. This created a challenge as I wanted to use a hand painted art style for the game. I did not realize at the time how expensive this would be to do. I even went so far as to create an entire alpha demo of the game using placeholder art. The demo somewhat represents the opening 30 min - 1 hour of the game and is still up on Itch.io at the time of this writing (In case you want to check it out). The development was blocked for several years while I tried to figure out how to fund the art production. I am a designer and coder but not an artist. At some point I came to the reality that the only viable way to ship the game was to use pre-made 3D assets. When I looked into it, I realized that there were a lot of high quality assets available for affordable prices. After prototyping the first scene, I knew it was possible to realize my vision and I now had a path forward to ship the game.

addedI then set out towards the first major milestone which is to re-create the demo I had already made. This time using 3D assets, and to a much higher level of polish worthy of a Steam release. Even though the game will function mostly the same as the 2D build gameplay wise, 3D development creates new opportunities and challenges. For example, I can now move and pan the camera through the environment, but all of my experience in the Unity editor to this point has been making 2D games, so it's been quite an adjustment as I learn the 3D side of the engine.

fixedWith that background info out of the way, I wanted to share an update on how the production is going. I just completed all of the major tasks for the castle exterior! This is by far the largest scene in the game and sort of acts as the "hub world" which connects the various structures together as well as gating progression. In order to make it navigable, I had to implement a new movement system which allows the player to move between predetermined points and turn in different directions. Normally in other locations the camera is fixed, and moving through a doorway simply loads a new scene. See the GIFs below to see this in action:

I first started prototyping Vintergard in 2018 under the working title Castlegate (The game is heavily inspired by the original Shadowgate). I initially envisioned Vintergard as a 2D game. This created a challenge as I wanted to use a hand painted art style for the game. I did not realize at the time how expensive this would be to do. I even went so far as to create an entire alpha demo of the game using placeholder art. The demo somewhat represents the opening 30 min - 1 hour of the game and is still up on Itch.io at the time of this writing (In case you want to check it out). The development was blocked for several years while I tried to figure out how to fund the art production. I am a designer and coder but not an artist. At some point I came to the reality that the only viable way to ship the game was to use pre-made 3D assets. When I looked into it, I realized that there were a lot of high quality assets available for affordable prices. After prototyping the first scene, I knew it was possible to realize my vision and I now had a path forward to ship the game.

I then set out towards the first major milestone which is to re-create the demo I had already made. This time using 3D assets, and to a much higher level of polish worthy of a Steam release. Even though the game will function mostly the same as the 2D build gameplay wise, 3D development creates new opportunities and challenges. For example, I can now move and pan the camera through the environment, but all of my experience in the Unity editor to this point has been making 2D games, so it's been quite an adjustment as I learn the 3D side of the engine.

With that background info out of the way, I wanted to share an update on how the production is going. I just completed all of the major tasks for the castle exterior! This is by far the largest scene in the game and sort of acts as the "hub world" which connects the various structures together as well as gating progression. In order to make it navigable, I had to implement a new movement system which allows the player to move between predetermined points and turn in different directions. Normally in other locations the camera is fixed, and moving through a doorway simply loads a new scene. See the GIFs below to see this in action:

That's all I have to share for now. Until next time!

Cheers,

Dustin

Source

Steam News / 26 October 2025

Open original post

Changelog.gg summarizes and formats this update. How we read updates.