Devlog #10

I come bearing new insights from the Deep. And it tells me... fans will be your downfall!

We finally completed a full team playthrough of the Utilization Facility (the tallow mines)! It wasn’t flawless—still plenty of missing feedback and polish—but progress is starting to feel tangible. The game is designed for four players, but we ran six just to let everyone on the team take a look. It should’ve been easier. It was not. Flynn’s vertical fan blades of death turned us into sliced salami. It’s a coordination challenge: one player reads which fans to stop, another flips the right switch. You’d think with so many people, a few could survive. Nope. Full wipe. So most of the footage you’ll see is from attempt number two.

Despite some obvious missing elements (sound cues, particle effects), morale is high. The proximity chat worked surprisingly well—giving the real feeling of being in a physical space with your crew. The audio distance is a little too short right now, though; step a few feet away and you might as well be shouting across a football field. It’s small things like that we’re learning to catch early. In past projects, we worked in isolation, only merging everything late in development—usually resulting in weeks of fixing disasters. No more. Now we live and die together, salami and all.

Fan blade of death in question ^

NEXT STEPS! Originally, we planned to move straight into the submarine and ocean segments—what most of us are most excited to see. But it’s not time yet. Right now, the game is basically a very pretty walking sim. What’s missing are the anomalies—the real dangers that make both the world and the submarine gameplay come alive. So next up is implementing "The Director" system: a controllable, randomized spawner for anomalies, loot, and objectives. I'll break it down in the next devlog.

Meanwhile, artists are hammering away at three new levels, each thematically different from the mines, and tied to other factions. We should also see properly animating characters soon, both in-world and in first-person view.

One last thing: I’m moving states next week, so updates might slow a little. But I’ll keep them coming as best I can. Thanks again to everyone following along. Below is the full (mostly raw) playthrough of the mines—if you like this kind of behind-the-scenes footage, let us know and we’ll do more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roHHPYX-pJA