Hello wonderful people from the internet!
Welcome to the twelfth chapter of our development journey!
With each week, Enu is growing into something more tangible, and we’re excited to share how the pieces are coming together. From fresh challenges to new breakthroughs, this chapter is all about the steady steps that keep moving the project forward.
We skipped last week’s Progress Blog since we were busy at Devcom and Gamescom, unsure how much progress we’d actually manage to make. But surprise, surprise, quite a lot! Thanks to a focused power weekend on Friday and Saturday, we made significant strides. We’re still right on track and now heading into the final phase as we prepare to showcase our prototype at the upcoming exhibition SRH Werkschau on September 20th.
What is the current state of play?
In Game Design, we’ve now completed the tutorial level in greybox form. We tried a fresh approach here. The usage of the rotation has been slowed down a bit, but not to the point of feeling passive or guided. As a result, the individual realms play much more like classic platforming levels, with rotation being used more selectively and purposefully, whether to solve puzzles or make backtracking more engaging. We also found a simple solution to stop players from rotating unnecessarily. You can now only remain in freefall for a limited time (essentially like “airborne fall damage”). This allows us to create a very open world while still maintaining guided passages where needed.
We’ve made tremendous progress in the Art department (also called Jan)???! We started creating environmental assets for each realm. While these are still in the concept stage, they already give a strong sense of how the worlds will look and feel. You can describe a lot with words, but in art it’s often easier to simply show, so here are the latest images of the realms, now featuring the new assets:
We’ve also made strong progress in the Programming department! Rune and gear upgrading, as well as interactions with the RuneWeaver (the NPC where upgrades take place), have been further refined. On top of that, the inventory system is now in place, allowing players to assign runes to gear and equip their items.
Game Design
This week, our focus is on bringing the tutorial level to life. The greybox layout will be populated with enemies, traps, and collectibles like Aethersilk (the currency for upgrading runes and gears). We’ll also fine-tune stats for the player, enemies, weapons, and runes to make sure the gameplay feels balanced and engaging.
Art
Here, the level will be decorated with the newly created assets and polished into a more aesthetic state. Additional custom assets may also be developed to give the world more depth and a livelier atmosphere.
Programming
Here, we’ll begin implementing the logic for the runes, which can now be equipped and upgraded. Some are already in place for testing, but now we’ll add the full set needed for the build. At the same time, we’ll keep refining the enemy, as its physics and orientation are still giving us some challenges.
That’s it for this week’s update! The road ahead is still packed with challenges, but seeing Enu take shape week by week is incredibly motivating. We’re grateful to have you with us on this journey. Your support, feedback, and excitement keep us going. Stay tuned, because the most exciting parts are just around the corner!
