Hello wonderful people from the internet!

Welcome to the second entry in our progression blog series! The goal of these blogs is to involve you more closely in our development process and keep you updated on our journey.

This week’s agenda is filled with a number of smaller tasks. That’s because we’re preparing for an important milestone: on June 5th, 2025, we’ll be attending Talk&Play, where we’ll playtest our very first prototype. In the lead-up to that event, our focus is on finalising and polishing the prototype to ensure it’s ready for feedback.

What is the current state of play?

We’re well on our way to finalising the prototype, ensuring that we can test exactly what we need. One of the primary goals is to evaluate how well players handle the rotation mechanic, focusing on key areas such as:

• Are the key bindings intuitive and comfortable?
• Do players struggle to maintain situational awareness?
• Does the rotation cause motion sickness?

We aim to gain much deeper insights than we did during our first round of testing.

Another crucial aspect we’ll be examining is how combat works in relation to the rotation. Are the enemies too strong, too weak, boring or engaging? Do the abilities and auto-attacks feel satisfying, easy to use, and well-integrated into the gameplay? That brings us to one of this week’s major focuses: the auto-attack.

Change of the auto-attack

Through extensive internal testing, we’ve come to the decision to return to a standard auto-attack system. All previously planned „auto-attacks“, such as the Echobolt, will now be reclassified as abilities.

Why the change? Firstly, it didn’t feel right to have no basic or “standard” attack. Relying solely on abilities, even if labeled as auto-attacks, disrupted the flow of combat. Secondly, these attacks were simply too powerful for something that was both free to use and capable of generating resources.

So, this week, we’re focusing on creating a new, simple, but upgradeable auto-attack. It will serve as your core attack and a reliable way to generate resources for triggering your actual abilities. With this melee auto-attack, the player can perform a 360-degree swing to strike and defeat surrounding enemies. Below is an illustration of what it could look like.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this! Do you agree with our decision? Or do you think an auto-attack doesn’t need to be upgradeable at all, or that there should even be multiple auto-attacks? Join the conversation on our Discord in the discussion forum, or stop by our next livestream on June 6th, 2025. We’ll be diving deeper into this topic and would love to get your input. (More details will be shared across all our channels soon.)

Finishing the Prototype

Right now, our whiteboard is packed with ongoing issues and unfinished tasks. Some examples include:

• VFX inconsistencies, such as the rotation ability still triggering an inappropriate effect when landing
• A bug where the player doesn’t properly transition out of the falling state, even when grounded
• The level design still requires the placement of enemies and collectibles
• The environment needs further refinement and polish

In short, there’s still a lot to tackle. But as mentioned earlier, we’re feeling confident that we’ll pull it all together in time for a successful prototype test.

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That wraps up this week’s progression blog! While there’s still plenty to do, we’re making steady progress and are excited to see everything coming together. The upcoming Talk&Play event and our first public prototype test mark a big step forward, and your feedback will be crucial as we continue to refine the experience.

Thanks for following along whether you’re reading the blog, joining the discussion on Discord, or tuning into the livestream on June 6th. Your support means a lot, and we can’t wait to share more with you soon!