No, its not April Fools. Its Halloween, and tradition dictates horror related stuff is announced today (in addition to pagan rituals and avoiding masked killers). So we got an announcement for you alright. An important one: fate has decided that ASYLUM will launch on March 6, 2025. Yup, mark your calendars, this is not a drill. We're finishing this game for once and for all. And look at that, theres even a gorgeous new trailer to celebrate the news: [previewyoutube=xaqcGH7t4wI;full][/previewyoutube] Of all the promotional materials we've ever released, I feel this is the most realized one, conveying the tones of impending doom and bittersweet melancholy youll find in the game. One big note, folks: we updated our store page and intentionally set the release language to English only, to avoid false expectations of available languages at launch. Of course were still planning to translate the game to as many languages as possible. We dont know exactly which ones will be ready for next March, but as they get confirmed, well re-add them. And thats it for today. Look at that, so very few words this time. Ill let the video do the talking. Hope you enjoy it, and see you soon. Now watch WATCH
Hello. Happy Friday. This is a new ASYLUM update. BUT! Contrary to the past few ones, this joyous new collection of words is meant to hype you. Yes, you wonderful people -- we're very appreciative of the strong reception to our previous write-up, and we're going to increase the rate of communication as the release date draws closer. So here's what you can expect in this mlange of tidbits: - Fewer words than usual (I'll try). - Eye candy and mood. Lots. - Some cool technical wizardry. - Next steps and tentative timeline of major events. Read on for the goods!
The good things always happen with the rain
One of my favorite quotes in a movie, it's from John Frankenheimer's Seconds. A poetic line by itself, but has a special meaning in the context of the film. In our context, though, it would be more like the horrific things always happen with the rain. Anyway, a critical goal in ASYLUM is to ensure the environments feel engrossing, you know, as in the moooood and the feels absorb you. Scratches had a good dose of ambiance, yet everything felt somewhat static and lifeless (in a way, it kinda fit with the style of the game). But, we've always aimed for a big boost with its successor -- ensuring the passage of time is well represented during the night you spend in the Hanwell institute, with as much detail and movement as we can. Different stages of weather are an excellent way to establish a notion of urgency and dread. For example, rain: [previewyoutube=0P6OxxuXPvs;full][/previewyoutube] Really dense rain, gloomy clouds, distant lightning, raindrops hitting surfaces, both inside and outside, all combined with a cared-for sound design. Remember, this is pre-rendered graphics -- there's arcane knowledge applied here to put those splashes of raindrops on top of the car. Speaking of sound, we finally have a full-time, dedicated sound designer (Nico Franza, who worked on some of the spookiest scenes from Silent Hill: Ascension) enhancing all the gloomy places you'll visit. This was a big note from beta-testers, that audio ambience overall needed an extra kick. Well, people shall be happy: [previewyoutube=rXIRTchr9JM;full][/previewyoutube] Moving on, I mentioned characters are being polished as much as we can, and testers also mentioned inconsistencies, such as Lenny missing while you open the door and move from one room to another. Again, this isn't regular 3D in which you seamlessly move between real-time geometry, you must render separate videos with and without Lenny. It's a crazy amount of work but we're doing this out of sheer love.
And before I close this section, here's some more footage with visual effects being worked on, such as flying leaves and puffs of dust as dusk falls, or heat haze near a menacing boiler. We know fans of Scratches like boilers very much, so we must get them right. [previewyoutube=STv67-MQkzQ;full][/previewyoutube] Oh, yeah... and FIREFLIES!
What kind of sorcery is this
This is my favorite recent development, because it's a feature we briefly explored but left behind. With an old-school style and pre-rendered adventure, there's so much movement and sense of depth you can have... unless you have a stellar team with great ideas and skill. The theory worked, but we never got around to establishing a pipeline that would allow us to scale this visual treatment across many environments. It's pretty wild. Let me first show you this old video how it's meant to work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF0uAUgyHNg You see what happened there? It's four flat images projected on the sides of a cube. But then I put a light inside the cube, move it around, and the flat geo projects... shadows? How on Earth? Well, as they used to say, learning algebra is important. And I finally found a good use for it! Look, it's like this:
That's the diffuse map (the very same texture you see in the game, as part of the cube) and a normal map. You're likely familiar with normals -- they're additional information for diffuses, so that a game engine like Unreal knows how light is meant to propagate across the texture. That's what they call Physically Based Rendering or PBR. Normals are used to bring an extra dimension to a flat texture without adding costly additional geo, such as cavities, cracks, holes in a piece of fabric, and a looong etc. Well, in this case, we're using the normals to tell Unreal how the light should propagate across the "fake" room. There's more than just applying the normals, they have to be rotated in a certain way to avoid artifacts and some obscure magick that goes over my head. The result is that we can do stuff like this -- pay attention to how parts of the room react to blinking light, as if they were distinct surfaces: [previewyoutube=6T0nd8NBRFc;full][/previewyoutube] It's a darn clever implementation, if I may say so. Credit for the original idea goes to Fran Tufro, and then Pablo Forsolloza for the 3ds Max scripts. I worked on the Unreal shader, then more recently Dani Herrera and Toms Fernandez established the pipeline. Great job, guys We exaggerated the effect for the Infirmary, a larger area with plenty of stuff that serves as a good example of how this works. Take a look at the jars, different parts of the walls, beds... there's *depth* where there's not supposed to be: [previewyoutube=ZWVweCw5xEc;full][/previewyoutube] I don't believe any game has done this kind of lighting before. As a bonus, that video features a new music track from Pablo Cordes. The soundtrack is now clocking at 50 minutes, and it's quite reminiscent of Scratches and John Carpenter. I'm deeply in love with it.
Closing words
Holy crap, I said fewer words, but I can never help it. OK, so here's the summary: I'm thrilled with the overall status of the game, and the team feels the same. The past few months have resulted in a huge lot of progress and stuff that we consider final. Seal of approval and ready to go. But there's still work left to do. Early October we'll share another build to beta-testers with most feedback addressed. The big pending before submitting that multiplatform build (Win, Mac and Linux) is me -- I need to review the script, prioritizing dialogue lines so that actors can start recording. We're definitely close. Mood-wise, it's pretty much there. ASYLUM is stubbornly anachronic, but plays well, like any modern game. The best way I can describe it is that lets you feel what it was like to play an Infocom text adventure, without dated design annoyances such as dead-ends or sudden deaths and in glorious (pseudo) 3D. All while harkening back to a particular era of the adventure genre in which experimentation and ingenuity were common, as 2D was transitioning to 3D. It's a heartfelt love letter to the genre.
It still needs the cherry on top, which is the well-executed story, and that's entirely on me. There's still some of that glue missing in key moments, and I can't tell right now how long that will take. But, our goal is to release a new teaser or maybe even a full-blown trailer by Halloween, also update our Steam page, and settle on a launch date by then. I have my producer Fafa Cabrera breathing down my neck to make that happen. So there, that's solid news. And no, we're not going to show up in Halloween announcing a launch date in 2274. I'm talking about a handful of months at most. In more conclusive news, we're going to have a new game jam during October! And I think it's going to be fantastic. Previous instalments yielded excellent games, even very well-reviewed commercial ones such as Partum Artifex, so we're hyped. Keep an eye on our Discord community if you want to participate. OK, hope you liked the update. Time to eat pizza and watch an obscure horror movie. See you soon! Agustn
Salutations from malodorous, fungus-laden crevices of the abhorrent Hanwell Mental Institute. I have combined these assorted words to convey some degree of meaning and bring you a report of recent occurrences. There's been an influx of anxious inquiries since we announced that beta-testing of ASYLUM had commenced with fresh new eyeballs and bodily appendages. And yes, there be news. Here's the quick lowdown:
- People are truly liking it so far! They highlighted its atmosphere, what it feels like to explore the vast and intricate design of the decaying building, and the compelling story.
- No major issues were reported, other than technical annoyances to be expected during this period. The build we distributed is more stable than anticipated, and most feedback we received pertained to quality of life improvements, which the team is tackling en masse.
- There are design quirks we still need to sort out, notably characters being underused in latter stages of the experience. As in, they have little intervention in plot points and too few dialogue lines. I agree with this balancing issue, and it's wonderful to hear folks cared enough about our asylum denizens that they wanted more from them.
- Before you ask, no, we're not ready to disclose a release date. Yet. So please don't expect one in this update. When we announce it, rest assured you'll know. All I'm going to say right now is that we're very seriously gauging a launch window.
Elaboration
So it's a pretty intense period in which decisions and approvals have that 'final, but really final' feel. The Senscape team is doing an exceptional job, and I couldn't be happier with the progress we're achieving every week. We recently onboarded new team members to apply a nice coat of polish to characters, lighting, animation and cutscenes. These are some of the same folks that worked on the hours of cinematics from Silent Hill: Ascension, and they're bringing plenty of experience in their respective areas. We even have a dedicated producer now who is flooding me with Jiras eeevery single day, but hey, I asked for it. I need to be kept on track too.
You could say we're entering in post-production mode. The gorgeous atmosphere, which testers enjoyed so much, is receiving profound attention in our QA, with scenes being color graded, brightness levels properly adjusted, ambient sounds everywhere, and lots of neat visual effects to boost the mood. Fans of Scratches will be glad to hear that we added masks to every window in the Hanwell building, so that at one point in the game we have rain and lightning outside. We almost scrapped the feature since it was a lot of work remember, ASYLUM is stubbornly old-fashioned and all environments are pre-rendered but it's worth it. I mean, no game can claim to be the true successor to Scratches without a gloomy, rainy night and suitably mysterious music, right?
Another area of focus has been animations, since quite a few of them were wonky and even the character rigs needed a bit of extra love (and don't get me started on the fingers). The cutscenes are more impactful now, and I'm happy to report we're nearly done with them. You might remember from earlier updates that I mentioned these were going to involve a good deal of work, and we're now close to wrapping them up. See, we ARE making progress! Honestly, it's kind of surreal after all this time. Some of the more crucial moments in the story, the ones that were devised years ago, are reaching the place they were meant to be. I look at them with a big grin on my face and think to myself "yeah, this is good for launch". One more note I'd like to add: testers have reported a healthy game length, averaging 10-12 hours. Some spent less, others more. That's in line with our estimations, and there's still some content missing (notably achievements and easter eggs we're keeping secret). Overall, folks reported the game length feels "just right".
It's in the details
We can't thank enough the dedication from the folks who are currently playing the game, and we did listen to their feedback, which ranged from puzzle design to interface. For instance, one area we have been improving in the beta is the diegetic game menu. We've always wanted to treat this familiar aspect in all types of games these days with our own touch of flair, but that doesn't mean it should be impractical. So we addressed save game management while keeping that sort of journal approach, and added a feature to log conversations with NPCs, among other tweaks. It does add to the overall experience since folks sometimes reported missing key information in dialogues. This is a win for customer service. Also, I like how this addictive menu has been dubbed by one of our most dedicated fans as "flippity-flappity pages". You nailed it, yo.
Another one is a 'zoom' feature which is quite neat to use overall, but was in truth implemented with handhelds in mind. All we can confirm for now is instant Steam Deck support at launch. As a BIG fan of the device, where most of my gaming is performed these days, I'm eager to support it properly. It's currently the only way I have to gradually finish games from my Steam collection, and I'd be making tons of progress if it wasn't for Vampire Survivors. Of course, this also means that gamepad support is good to go as well!
As for me, in addition to leaving bucketloads of notes in the endless stream of Jira tickets that torment me every day, my next area of focus will be in-depth script revision. The big pending that I have left is to review every line of text in the game and further develop some documents you find scattered around, as well as key sections in the journal. Backers noted that a few moments in the game needed more nudging and feedback from the protagonist to avoid aimless wandering, which is another valuable note. This is my top priority, and as soon as it's settled we'll be ready to... drum roll... record the voices. Since this question was brought up in our Discord a while ago, adventure game fans will be delighted to hear that Josh Mandel is very much still attached to the project and ready to start working with us. I'm sure a few of you are going to ask, but remember that we're currently testing with a subset of Kickstarter backers (about 300 people have access, but not everyone is playing), so we're pretty much covered with the QA and not accepting new testers at this stage.
We're reaching the end of this update, but I'm going to keep the line open with more frequent signs of life as things keep ramping up. A lot has been said about ASYLUM, and believe me, I understand the frustration (it's been a looong time coming). Yet everyone here is ready to wrap things up and launch a game we along with you will be proud to have been developing/waiting for the past few years. Until next time. Agustn
Hello there! I come from the darkest depths of a dilapidated mental institute bearing news: for the past couple of months, weve been circulating a completable build of ASYLUM to our group of community mods, and its been an extraordinary success. This is was the first time people outside the Senscape team played the game all the way through, with barely any input from us.
Takeaways and general comments are as follows:
- Actual quotes: its an instant classic, the writing is engaging, music is amazing, environments are creepy, love the small nods to Scratches and just like it, Asylum has that beautifully eerie exploration feel, mood and atmosphere is unmatched. Also: This will be the game everyone remember and use as an example of classic exploration horror point & click adventure game. Wow!
- No show-stopping bugs! Yes, of course we received bucketloads of feedback that was the whole idea and we have our own to-do list as well, but the fact that folks without any prior knowledge of the game were able to complete it without handholding nor dead ends is good reason to celebrate.
- Our length estimation is spot on! Our mod team overall spent 12-15 hours on average playing, with only someone doing it faster on purpose. And yet, someone else claims to have spent at least 30-35 hours in the game (!!). Considering that we havent implemented all achievements nor readable documents, it will be up to you how much youll want to squeeze out of ASYLUM. But its an engrossing and lengthy experience, thats for sure.
Oh, and Steam users will be delighted to hear that we have full controller support implemented already, with Steam Deck compatibility coming up, so you can lose your mind on the go.
Next steps
We have more work to do. This first round of fresh feedback we received has been invaluable, but so far it presents a crucial milestone: the biggest worry for me has been the game might be too intricate, obtuse, or difficult to digest. Yet what Im hearing is that, while further tweaks are required, ASYLUM is fun to play, the story is engaging, and keeps your interest until the end. Good exploration is hard to pull off: theres a fine balance between giving the audience plenty of freedom and things to investigate while retaining a sense of direction and goals, to ensure the experience does not become frustrating. And it feels like were on the right track when one of the primary compliments I hear is that the Hanwell Mental Institute is a joy to explore. This is an accomplishment on a personal level, as the ability to explore at leisure has been the #1 thing I enjoy in games since I played Kings Quest for the first time many, many, many years ago.
I wanted to be careful before we claimed beta. Weve said this a number of times in the past: its a large game, and its no secret its been a challenge to develop over the years. But, the preliminary feedback we received from dedicated fans of the genre has alleviated any pending concerns. So, were ready to deliver the final blow. Theres six people actively working on ASYLUM besides myself, and one or two more folks may join the team during January. The big areas of focus will be tightening the storytelling and of course fixing bugs. The plan is to roll out this beta build after a first round of polish to VIP backers (around 100 people) soon to gather more feedback and impressions. As we get closer to launch, we will share another build with the rest of our Kickstarter backers.
In other news
2023 has been quite an exciting year for Senscape. Its hard to believe all that took place! Were about 40 people now remotely working across Latin America as well as a bunch from Spain.
One of the big developments was our involvement in the Virtual Production department for the horror movie When Evil Lurks, from acclaimed Argentinian director Demin Rugna. You might have caught Terrified in Netflix, a great entry in the genre, but When Evil Lurks blows it out of the water. Great story, sublime production and cinematography, and outstanding gore effects that rival the very best from Lucio Fulci. Have a watch if you enjoy horror, and pay attention to a number of interior shots of trucks in the road the environments were designed by us in Unreal Engine to match real life locations. [previewyoutube=O-6Q8EzBJKA;full][/previewyoutube] Last, but not least, our involvement creating cinematic content in the interactive horror series Silent Hill: Ascension from Genvid was disclosed earlier this year. The series demands hours and hours of footage spawning over the course of several months. Its like a community-driven Bandersnatch or TellTale Game (in fact, we get to work with wonderful ex-TellTale folks!). Heres one of my favorite scenes so far Im very pleased with its mood and choreography: https://twitter.com/SHAscension/status/1720148103234572544 The show is currently in the mid-season break and set to resume in early 2024. And thats all, folks. As always, thank you for patience and sticking around. I think this year was only the beginning of a new era for Senscape, and we have a very exciting 2024 awaiting us.
Until next time, and Happy New Year! Agustn
Hello there! We take the dust off this news hub with, well, news. Yes, we are still here and, most importantly, ASYLUM is still very much here as well. And we keep working to ensure it gets there, wherever you are, as soon as humanly possible. You must be anxious to lay your hands on the game just as we are to get it out of our systems. So let me summarize where it's standing today, as I decorate this update with some GIFs and assorted stuffs.
It has been possible to play the complete story from A to Z for a while now, but only recently we began doing proper QA. ASYLUM is in a situation in which we can immediately identify areas that need polish while playing and fix on the spot for example, graphical glitches, a puzzle not working as intended or (*shudders*) unexpected dead ends. Luckily that one is very rare and only happened once by now. While there's still placeholder stuff that needs to be updated, the experience is beginning to feel strong and cohesive.
I've mentioned this many times in the past, and yes, I'm sure I sound like a broken record by now, but ASYLUM is one heck of an intricate game. Its game design and story have remained virtually untouched since development began unfathomable aeons ago, save for a puzzle branch that needed adjustments. While areas such as visual style and UI/UX have received many iterations over the years, the core concept and philosophy never changed.
It took me some time to understand that ASYLUM owes a lot to classic Interactive Fiction: the map design, its highly non-linear nature, characters moving around the environments, passage of time, etc. It all should feel like playing an Infocom adventure of a bygone era, sans the annoying parts that didn't age well, in glorious 3D. And this why new people being able to play the game from beginning to end without relying on hints and without stumbling upon blockers is a huge relief. Thank goodness this thing is working well (for the sake of our sanity).
So in addition to QA, tweaking and balancing, we've been creating cutscenes for the game. Some are occasional transitions, others are story-related, such as flashbacks of past occurrences, or mysterious glimpses of how daily life was in the Hanwell Institute. These are video elements that can take their time to produce and render, but are quick to implement and test. All of this stuff can be spoiler-heavy, so we'll only show a few bits and pieces in blocking form. You know, this is often how entire cinematics are blocked out, and it's even common to work with rough geometry while other assets are being produced!
Finally, another area of big focus at this moment are text revisions: many passages and dialogue lines were quickly drafted for the purposes of programming and testing logic, and there's still a good deal of work we must beautify. In ASYLUM the story comes first, so expectedly we're putting the same amount of care in the script and the words you'll read as in the visuals.
And as we move forward, perhaps we stumble upon a room that feels somewhat empty compared to the others, so we might add an extra hotspot or two to spice up the exploration, maybe dropping a new item for the purposes of set dressing, including but not limited to the kind of creepy toys you'd expect to find in a seemingly abandoned asylum. Imagine yourself entering a surgery room covered in filth and decay with unidentified distant sounds echoing through the winding corridors outside and then this weird doll sitting on a table... yikes.
Well, that's it for this update. I know the pressing question in your minds is "When? When? WHEN?", but we're not ready to disclose a release date yet. There is a plan in action, and a tentative launch window. Next steps involve boosting our community management efforts, relaunching our Senscape website, and bringing you more frequent news. Just stick around, because there's more coming, and we're not going anywhere.
Agustn
Well, hello there! Allow me to dust off this forsaken corner of the internets. Yes, it's been a while since my last mega-update around these parts, so I'm looking forward to give you the full heads up about all the happenings with Senscape. We have a lot of catching up to do!
Just let me say right off the bat that ASYLUM is progressing terrifically, and we're swiftly getting to a point in which we can start testing the game with fresh new eyeballs. That is, we throw disembodied eyeballs at the monitor and see what happens. Very exciting (but messy). There's a chance the owners of those eyeballs might get to play the whole game too! But before we remove their eyeballs, of course, otherwise playtesting might get complicated.
Anyway...
The lowdown
The haunting, twisted, and monolithic asylum you all have been expecting to play has seen advancements all across the board. Now that the game is fully playable, there's a lot of balancing and adjusting that we're doing. The main game logic (or critical path) is being finalized, we added a wealth of documents, notes, clues to flesh out the story, and also the implementation of achievements is underway. This decaying and utterly foul place is being brought to life with a gazillion things to see and do: there's something to discover around every corner, from a curious item that harkens back to past life in the asylum, to historically accurate documentation about early and sinister health practices, to an unexpected flashback as you're playing that brings chills down your spine. Even completing the achievements might feel like playing a separate game! As you may recall, these were designed with context in mind, and discovering them will reveal more of your profile as a patient. Me, I especially like the Scavenger and Melancholic ones
Why, look at that! We're now using Confluence to organize our work. My, are we fancy.
Another big consequence of this balancing act was the polishing and regrading of most environments in the game. The so-called beauty pass, which is resulting in gorgeous new 4K captures that we'll be using to update our store pages soon, some of which you are already seeing all over this update. ASYLUM has never looking this gorgeous and I'm saying this in a truly deviant way.
(btw, there's an Easter egg for fans of Scratches in that image can you find it?)
Something else we're doing right now and I hate not being able to tell you more about this is beginning to implement the last moments of the game. It's both exhilarating and scary to finally be at this stage after all this time. Playing through the entirety of ASYLUM, and experiencing what was designed ages ago, has provided us with a new perspective on what the game was always meant to be. I mean, of course we knew what we were trying to accomplish all this time, but let's say that we are now... connecting the few remaining dots somehow. Every detail in the game has a purpose, and even seemingly random details that we included during early stages of the project have now gained a revelatory new meaning
I really love how the game unfolds, and how everything converges at the end. I think you will too! There are no more questions left everything works as expected. But, as I said in the opening paragraph, it's time to let new people play the game and give us fresh feedback. And our first test subjects (now that is appropriate!) will be the lovely Mod team of our Discord community. They don't know what's coming to them, hehe. Poor souls. Bwhahaha! They shall experience THE MADNESS in all its gory glory!! Hehehehe... eh... but I don't want to lose my Mod team
Anyways, that's the lowdown on the status. There's been many other developments, such as the logic behind Lenny (who essentially behaves like a character in Interactive Fiction games, featuring an internal "schedule"), many explorable items were added, and so, so much more. I wish I could show you what a hugely complex game this is, but alas, that would mean spoiling the whole thing for you. Just take our word for it: there is no other game like ASYLUM in the industry. It's going to be very special
Happenings at Senscape
In other related news, it's been a rollercoaster of a year for us, and especially for me. Actually, mere months, which felt like a lifetime! Not too long ago, Senscape was only four people, a cozy little team that only needed a single Discord channel to organize their job. Yet since the beginning of the pandemic we have tripled our size. Yes, we're now a dozen folks at the company, with likely more coming! Reason for this growth of course was boosting the development pace of ASYLUM on one hand, and then forming a second team for a number of exciting opportunities that came our way. As you can imagine, I had to adapt to a whole new scenario at the company, at last needing to conceive something resembling an organizational structure. So we're slightly less scrappy than before, but still a cozy family who is super motivated to make great things together
There's basically two branches at Senscape now: Video Games and Virtual Production. The game team is solely focused on ASYLUM and consists of 7 people (besides me). We never had so many folks working on the project at the same time! I've always been doing way too much myself: design, writing, programming, even sound compositing, and this larger team is relieving me of many of those responsibilities. I can focus on direction, management, and steering things forward, without becoming a bottleneck as before.
The Virtual Production gang have been tackling a number of exciting projects that I'll share with you in the future. For instance, we've been involved in the production of a film creating virtual backgrounds in Unreal Engine for LED volumes (the so-called "Mandalorian style"). We made an actual movie, folks! And with cutting-edge technology, which is pretty nuts. We learned a huge deal too, and the team is looking forward to bring some of this filmmaking experience back to games. Do we have fans of FMV adventures in here?
Another big upside of this growth is that the company is enjoying good financial stability. So fear not about the development of ASYLUM: it's all in solid shape.
Brand new faces!
OK, now let's talk about the new faces in the ASYLUM team! In our last update we discussed the inclusion of Manuel, who did an outstanding job doing internal QA and making note of every corner in the game needing fixing and polishing. More recently, Tobas Moscoso and Anabela Stankiewicz hopped aboard to join the fun. Let's give them a warm welcome!
Anabela is a crazy talented 3D modeler and sculpter, and is taking care of additional set dressing we're doing here and there to enhance your future exploration of the asylum. She's already bringing a special personal touch to the game! Then Tobas, an auteur who participated in our latest Adventurous Game Jam, creating one of the Top 5 winners, the quirky and mysterious if, which I strongly recommend you play. It features some first rate (and incredibly challenging!) puzzles. Fans of old school adventures, you are in for a treat.
Tobas is handling the additional design and writing to ensure the ASYLUM experience is always cohesive. This includes the achievements and in-game documents featuring a wonderful backstory. Details count, and Tobas is very attentive to them. It's a pleasure to have them both in the team!
Look at all those happy faces! Well, serious looking-faces of people doing very serious work. Not pictured here is Azul who couldn't join this particular Zoom meeting. She's getting close to finalizing the writing of dialogues, including the intricate branching that was featured in our public demo. I've always been apprehensive of having other people doing writing, but Azul and now Tobas have excelled in this area. They brought fresh perspectives and ideas, a diversity that is crucial in a huge game like ASYLUM.
What's next?
Well, this was quite the read there's much going on. We had another period of uneasy silence, but remember that we're always here. I keep hearing words of comfort and encouragement, you know, insisting that the game will never be released, that is vaporware, or that we are complete failures. Guess we must be very stubborn people because we're still working very hard to get this project done. To all of you that are sticking around, believing in us, and taking the time to say something nice, THANK YOU! The Senscape team is creating the horror game of your dreams... ahem, nightmares, intricately designed and painstakingly produced. And now that everything is coming together, we are extra sure you will love every moment! Remember that we have a highly active Discord community in which Manuel has been posting weekly updates. It's the best place to remain in touch and be up to speed with the latest developments.
I'll see you next time, likely with decisive news and impressions after new crew members have played ASYLUM! Have a disgustingly beautiful weekend, Agustn
Salutations, you highly esteemed folks! We finally have an overdue and proper update for you. And a big one with all sorts of news. Its not like we were that quiet lately: theres been lots of activity and tidbits across our cozy little spots in the vast extension of the digital world, but its about time we summarized our status in a nice writeup. How about we get started?
It's in the details
Our focus for the past few months has been to finalize the critical path of puzzles in ASYLUM and ensure the number of details in our scenes are consistent across the entire experience. This last bit means that theres enough stuff to do or investigate in every location of the game, albeit not strictly necessary. If you played our demo, you know there were plenty of objects you could look at, receive a feedback, or perhaps zoom in, such as corkboard with a couple of easter eggs. This takesmuch timeto implement, especially for a game of this size. The least thing we want is an experience that feels strong at the beginning but slowly becomes rushed and lifeless near the end. On the contrary, the whole game has been designed so that its conclusion shatters your mind, which meansconsistencyandstrong pacing. I dislike myself rooms without anything to do in adventure games simply put, we dont want to waste your time with lifeless locations.
Critical path means that every major puzzle has been implemented and the game can be completed from beginning to end. And were almost there: only one puzzle needs to be implemented from scratch, while two others are in the polishing phase. Theyre complex ones and for obvious reasons I cant provide more details (spoilers!), but werereallygetting close. In fact, were already performing internal QA and, good news is, theres a growing list of content thats quickly falling into the were not touching this anymore category. We do have awishlistof stuff that wed love to see in the game, and the question remains how much time were going to devote to that. But for now, our mission is to bring ASYLUM to a shippable state. We devoted this week to compile a thorough list of pending assets, meaning a video, an image, sound effect, text blurb, etc., either due or requiring tweaks. Absolutely everything thats required to have a Release Candidate version, down to the T. Well use this list to come up with a realistic schedule and a tentative launch date that we can share with our community. We still do have a few gray areas that are very hard to estimate (namely pending cutscenes), but those are dwindling by the minute.
To address a particular request in the forums: the demo we released last year in the context of the Steam Festival was truly meant to be limited, key reasons being that it wasnt 100% representative of the final game. Missing voice acting and sound effects for instance hurt the experience to some extent and were among the biggest criticisms we received. After the demo was taken down, we distributed keys to fans that kindly asked us to play it on an on-and-off basis, but we stopped doing that now. The game is in an even better shape than it was last year, thanks in no small part to entirely reworked soundscapes (more about this in a moment!) among other crucial tweaks, including lots of feedback you submitted. Yes, we know youre anxious to play the game, and yes, we may re-release the demo with these upgradesand voice-overs, which were hoping to being recording soon.
Increasing the family
OK, now lets proceed with news about our team because, trust me, we want to finish ASYLUM as badly as you want to play it! Our newest addition is ManuelJofrePoza, student of a filmmaking career in a public university (UNSAM) who brings a fresh new perspective to the project and happens to be a longtime fan ofScratches! Which is super cool because hes incredibly talented and attentive to detail, exactly the kind of role we needed at this stage. Manuel is doing thorough QA (and I do meanthorough) pointing out each thing that seems out of place. His first playthrough was a big success as he was able to complete a large chunk of the game in one go and without any hints. Yay! I love when he posts in our Discord group quick progress reports with our logo and cool info. Very professional.
Its interesting to see the process here, identifying anomalies in a scene and quick ways to improve the atmosphere. For example, Manuels initial plan for the Boiler Room was to bring a sort of hazy look and volumetric light to the fire, but thats easier said than done because this is an animated video on top of an image.
The faster workaround was to spawn a warm point light in that area, andvoil, more immersive flames! I really like it. I mean, you can almost feel the heat coming out of that thing.
So, big round of applause for Manuel, our newcomer who by the way just got married! Next, Id like to mention the involvement of CornelisSjbeck, who happens to be a Kickstarter backer. Cornelis approached us a short while ago with a neat proposal: as a student in the final stages of a career in computer science, he needed to work on a master-thesis which he wanted to orient to composition/audio design and kindly picked ASYLUM as his subject matter. So, after a few meetings, Cornelis put hands to work on several new sound effects, as well as redesigning current ones. The improvement is shockingly good: beautifully balanced and mastered soundscapes bring a whole new level of immersion to our environments. Waterdrops, crumbling debris, gurgling sounds, buzzing lightbulbs, distant machinery, and a variety of ambient noises among a plethora of new sound effects. Its a brilliant work and we couldnt be more grateful for his involvement.
I mean, the guy went as far as usingactual bonesto produce a particular effect (I didnt ask about the source of the bones, nope, dont want to know).
Thanks again Cornelis for contributing to the project! You rock!
And the final but very important bit of news is the promotion of Elizabeth Burner, more commonly known across our networks asMcQuigan, as the official Community Manager of Senscape! Youve probably seen her doing the rounds on Discord and Steam, addressing all kinds of inquiries and topics, organizing activities and so forth. Senscape owes her a big deal, and this is an overdue promotion. Beth is closely aligned with the vision and ideals that make our community such a friendly place to be, so were all super happy to have her in the team.
All of this means that, yes, were growing and its an exciting time for the company. The most exciting times are yet to come, of course, as our mammoth project begins looking like a finished game. Theres never been a team this large working on the game (six people now!) and each passing day fewer tasks remain. I want to thank you all for your patience and support. Contrary to some things being said around, weareworking on ASYLUM, andit will be released. Ive always encouraged and addressed constructive criticism but for some reason, perhaps the times were living in, you often read comments that are downright cruel and hurtful. But for each one of those, there are many more words of encouragement that still remind me why we love and believe in what we do. Anyway, I promise the next update will come sooner, hopefully with more decisive news. Until then! Agustn
Greetings, everybody! I hope youre enjoying, so to speak, the last days of this decidedly bizarre year. Here we are giving closure to one of the most turbulent periods this forsaken planet has had to endure in quite a long time. Just please stay put, dont touch anything, steer clear of ancient artifacts, mysterious African masks, or big tomes covered in human flesh, at least until the year is over. You never know what kind of hideous curse you could unleash. Yeah, its been quiiite the journey.
People experienced 2020 in different ways. For many it was a year of economic woes. In our case, the whole Senscape team was very fortunate to enjoy financial stability and little change in our work. However, for some of us with small kids, the pandemic was extremely stressful, especially during the months of stricter quarantine. And I mean stressful to the point of nearly murdering each other while being locked up at home. I seriously hope all those upcoming vaccines are effective, for the sake of our well-being
When it comes to Asylum, the year fared much better than I initially expected: the time-limited demo we released back in June was a crucial milestone in the project and a resounding success! Many people played it, gave us invaluable feedback and most importantly, really enjoyed it. After so many years, it was quite a relief to learn that, yes, this is a game folks do want to play. The team kept working steadily afterwards and the overall balance is very positive: all major puzzles, except one, are now implemented. We got the most complicated and challenging things out of the way, and I mean stuff that made us ponder how the hell are we going to do THAT?. Were beginning to get into the details now, ensuring theres tons to see and do, just like in the demo, besides the main path required to complete the game. In true 2020 fashion, the balance of our latest Zoom session showed much progress in so many areas
Not just that, but the team grew even bigger: Azul Mousseigne joined us recently to work on pending dialogues and backstory in the asylum. Azul participated in our Adventurous Game Jam with an entry that truly surprised us with its amount of polish and attention to detail, so we immediately thought she was right for the team. And she is! You can play the still in-progress Umbra here (developed in just 2 days) and, let me tell you, some of the ideas Azul have brought to complement the environments in the game will downright creep you out!
So that was a successful demo, two new hires, and lots of progress in one of the most adverse years in recent memory. Not bad! Were very excited, working hard and eyeing a beta that seems around the corner. Theres much more well be showing you soon, besides all this disgusting and horrifying imagery, but I wanted to keep the update short and focused today. I hope youre all doing well and earning a much-deserved rest. Im taking some days off to recover myself I have the tablet loaded with 50GB+ of ScummVM adventures and Im very much looking forward to deactivating my brain until 2021. Surely it couldnt possibly be worse than 2020 right?
In any case, you already know this: whether its a pandemic, a giant lizard trashing the city, or aliens invading the planet, Asylum will get released. No matter what.
See you soon, and happy holidays!
Agustn
Salutations, inmates! Its been a while since we exchanged words, so theres a lot to tell you. Hard to believe its already October or is that easy to believe? I honestly dont know anymore. 2020 has been the strangest year in a long time, feeling equally eternal and ephemeral. Time has ceased to have any meaning. I think were all just hoping to get through to see what 2021 has in store for us. Surely it couldnt get any worse than this, right? Right? I do know about the question thats looming over your heads, though: what about ASYLUM?! Weve been quiet, yes, but working steadily since the demo. In spite of all the ongoing hurdles, the team is super motivated especially thanks to the enthusiastic response we got from our community in the past few months and making solid progress every day. Theres many more hours of gameplay wrapped up and were eyeing the next crucial milestones Let me tell you all about it!
And now the thoroughest status report yet
First, a quick recap: the main task at hand is to finish implementing game logic, namely puzzles and many optional interactions to bring life to the environments. For instance, a room may need an additional node or two to make it easier to navigate, or perhaps the lightning needs adjustment so that were able to distinguish key areas with interactions. Just as well, were missing a few more zooms, that is, intriguing things you can look at closely. The paintings are a perfect example if you recall Scratches, spooky paintings were crucial to give you the chillies. We got that covered.
And the drawers, of course. Many fans told me, I loved opening every drawer in Scratches! Please tell me there are many, many drawers in ASYLUM!. Yup, we got that covered too.
The amount of drawers in the game boggle the mind, and were making sure most of them will have something interesting to see!
This iteration were doing to the whole game is intense and focused. Theres no room for what ifs. Were very restrained during this phase do only the strictly necessary to complete the game as planned. Were very anxious about hitting our next milestone (looking at you, Beta ) when we finish this iteration. The good news is that this is happening fast. In fact, let me show you where were standing. (Black means locations that wont be playable, blue means locations with fully implemented logic & assets, red means locations with pending work)
It's quite encouraging when you see it like this, eh? Theres one additional floor that we havent shown yet the basement which is 90% complete as we speak. Work and schedule are well organized too: Roco is spending most of her time beefing up the drawers, paintings and exporting assets whenever needed. Shes doing some modeling to improve locations that were a bit barebones for our taste, such as the Museum. It looks incredible now, filled with macabre and nasty details.
Sofa is performing heavy maintenance across every location in the game, ensuring all required hotspots are in place, database entries for the feedback strings are correct, and tweaking lighting as required. Its super cool that the sisters live together: whenever Sofa needs an asset (say, an item must be picked and were missing an image of it in one of the nodes), she asks Roco directly to export it, and bam, a few moments later its implemented. Theyre both on a roll!
This has alleviated Pablo, who can now focus on cutscenes, characters and some tweaks here and there. Hes just about to conclude work on the basement and will immediately head to the third floor afterwards. Meanwhile, the sisters are expecting to finalize the second floor next month, after which theyll join Pablo on the third floor. Agustn (the other Agustn) makes minimal and rare modifications to our Unreal Engine C++ framework whenever needed and is working on the core puzzles. As for me, I can devout my time to complete writing and overseeing the project. The best moments are when we press Play, everything works as expected, and ASYLUM looks more and more like a finished game. Theres lots of new content I could show you, but we want to be extra careful about spoilers from now on. One wrong screenshot could mean one less effective plot detail or twist. Just rest assured: its all coming beautifully together.
What next?
That is the plan and, even though this is the most adverse year we had to face during the development of ASYLUM, things are coming along pretty well. Were hoping to reach blue in all the locations by late November, meaning that a release date this year is unfortunately out of the question. But, wrapping up 2020 of all years with a successful public demo and beta milestone achieved would be glorious, and the whole team is working non-stop to make it happen. Speaking of the demo, we keep getting requests to bring it back. A lot. So thats going to happen, yes, but you know we always like to do things with a bit of flair. The demo will return featuring every improvement you requested, plus voice acting so that you can see and hear final content, and a few more surprises. My goal is to re-release the demo with a launch date in sight as well. We might even do new demo + new trailer + release date announcement to make things even more exciting. Yes, were really getting to that point
In the meantime, were almost ready to share an extra-large build for our VIP backers as were dying to hear their thoughts. The goal is to deliver a polished build to them so that they can get into the story and the atmosphere without worrying about bugs. Knock on wood, weve been lucky so far as very few bugs are introduced whenever we make changes. Im planning to write an in-depth article about our approach to developing and structuring ASYLUM because its rather unusual: at a high level, the entire game is mostly implemented in a declarative manner. In broad terms, we describe to our framework what each hotspot does, how some of them should react with certain items, we establish relationships between different objects in the game, and then simply let the framework figure out what to do on its own. In other words: since we barely do things by hand when implementing our game logic, we rarely introduce bugs ourselves. Most bugs come from the framework, and thats not changing much at this point. Anyway: the outlook is extremely positive. I sure wished we could commit to a release date today, but we sincerely need more time. Perhaps when 2020 is finally over (if we all manage to survive the year, that is).
Video woes and state of Linux
Another positive development during these past few months was the overhaul of our video assets. Long story short, up until this point we had to export three different sets of videos, one per each platform: Windows (MP4), macOS (MOV) and Linux (sequence of JPGs). Yeah, it sucked. To make matters worse, integrating these videos in Unreal wasnt straightforward. We needed four assets per each video: that is, 1 Platform Media Source that decides which video to play depending on the platform, 2 File Media Sources (MP4 & MOV) and then 1 Image Media Source (for the JPGs). Consider that we have hundreds of videos in ASYLUM, also that we had to package different sets of videos per platform, and you can see how this was a nightmare. We were dealing with two problems here: first, we couldnt produce an MP4 that looked exactly the same on Windows and macOS, which both support the format. This is why I had to rely on MOV for macOS. Problem was, colors and gamma looked very different, and this had a particularly nasty effect in ASYLUM:
Second, Unreal on Linux cant handle videos out of the box, so resorting to MP4 or MOV was out of the question. Our best bet was an outdated VLC Player plugin for Unreal, which brought a whole new world of problems on its own. We seriously needed to do something about this. And we did. While Agustn (the other Agustn) got into the age-old, unmaintained code of the VLC plugin, I spent two weeks studying the MP4 format, trying to understand why a video can look so different between different systems and players. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Bizarre colorspaces. Strange, undocumented ffmpeg options. A decade-old bug in the VLC player. We almost lost our minds in the process. But we did it. We really did it:
A single MP4 that looks exactly the same on Windows, macOS and Linux. This might be an industry first, Im not kidding. Devs usually pay $10k+ for this kind of solution, and we did it for free. Well, free besides all the neurons we lost in the process. Im working on a more technical article with all the nitty-gritty for those of you interested, but still: this has saved us a lot of headaches. Its a huge relief to just convert a video to one format, quickly bring it to Unreal, and be done with it. I mean, it may not the most exciting news in the planet, but I guarantee that it was a breakthrough for us. Agustn (the other Agustn) is still insulting me for having to deal with that dreaded VLC plugin, as well as a few eyebrow-raising hacks in our own code, but it works. It really, really works
And this means the Linux port is now 100% on par with Windows/Mac in terms of features and performance. I spent many days testing things myself on an actual Ubuntu machine, and yup, it all works flawlessly. Linux fans will be very pleased when they play it.
An adventurous conclusion
We wrap up this monumental update with news of our Adventurous Game Jam, which is officially sponsored by Epic Games! Its pretty interesting how this project came to be, and our thriving Discord community was instrumental to make it happen. Many experienced and novice developers are actively participating every day, even introducing their projects for the first time in Senscapes Discord. And since were using and often discussing Unreal Engine ourselves, there was a growing interest to do something with it. One thing led to another and were now hosting a game jam on itch.io. Yay for serendipity!
And let me show you how exciting this is. Were already seeing a diverse selection of adventures produced with Unreal, with solid quality across the board. I think all the submitted games so far have potential to become full-fledged, commercial adventures in the future. Heres the latest gameplay videos participants have shared: [previewyoutube=BW6FVB7iq0E;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=WEr5_E1hhRo;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=0-QDV2i0EuI;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=wdSh493WjQk;full][/previewyoutube] Feel free to follow the jam to learn when you can play these exciting projects: https://itch.io/jam/senscapejam. Its coming to an end next week and a few days later well be deciding winners. I think its been a wonderful experience for everyone involved, so Im sure well be repeating the event next year. We may even participate with a project of our own! And thats it. This was probably our lengthiest update ever, and I trust you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your support while we get ready to open the doors of the asylum and finally let you explore its innermost, dark secrets. Until next time! Agustn
Hi everybody! I just wanted to get in touch with you after the period of demoing ASYLUM. Last week was pretty intense and exciting, the biggest week yet in the entire development! We got so much feedback and suggestions that we're still filtering your impressions and reports. It's been hugely fun to share the first glimpse of the game with you. The balance of the demo is overwhelmingly positive: exceptional performance in general, very few bug reports, and many happy players. Of the platforms we're currently supporting, Linux clearly needs the most work and rest assured we'll get to it. Everybody will be able to enjoy ASYLUM without issues. Most importantly, you really seem to have like the game so far! Which is a relief as it looks like we didn't throw 10 years of our lives down the drain No, seriously, I must confess that I wasn't expecting such an outstanding reaction after all, ASYLUM is old school, it can be a bit of an acquired taste, and shouldn't be the kind of game that has mass appeal. But it did! Thousands of people played the demo and it was extensively featured on YouTube, even by prominent streamers. And I swear, the reactions have been nearly unanimously positive! This is clearly the game you wanted to play and the one we wanted to make, so it's a match made in heaven (well, or hell, given the subject matter). Two aspects stood out: first, we all agree about the kind of game this should be. From the moody intro to a prevailing sense of strangeness, as well as a few occasional jokes, nobody said "I wasn't expecting this". Or "I thought it was going to be survival horror". Even though the demo is brief and not much happens story-wise, we got to test the mechanics, dialogue system, atmosphere, puzzle design, etc. and it all works. No major changes are needed and this is very good news. All your requests are queued now, crucially the skipping subtitles behavior which isn't consistent when you're exploring vs. dialogues, so that's a priority. But the takeout is: the game works. The second aspect is how much the game reminded you of Scratches. And that's a very good thing because we've been touting it as its spiritual successor. Scratches became a beloved title so we have much to live up to, and so far so good. Whether they where playing the demo or watching it on YouTube, people said that ASYLUM nails the "Scratches feel". It's going to be 15 years since it was released, so I'm very glad that we managed to reproduce that feeling One final bit of good news is that we reached 40.000 wishlists on Steam. Which is quite a lot, especially for a point-and-click adventure. Based on the metrics from the Steam Game Festival, this is easily one of the most anticipated horror games right now, which is both exhilarating and intimidating In short: the ASYLUM demo was a trial by fire and we passed the test with flying colors. The whole Senscape team wants to thank you very, very much for your enthusiasm and support We're back to work to finish the game as soon as we can, knowing it's something you'll want to play. I can't stress this enough: the demo was a mere introduction. No matter what you expect or think you may have figured out about the plot, we will surprise you. The story, the atmosphere, the puzzles, the horror, everything that comes next is better in every regard. And we can't wait to share it with you! So from the darkest bottoms of our cold and twisted hearts, thanks again. I'll be sure to keep you posted of our little odyssey, and yes, try and decide on a launch timeframe soon. Stay safe! Agustn
ASYLUM is a first-person adventure developed by a small and dedicated team with a style reminiscent of early 80s grindhouse videos. It draws inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft's atmospheric stories, the memorable Hammer Films gothic series, as well as twisted Euro Horror from the likes of Lucio Fulci. As players traverse the halls of the massive, decaying Hanwell Mental Institute, they will unravel a mind-bending story and solve puzzles taxing their wits and intuition rather than quick reflexes. Over 10 years in the making and featuring 15 hours of gameplay, ASYLUM is an epic love letter to the point-and-click genre and the spiritual successor to beloved cult classic Scratches.
Join our ever-growing Discord community to chat with the entire team behind ASYLUM. Ask us anything you want about the game, its development, our favorite adventure game, horror movie, preferred murder weapon, you name it!
Link: https://discord.gg/senscape
Mark your calendars: Thu, June 18, 12:00 PM PDT
The Senscape server has become the place to discuss adventures on Discord, but if you don't want to join, we'll take questions right here in our Steam forums as well.
Join us as we play the brand new ASYLUM demo and share insightful details about the development of the project, where we are standing, and what to expect next.
You'll be able to ask questions, give us feedback, praise us, insult us, and summon your Elder God of choice (success not guaranteed).
The live stream will happen right here on Steam, at our store page on Wed, June 17, 12:00 PM PDT:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/230210/ASYLUM
Dear fans, Given the circumstances, the Steam Games Festival has been postponed until June 16. Our ASYLUM demo won't be launching next Tuesday as expected, out of respect for the ongoing social movement affecting the world. We commend Valve for taking this difficult decision and Senscape stands by it 100%. Even though this is happening in the USA, the issue of racism and inequality affects all of us. There are instances of racism everywhere sometimes involuntary, sometimes deeply hateful which are strongly tied to the brutal inequality currently plaguing the world, both economic and social. You often hear that things can't go back to normal after the pandemic, and this is true: we must strive (all of us, all together) to achieve a more equal and just society, where everybody has the same opportunities and rights. Don't be fooled by the fallacy of they think differently racism isnt a matter of opinion. Its fundamentally wrong and goes against our human nature, so we have a moral imperative to decry it. No tolerance for the intolerant. Always. We know many of you needed a refuge space now. You've waited for so long and we are sad to do this, but it's the right thing to do. We'll be back soon with the promised news. In the meantime, we unreservedly extend our support to this movement and demand justice for victims of racism. Love you all, The Senscape Team
Yes, it had to happen someday. It's true: you will be able to start playing ASYLUM as soon as next month. For free. Around 2 hours of polished gameplay. Right here on Steam.
So mark your calendars: from June 9th-14th, this time-limited demo will be part of the Steam Games Festival. Yeah, it's the Summer Edition and the game is kinda more suited to cold winter nights, but it will do. We'll make sure to send rain and thunderstorm your way.
This is the culmination of many weeks of hard work and we're beyond excited to finally let you play the game as we envisioned it. We're also a bit terrified
But seriously, I'm genuinely comfortable with how the game looks and feels, and the demo is representative of what to look for in ASYLUM: lots of mystery, some fun parts, and of course the scary parts. It's Scratches-like through and through, but different at the same time. We sincerely can't wait to hear what you think of it!
Stay tuned as we're readying several activities during this period, including a livestream and live interviews. As always, thank you for your patience and your support while we finish this thing
Agustn
Whew! Its been barely over a month since our previous update, but it feels like entire years passed by. At least it looks as if the entire world has changed (and indeed, it may be a very different world after this pandemic). Yet here we are, safe at home for the time being and enjoying good health. The team is accustomed to work from home, so we certainly cant complain ourselves others, however, are having a very rough moment these days.
Thats the first thing before we proceed with the quick report: if you need to talk, connect with other people, or any sort of assistance, feel free to ping us. Anytime. Were ready to help in any way we can. We should all understand that people are coping with this pandemic in different ways, and being alone at home for an extended period of time can be distressing.
One particular measure we took, after we consulted with the community, is to set up a #covid-19-discussion channel in our Discord server. At first we couldnt tell if it was a good idea or not, but turns out lots of folks wanted to talk about the situation, and the result was a lively channel with responsible information and contention.
As always, adventure game group plays are being constantly organized in the server and were preparing other interesting activities during this quarantine. We're also giving away Steam keys for Scratches during this period if you've never played the game or want to replay it.
Its hard to tell how long the quarantine will last, and it will greatly depend on where you live, but the top recommendation right now is to stay at home as much as you can. If we can stick together virtually, it will be easier to endure.
AND NOW... THE LARCH. SORRY, THE STATUS REPORT.
As for us and the project, everything is more or less proceeding according to plan. I wont lie to you, things are exceedingly more complicated now two of us are locked up with children (even multiple children) and some of our days are truly, unbelievably chaotic. The streak of productivity we were having beginning this year has taken a noticeable hit. That said, were luckily at a time when the project is solidly under control and we have a comfortable budget thanks to the Epic MegaGrant we received last year. Were getting ready to wrap up a series of demos (for Kickstarter backers and journalists), and over one third of the game is playable in one go and in the bag! All things considered, were very much working on the game even in this situation and still eyeing a release late this year. As I explained last time, the first 1/3 of the game was by far the most intricate and busiest moment of the game in terms of assets and design. But thats done and its all progressing faster now. Currently, were putting the finishing touches to just a few rooms that needed work and more items: the Laboratory, featuring the mysterious Dr. Miller, and the Museum. Ill be showing you more of the Museum next time, which had some outdated graphics and is enduring a decisive facelift were including some truly sinister stuff in that place
MORE INMATES IN THE ASYLUM!
And last but by no means least, wed like to welcome Roco to the Senscape team! She happens to be Tais sister Hi, you two!
Roco is a terrific artist who specializes in 3D modelling and texturing. Its her first foray in the game industry, and talk about a complicated project to begin with! Her first task was to design disturbing medical instruments and severed hands, among other repulsive things. Im so sorry, Roco Its funny: after a strange turn of events, serendipity has brought two sisters working together on the game while quarantining during an unprecedented pandemic. What a weird year! So thank you Roco for joining us and help us put finishing touches to this cyclopean beast of an adventure game That will be all for now, but Ill be sure to keep you posted. Its a difficult year to be sure, but know that were determined to make you happier in a few ways before its done. Lots of cool ideas are on the plate, as well as a game thats getting closer to completion. Stay tuned! Agustn
Hola hola, my lovelies! Yes, we had a longer gap than usual since our previous update. Between the end of the year, some much needed vacations, and work as usual, I couldnt get back to you earlier. But, Im happy to report that everything has been progressing according to plan, and we have so much to tell you! ASYLUM is finally (yes, finally!) coming together and its becoming the game of our dreams. We have prepared a lengthy post filled with loads of new stuff to see.
But first of all, last time I told you that Epic gave us money via a MegaGrant and, as expected, in spite of my reassurances, there was a bit of discomfort. It was our most disliked update ever, even though it was the best news in a while. Look: the Epic grant comes with no strings attached. Its an ongoing program that gives financial support to developers using Unreal Engine. They dont ask anything else in return, except that we complete the game. And we all want that, right?
So let me stress this again: ASYLUM is still coming to Steam and GOG on launch date. I dont like exclusives. I wont betray the trust of fans who have been supporting us for years no matter the amount of cash involved. Were not in this for the money only the power and glory.
Now that we cleared away the confusion
THE CLOCK IS TICKING
ASYLUM is storming into the new decade with equal doses of hope and despair! The team has been keeping up with a strict schedule and meeting our goals. As you may know, the entire ASYLUM experience is roughly divided into hours or chapters. The first hour took a huge deal of work worth several months, as it involved lots of set up, many locations, events introducing the narrative, conversations with a character, etc. The second hour which features a rather intricate puzzle still took a lot of time, but relatively much less than the first hour. The third hour, though, was nearly a breeze in comparison. And now it looks like the fourth and upcoming hours will take even less. As expected, the latter stages of development are proportionally taking us far less time. This is a rather common thing in adventure games, and especially true in the case of ASYLUM: the story is designed in a way that you get to meet several characters at first along with a slew of key plot elements, which requires a big development effort. You could say that we now have the entire structure of the game in place, both in terms of game logic and engine framework. In fact, were barely doing changes to the framework at this point! This is good, folks. This is all good.
What this basically means is that we have around one third of the game in a playable and fairly polished state. Theres always going to be one final pass of bug fixing and tweaks before we can happily say its all over and cry tears of joy and resume our lives, but what we have now is already rock solid. This is because were being methodical and careful while implementing gameplay and, luckily, the amount of bugs were overlooking seems small. Backers who decided to try the game can attest to this. Moreover, we have feature parity both in terms of performance and stability across all announced platforms: Windows, macOS and Linux. If you knew all the stuff we must do to support Linux For example, converting all our videos to sequences of JPG images. Ouch How about we all go back to MS-DOS for our next game? You know, it was way easier back then. Would you play an ASCII adventure? Look, we could release 3 or 4 ASYLUMs per year if we do them in ASCII. I swear.
ATMOSPHERE WITH A CAPITAL 'A'
Theres not much I can tell you about the new sections of the game were working on as its delicate, spoiler-ridden territory. This might even complicate future updates too, as I must strike a balance between informing you without showing much. For now, lets say the story and puzzles are coming together as we expected. Were eager to hear feedback from backers to see if some game mechanics need adjustment, or for example tell us if a puzzle blatantly sucks. I dont think so I would love these puzzles as a fan of adventures, and theyre decidedly less obscure than what you found in Scratches. Theyre challenging without being unfair, demanding wit and observation rather than logical thinking. Theres a few surprising environmental puzzles too. Im sure youll love all of them! What I can show you are the little touches weve been adding here and there, such as completely reworked and custom sky. Its small things like this that can add so much to the ambiance of the game! Remember: these sorts of details are more tricky to add because were not working with full 3D. All the locations are pre-rendered
Its a fantastic and fun phase of development when you know the underlying mechanics are working and you can now focus on the atmosphere and soundscapes of the game. We have a lengthy list of details wed like to add (and well see how far we can get) but rest assured this is an environment you wont ever forget. A big upgrade worth mentioning is a higher quality format were using for our textures. The difference is very noticeable in-game, especially in darker areas, and theres no trace of pixelated regions now. Im testing ASYLUM on a Retina display and, let me tell you, it looks stunning:
Finally, I prepared a short video showing you how the in-game menu works and a nifty feature: near instant resume of gameplay. Its so quick and sudden that well be adding some sort of pop-up, indication, something to let you know that, yes, this all normal, you can just keep playing: [previewyoutube=IctPLEJYkfc;full][/previewyoutube]
LOOKING FORWARD
We believe were still on track to wrap up the game later this year. You know the drill: I honestly cant confirm this and Id like to be extra careful when announcing a solid launch date. Given the size of the project as well of our team and its unruly, atypical nature, its incredibly hard to assess the pending volume of work. But, every passing day is less work, and a firm date gets closer to reality. When the official date is announced, it will be set in stone. For now, were eyeing late September. But remember: its an estimation. Among our plans is welcoming a new team member soon (thanks to the Epic grant) to assist us with pending assets. We now have all programming aspects covered but are noticing a potential bottleneck in our assets workflow (it was the other way about a year ago). This will give us another big boost
Throughout March, we expect to have 50% of the game completed. We hope to be distributing three builds of the game soon with varying degrees of content: all backers (3000+ people) will have access to the near-final version of the 8:00 PM chapter, the most polished and releasable content (which may become a public demo eventually). VIP backers (~100) will be able to play from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM. Were also producing a special version for the press featuring from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM as we feel it presents a more interesting cliffhanger for previewing purposes and less chances of leaked spoilers. Remember that those game hours have no correlation with real life hours: the VIP build is already worth 5-6 hours of gameplay. Thats as much as many finished games! It will be really exciting exciting from now on as youll be hearing about ASYLUM from many more sources. Well let everyone post captures of the game up the 9:00 PM chapter mark. ASYLUM everywhere! Speaking of which, weve been doing great in the hype department. We now have 7000+ followers on Steam and close to 38.000 wishlists. I cant stress how positive this is! It would be amazing to reach 50.000 wishlists by the time the game gets released, so if you havent spread the horror--I mean, word, wed be delighted if you do so!
Its been a long time, yes, we know. I want to assure you that were working hard on the game, making solid progress, and our vision is coming to life as we expected. The playable content feels great and youll be both entertained and creeped out for a long time once its ready. I want to thank all of you again for your patience, kindness, and support. We couldnt be creating such an ambitious project without you I promise to keep you apprised of further developments soon. Until next time, Agustn PS: I collected all the snippets from this update in a higher quality video with full frame rate. Talk about service! [previewyoutube=rE21KDcdXRs;full][/previewyoutube]
Hello, Steam friends! In this short and sweet update, the last one before the end of the year, I'm sharing exciting news with you:
ASYLUM HAS BEEN AWARDED AN EPIC MEGAGRANT!
But wait, because whenever you hear 'Epic' around these parts, there's immediately talk about exclusives, and screaming, and riots, but calm down: this has nothing to do with exclusives! Please put down your pitchforks The grant is money with no strings attached and is happening at the best possible time for us. We're going to use this cash on booze and drugs because we really need them to complete the project, but maybe better salaries for the team too, as well as upgrading hardware, a new member for extra polish and meeting our remaining deadlines, as well as other things, such as better chainsaws and sharper axes. It's truly fantastic news for the end of the year and an important acknowledgment for the team. While the game was progressing great, finances were tight and we were running on fumes. This will allow us to complete the game with less stress and more happiness, and extra happiness is always good. I think this is really good news for the adventure genre too because Asylum may be the first true point-and-click game to be recognized with an Epic grant. So, we're ending this year on a high note as I'm wrapping up a polished and feature-complete demo for our Kickstarter backers, including settings, saving/loading, and all the stuff you've come to expect in a finished game, for every platform we promised: Windows, macOS and Linux. Our schedule looks good and we're looking to complete this monster in the coming months. Still lots of pending details and testing, but we're eyeing a release around Q3 2020. I'm truly sorry that it can't happen earlier, but we want to give you a lovingly crafted experience without a single bug (well, except disgusting insects you'll find inside the asylum). Exciting times ahead. Thank you so much for sticking around while we conclude this epic horror adventure We won't disappoint you!
Hi all! This is a brief update to show you our new gameplay video. A collection of greatly improved, familiar locations and new ones, focusing on interactions and things to do including speaking with the mysterious denizens of the asylum! Take a look: https://youtu.be/2-YgD6FhsmI The game is working remarkably well. In fact, any stuttering you may notice in the video was our recording software behaving erratically But, what you see here is 100% in-game stuff, no processing, no tricks. Asylum is running with a stable 60fps in fullscreen High quality on a 3-year old computer. It's even perfectly playable on Very High quality with extra sharp graphics! So this is how the game looks and feels, and we hope you like it Just a tiny glimpse of many more locations you'll have to explore!
LIVESTREAM (CONFIRMED)
I'm really sorry about this one. I should've posted more updates here. The promised livestream was postponed due to an incredibly nasty acute bronchitis I got a few weeks ago. It was sheer Hell And all because I didn't get a flu shot Thankfully, I'm back in action and the livestream is totally happening this Friday 22 at 8:00 PM (UTC) on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/Senscape
If you can't make it, don't worry, I'll record everything. It would be great to see you there! I'll be happy to answer all your questions. And that's it for today, but hopefully see you soon! Agustn
Grrrrreetings from a nefarious place where unholy creatures dwell in the shadows! I'll make it short and quick today because I have quite a lot to tell you. Horror month is here and, while Asylum isn't quite ready yet (sorry, sorry, I know), we did prepare a whole lot of fun things for you. Let's start with a progress report...
WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS?!
You may have seen this already as it went viral a few days ago. It's a feature that's been on our wishlist for years in fact, one the earliest things we discussed for the game. We knew it could be done in theory, but never thought the resulting effect would be so uncanny. Have a look for yourself: [previewyoutube=mF0uAUgyHNg;full][/previewyoutube] It looks even better in the game itself! Like a seriously detailed 3D scene with dynamic lighting and all the bells and whistles, except it's just a bunch of flat images. It's the cherry on top of our quest to bring you the most immersive adventure ever made Even better, this works just the same on older computers. It's hard to believe when you see it in the game itself. Look how the ceiling behaves: [previewyoutube=BsYJo_4FsMk;full][/previewyoutube] Wooooooooooooooo Of course, we won't include exaggerated lighting effects such as this in the game, but imaging malfunctioning lights, a throbbing ambiance, and all kinds of gorgeous moody effects. It will be an atmosphere to die for.
AT LAST: LIVESTREAM!
Yes! This one has been a long time coming, but I'm ready to do a big livestream for the game. We did have some short, casual livestreams before, but nothing like playing the actual game and answering your questions live! Take note:
- WHEN: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29 6 PM (UTC) / 11 AM (PST) / 2 PM (EST)
- WHERE: http://twitch.tv/senscape
EXPANDING THE FAMILY
Please give a warm welcome to Tais! She joined the team just recently. A brilliant student of Unreal Engine who's just getting started in the industry, her class project after just a few months of learning the engine blew me away. Far better and more entertaining than many games you see on Steam. Tais will be mostly focusing on the addition of new hotspots, including videos, interactive items, general polishing, and lighting effects. We're thrilled to have her talent and attention to detail in the project
POTPOURRI OF PROGRESS UPDATE
And here's when I start rambling. Let's see, in addition to implementing the usual stuff in an adventure game (puzzles, hotspots, secret details, etc.), we achieved some important milestones:
- macOS & Linux are in the bag! Yeeeeeey. While the game was running on macOS pretty well, we had some lingering bugs that hampered the experience. Luckily, we've been able to squash them all and the game now runs as smoothly and polished as Windows. Linux was another story: technically, the game was running, but none of the videos would load (which in turn crashes the whole game, usually a bad thing). Following an inordinate amount of testing and experimenting, we managed to come up with a usable alternative for the videos. I'm happy to report that now everything is working as expected on Linux as well. We're even supporting Windows 32-bit for those of you who can't upgrade
- We can now save and load! Yeah, so we figured this was an important feature for a 15+ hour long game. You can save in up to 12 slots anytime you want and load anytime you want. Cutting edge technology, just one click away!
- Doors! Thanks to dozens of different sound effects, FMOD, subtle randomization, and a lot of goodwill, we can ensure a different sound effect for every door in the game. This is how much we care.
- Transparencies! Not that transparencies are terribly exciting per se, but they allow us to do nifty things. For example, show you interesting stuff happening outside the asylum as you explore the interior (passing clouds, distant thunderstorms, etc). A GIF doesn't do justice, but this surely sets the immersion factor all the way up to 11! Such is the kind of things we're doing as we go deeply into the polishing phase.
SCRATCHES GROUP PLAY AND LIVE INTERVIEW!
OK, but to wrap up this update, two more news: our Discord community is getting ready to start group playing Scratches tomorrow, Saturday, October 12. Does that ring a bell? It should! It's the day when Michael Arthate arrived at Blackwood Manor and the story began
What is a group play, you ask? Basically, dozens of fans gather to play a game at the same time, but promising they won't use a walkthrough. Each play lasts around one week and they tend to be incredibly active and lively. In the case of Scratches, we've been preparing loads of fun activities. For example, fans have been writing Michael Arthate's bestseller "Vanishing Town" together, there's been quizzes, and starting tomorrow I'll be around posting rare trivia, insider details, and stuff you've positively never seen or heard before. It's going to be a mandatory event for fans of the game! And last, but not least...
Tomorrow, Jonathan Boakes of Dark Fall fame (and also Jerry's voice!) and Matt Clark of Barrow Hill fame will be asking me uncomfortable questions live about the game on Discord! Of course, we'll be happy to answer your questions too. Take note of the event if you want to participate:
- WHEN: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 6 PM (UTC) / 11 AM (PST) / 2 PM (EST)
- WHERE: https://discord.gg/senscape
Salutations from a desolate place in which sinister shadows crawl as if they were sentient creatures from unhallowed spheres of existence! Yes, its been a longer pause than usual since our latest juicy update, but theres two important reasons behind this: first, weve been working very hard on wrapping up spoiler laden sections of the game, including its crucial and secretive final moments. Quite simply, we had little to report as were adamant about inadvertently leaking key plot details. Second, we love torturing you with these periods of unnerving silence. Yes, its true were horrible people.
Anyways, we have lots of ground to cover today, so grab a cup of coffee or drink, depending on the time of day (or hell, maybe just a drink *regardless* of the time of day) and enjoy the read. Suffice to say, were having an amazingly strong momentum and beginning to savor a gloriously finished game!
SYSTEMS. SYSTEMS EVERYWHERE.
As you may recall, the first segment of ASYLUM has been thoroughly tested (roughly 2 hours of gameplay) and we gathered invaluable feedback, which we put in practice to finalize the far more intricate and ambitious second segment. It includes a puzzle that, while not the most challenging, it was possibly the trickiest one to implement as it involves a lot of factors and is highly non-linear. It pushed the tools we developed for the game to their limit, and Im thrilled to report we came out victorious! We now have close to 5 hours of continuous, super-polished gameplay that our VIP backers will be testing soon. This is truly exciting as its when the story of the game begins to take flight, and it features our second NPC, a security guard called Bruno.
We used the dialogue with Bruno to improve our postures/gestures system for all characters in the game. The conversation you have with him also happens to be remarkably twisty in the background, as his potential responses depend on a large number of decisions you, the players, can make. Its almost RPG-ish in nature. While it cant compete with AAA titles, Im very happy with the quality, especially when you consider were just 3 guys on a shoestring budget. And theres room for improvement yet, especially when it comes to the animations. Now, the real interesting bit happens in the background:
Even though were using Unreal Engine, we developed a large framework for the game, which is rather atypical in nature. Its almost like we brought our own engine and are using Unreal merely as a renderer. Thats how crazy we are, but it paid off: we have complete control of characters and texts in the game by using simple spreadsheets. For example, we can trigger postures and gestures with just a tag, even combining them as we please. And theres a lot of magical things we can do, as Ill show you next.
TALK, IT'S ONLY TALK
OK, disclaimer: this is purely for testing purposes and the result is a mood killer. However, Im proud of this recent development because of what it implies: using that spreadsheet and leveraging the scripting and text-to-speech capabilities in macOS, we managed to export audio files for the entire dialogues in the game with just one click.
Thanks to FMOD, the middleware we are using to mix music and audio effects in the game, we were able to import all those files into ASYLUM in a heartbeat, and start testing the game as closely as possible in its final form. Why all this trouble, you ask? Because the dialogue scripts arent quite finished yet and its never a good idea to start recording voices until theyre fully proofread and ready to go. I learned the hard way that even during later stages of testing you realize the game needed a new dialogue line or pesky misspellings are found. So voice recordings is the very last thing youre supposed to do.
In the meantime, though, these audio files are extremely useful as we can get a feel of the script, pacing, tweak our lip sync algorithms and perform accurate testing. Keep in mind that all we need to do when the voice recordings are ready is simply replace files! Heres an excerpt of the conversation with Bruno, but please remember its very WIP and for educational purposes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZyxEx8M5i0 Or maybe we could release the game right away! Surely nobody will realize about the text-to-speech. Right? RIGHT?
ASSORTED THINGS!
There were too many improvements and tweaks over the past two months to mention in our quest to put ASYLUM in releasable status, but Ill show you a couple of standouts. Quality of life improvements, as they say. First, visual cues to quickly identify hotspots in nodes. Hit spacebar and BAM! interesting things shall be revealed to you. Hit spacebar again to bring back the deliciously creepy immersion in ASYLUM.
The next one is admittedly minor but it was annoying the hell out of me. The crosshair now elegantly hides whenever a hotspot becomes active. Its super-minor, I know, but its small details like this that give a game that cherished final, polished look.
As for mandatory and disturbing imagery in a horror game update, I can give you this intriguing contraption. Nobody knows what it does, but it doesnt look inviting.
Also, someone suggested we should include cats in ASYLUM as theyre popular these days and highly meme-able, but the only cat we could fit in the storyline is a rotten, decomposing one. But hey, a dead cat is still a cat!
READABLE THINGS!
However, this update was meant to be focused on technical improvements and internal tidbits. It always pays off to invest time on developing custom systems that fit into your workflow and operate exactly as YOU intend. For example, I do all my writing in plain text and tend to do several revisions over time. Usually, its not that straightforward to import texts into a game, especially if they need some sort of special formatting. So we devised a custom workflow in which we merely feed plain texts files to the engine, which then does the following all by itself:
By the way, thats one of the journals by James Blackwood that you find in Scratches. Lets try updating the text file, and certainly, we can change the font as well as the line spacing. This is the result:
Same 3D asset, different content. This can be combined with other books in the game, even loose papers. The system even automatically places the text across an arbitrary number of pages! Magic, I tell you! You can see a more detailed video with different settings here and please, note the exquisite typography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hO42lhCiE8 This system has an added benefit too: translations will be a breeze as all we have to do is replace text files! And yes, were planning to bring ASYLUM to as many languages as possible.
CONFIGURABLE THINGS!
When I say that I want an immersive game, I bloody mean it! All the way to the settings menu, created with the collaboration of our esteemed Discord community:
See if you can figure out what each thing does. Now, we know were playing with fire here as settings should be crystal clear and accessible. Then again, this is still WIP and there are plans to make these pages easier to understand in case you cant figure them out. Do note as well how were willing to sacrifice our creative vision to let you fiddle with the look and feel of the game as you please, even if that means removing the incredibly awesome vintage film grain effect that it took us so long to create
I RAN OUT OF IDEAS FOR THESE HEADER TITLES
My goodness, look at the word counter! I guess its time to say goodbye. But first, the usual thanks for your unending support and positive comments! I read all of them and few things are as encouraging as hearing that you appreciate the time were investing on this project, including these updates: when you take the time to read through these lengthy write-ups (which require quite a few hours to prepare, trust me), and comment and ask questions, it makes it so much worthwhile to spend time writing them. Thats a good analogy, I think, to capture the kind of game were making here: ASYLUM is going to be a lengthy, engrossing experience filled with details, small things you can discover everywhere, a riveting storyline, and much, much dread. Just as I take the time to prepare these updates and you take time to read them, when ASYLUM is finally completed after all these years, its going to be a game that will remain with you forever. I promise that. Im also hoping to comment a bit on its release date in the coming update. And now let the torture begin.
Greetings from a twisted plane in the further regions of experience! Wow, that last update was quite well received. Its safe to say it was our most popular post ever. Theres no chance we can live up to that but we can always try!
Theres a great deal of stuff Im going to discuss today, so expect a rather neurotic writeup. But lets start with the major bit of news this week
WE HAVE A GAME!
ASYLUM is now playable from beginning to end, a milestone that understandably makes up very happy (and relieved!). Were anxious yet afraid to perform a full playthrough consider weve been working on this project for 10 years and how intimidating it will feel to play it for the first time. No matter how we feel, though, that playthrough is happening soon, and Im thrilled to report the individual portions we played are terrific and up to the standards we set for ourselves. Keep in mind we dont consider this beta yet, just the implementation of the whole game logic. Some portions still have mockup assets and were now swiftly working to replace them with the real deal. I mean, while it would be a decidedly unique experience, we wont release the game like this:
Haha, imagine your face if we did and our severed heads in retaliation.
OLD SCHOOL ADVENTURE GAMING
So, all puzzles are implemented! During this process, we took a bunch of days to revise the entire game design, balance things up a bit, and make sure pacing is tight. For instance, we decided to keep the first third of the game fairly linear, after which it becomes more challenging and hugely non-linear. Reason is that we want to make you feel acquainted with the environment and mechanics before leaving you to your own devices. One thing I learned from Scratches is that people dont like wandering aimlessly, so well only open up the entire asylum for you once you have a good sense of direction and what to do next.
Interestingly, the game is far more puzzle-oriented than we originally anticipated. It was only recently after taking a step back and looking at the big picture that we realized the puzzle density is fairly high, without ever being overwhelming. Were positive fans will love the brain teasers we designed here a few even feel like throwbacks to classic adventures. I spoke about this a bit last time: ASYLUM combines the design philosophy behind Infocom adventures with modern game design sensibilities. It may be the closest youll ever play to a graphical text adventure (without dead ends and sudden deaths, that is). Check out the flowchart sample to give you an idea of how the game branches in later stages, and keep mind this is just one tenth of the whole chart!
WHAT NEXT?
Besides concluding the game logic, recent areas of work included the dialogue system, inventory, and interface in general. We consider all of these aspects final now, though we expect another wave of feedback from Kickstarter backers. Theres always room for more tweaks, but the shell of the game is pretty much done. Keep reading for interesting glimpses of what we did.
From now on, well focus on implementing the last critical assets required to reach beta. Beyond that point, the greater volume of work will involve adding further non-essential details (readable stuff, easter eggs, feedback lines, etc), sound effects (many are still missing) and more music. As soon as we reach beta, we should be able to confirm that mythical release date. All in all, things are pretty good! The game is getting done and will feature a consistent and thorough quality level. I guarantee you an engrossing experience: we took great care to ensure everything is consistent and makes sense. No matter whether youre cross-referencing clues, understanding the layout of the asylum, or figuring out stuff, ASYLUM will reward your observation and intuition. To give you an idea of our dedication and attention to detail, we have designed entire piping and wiring systems. In fact, we spent a full morning deciding where to include a drain in this restroom:
If the game doesnt sell well, were ready to become constructors! Just please, bear with us while we work on this last, very demanding phase of production
INVENTORY RELOADED
This is one of the changes we implemented following invaluable feedback from backers, turning the journal into your hub to keep track of everything currently happening in the game: people youve met, items you're carrying, topics you should investigate, and concrete tasks you must complete.
It's more clear and friendly now to understand which item you're holding along with a sweet feedback. Thanks to your trusty journal, you can quickly see the full list of stuff you're carrying and how it looks. It's minimalistic, immersive and useful!
MENU RELOADED
If you liked the journal, wait till you hear about the menu! We strive to maintain the immersion, even when youre perusing the game options. But this is more than just an everyday menu one of the last tweaks we did is give you the ability to review essential documents that you find in the game. We dont want to have you backtracking to reread a clue or recall a key plot point, so we basically turned our achievements system into a collection of documents and cutscenes that you can review anytime you want all from within the same book!
Theres many pages like this and several stuff you can collect. Even the achievements themselves maintain the mood: is your memory good enough to recall all flashbacks while you were a patient of the Hanwell Mental Institute? Then you will unlock the Retentive achievement! We cant tell for sure if ASYLUM will be a great game, but its menu is gonna be AMAZING.
MATRIX RELO... NO WAIT, WISHLISTS RELOADED
The other bit of exciting news we wanted to share with you is 30.000 WISHLISTS ON STEAM!!!
Thats a huge lot and extremely good news because it positions the game as a potential indie hit. And frankly, we never even expected to achieve this much! 30K was my very best case scenario. ASYLUM is getting far more popular than we ever imagined, and believe us when we tell you that we want to finish it as badly as you want to play it. Of course, we couldnt have reached this astounding goal without your staunch support Its a specially meaningful achievement for us because we managed all this without a publisher. Even better, we still have room to grow as we need to do more PR. Speaking of which
CALLING ALL REPORTERS!
Curators, journalists and producers among you: were finally getting close to sharing a preview build of ASYLUM with you! There's a chance you're already in touch with us we got tons of requests over the years and well get back to you (provided youre still alive).
If we never spoke, ping us at team@senscape.io or use distribute() to request a key: dodistribute.com/access/DgpZCR20PR Well give priority to stream the game to people who have supported us from the beginning, including backers, but eventually all publications and creators, no matter how big or small they are, will receive keys. Also, were totally OK with creators monetizing their streams we love supporting you too
And thats it for today. We should have many more cool news to share with you next time. Thank you for sticking with us, and hope you have a stormy and sinister weekend! Agustn
Greetings from a dimension of ineffable cosmic hideousness! Its about time I made this post as some of you keep asking this question, not to mention lighting torches and raising pitchforks. Ill try to resume as best as possible our vision for ASYLUM, what were trying to achieve with the game, and why the darned thing is taking so long.
This is a long post, so grab a cup of coffee or beer and enjoy.
THE OBVIOUS
Were a very small indie team essentially three people operating on a shoestring budget. We tried going with publishers several times but either we found they didnt share our vision, demanded too much or gave too little. Theres definitely good people out there, but we could never find the right partner for the project. Moreover, the conditions in Argentina, where we live, arent always the best. Were fortunate to have struck a balance between our personal lives and work, but often its not that easy. Thanks to the generosity of Kickstarter backers, we were able to finance 50% of the project, the other half being self-funded from our own pocket. Its very, very hard to finance a large game project, especially one as atypical as ASYLUM.
So we did what we humanly could throughout all these years, responding to industry changes and juggling with the circumstances. Of course we did mistakes, too. We truly regret the game has taken this long to develop, but one thing has never changed
THE VISION
ASYLUM was born out of sheer love of adventure games and horror, as well as the experience with my first project Scratches. It was always meant to be a more ambitious take on the ideas introduced in that game, which miraculously took only three years to develop. ASYLUM is at its heart a classic point-and-click adventure, but feels different. Its ultimate goal is to be a modern and updated take on the traditional adventure game.
Im even tempted to say Interactive Fiction. It recently became obvious to me how much companies like Infocom have influenced ASYLUM (and Scratches). The layout of locations and emphasis on exploration is very similar to your average Infocom game in fact, the entirety of ASYLUM could be rewritten as an IF game and still work well. So exploration is a key aspect we kept in mind when designing the
LOCATION
Another goal was to give players the chance to explore virtual asylum that felt like the real deal. And yes, we went overboard:
Turns out asylums are rather big places:
Yeah. They have many floors too:
AND basements, but enough of these blueprints. Keep in mind that each one of those rooms have a distinct look and feel, as well as tons of little details to discover and cherish, as we dont want to bore you to death. The whole location has been painstakingly designed and eventually youll have full liberty to explore it as you want. Its huge, intricate, filled with spooky secrets, and we estimate youll spend several hours just exploring the whole place.
GAMEPLAY
Its no secret the game is a love letter to adventure games, with a twist. We iterated over the interface several times until we found the right approach and balance. At its core, ASYLUM works essentially like Scratches: its node-based with discrete movements.
This tried-and-true technique is ideal for adventure games as it allows us to create very detailed graphics for the game, as well as avoid repetition. While the presentation might be somewhat jarring for some players who aren't familiar with classic adventure games, we found that you quickly stop thinking about it after playing for a short bit. Case in point, Serena has been downloaded over 2.000.000 times with close to no friction when it comes to its presentation. Of course, fans of Scratches know the format can work very well. But we arent just making a bigger and badder Scratches here we went one step further by integrating actual 3D elements with these pre-rendered nodes, tweaking stuff as much as possible to make it seem as if you were playing a full 3D game, for instance adding breathe and walking effects.
(before you ask why not go full 3D?, we did consider it at some point and realized it was virtually impossible to do, not to mention that it didnt feel right for the game) So, imagine that we have these highly detailed rooms modeled with a 3D editor and each node is an actual cube. Fine, then we need to export 6 textures per node. Some rooms have up to 12 nodes. We connect the nodes together, add effects such as fog, dust, sounds and this is just to move around the atmospheric locations. Interactions are a whole different story.
The nodes are flat textures (yes, really, people still dont believe this), so any change in a scene has to be represented by another texture. When you pick something up, we must replace that portion of the scene with another texture patch. And of course we also need to define hotspots so that you can interact with stuff:
Every single thing you see in the game is a hotspot. Well, you dont see the hotspot, but its there. Its not like we can say oh hey, when the player clicks on this painting, no, we need to manually define the interactive region. This is more straightforward in a 2D adventure game because there are proportionally much less scenes. But consider this: 80 scenes in a 2D adventure are already quite a lot in pseudo-3D like ASYLUM with an average 4-5 nodes per room, those 80 scenes become 400. And this is in fact the amount of nodes we are estimating have been rendered for the game.
WRITING
Haha, see? See why were losing our minds with this project? But wait! You dont know everything yet. Because I hate repetition in adventure games; I really dislike when you click on a hotspot and get the same canned response over and over again (i.e.: The ocean looks serene and comforting.). It especially feels artificial when you click a couple of times to check if the protagonist has something else to say and turns out the feedback is exactly the same. So, we implemented a complex system to avoid that and wrote up to 12 different responses per hotspot.
Not just that, but a number of responses are tied to the mood of the protagonist (optimistic, somber, desperate), so some responses will be triggered after certain situations occur in the game. Imagine going back to a room and discovering that the protagonist has a completely different perspective on stuff. That previous line about the ocean turns into Just as we came from them, one day well all return to the eternal waters. Cheerful. The sheet where we are keeping all this is BONKERS:
CHARACTERS
Its estimated that just the modeling, texturing and rigging of a character costs $8000 in the industry. That is excluding animations. We have 4 main NPCs here, and 5 minor roles. Considering the animations, the "pro" industry price for our complete cast would have been the entire budget of the game. Games. Are. Expensive. As an indie team we have options, but still, our inability to afford such industry costs resulted in a huge deal of time and headaches creating these characters alone. They may not look AAA, but they more than get the job done and we are happy with the results.
In fact, we estimate that the Hanwell Mental Institute alone, where the game takes place, took us 3-4 years to create, and then another 2-3 years for the characters. Theres many other aspects of course, but location and characters by far took us the most time of development.
STORY
The final piece of the puzzle is the story. Writing down the script was the first task that was ever done for the game many aeons ago. Its thorough, twisty, and full of surprises (and we somehow managed to keep it secret for 10 years!). Our undying confidence in it is the reason why we spent so much time and effort working on this project. Its the ultimate requirement to fulfill that original vision, to ensure the game does justice to the story that was written in the first place.
Its far more ambitious and engrossing than Scratches, which was praised for its story case in point, Scratches was designed to make sure you never get to see any characters, with conversations always happening over the phone. However, this meant that great part of the plot always felt detached somehow, since theres this rich array of characters you never see. The story in ASYLUM simply wouldnt work that way. You need to see these people and even the past inmates through flashbacks. Come think of it, thats yet another aspect that took us a great deal of time: ASYLUM has countless of cutscenes everywhere with characters and drama, many times more than Scratches but Ill stop here.
AND NOW... THE STATUS UPDATE
That was merely a general overview. Theres tons of angles behind the development that Im not discussing here, but hopefully youll understand a bit better our position and why this is taking so long. Ultimately, we dont want to make a passable game but one that surprises you and is never forgotten. Turns out making that sort of game today implies a vast amount of work. But still, we keep making strides and enjoying a great momentum: as the game keeps growing in popularity (27.000 wishlists now!), were eyeing to have a complete playable build (beta) within 2-3 months. The vast majority of assets are ready and we're now focused on implementing puzzles and interactions.
As expected, this phase of implementing game logic is comparatively happening much faster than all the previous years of production. To put it into perspective, imagine that we spent 90% preparing stuff and 10% putting everything together. This happens often with adventure games that depend a lot on narrative content and not so much on prototyping, AI, randomly generated content, etc. As for the big question of when it will be ready, we're looking to confirm a release date when we hit the aforementioned beta milestone. However, it does look like we can make it this time and ship the game later this year. For the past several months, we've managed to meet every goal that we set for ourselves. Indeed, things are looking great!
Meanwhile, Ill stick around updating, appreciating your patience, and answering questions. Let there be no doubt that we remain fully committed to this project and making sure its released as soon as humanly possible. And I can tell you this: its thrilling to finally see the script coming to life, which is working as we hoped, equal shares of horror and mystery that hopefully you wont ever forget! Agustn
Greetings, esteemed Steam community! We hope you're off to a terrific 2019! As promised, we come bearing a series of exciting news from the sinister corridors of ASYLUM (and of course eye candy, because we know you love it).
Here we go!
STATUS UPDATE... AND POSSIBLE RELEASE!
Things are progressing speedy and smoothly, so we feel comfortable to disclose our plans. To recap, since December hundreds of Kickstarter backers have been playing a good chunk of the game with overwhelmingly positive reactions. We can confirm ASYLUM is performing great and no major issues have shown their ugly face. Even better, we seem to have hit a stride, meeting milestone after milestone: we're wrapping up an even larger segment of the game now, and expecting to hit beta around May. A beta in May means our goal to release the game later this year is doable. We're not officially confirming this yet, but you'll be the first to know. So this is really happening after all this time, and we couldn't thank you enough for your understanding and support! ASYLUM is exactly the kind of game we wanted to make, and the follow-up we just know fans of Scratches will love
WISHLIST LOVE
And speaking of support, wow... We're now at a whooping 23K wishlists milestone, and it feels 30K may be just around the corner.
This is all very, very exciting! For reference, only the top and most highly anticipated games in all Steam reach 50K and beyond. It's an ambitious goal, but what if we can make it? What if?!
CREEPINESS
We're thrilled (so to speak) to have wrapped up work in one of the scariest environments of the game, the High Risk corridor where the most dangerous inmates are kept, fondly referred to as the "Tunnel of the Damned". And yet, it's not even one of the top 5 scariest locations you'll find
For now we'll keep working on this lovely basement concealing dark secrets. Yes, of course there was going to be basement in the game!
We've also prepared some charming night scenes for you. There's people who swear they see hidden scary faces in this gloomy sky, but we did nothing of the sort (at least not yet):
And since we can't get enough GIFs, let us show you the kind of visual trickery we're doing to maintain that old school adventure tone and feel in ASYLUM:
Yes, that's cute... but what if we told you the record, arm and knob are the only 3D elements in this scene? Just think about it: the whole background and turntable are FLAT
A MOCAP INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT
Finally, we got access to a fairly pro MOCAP installation in Buenos Aires yesterday and did some tests for the game. If this works out, the amount of work for remaining animations we need to do will be dramatically reduced!
It would be quite exciting if we can include this technology in the game. Not that our handmade animations are bad, mind you, but this would certainly make our lives much easier. It's pretty fun, too!
THE END... OR IS IT?
Of course not, there's lots more coming, but we're concluding this update for now. We hope you enjoyed it, and let us know in the comments if you have any questions. We're thrilled that things are progressing so well, and we honestly can't wait to see you finally playing ASYLUM! Have a spooky weekend
Phew, following a couple of very intensive weeks, we're happy to announce that we have a playable and fully featured demo of ASYLUM working great with top-notch performance and minimal loading times! It's a huge milestone after all this time!
This is an internal demo that we're sharing with Kickstarter backers, and so far initial reactions have been hugely positive: players are in love with the atmosphere and agree that, even after this short glimpse, "what we can expect was worth the wait" and they are "very excited to delve deeper into the dark, decaying corners of ASYLUM!".
Did we say short? Yes, it's only a fraction of the final game, yet backers reported playing 60 minutes, as much as 90! This means our estimation of 10-12 hours for the final game is either spot on or quite conservative. Fans will also be happy to hear that performance is solid even on older computers, and we still have more optimizations to do!
All in all, the outlook is very positive as we now work towards beta status and get ready to suggest a release date. We just ask you a bit more patience, but rest assured: ASYLUM is happening!
EYE CANDY
Of course, it wouldn't be a proper update without sights and goodies from the game! First, we'd like to share with you this extended gameplay video that we showed last month in the Argentinian game expo EVA 2018 and got great reactions from the audience: https://youtu.be/KwaPvJiGPgs (please note it was recorded in 720p, hence some blurriness in the video) Improvements to the game include tabs in your trusty notepad, so that you can clearly keep track of the stuff you must know, from tasks to inventory items:
Speaking of which, can fans of Scratches detect the Easter Egg in that scene?
And then there's the gorgeous menu system, essentially a patient record (the patient being YOU!):
Yes, we always try to maintain the mood of the game. Even on the menu.
HORRIFIC GIFT
We know it's a bit late for Halloween, but we sent our previous update just before Halloween. Anyway, we're still giving away Scratches keys to all Whisperers in Darkness of our Discord community: https://discord.gg/senscape Rumor has it it's quite easy to become a Whisperer (mere minutes, in fact) but hurry up, this won't last longer.
THANK YOU!
And last but certainly not least, a big THANK YOU from the whole Senscape team for your patience and understanding as we strive to complete this game. Things are looking extremely good and we hope to be sharing more exciting news soon. For now, rest assured that ASYLUM ACTUALLY EXISTS and PEOPLE ARE LIKING IT.
Salutations to our wonderful Steam community!
Its been an exceptionally busy month for ASYLUM and its not over yet. Things are progressing fast and were happy to report that were just about to wrap up a big playable chunk of the game in near final form, truly polished and ready for public consumption. Exciting times ahead, and the momentum on Steam keeps getting better! Were now nearing 14.000 wishlists, mere days after we reached 10.000. Wow, just wow!
EVERY DETAIL COUNTS
Most work on the project now amounts to adding interactive stuff and implementing the remaining puzzles. Its taking time, though, because were going out of our way to add as many details as possible. We plan to reward your observation as you unlock the mysteries concealed by the dreadful Hanwell Mental Institute. For instance, we created a full maintenance schedule for our janitor, complete with an easter egg for fans of Scratches:
If you pay attention, youll find that every element in the game is very consistent with each other. Theres a huge timeline of events and intertwining storylines leading to a big finale you wont forget, and every detail counts. We really cant wait to share our monstrous baby with you!
GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS
We also added a crosshair to the game. Yes, we wanted to avoid it because it breaks the immersion, but it doesnt hurt as much as we expected and greatly improves the gameplay. Dont worry, ASYLUM is still a classic adventure game and you dont need to shoot zombies! Inmates maybe, but not zombies. (just kidding) https://youtu.be/MOa3nFaOnIE Please note the mouth-watering atmosphere complete with subtle fog. And yes, there are tons of items you can pick and investigate in great detail. Of course there's been more progress on this front and we're happy to report that its interface and overall presentation of the game are pretty much done. We'll need to do testing and tweaks but it's already playing smoothly. Yay!
CHOOSE YOUR OWN HORROR!
We also had a bit of fun doing promo materials:
Funnily, a lot of people asked where they could buy the book. We wish!
ABOUT THE VOICE ACTING
Regarding our previous update where we showed a glimpse of the dialogue system, we want to clarify that there will be voice acting in the game. We just havent recorded voices yet, but thats planned. As for the eternal question (is ASYLUM ever going to be released?), we must quote Jerry Dandrige:
Thank you for your continued support and patience, and have a spooky weekend! The Senscape Team
Greetings, dear followers! We trust you're enjoying your weekend. There was a huge deal of positive reactions to our latest progress update —especially that glimpse of our dialogue system— so we decided to share more:
https://youtu.be/QhzGV36uLWI
That's right, this is exactly what happens when you enter the foreboding Hanwell Mental Institute! It's finally possible to complete a first big chunk of the game, conversations included, which is a big milestone for us. While we haven't recorded voice overs yet, this should give you a good idea of what it feels like interacting with denizens of the asylum.
And since we're here, let us show you a glimpse from one of the most menacing rooms in the game:
https://youtu.be/qGDCnCEPN5o
This screams ATMOSPHERE, right? You'll be screaming too, trust us. We hope you like it, because we're doing this game with much love.
And speaking of love:
THANK YOU for pushing us over 10.000 wishlists! (actually over 11.000 as of this writing). ASYLUM is enjoying a great momentum and development is progressing fast.
We hope to be sharing more news with you soon. In the meantime, thank you so much for your patience and support as we conclude this monstrous adventure game!
—The Senscape Team
Things are looking up with the development of our colossal horror adventure! We’re happy to report ASYLUM is nearly feature complete and we did a little video to show you:
https://youtu.be/9m9zIbjGh9Q
"Feature complete" is a crucial milestone meaning all the systems intervening in the game (exploration, inventory, dialogues, menu, etc.) are ready. A quick lowdown of the stuff we did and improved since our latest gameplay video include:
- Revised cursors and hotspots. The hands are smaller and detecting spots is now ultra smooth and sexy. No more annoying red outline (we listened to you).
- Incredibly awesome menu system and very die... diaie... diegait... DIEGETIC. Wait till you see how our achievements work — completing them will be super fun for Steam users!
- We’re finally able to have a proper conversation with the denizens of the asylum. And it looks good! And feels good! Our context-based dialogue system is unlike anything you have experienced in adventure games.
- 3D inventory and journal, including 3D pencil. So immersive, so fancy. Much 3D.
- Too many visual effects and tweaks to mention here.
- Surely many other things we’re forgetting. And obviously a huge deal of playable content!
Talk to the hand... err, about the hand
We had many users complaining about the hand icons and saying they ruin the immersion. On the other hand (see what we did there?), just as well many users prefer their "classic" feel. Please, let us know your thoughts based on what you're seeing on this video, either in the comments or our discussion forums, as we're studying alternatives: https://steamcommunity.com/app/230210/discussions
Become a fan of Senscape!
In other news, we have one of those fancy creator pages now in which we review and recommend adventures with a focus on horror: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/Senscape
Make a wish!
Finally, remember to add ASYLUM to your Steam wishlist in case you haven't, and why not follow the game as well for more news? https://store.steampowered.com/app/230210/ASYLUM There’s more coming! We’re getting excited. We hope you’re excited too! Thanks for your amazing support and see you soon. —The Senscape Team
If you were fortunate to experience the era of VHS stores, you may remember the unique feeling of exploring the horror movies section: big boxes with bold letters, the shocking posters, incredible hand-painted artwork… Alas, something seems to have been lost since then. Some of that craft has long been gone.
But not for us!
ASYLUM is not only a heartfelt love letter to the adventure genre but also vintage horror, designed after years of watching every horror movie you can think of, and even some you had no idea they existed. We take horror very seriously, and we’re driving this point home more than ever with our gorgeous set of posters, including one we’re releasing just today. Would you like to pin one of these to your wall?
We hope you enjoy these posters as much as we enjoyed doing them. Remember, ASYLUM is a labor of love, and the painful wait will be greatly rewarded. Stay tuned for more news, including upcoming Twitch streams at https://www.twitch.tv/senscape.
JOIN US TODAY: https://discord.gg/fJfuRVv
Featuring the official Asylum Dev Journal and our charming Warden bot!
It's the friendliest Discord community around!
There’s a few more surprises coming up, including (wait for it) your chance to get FREE Scratches Steam keys. Yes, you read that right. How to join, you say? Easy peasy, just go here: https://discord.gg/fJfuRVv And boom! You’re in. Have a look, stick around, and get ready for the massive Asylum goodness we’re about to unleash. See you there!
ASYLUM
Senscape
Senscape
As soon as we can.
Indie Adventure Singleplayer
Game News Posts 30
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🎮 Full Controller Support
No user reviews
(0 reviews)
http://senscape.io
https://store.steampowered.com/app/230210
The Game includes VR Support
With influences ranging from Lovecraft to Peter Cushing to Lucio Fulci, ASYLUM has been meticulously crafted with a strong focus on storytelling and atmosphere. Explore countless of tenebrous environments, find your way throughout a towering, lifelike mental hospital, and solve a surreal mystery that will haunt you for years to come.
What you can expect
- A mind-bending original storyline that we somehow managed to keep secret during 10 years of production.
- An atmosphere so engrossing you will almost smell the stench of decrepitude and putrefaction around you.
- Exciting challenges rewarding your wit and observation. No pixel hunting or boring math puzzles.
- Memorable soundtrack inspired by vintage horror productions and quite a bit of John Carpenter.
- No jump scares! OK, maybe just a frightening couple that will hit you when you least expect it.
- Relentless pacing leading to a shocking and disturbing conclusion. You simply won’t believe what’s coming!
We poured our heart and soul into creating an involving and endlessly rewarding adventure. If you love the kind of slow-burning horror with an old-school sensibility that creeps upon you, ASYLUM will be an unforgettable experience.
- OS: Ubuntu 10.10 or later
- Processor: 2.4Ghz or higherMemory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Vulkan or OpenGL 4.3 compatible video card
- Storage: 15 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Consider having heart medication nearby. Just in case.
- Processor: 3.2GhzMemory: 8 GB RAM
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Geforce GTX 630 or equivalent
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