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