ISBTH Devlog 2
Hello!
This in another (overdue!) update on ITSBTH. In this post I’ll talk a little bit about how the development of the game has been going over the past few months.
Firstly, my last game The Black Iris has been nominated for Best Small Budget Game at the first Scottish Game Awards, so thanks to everyone who played the game, the response to it has been overwhelming!
My planned release date for the game was around this time, however, as with most games and especially with those developed by one person, the schedule is running later than planned. This is the first time I have developed a game on this scale (at least 10x the amount of content than The Black Iris), so estimating how long the development process will take is something I am learning.
With that being said, so much of the game has come together in the past few months. The overall shell and structure of the game is in place and I’m now going through and putting in models where placeholders were, adding music/sound, writing dialogue and playtesting. Some big things checked off the list include:
Controller Support (Xbox, Playstation, Switch Pro and most other common controllers)
Radio - Work on the game’s radio station has been on 2 fronts: making/licensing music and coding the actual functionality of the radio station. Currently, I have just under an hour of licensed and original music and all the radio functionality is locked in.
Underwater Environment - The overall atmosphere of the North Sea bed is completed. I spent a long time playing with getting the atmosphere right and using countless videos and images from dives as reference for the atmosphere, vegetation and geology.
NPCs - All NPCs are in the game and their animations/scripting done. I am now writing dialogue for the characters you will meet around Kellas Bay
Objectives - I have done a lot of work on the games objectives and expanded to include a few more optional side quests.
UI Elements - More recently I have been working on UI/HUD elements like popups for discovering a new location etc. These are small details but I think go a long way to getting across the atmosphere of the game
Game Ending - A lot of the games ending has been finished, about 50% left of it to do.
I think that about does it for now. I’ll be back soon as soon as there’s more news. My plan is to get a release date + new trailer out by the end of this year
All the best, and thanks for your continued interest in It Sleeps Below the Haar.