HAPPY HALLOWEEN/SAMHAIN and soon Day of the Dead! Whether you celebrate these holidays or not, we can all agree we're here to enjoy some spooky fun.

It has been almost three years since I had posted here talking about the future of the game. Oh boy has it been a tough couple of years. Filled with highs and lows, gains and terrible losses. That's the most I can comfortably say.

After moving across the country earlier this year for work as a Project Manager and Game Designer. I can say, it's time to take Feducia seriously once more...at least within the little time I have to work on it. It's been radio silent on here, but over the course of time I had been gradually working on the game, which you can learn more about on my TIGSource Devlog.

Before we move on to the game itself, I want to interact with YOU in regard to the future of audience interaction.

Poll: Would you like to see more Development Log stuff on here?

Despite having everything all on TIGSource, I want to open this up to everyone here. Would you like to see me post more Devlog content on this page? The lot of you may not be aware of the logs I've posted on TIGSource, demonstrating some of the technical progress I've made while working on Feducia. It might be a small minority that care to learn more about it all, and I'm not looking to lock it all behind a patreon or kickstarter for the time being.

I also made had a little stint streaming and youtubing in the middle of 2022. You can check out some of my content and art i've done over at sbNewsom - YouTube. It's something I'd consider getting back to if you all would like to see more development videos posted up there.

So, sound off down in the comments if you'd be interested seeing such content posted moderately frequent. And while you're at it, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on Feducia and what it means to you thus far.

With that out of the way, let's talk about all the changes!

Name Change

Feducia served its purpose during the game jam and up to this point. It still stands as a plot point in the game, but over the course of time, I felt it needed a more impactful and meaningful title. Something that represents the sort of soul I'm imbedding into this project.
Formerly, "Feducia", will now be titled:

As you can surmise, this title is multifaceted, simple and drives home the emotional impact of the game that I want to convey to you all. The kind of psychological dilemma that I hope I can achieve within the game itself. 

From Scratch, In Unreal Engine 5

There were a few things I wanted to take advantage of when upgrading to the updated Unreal Engine, though not necessarily for the feature set UE5 is known for.

First being non-destructive coding. In short, I wanted to make all the code changes for the game, modular, so I'm not restricted to compiling a custom version of the game engine. I want my changes to plug right in without barring me from easy engine updates. Allowing me to be more mindful of the potential patches post launch.... whenever that'll be. A bit of foresight one could say.

The rest are visual. This engine is robust, and I set out to make this game as a sort of proving grounds for making retro games in a way that makes it feel somewhat believable as a 90s product with the benefits of modern graphical horsepower. I may not be using Lumen (The new lighting system of UE5) or any of the fancy raytraced visuals, but what I am utilizing is Nanite. 

As you can see below, I can have a lot of fun with the ease of production. For Friday the 13th, I did a little tribute to David Szymanski and their game "DUSK". Weirdly enough, I regret doing DUSK over Iron Lung since...well some of you know that Markiplier released his debute trailer the day after. hahahaha NO IM NOT GOING CRAZY OVER IT

Why is that? Since the game is mostly non-destructive and real-time, I wanted as much graphical fidelity without sacrificing performance. 2D sprites are bound to the resolution it is created for. By keeping the fidelity of the environment scalable, I am able to produce 90s 1bit photorealism in a way I can make everything dynamic and impactful. 

From crunchy pixel lighting to "smooth" terrifying dynamic animations.

Early Alpha Demo Release Date & SQUEENSHAWTS!

Whether you're exhausted from all that reading or you skipped right on over here...because WHY NOT! I originally wanted to release a full alpha demo today, with all the content from the original Game Jam and then some, but I bit off more than I could chew. This demo will include an extended intro to catch you up on the premise of the game and world. With a little taste of the intended experience.

"SHUT UP AND TELL US!" Fine! Fine. 

November 15th. 

Happy now? Jot that on your calendars. With all the changes to the game, technical, mechanical and visual, I look forward to seeing how the demo feels and plays for everyone. Hopefully to figure out all the things I'm doing right and wrong...exciting and stressful for sure.

And before I send you off! Enjoy a few screenshots from the demo! Hope to hear from you all and enjoy the rest of your holiday!