Wishing you happy and safe holidays from the Asylum!

Greetings, everybody! I hope you’re 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, don’t 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, it’s 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?”. We’re beginning to get into the details now, ensuring there’s 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! We’re very excited, working hard and eyeing a beta that seems around the corner. There’s much more we’ll be showing you soon, besides all this disgusting and horrifying imagery, but I wanted to keep the update short and focused today. I hope you’re all doing well and earning a much-deserved rest. I’m taking some days off to recover myself – I have the tablet loaded with 50GB+ of ScummVM adventures and I’m very much looking forward to deactivating my brain until 2021. Surely it couldn’t possibly be worse than 2020… right? 👀



In any case, you already know this: whether it’s 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! 👋

—Agustín