Salutations to our wonderful Steam community!

It’s been an exceptionally busy month for ASYLUM and it’s not over yet. Things are progressing fast and we’re happy to report that we’re 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! We’re 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. It’s taking time, though, because we’re 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, you’ll find that every element in the game is very consistent with each other. There’s a huge timeline of events and intertwining storylines leading to a big finale you won’t forget, and every detail counts. We really can’t 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 doesn’t hurt as much as we expected and greatly improves the gameplay. Don’t worry, ASYLUM is still a classic adventure game and you don’t 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 haven’t recorded voices yet, but that’s 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