The ASYLUM Strikes Back!

Hello there! We take the dust off this news hub with, well, news. Yes, we are still here and, most importantly, ASYLUM is still very much here as well. And we keep working to ensure it gets there, wherever you are, as soon as humanly possible. You must be anxious to lay your hands on the game just as we are to get it out of our systems. So let me summarize where it's standing today, as I decorate this update with some GIFs and assorted stuffs.



It has been possible to play the complete story from A to Z for a while now, but only recently we began doing proper QA. ASYLUM is in a situation in which we can immediately identify areas that need polish while playing and fix on the spot – for example, graphical glitches, a puzzle not working as intended or (*shudders*) unexpected dead ends. Luckily that one is very rare and only happened once by now. While there's still placeholder stuff that needs to be updated, the experience is beginning to feel strong and cohesive.



I've mentioned this many times in the past, and yes, I'm sure I sound like a broken record by now, but ASYLUM is one heck of an intricate game. Its game design and story have remained virtually untouched since development began unfathomable aeons ago, save for a puzzle branch that needed adjustments. While areas such as visual style and UI/UX have received many iterations over the years, the core concept and philosophy never changed.



It took me some time to understand that ASYLUM owes a lot to classic Interactive Fiction: the map design, its highly non-linear nature, characters moving around the environments, passage of time, etc. It all should feel like playing an Infocom adventure of a bygone era, sans the annoying parts that didn't age well, in glorious 3D. And this why new people being able to play the game from beginning to end without relying on hints and without stumbling upon blockers is a huge relief. Thank goodness this thing is working well (for the sake of our sanity).



So in addition to QA, tweaking and balancing, we've been creating cutscenes for the game. Some are occasional transitions, others are story-related, such as flashbacks of past occurrences, or mysterious glimpses of how daily life was in the Hanwell Institute. These are video elements that can take their time to produce and render, but are quick to implement and test. All of this stuff can be spoiler-heavy, so we'll only show a few bits and pieces in blocking form. You know, this is often how entire cinematics are blocked out, and it's even common to work with rough geometry while other assets are being produced!





Finally, another area of big focus at this moment are text revisions: many passages and dialogue lines were quickly drafted for the purposes of programming and testing logic, and there's still a good deal of work we must beautify. In ASYLUM the story comes first, so expectedly we're putting the same amount of care in the script and the words you'll read as in the visuals.



And as we move forward, perhaps we stumble upon a room that feels somewhat empty compared to the others, so we might add an extra hotspot or two to spice up the exploration, maybe dropping a new item for the purposes of set dressing, including but not limited to the kind of creepy toys you'd expect to find in a seemingly abandoned asylum. Imagine yourself entering a surgery room covered in filth and decay with unidentified distant sounds echoing through the winding corridors outside and then this weird doll sitting on a table... yikes.


Well, that's it for this update. I know the pressing question in your minds is "When? When? WHEN?", but we're not ready to disclose a release date yet. There is a plan in action, and a tentative launch window. Next steps involve boosting our community management efforts, relaunching our Senscape website, and bringing you more frequent news. Just stick around, because there's more coming, and we're not going anywhere.

–Agustín