Hey everyone!

What better way to start the weekend than with a brand new The Barren Kingdoms build?  Over the last month we have put a lot of effort into reworking and polishing parts of our little game prototype - we are still far from done but we think that we have made a lot of great progress and we are excited to show you what’s been cooking. Also a huge thank you to everyone for your great feedback! It really helped us a lot in figuring out which parts to prioritize and rework.

Overview 

Oh dear, where should we start here? First and foremost we have reworked the look of the Tool our little Robot uses to manipulate physics entirely. We’ve also added a new area - The Chapel of Shapers - where the Tool is found and players are taught how to use it immediately with new puzzles. There are also some changes to the open area that can be explored afterwards. Since it seemed to be a player favourite on our discord server, we added a dash ability, that adds more air control and a short boost of speed in addition to the sprint. We’ve discarded the stamina mechanic, because we believe it didn’t do much for the game itself and raised the number of Collectibles you need to find in order to level up and gain the ability to manipulate bigger objects. And then there is also a huge LOAD of visual updates, like new assets, new visual effects, shader reworks, new textures - the Kingdoms are so pretty now, you might not even recognize them. Also a bunch bug fixes: the usual business that comes with every update.

Patchnotes

[Added] dash ability that can be triggered by pressing B or Shift

[Added] new area: The Chapel of Shapers

[Added] respawn animation

[Added] new visual effects for using the Tool

[Added] new environment objects like the sun and lightning rays, a new type of plant

[Added] new textures for the Main Character, the Tool, some interactable objects

[Changed] the entire look of the Tool

[Changed] some colors have been adjusted for a more coherent look

[Changed] leveling mechanics

[Changed] the rock formation and bridge assets

[Changed] selected and manipulated object shader

[Fixed] a lot of minor and major bugs

What’s next?

We will continue to polish the areas that are available so far and are planning on adding some more gameplay incentives and secrets to uncover. Next up will be replacing the assets that are still blockout and of course creating nice textures for the already existing assets. Building a world that is meant to be explored and making it as wondrous and exciting as we envision it to be is a lot of work. But we are slowly getting there - step by step. Thank you for tagging along on this journey!

If you want to stay in touch feel free to follow us on social media or join our discord server - we are incredibly thankful for every bit of feedback we can get.

Sincerely,

Ghost Assembly