Being and Becoming News

[h2]Greetings, everyone.[/h2]

It’s been a while since our last journey together. So without further ado, we will take you on a guided tour for one of the upcoming locations in Being & Becoming.
Let us Dive into this together, shall we?..

As you make your steps across the Land of the Nightmare, you fall into a dim cavern. The only illumination you are provided with are the numerous fluorescent insects and plants.

Your sprite is surrounded by slight illumination

Mysteries await...

Time stands still here. The roots of ancient trees have claimed their territory aeons ago, their thorns ready to ward off any intruders and protect their time-honoured sanctity.

Unfortunately, this sanctity is still mired by the Nightmare. Its long arms stretch out, as if ready to drag you into the stillness of time enveloping the rest of the forest.

Strike a balance between switfness and caution

You go deeper and the ground gets shakier. With barely a stone to safely land on, you will have to rely on ancient contraptions, left by whomever dwelled in these lands before everyone could forget.
The helmet you donned is weighing on you, but you will have to demonstrate peak physical aptitude if you wish to proceed.

Even in the depths, you must move like the wind

As you leave the caves, you are greeted by the forest proper. Entangled in a misty aura, it will test your reflexes and observation skills, lest the passage of time overwhelms and drowns you.

Look out for secrets!..

Go off the beaten path for resources

Stuck between a relentless onslaught and timed challenges

Continue to explore and you will face taller formations that seem to go on higher than any other forest you’ve seen before... There, you will be tested, swarmed, and tattered. Risking your life or risking taking a fall?

Closely watch your surroundings and enemy movements: one wrong step can set you back

Finally, you come face to face with time itself: the ancient guardians of these lands. Their mechanical bodies have been protecting these lands since time immemorial, and a lowly Diver is but a speck of dust to them. Some, you can evade, but others might halt your progress entirely. It seems like you will have to find another way…

Some things you cannot wresle with, but maybe there is another way..?

…And this ends our tour for now! As you can glean from these enemies and mechanics, Being & Becoming is not just about relentless fighting. You will have to platform your way across a variety of challenges and be extremely mindful of your every step. Are you up to the task?

In the coming months, we will be ready to show you more locations we are currently working on as well as other aspects of the game’s development. In the meantime, make sure to follow our socials and wishlist the game to stay on top of things as development progresses.

[h3]See you soon, O Dreamers…[/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917990/Being_and_Becoming/

[h3]Dive into our channels for latest devlogs, news and more[/h3]

[h2]Greetings, Dreamers![/h2]

Quite some time has passed since you heard from us. And today we are going to share a lot of progress to make it worth the wait. The game received a lot of changes, went through several builds, and some of the game’s systems were completely redesigned. And, of course, new content was added!

[h2]Core Combat Redesign[/h2]

This anchor sunk us into the dream, yet it holds our hope, a hope both sure and steadfast and a one which enters within the veil.

We thought a lot about ways to make our combat system deeper and more engaging. To encourage the player to use all sorts of tactics when facing different opponents. The other goal was to make the combat loop more interesting — encouraging players to combine available abilities as they see fit.

[h3]With this in mind we designed a new combat system.[/h3]

Enemy stamina. Now enemies have stamina that can be drained by your heavy strikes. Some of the enemy attacks drain their stamina as well. When the stamina drops to zero – enemies can be stunned and knocked back.

This allows for a more cunning and risky fighting style, interrupting the enemy attacks mid-swing and sending them flying to nearby spikes or off the platform.



Weapon archetypes. To add another layer to the stamina system we split weapons into two types: light and heavy. Heavy weapons are slow, but hard-hitting, damaging both enemy health and stamina significantly. Light weapons hit fast and often, compared to heavy weapons, resulting in a higher DPS, but have less range and can’t affect stamina.

This makes heavy weapons more useful for zoning and crowd-control, while light weapons are effective at finishing off stunned enemies or poking them with lower risk of getting hit. All attacks can be freely woven into combos, allowing you to switch the playstyle on the fly.



[h2]Movement Tweaks[/h2]

I always advise the left hand path as a matter of principle.

We’ve also implemented a set of changes to the locomotion, improving the flow of platforming and movement in general. After all, the Dreamer will be expected to both move a lot in combat and while exploring the levels. And as such, this requires making character control and movement as smooth and convenient as possible. To achieve this, several minor changes were made:

• Dash move was replaced by the Slide move that dodges enemy attacks and allows movement through low passages.
• You can now grab the ledges and cling onto them.
• New animation states and quality-of-life features to make movement more responsive and consistent

[h3]But movement is only a half of the platforming experience, with the other one being… well, platforming itself:[/h3]

• Grab points that you can latch onto between jumps
• Pass-through platforms that can be jumped through
• Blood vials that you can spin around to launch yourself further

[h2]Enemies[/h2]

Only through blood can we wade through the valley of the shadow of death.

Enemy changes focus on making them challenging, but fair. This means redesigning all enemies in the Cathedral to make their attack cues more readable, while also buffing some of their attacks to be more of a threat. But we’ve also added new encounters: one regular enemy, a mini-boss and, of course, a fully finished two-stage bossfight.

The new mini-boss has been lurking somewhere within The Cathedral, waiting for you to pass by it at the right time to strike. It will break some of the rules you have come to learn about the combat system and challenge you to engage it in a different way to survive. All bosses and mini-bosses have their own musical themes and will affect the environment in unique ways.



A new regular enemy, called The Ghost, is considerably weaker and can hardly pose a threat to you. But you will encounter it often and, sometimes, in groups. When you’re up against four or five enemies, Ghosts can pose a threat simply because you have too many attacks to dodge. However, Ghosts are so light they can be easily launched with heavy weapons into other enemies.



And later, once you’re familiar with your arms and strong in your faith, you will meet the challenge you deserve, a formidable foe and a danger to the Collective Dream.

As things are, anyone who makes a wish will be corrupted.

[h2]Visuals and UI[/h2]

Ever since the very stars themselves have fallen from the heavens down to our kingdom, I have tried my best not to look up for fear of what I might see.

The game now has a new lighting system making visuals more striking and atmospheric. We also made several changes to the placement of decorations near the player paths, to improve the sense of depth.



Another significant addition is the new fully-fledged UI. The map, tutorial windows and found notes – everything you come to expect from a metroidvania, as well as essential elements like main menu, settings and other navigation elements.



[h2]New Content[/h2]

Well met, brother. I see you’ve resisted the temptation of the stars and stayed true to the Blood.

Of course, you won’t be traversing only the magnificent halls of The Cathedral. We’ve also added a new area: The Undercroft, with its dimly lit tunnels, lying deep below The Cathedral. Overgrown and infested with corruption, this place still impresses with its grim beauty.



In the future The Undercroft will connect to two other adjacent locations — Babylon and The Great Forest of Gilead. These locations have succumbed to corruption, yet still remain hauntingly enthralling.



The Dream is a nightmarish place corrupted by the blood, but it doesn’t mean that every creature you encounter wants you dead: some of the inhabitants are willing to guide you, help you or simply have something to say, be it other Divers, friendly inhabitants or messengers from powers you don’t yet understand…



The final aspect of our progress is the narrative. The story of Being and Becoming presents many questions. Who exactly are the Divers and the Dreamcatcher? What is the Collective Dream and the Blood that corrupts it? All will be answered in due time through your progression along the main storyline, but your exploration, conversations with various characters, and discoveries will reveal a deeper narrative beneath.



That is all for now. As you see, the game is steadily taking shape, getting new features and mechanics, locations and characters…But there’s even more under the veil. Some things stayed beneath the surface, but for a reason. After all, every revelation first needs a mystery.

Stay tuned for future announcements, they just might be the reveal you’ve been waiting for.

[h3]See you soon, O Dreamers…[/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917990/Being_and_Becoming/

[h3]Dive into our channels for latest devlogs, news and more[/h3]

Their forms are crumbling in the vaults around,
Whilst I, across the sea, but dream the sound.
- H.P. Lovecraft

Greetings, Dreamers!

Today we’re going to embark on a musical journey to unveil some of the production secrets of Being and Becoming. Welcome Holland Albright, the genius behind the original score, whose works you will get to know closely in the upcoming demo later this year.

Holland is a self-taught composer, specializing in fantasy, video game/RPG (VGM), classical, orchestral, and piano music.

Where the music of Dreams is born: Holland Albright home studio.

Let the music transport you into the deepest layers of the subconscious Collective mind:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Here’s the tracklist of the upcoming demo:

1. Corrupted Dream (Demo Main Menu)
   
2. Encore et Encore (Instrumental)
   
3. Surprise Attack
   
4. Surprise Attack: Reveal
   
5. Encore et Encore (feat. Tze Liew)
   
6. The Apostate (Phase 1)
   
7. The Apostate (Phase 2)
   
8. Dreamcatcher's Theme

Q: Which works inspire you when you’re working on Being and Becoming? A: The things that inspire me for Being and Becoming specifically are mostly the beautiful artwork and creative stories the team comes up with.

One of the early concept arts.

Q: Which classical composer do you find the most impactful on your music aesthetics? A: For "capital C" classical influences, I think it's a mix of composers like Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Chopin, Satie, Brahms, probably more. I tend to like romantic and impressionist classical music.
If I can add some well-known modern composers to the list: Joe Hisaishi, Nobuo Uematsu, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yoko Shimomura, among others, have been influential to my work as well. It's hard to write a short-list of influences because I keep discovering new music for games and animation that I love that probably end up influencing my work as well, like the Octopath Traveler OST - it's gorgeous and right up my alley in terms of musical aesthetic.

Q: Do you find inspiration in any game/movie/TV-show OSTs besides the classics? A: For music generally, I'm inspired a lot by Zelda and Studio Ghibli, also Final Fantasy, but I think those might be considered classics. It's hard to pick specific soundtracks that inspire me vs. ones that I enjoy, because I think when we like things, they may inspire us consciously or subconsciously. That said, for recent TV, I like the Wheel of Time and Rings of Power soundtracks. I also really love the Record of Lodoss War OVA soundtrack - it's incredible music from a very good old-school anime.

Q: What is your work process? So, you get a task assignment… What do you do next? A: Studying concept art or whatever art the artists are working on helps me quite a bit to get a feel for what I'm writing for. There's a lot of emotion in the game's artwork. However, sometimes artwork hasn't started yet, so Anthony [Note: Anthony Fischer is the creative director, writer, and developer of Being and Becoming] will describe things to me and I start sketching out ideas on piano. Generally that's where most of my work starts - on piano.



After I make a piano sketch, I'll notate it so it's in a fixed format that I can use for reference. While I'm sketching, I'll often hear what instruments I want to play the melody, so once the sketch (and sketch notation) is done, I'll start writing first where I clearly hear melody and/or harmonies and work outward from there. I jump around a lot while orchestrating (whether it's for orchestra, small ensemble, synths, electronic, etc.) - it's not a linear process most of the time.

Orchestral parts in the digital world: the sonic heart of Being and Becoming.

Once I get one part of the song finished (a phrase or a few measures), I might start on a different part of the piece where I also know what sound I want, and then keep doing that and fill in places in between as it comes together. It's like a puzzle - I have the full idea in the sketch, I just need to place where all the parts go.

Q: What do you think makes your music work so well with the setting? A: A friend once told me that some of my music could work well for horror and/or dark fantasy because a lot of horror music is really emotionally charged, as well as the stories sometimes being very personal despite the scary setting. I think about that sometimes when I'm thinking of what to write for Being and Becoming. There's a deeper emotional undertone. I want the music to reflect that where it makes sense to.

A sinking feeling at the pit of your stomach, as you dive deeper into the unknown.

Q: Finally, just a quirky one: have you ever had a weird lucid dream after a work session on Being and Becoming? A: I can't remember specifics of all the weird dreams I've had while working on this project, but one time I had a bad dream with this creepy creature that, no matter where I turned my head, it was always directly in front of me staring right at me. Its eyes had no pupils or iris, until suddenly they did (they came and went but were never consistently there). It freaked me out a bit, but I mentioned it to Anthony in case he wanted an idea for a new monster for the game.

Could one of them be the one?

Thank you, Holland, for sharing your thoughts and dreams with us today!

And now, with a glimpse behind the curtains, you have gained more knowledge than before. But do you feel truly satiated?

Stay tuned, as we have much more to offer: more art that transcends the reality you know, more music that wields the power to transport you where it wishes, and more announcements that will make all the wait worth it.

See you in the next one, Dreamers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917990/Being_and_Becoming/

Dive into these communication channels for all the latest devlogs, news, + more:

Welcome back, Dreamers. It’s been a while since our last glimpse into the world of Being & Becoming, hasn’t it? During these months, the project underwent significant reworks of several of its systems, which we are excited to share with you as time comes. Rest assured, the project is now taking its final form, which means more updates in the coming months; expect a more consistent devlog schedule from this moment on. Speaking of, the next entry after this one will delve into some of those new systems and showy moments we’re very much looking forward to sharing with you. Thank you for your continued patience and support. And now…

[h2]Welcome back to the tumultuous depths, O Dreamers… [/h2]

In the Midnight heaven's burning
Through the ethereal deeps afar
Once I watch'd with restless yearning
An alluring aureate star…
— H.P. Lovecraft

The following is a recount of this world’s events as experienced by the Lucid Dreamer…

As you find yourself ashore, you feel a keen sense of awareness piercing your senses like an ice-pick to the temple.
This is when you come to a sudden realization: in this Dream, you are not alone.
Underneath the nightmares clawing at the last shreds of your sanity, there is more to this fallen kingdom than damnation.
There is a presence lurking by your side, watching your every move, guiding you.
As you make your way through the twisted and desolated corridors of this kingdom, you see another bound in the same diver suit as you. Before you are able to learn more about your shared situation, their form contorts and transforms into something beyond your comprehension.

Climbing the cathedral, the building itself feels alive, growing larger whenever unobserved. Filled to the brim with unsightly things that still look faintly like you, bound by the same helmets and suits. Upon reaching its tallest tower, compelled by something you cannot describe, Saturn awaits you. Looming over the cathedral, impossibly close, its rings cutting through the earth itself. And then, Saturn wakes. Eyes open where there once were none and you can feel your sanity fray.



Saturn, the night sun, now brought light to the kingdom in the absence of the one true sun. And with that light came knowledge beyond what man should be able to perceive. Every step inside this nightmare, you could hear the disembodied voice rattling inside your skull tempting you at every opportunity. But now that you gaze upon Saturn, a more powerful voice rises from the whispers and envelopes your body, sweetly dripping honeyed words in soothing baritone.

Saturn reveals himself to you as your guide: The Dreamcatcher.



The Dreamcatcher spoke of a great duality, visible even in his puppet servant and mouthpiece. On one side, morose yet kind, and on the other, cheerful yet mischievous. The Servant's fervor for sharing the virtues of his otherworldly master is matched only by the mania he displays switching between his white and black sides. Despite his strings, it did not seem as though he was being manipulated, rather it seemed like a tether to the source of his power and insight.

For every word his servant spoke, even more was left unsaid. Also left unspoken was your wish to reach the source of what ails this kingdom, yet The Dreamcatcher knew your heart and instructed his servant to assist you. Though what mortal could truly know what a celestial being's assistance could bring?

These are mere puppets. Yet some strings are tighter than others…

This Servant is always lurking just out of sight, ready to assist you at a moment's notice. But to what end? He is always delivering uncanny insight into the hearts and character of those you encounter and even sees right through you and your own desires. If this is the power granted to those that are in the Dreamcatcher’s service, can you harness such knowledge yourself? Or would you falter and fall the way the other transfigured divers have around you?

Oh, I would turn back if I were you. The men who reside here littered the ocean floor with the bodies of martyrs, with yours nearly among them. And I have a sinking feeling that one in particular is not looking forward to a reunion.
— The Black Puppet

As the way you shared grew longer and your fates intertwined, one thing was clear: the Dreamcatcher not only knew more, but was more than he was letting on.



This was but a fragment of a memory trapped within the Collective Dream. If there is more you wish to learn, cast those questions into the deep, and perhaps it will answer you as well…

Dive into these communication channels for all the latest devlogs, news, + more:

• Discord
• Twitter

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917990/Being_and_Becoming/

Farewell for now, Dreamers.

“Reaching, gasping, wishing, longing
For the pageant brought to sight,
Vain I watch’d the gold orbs thronging
Round celestial poles of light.
Madly on a moonbeam ladder
Heav’n’s abyss I sought to scale,
Ever wiser, ever sadder,
As the fruitless task would fail…” - H.P. Lovecraft



The following is a recount of this world’s events as experienced by the Lucid Dreamer

The faces of the ones who strapped this diver suit on you and stranded you beneath the waves feel just beyond the periphery of your vision. Their faces are full of a potent mix of loathing and misery. Your resistance to the voice you have all heard is a condemnation of their iniquity. They sank you with an anchor, but their own guilt weighed heavier.



As you plummeted deeper into the depths, those faces were but a fleeting dream, unlike the endless golden eyes that watch your every move or the disembodied voice that rattles your skull with sweet temptations. While you languished beneath the waves, you could only hear that voice and the current. The voice presented you with a tantalizing promise of not only freedom in this watery purgatory, but also your every desire, if you only ask. Yet when that golden eye opened after you resisted the voice’s offer, it felt as though you yourself awakened, and one nightmare was traded for another.

Desperately, you clawed your way out of a watery grave and into the sunken burial place of a once prosperous kingdom that now groans with the cries of its citizens answering the disembodied voice. The kingdom sinks deeper, buried under the weight of each desire cried out being made manifest by that tempting voice.



The voice beckons still, perched upon your shoulder, always whispering even after your continued refusal. But the watchful gaze of those golden eyes around every corner reassures you of your resolve.

Did they seal you in a golden casket or provide you with the armor to turn any temptation, claw, or blade? That is for you to decide.



This was but a fragment of a memory trapped within the Collective Dream. Expect to receive more of these fragments in the future. Until that occurs, perhaps there is something else you wish to learn before continuing your voyage?

Cast those questions into the deep, and perhaps it will answer you as well…
(aka leave us a comment and let us know what you want to see in future devlogs!)

Farewell for now, Dreamer

Dive into these communication channels for all the latest devlogs, news, + more:

• Discord
• Twitter

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1917990/Being_and_Becoming/