Under a Desert Sun: Seekers of the Cursed Vessel - progression update

[p]Hello Seekers,[/p][p]I thought it was a good moment to highlight some fresh progress! Development continues at full speed, starting with new environments and further work on the main quest. As some of you in the Discord already know, I use the main quest as a way to push myself to build new systems. I'm now at the point where everything leading up to the final moments of the main quest is functional—both tech-wise and, for the most part, art-wise.[/p][p]That means it was time to move the story forward again, which in turn forced me to create new areas, enemies, and gameplay features. One such feature is an improved day and night system, with smoother lighting transitions and smarter particle effects that fade out instead of abruptly disappearing. Below you'll find a quick idea of the new day/night features and a few in-editor screenshots showing the early stages of these new zones.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Creating these new areas also meant designing new enemy types—specifically ones that shoot projectiles! From Nazis who fire bullets to arcane mummies casting magical bolts, I needed to build the underlying tech. To get that going, I set up a test using our trusty mummy as a prototype. This allowed me to develop the full system: bullets, shooting and casting animations, and proper hit detection.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Naturally, new areas also bring more destructibles. And let’s be honest—breaking stuff in an ARPG is just fun. (As you can see from me thrashing around... purely professional testing, of course 😏)[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]On the technical side, Steam Deck optimization remains a major goal. The game currently runs at a stable 45 FPS on Deck without any upscaling like FSR—so you get a clean image and native visuals. To get there, I’ve upgraded several systems under the hood. Particle systems now fade naturally, enemy spawning uses pooled and distance-aware logic, and we've improved object occlusion and visibility handling to keep things smooth when off-screen. These changes help across all platforms but especially make the Deck experience strong.[/p][hr][/hr][p]Join the Discord for daily development discussions and behind-the-scenes previews.
And if you like what you see—wishlist the game on Steam to support the journey![/p]