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DevLog 02 - Meet the Team, Alpha, and Updates!

[p]We've (all 3 of us) have been very hard at work and wanted to share some updates with those who have been waiting. It's been a bit since we last shared any updates or info - really since we launched the store page - and think now was a good opportunity to share all kinds of news. We thank you for your patience while we're hard at work at crafting a "fun" and interesting experience.We're attempting to give a new and different perspective on the backrooms while having a larger meta narrative regarding technology and it's impact on an individual person. [/p][p][/p][h2]About the Team[/h2][p]This has been a busy year for all of us and this project, and are happy to share a bit of history about our progress so far! This section might look a little long, but I promise you, it's brief in comparison to what we could actually put. Our creative lead/producer/general decider - Daniel "Higashi" Webb - invited two others onto the team in late January - two trusted individuals which make our team of 3 - Alex "Laz" Harris and Dave "Dave" Leeders. We quickly laid out our various responsibilities: [/p]
  • [p]Dan - Art/Producer/Creative lead - A very incredibly talented artist and multi-disciplined in a variety of ways in respect to supporting both technical and artistic needs. Supports not only environmental art, but also supports in environmental animations and character based technical art systems. [/p]
  • [p]Dave - Sound/Animations - Has been pivotal in getting FMOD working in the project as well as getting animations working for the character and setting us up for success. [/p]
[p][c]Quick side note: animations and mapping them to the model/character correctly is incredibly non-trivial. They both have spent an incredible amount of time debugging and getting the character to behave exactly the way we want it to be.[/c] [/p]
  • [p]Alex, systems and world interactions/triggers/environmental controls, puzzles, and general data communication between the world and the player. This is where he could probably go on at length, but we'll get there in this DevLog, or the next...[/p]
[p]Dave and Alex spent a lot of time playing catch up and learning the engine, and the needs the game had from them. This was, and continues to be, a lot of work.Unreal has made it very easy to make a game, but understanding how all these tools connect and work together is the large part of the labor.[/p][p][/p][h3]Dave's Contributions[/h3][p]Dave spent a lot of time learning not just blueprints in Unreal Engine in general, but he also had to spend quite a bit of time self-teaching how to use and incorporate FMOD into the project. He's also, as mentioned earlier, spent a lot of time learning animations and animation blueprints and how those connect to the character model. Again, he, Dan, and Alex all have spent nights where we've been awake/working on the animations far longer than anything else in the project. [/p][p]Animations are hard when the team has 0 experience and tasks in other areas of the project that require our attention. Fun fact about Dave: He's a nurse! Has musical tendencies and talent, and knows enough about logic and programming to insert the desired sounds in the right place. I point this out not only because passion for game development can come from anywhere, but the tools these days (along with the right knowledge or drive to learn them) allow anyone to pick up and go learn how to make a game! [/p][p][/p][h3]Dan's Contributions[/h3][p]Our artist! This man is unstoppable and has worked incredibly hard to bring the project and world to life. Not only the art, but when Alex stepped away for school for a bit to finish his Masters degree in Computer Science, Dan took up the mantle of doing systems and technical work. He has crafted several very important systems - save system, grab, doors (yes doors are important, and very annoying) and an elevator (harder than a door). No shade against Dan, but it's incredible he was able to get these systems running and working where he's mostly an artistic person. [/p][p]Once Alex returned to the project, Dan and Alex have worked together to deliver some really interesting mechanisms to change the world around the player at key moments. No spoilers of course, but as we build them out, we learn more and more, and find clean and interesting ways to adjust the world around the player. Dan lives in Japan, has a family, but originates from the UK. He works for a very serious CG company in Tokyo. Dan has been a 3D/CG artist for almost 10 years and has worked on many incredible projects that really pushed his talents to their absolute limits. [/p][p][/p][h3]Alex's Contributions[/h3][p]What you don't see or hear is everything Alex has been working on. There's several layers to how interaction works - proximity notify with icons indicating that something is able to be interacted with, how grabbing actually connects to the player, collision and how that behaves (I guess you technically see some of the work), as well as the refinement and curing of defects introduced in his absence. Puzzles, and how those puzzles are randomized, the data communication and transportation between the player and other systems (puzzles, game state,the current level, save system, etc.) Everything you don't see/hear (mostly) is what he works on. [/p][p]Alex is a software engineer by trade, and exercises those skills while searching for more permanent work beyond his contract at his current company while supporting the tight-knit team here. Prior to this, he served in the US Navy for 8 years from 2012 to February 2020 (yes, just before COVID exploded), then started his Bachelors in Computer Science, which was awarded to him in 2023. Then, as mentioned before, achieved getting his Masters in Computer science in 2025. He is also able to support at a lower level in C++ and Python where needed and has created a few custom C++ nodes for use in the blueprints. [/p][p][/p][h3]Dynamics And Collaboration[/h3][p]Beyond this, we might do specific dev highlights in the future, but for now, this is where we are. While we each have some high level highlights on how we're working on this project, we all contribute in minor ways to each others specialty in very small ways: Alex does some art sometimes, Dan does sounds, Dave works on systems here and there. A team of this size, we have to (after checking with the owning party of that content) make the changes while the others are busy with life or work. [/p][p]We don't have the luxury of waiting for others sometimes, more so than most game dev studios. We also are usually having a long Discord conversation every night about what we are working on, what we're doing next, and what we've finished. Not because we have to, but because we're actually having fun doing this and enjoy each others company. That said though, it cannot be stated enough, we have to be able to think quick, move quick, and fix quick as we get past our pre-alpha and move into our alpha testing and beyond! On that note... [/p][p][/p][h2]Pre-Alpha and Alpha[/h2][p]We've finally reached a point where we're testing a single level and core-systems for the game and collecting feedback. Now some people reading this might have keen interests in wanting to be part of that process, and we appreciate the enthusiasm, but we're doing strictly friends and family at this time. We will do beta testing eventually, but even that might be very selective. [/p][p][/p][h3]How Do You Test? [/h3][p]You might be wondering then how do we get meaningful feedback if it's friends and family? We are taking a very hands off approach initially during the play through, but have a conversation afterwards discussing key points of the test. First, we start the test with the tester just playing the game, and we (devs) silently take notes about comments they make, and actions they do - very behavioral driven data collection honestly. We want to see how the player plays and to not interrupt them. Admittedly we've found moments in the pre-alpha where we absolutely have to give some minor direction, but it's more so a consequence of not being direct enough with signals being given to the player - nothing specific, but just in general.[/p][p]As we're crafting this story and world we're making in parallel with what's out there with regards to the backrooms, we're learning! Collectively we pull from experience of playing many games, but then saying "how cool would it be if X happened instead of Y" or "how does game X do it?" and giving our best shot to do that same thing. Not 1-to-1 copying, but applying the same philosophy or idea as best we can. [/p][p]Oof... okay, that was a bigger tangent than we meant it to be! But beyond that phase of testing and analysis, we have a conversation with the player about each segment they experienced, and take further notes. We then will process and aggregate the information. Currently, we're just collecting and developing a post-alpha work log for us all to work on... and it's going to be a lot to work on.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]How We Are Doing Both Testing Stages[/h3][p]What we've planned is a hard deadline for our alpha testing date to start.Any testing prior to that is our pre-alpha. It allows us to address some of the more critical issues prior to the alpha that just really are things we missed as developers. There's truly a case to be made for people to play-test your game, and we're experiencing it first hand. [/p]
  • [p]One of the testers suggested adding the flashlight earlier in the game, and it was actually such a great idea, we moved earlier shortly there after. Now,after a series of events, the player will be able to track down and pick up the flashlight before exploring further in the first level. [/p]
  • [p]Another found a hole in the world by crawling (quite intentionally) into a location where there was definitely blocking collision that should have prevented that... SHOULD being the operative word! This made us realize two things: [/p]
    1. [p]Take another look at all our collision, and that our idea post alpha on having key milestone checkpoints existing.[/p]
    2. [p]Saving for our player is super vital. We'd like to have it for alpha, but there's not enough time based on our internal deadline.[/p]
[p]Another question you might ask is this "well just move the internal deadline for alpha if you have stuff you want to add." We've talked about this a lot, and if we never set a deadline, then the alpha keeps moving further and further down the road. What we wind up experiencing is something that happened earlier this year - we had enough base core systems we were ready for people to just play it as part of the pre-alpha... Well that clearly never happened! So we agreed on an upcoming date to start doing alpha testing. That's a secret too, the date, but we're making progress. [/p][p]New discovery - setting deadlines is a good thing! Deadlines being a good thing means this as well: we're actually ahead of schedule for when we want to have early access available! [/p][p][/p][h2]Final Thoughts[/h2][p]It's so exciting to have nightly builds we can download ourselves ON STEAM and play THROUGH STEAM! It's been a year of hard work, furious debates, and a lot of trial and error. Our team has finally found the workflow that works best for us, and are very excited to continue creating what we hope to achieve is a unique experience and take on the backrooms. It's not playable end-to-end in the full experience we want to deliver, but just having the ability to share builds with each other on the fly across Steam is something truly impactful. When you've worked so hard on something and you can finally "get your hands on it" is a pretty incredible feeling. It motivates a person more and more each day to do the right thing and deliver. [/p][p][/p][h2]We Lied! One More Thing! Here Are Socials To Connect With![/h2][p]Please do the following to support our journey![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p]
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