Hello everyone!
It's been a little while since our last major development update, so we'd like to share some of the progress we've made on Drownlight.
Over the past few months, we’ve been continuing to expand several core systems, rework existing features, and experiment with new ideas. Some of these changes are already in a solid state, while others are still being refined.
Here’s a closer look at what we’ve been working on.
Expeditions have been one of our main development priorities recently.
This system connects to many other parts of the game, including progression, resource balance, survivor management, and the different types of encounters players can discover.
The underlying system is now in a good functional state.
We’re following our “functionality first, visuals later” approach, so while the final presentation still needs additional work, the core mechanics are already in place.
Players will be able to organize expeditions to search for resources, rescue survivors, and investigate various locations scattered across the world. Some places may have been abandoned long ago, others might be better left unexplored.
During one of our earlier closed playtests, a small group of players had the opportunity to experience an early version of Drownlight.
Their feedback helped us identify several areas that needed improvement, particularly when it came to introducing players to the game.
At that stage, much of the story content was temporary and primarily existed to test the narrative systems.
Since then, we’ve completely rewritten the opening portion of the game.
The goal is to make the introduction feel more natural, while giving players a clearer understanding of both Drownlight’s mechanics and the world they are entering.
The underlying storytelling systems remain largely the same, but the experience surrounding them has changed significantly.
We’ve also continued expanding the behavior of citizens living within your settlement.
Citizens now have access to more ambient interactions that help make the city feel less static.
For example, when they have nothing else to do, small groups may gather together and talk about everyday life in the settlement.
These interactions don’t directly affect gameplay, but they add another layer of activity to the city and help make it feel like a place where people are actually living.
The upgrade screen has received a major redesign.
Previously, different upgrade types were displayed together in a single interface, which could make it difficult to quickly understand what options were available.
We’ve now separated upgrades into more clearly defined categories.
This makes browsing the available improvements much easier and gives the entire system a cleaner structure.
There is still more work planned for this screen, including additional upgrades across each category and further improvements to the overall presentation.
Here’s a comparison between the old and current versions.
Before:
After:
The radio system has also gone through some substantial changes. The previous version was much more passive.
Players would wait for a transmission to arrive and then decode whatever signal appeared next, which didn’t leave much room for meaningful decisions. The redesigned system gives you more control.
Instead of receiving one signal at a time, you’ll be presented with multiple available transmissions and decide which ones deserve your attention. You can choose which voices to answer and which ones are better left in the static.
Game development involves a lot of experimentation.
Some ideas sound great during the design stage, but once they are actually playable, they don’t always work as well as expected. We thought it could be interesting to occasionally show you some of those experiments instead of only sharing features that make it into the final game.
One example is an early prototype involving darkness beneath the ocean.
The idea was that, as night begins, a strange darkness would gradually spread through the water and move closer toward the lighthouse.
Once the lighthouse was activated, its beam would push that darkness back, causing it to disappear wherever the light touched the ocean.
The mechanic itself is already functional, but the visual result isn’t currently at the level we want for Drownlight, because of that, we’ve decided to put the feature aside for now.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the idea is gone forever, though. We still like the concept and may revisit it later if we find a better way to bring it into the game.
We're continuing to introduce new challenges beyond harsh weather, pollution, and the strange phenomena surrounding the lighthouse.
Here's one example: the crates drifting around the city are essentially free resources. You only need to retrieve them.
However, they're not yours until they're safely recovered.
From time to time, creatures lurking beneath the surface will steal these resources before your boats can reach them.
That’s all for this development update.
There’s still plenty happening behind the scenes, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of Drownlight as development continues.
Thank you to everyone who has been following the project, leaving feedback, and supporting the game.
If you’d like to keep up with smaller updates and talk with the community, make sure to join our Discord.
And if Drownlight looks like something you’d like to play, make sure to wishlist the game on Steam. Every wishlist helps us tremendously.
See you around the lighthouse.