Hey everyone! I hope you're doing great!
Last week I talked a bit about what I worked on during the first year of development. This week, let's move on to year 2 (of 3).
If the first year was mostly about building the game's foundation, the second year was when Sinking Eternity really gained its identity and started to become an actual game.
Expanding the World
-One of the biggest milestones was building several biomes and the first major cave systems. I started creating the mid-depth areas, the extreme depths, and many of the underwater ambience and lighting effects that give each area its own atmosphere.
Story & Exploration
-The story evolved a lot during that second year. This is when many of the major story ideas came together, including the opening cryopod sequence, the overall timeline spanning tens of thousands of years, the first major story arc, and the implementation of one of the biggest plot twists in the game. I really hope that moment surprises players, and makes them question what this planet really is.
-I also implemented the first 3-4 hours of the main questline and added the first major companion.
Gameplay Systems
-Many of the core gameplay systems reached a much more complete state during year two. I finalized the mining and woodcutting systems, expanded the player skills, implemented player damage and death, built the first pressure suit for exploring extreme depths, and finalized the save data structures that keep track of hundreds of different things throughout your adventure.
Performance & Polish
-This was also the year where optimization became a huge focus. One of the biggest improvements was increasing the game's performance from a stable 30 FPS to well over 200 FPS on my 2020 development computer. That was an important step toward turning a pure development build into something that actually felt playable.
-Outside of the game itself, I also opened the Steam page, created the first trailer, added initial gamepad support, and... lost an entire week of development because of a faulty SSD haha. That one taught me the importance of daily backups!
Looking back, year 2 was really the year where the project transformed from a collection of systems into a real underwater adventure.
Thanks so much for all your support, the Early Access is still on target for the end of the summer!