Been a bit since I've posted anything here. I am here today to talk about our new, current project, A Storm Unsung, ASU for short. If you are interested in what happened with Wind Carrier, I will be adding a section near the end of this post for that.
A Storm Unsung
ASU is an action rogue-lite game in which you play as different characters that are all distantly related by blood. Levels are generated procedurally from sets of 'tiles' and all the action is directed by a bot that I have named Glass's Eyes.
Glass's Eyes chooses which tiles to spawn and where, what enemies, events, and traps as well. All of this is determined by various parameters that run the gamut from the player's current vital statistics to the amount of time that you have spent in any given level, with, of course, random added to the top for a nice seasoning.
All the characters feature different strengths and weaknesses. They all have unique abilities which can be upgraded in various ways, some of which can vastly alter the way that certain characters can function.
ASU features four difficulty settings along with infinitely scaling +1 levels called hymns. The difficulty system doesn't simply affect the stats of the enemies either. It changes everything from which abilities are available to certain enemies to trap density to spawn timers for events.
ASU has been in development since, wow, the end of 2020, as it turns out. I had no idea that it had been that long. I suppose that means ASU has been in development for 4 years, but as most of 2022 and 2023 were a wash for personal reasons (in the span of two years, my father, grandmother, and dog all passed away), I will say 2 and a half years. In any case, the tentative plan is to have ASU finished here in the next year to a year and a half. It's mostly adding levels and all the things that go with them - enemies, traps, events, bosses, etc.
But, yeah, I'm uncertain why I decided now to start blogging about it, it's on Steam and everything at this point, but maybe part of me was worried about it ending up like Wind Carrier did and I didn't want any one to be disappointed again if it were to end that way. I can say with as much certainty as I can that it will not, however, and it will be completed in a timely fashion.
I'll be updating links and whatnot as time goes on - I kinda need to relearn blogger. I will likely be posting here most Sundays. I'm not 100% sure what I will be discussing, but I find that Steam updates don't really feel like they are the best places to discuss some things at length. Any who, yeah.
Wind Carrier
Wind Carrier has been shelved, as I'm sure you all have figured out by now, assuming there are any of you left reading this. I realized at some point in 2019 that Wind Carrier was going to take me a ridiculous amount of time, some 10 years by my estimation, to finish. I would like to return to it, or, really, something like it. ASU was supposed to be a quick project, a kind of a pallet cleanser, but we see how that turned out. It seems I am incapable of simple, but I suppose that's why people enjoy the things that I do - I put everything I have into projects that I make, even if it's not the wisest thing to do.
Anyway, the realization that Wind Carrier was going to take some much time crushed my spirit and in some way made me lose interest in game making as a whole. In fact, it was about a year and a half after the shelving of Wind Carrier that I started working on ASU. ASU has blossomed into something that I can say that I am proud of, even if it's not really anything like Wind Carrier at all. They're set in the same world, as everything that I do is going to be, but at different times, of course. I'm rambling and losing the point besides.
I apologize for not posting an update about the shelving. It was wrong of me and I deeply regret that. There were actually a few of you who reached out to me, some years late, wondering about Wind Carrier's fate and for that as well, I am deeply sorry. I should have treated you all better.
Until next time,
-Lucas
Project Director
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