Hello everyone!! 

This is Cary, project lead of The Prismatic Forge. (We make colorful experiences!) I'd like to talk about a project that I've been developing for about a year now called Twosoulled. I'll be posting regular dev logs over the coming weeks, so you can watch the evolution of the project yourself.

Twosoulled is an asymmetrical co-op  fantasy roguelike where one person plays as an adventurer and the other plays as their Ego, a living weapon. Where the "Wielder", so called, will be picking from a series of fantasy races and classes for character creation, the Ego picks their base material and type, from swords to staves to bows. Though contributing to the same goals, players 1 and 2 play very different games with some key symmetries. Twosoulled takes place in a highly magical fantastical world, where every new level is a story in itself and a concept that's just fun to explore.

I started working on Twosoulled by myself - firstly because I was fascinated with the core concept and just really wanted to see it be made. Secondly, I had just spent months of work making a sizable mod for Valheim and over the course of it, I really got a good taste of the workflow of a real Unity game. I felt like I was perfectly poised to work on my own project, and then the concept just popped into my lap during a rather entertaining conversation with some friends.

Quickly, the idea went from "Someone needs to make that" to "I could make that." And so development began in full-force.

A deprecated original concept for an Ego shield.

I picked up Unity, which I've worked on for a number of major projects at this point, and this time I decided to start with the tough stuff and get it out of the way first. The things that always spring up and become major obstacles down the line. I built a 2D skeleton rig system and worked out animating a moving character. I spent an inordinate amount of time building a system to generate outlines, giving the game a very specific look which I'm quite happy about - something I could talk about for hours! Saving and loading data with my own byte encryption in actual save files. The full Character Creation process. You name it.

The coding, I was quite proficient in. The art... Well, let's just say I had to stick to... prototypes?

A character design to end all character designs.

As I worked on all this, I also sat down for hours on end and just designed. I came up with systems and skills and dozens upon dozens of pages of lore. Design's been my bread and butter since I was a child, when I would take decks of cards and assign each unique one classes and abilities and force my poor brother to play through my poorly thought-through RPGs. As the details just kept coming so easily, I could tell I was working on a gem in the rough. There was a really compelling potential here.

A potential I could definitely not finish on my own. Not even with my highly updated and very good new art.

It is me. A Regular Human Man.

It was around six months ago now that I realized I didn't need to finish this game on my own. I had purposely kept the scope small, so the project could be achievable, but no amount of time on my part would ever create better art and the more sophisticated parts of the code. I'm a designer at heart, and the rest is a bit outside my element. So I sought help. The response I got was shocking, and the months since have been a rollercoaster I never could have been prepared for.

Which is a story that I'll continue in next week's dev log! But for now, allow me to reintroduce the third iteration of today's star, and the ultimate confirmation of my belief that turning to others was the way to go.
 Meet Uldwin.

Talk to you soon!