Posted November 02, 2025 by FrostCoreStudios
Well, here we are 7 months later into the development. What started as a super simple game I made over the course of a 40 hour crunch coming in late to a game jam... Is now a completely different game. So with the jam ver I set my scope as low as possible, being the jam was focused around radial menus. I even considers just making the menu the focus point of the game, using it to walk around a creepy dungeon and encountering jump scares in the form of sound. However I was coming into the jam fresh from playing the ShadowGate sequel. ShadowGate was and still is one of my all time favorites and so I was inspired by the classic fuel management mechanic and started building a phycological horror walking sim...? With that idea the entire menu was based around the idea of keeping the lantern fueled and lit and maybe not lit.. Originally I was going to add a creature in the game at the beginning that would chase you if the lantern went out and towards the end you would have to stumble around in the dark because that creatures twin would be attracted to the light. However I had to cut that idea for 2 reasons.. 1 - I could not figure out a way to tell the player about this switch without literally telling them and I am not a fan of hand holding and walking the player through with clear instruction. I love games that have hidden features even in the most basic setting. 2 - I made the mistake of building the level out in UE BSP brush mesh tools... I never use these tools unless I am just whiteboxing something but I was short on time and my whiteboxing doubled as my level design.. and this caused problems with the nav mesh... So I had to exclude any sort of enemy at that point. So I went back through the level and cut the fuel pickups, leaving only a enough to get through to the end with maybe 1 to spare. Then I made a simple mechanic again barrowing from classic ShadowGate where you just die if the light goes out, the idea is the monsters are there.. you just can't see them. I coupled that idea with some sfx and I was done with the game loop. I barrowed some sounds from my neighbors dogs to make most of the sfx in the original game jam, so yes.. all the scary sounds you hear in that are just dogs.
After the game jam I took a bit of a break. Before the game jam I was in a state of severe burnout with my main project, working 16+ hours a day on (H.A.B.I.T) That game. Once I eventually did get back to work on game dev I started working on SeeYou instead with the intention that this game would be not only something I could complete by the end of the year but also a really good long overdue learning experience. For the entirety of my game dev journey learning code, art, modeling, texturing, sfx, music, writing, story building, etc... I have always found a way to avoid character creation. Not only in my doodles was I bad at anatomy or really anything with an organic shape but I was terrible at sculping it in 3D.. which is strange in a way because I am actually decent at sculpting things IRL.... Anyway I only recently after like 16 years started diving into sculpting courses and such to try and break myself out of that box but, I just could not stick with it. With all the motivation and ideas I had for this game I finally started wrapping myself around that learning curve and successfully sculpted a snail... or more accurately a Snail Pope. I actually managed to knock that entire model out in 4 hours somehow - Modeled, Unwrapped, Textured and made a simple rig to animate the little eye fingers??? and I did a voice over for it. That sort of broke the ice for me and I just started building that skill up from there. There are many other things I have learned from making this game that I won't get into but this game has definitely if anything else has been an amazing learning tool.
And so I have been building this game with the intention to have a Steam page and a demo out before Halloween. That didn't happen... So my new goal was to set my scope on getting a playtest and teaser out there for the spooky weekend.. Also didn't happen... Well not really because I didn't get done until like 5am today (Sunday - Nov - 2nd). I did not sleep the entire day/night of Saturday, I tried but I just couldn't shut my brain off because I was sooo close... So I got out of bed and continued to work. So here is the product of my sleep deprived crunch. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to put out but I didn't want to keep pushing it and end up not putting anything out. In some cases that might seem like the better choice for the people playing the game but for the person or the people behind the game it is a huge milestone and motivates us to continue making things and continue improving when we see the game out there in the world... for better or worse. Least that is my view on it and I think some other devs would agree. I love creating these worlds and I love seeing other people enjoy them or even hate them.. Something about that, having complete control over the ultimate form of expression and having others share and reflect those expressions is an amazing feeling.
I hope anyone that reads this finds motivation to keep creating and keep pushing your abilities rather in game dev or not. Whatever you enjoy doing in life, just keep doing it. [=]/