Hi everyone! We're working on a sci-fi text-based adventure set in a highly visual world of spaceships, rogue AI, and time warping.

You play as a military captain exploring an off-world underground crashsite. You discover an ancient spaceship of alien technology and imperial livery, and are then whisked away on an intergalactic adventure of trying to stay alive and relevant in a spaceship that clearly has a hidden agenda. At the heart of Lightstep Chronicles is a text-based adventure, allowing you to communicate with the ship's AI, a manic creature that seems to be at war with itself.

We have been making point'n'click adventure games and simple text-based games for a decade (you may have heard of Lifeline: Whiteout), while our friends worked on the Lightstep comic book. We decided to pitch in and create a game set in the Lightstep Universe, and that it was going to be a much more graphically rewarding text-based adventure than anyone was used to.

Mike Bithell's Subsurface Circular came out at the time, and it henceforth became the benchmark for our own gameplay. We also kept the comic book's futurist Art Deco style and affinity for time-dilation. The story is quite linear, though it branches out into several different endings. There are also early endings. Everything depends on your correspondence with the ship's AI.

We made the game in Unity with our own assets. At this moment, we have 5/6 hours of text set in animated locations. Optimizing the animations for older PCs has been our biggest struggle so far - it shouldn't take a monster PC to run a text-based adventure, as ornate as it is. We are currently optimized for the following requirements:

Requirements (so far):

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i3 or AMD equivalent
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia gtx 660 2GB or AMD equivalent graphics
DirectX: Version 11

We run our private devlogs on a weekly basis, so we will continue to do so here. In the upcoming week, we will do the following:

• add new Star Map animations
• polish final scene graphics
• optimize the final scenes
• work on the music and sound effects
• polish the UI some more
• complete the first playable build of the entire game
• set up a public demo on Itch

Last but not least, here's a link to our Discord.

The demo is out!

Our game's most unique feature is also its biggest weakness:

What kind of game is Lightstep Chronicles?
We always announce it as a text-based adventure, and then the graphics throw people off. Everytime. It is a new breed of text-based adventure, but there have been similar games in the past. Mike Bithell's Subsurface Circular is a text-based adventure that feels like a movie, and it was a big inspiration to us during development. The cool thing is that when players enter either Subsurface Circular or Lightstep Chronicles, they don't know what to expect. It is mysterious! It's exciting! It's really difficult to market!

So, what kind of game IS Lightstep Chronicles?
It's best that you discover on your own. :)

Devlog

As promised, this is what we did in the past week:

- been cleaning the playable build of the full game
- edited the log file, sorted logs and log file indicators
- set up optional AI dialogue
- enabled free movement across the ship via Ship Map
- animated additional AI emotions and set up their triggers across scenes
- worked on endings and their implementation some more

We also optimized textures and 3D models.

Next week, we will work on

- updating the Save Game system
- working on the audio and music, implementing a new sound controller
- additional post-process optimization and lighting
- polishing end scene graphics
- additional in-game effects (particles and animations)

Try our game and tell us what you think! xx

-It’s been a week since we released a free demo for our game. Did you know that you can download a free demo of Lightstep Chronicles? You can! It’s quite short, but it showcases what the game is about quite nicely.

-The demo will walk you through the first chapter of Lightstep Chronicles. The average playtime is half an hour. The final release will contain over 5 hours of intergalactic mind-games with increasingly manic AI. You’ll also get to meet this guy:

-Because of some of the innovative mechanics we’ve used in Lightstep Chronicles, we’ve had some trouble pinning the game down to a genre. A Reddit think group, and months of moody pondering helped us come up with a new description:

Lightstep Chronicles is a story-driven adventure game.

See? No mechanics included. It doesn't promise anything more than it really is, and it doesn't undersell the game. We are open to editing this definition too, so if you've played our demo, we would love to know how you would describe the game to a friend.

Devlog

As promised, this is what we did in the past week:

• updated the Save Game system
• worked on the audio and music, started implementing a new sound controller
• added more post-process optimization and lighting
• polished end scene graphics
• added more in-game effects (particles and animations)

We didn’t fully implement the new sound controller, it’ll be a task for this week, too. We did manage to add more debugging options, so that we can test the game more thoroughly.

Next week, we will work on

• activating optional text within zoom zones
• additional cutscenes in the control room
• updating the Star Map with edited text
• updating animations of Cain Phoenix in the chair
• optimizing scene loading
• polishing end scene graphics

Let's start this week's devlog with an Amarok image pack:

Devlog

This is what we did in the past week:

• activated optional text within zoom zones
• added more cutscenes in the control room
• updated the Star Map with edited text
• updated animations of Cain Phoenix in the chair
• optimized scene loading
• did some end scene graphics polishing

We also had some QA friends come over and do their magic on the complete build, and they were so incredibly thorough. We now have a lot of technical feedback to go through and fix, which will take a while. Well, we were counting on this.

Next week, we will work on

• eliminating the bugs found by the QA team
• adding Steam achievements to the game
• comprehensive in-house beta testing of the final build
• updating the remaining in-game text with edited text
• additional sound effects and music

We have reached what we feel is the end of an era in the Lightstep Universe – the last issue of the comic book Lightstep (Dark Horse Comics) comes out today!



It all started out as a Kickstarter project in 2017. We gained some traction because the art of Miloš Slavković is Just. So. Good. and also because of the hilarious promo video that we had so much fun making. Please note that this is SUPER ancient and that like 95% of the information is reeeeally REDUNDANT - it's still funny, though.

Back to the actual game now! We started working on Lightstep Chronicles game heavily at that time. It went through many iterations, it was scrapped and rebooted several times. When we received Creative Europe – Media programme support, the reality of releasing this game became all the more... real!

We are now in the last leg of Lightstep Chronicles development. The Release Candidate build is within grasp, meaning that we'll be releasing rather soon. We are finished with all gameplay adjustments – all we have left to do is playtests and subsequent bug fixes. Here goes our checklist!

Devlog
As promised, this is what we did in the past week:
- eliminated bugs that the QA team found
- added Steam achievements
- had a comprehensive in-house beta testing of the final build
- updated the remaining in-game text with edited text
- added more sound effects and music

Next week, we will work on
- MORE intense playtesting of the beta build!
- preparing the final build for said playtesting 
- polishing additional sound effects and music
- the gameplay is now locked. We're only polishing animation and graphics

S O O N!

We are in the last leg of development and these updates are starting to feel a bit repetitive – polish, bugs, audio, polish, bugs, audio, and so on... It looks like we're running in circles. The good news is that there is a reason for that: Lightstep Chronicles requires a beastly setup, and optimizing it is extremely important. In our last leg of development, we are all about making the game more accessible.

Devlog

As promised, this is what we did in the past week:
- had some more people playtest the full build
- prepared the final build for said playtesting
- polished additional sound effects and music
- locked down all gameplay. We're only polishing animation and graphics from now on!

We also had the QA test out the game with the new music and sound effects, and tested out new tags on Steam. We are currently in the More Like This sections of some regular text-based games, and that seems a bit dishonest, for us, for these games, and for the people coming to our page. Gonna tweak it out, but if you want to help us, please + the Story Rich and Artificial Intelligence tags. This is a link to our store. We are eternally grateful <3

Next week, we will work on

- UI animations
- editing the text where QA found typos, discrepancies, etc
- bug removal
- optimizing lighting and particles
- showcasing more of the in-game text rather than cutscenes

Lightstep Art by Miloš Slavković:

Devlog:
As promised, this is what we did in the past week:

• UI animations
• editing the text where QA found typos, discrepancies, etc
• bug removal
• optimizing lighting and particles
• showcasing more of the in-game text rather than cutscenes

Next week, we will work on

• bug fixes
• optimization
• looking for a viable release date
• reaching out to the press

We've got some time set aside for more traditional marketing (gaming media, streamers). If you're interested in collaborating with us, or know someone who loves Space or AI-themed games, we'd really appreciate it if you could contact us!

Thanks in advance,
The Lightstep Chronicles team

We've been focusing on cutscenes for a while, here's some pure gameplay for a change. :)