Veyl grows, the Mountain stands

What happened today

Yesterday was one of those days where I could hardly believe how much had moved by the evening. We spent almost the whole day on Veyl, the first planet where your journey begins. The game now starts where it belongs: at the crash site.

The first six areas got freshly painted ground that follows the real paths. On top of that we placed 106 enemies in the overworld of the first stage, a fixed jump point, three signal crystals and a spiral rock with a nest, where a giant desert bird is waiting for you.

What we got done

• The Mountain is in: 54 locations, cave entrances, fixed ropes for climbing and its own weather up on the frost peak. The main path takes about half an hour.
• Two mines are set up as dungeons, the big one with a proper mining look. Down there an ore scorpion waits as a mid-boss, and the metal beetle queen now walks in eight directions.
• New quests: "The Rotten Bridge" sends you to the stone smithy, and you'll need an iron axe and hardwood. Plus "Back to the Wreck" and the hunt for the desert bird, which earns you three feathers.
• Wind: Trees now bend depending on the weather. Bare trees stay still, which simply felt right.
• Interface: The minimap is round and sits in the top right, enemies show their health bar just above their heads, and Memo has its own energy bar.
• Sound: All 21 areas of the first stage have music, 29 enemies have their own alien sounds, and the mines echo. Embers in the ground bubble and hiss when you walk over them.
• Languages: Conversations can now be exported for multiple languages, and we smoothed out the dialogue of the first stage in many places.

What's next

In the evening we tested the first stage end to end, from the crash site to the summit. Honestly: it isn't fully playable yet. That's our main goal now. The embers of Veyl are also getting their final tiles, and we're sharpening the look of the first stage so it feels like one piece.

Thanks for following along. If you have questions or ideas, write to us, I would love to hear from you.

See you tomorrow,