Hello everybody! Well, this won't be one of the most exciting Steam updates ever, so let's make it blunt and to the point:
We're delaying the launch of ASYLUM by one week. New date is Thursday, March 13. Still 2025. Main reason is that we're recasting the protagonist since, following in-game clips that we shared in public, we received feedback that the character wasn't quite working out. We take such comments seriously and the Senscape team agreed, so during the weekend we made the difficult decision to make the switch.
I elaborate more on this 1-min video here:
While not a huge setback, I know it's frustrating since we had committed to a date, you were excited, and there will be complains, and memes, and that's fine. We firmly believe this is what's best for the game. It's not a decision I took lightly either — we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't convinced that the game is special and worth this extra effort. I must say that the former actor gave a memorable performance in Serena, and he's a dear friend of mine. I'm really sorry this didn't work out. It's just that this important character (you, the players!) wasn't working out as was expected.
Details about the replacement actor will be shared shortly. Since the question popped up already: is this doable? Yes, because we're only doing voice-overs for dialogues, not every single feedback line (akin to Scratches). It's roughly 2000 lines, and yes, it can be done in a week. We've managed worse. It's going to tight, but hey, it's always been like that with ASYLUM. It was always meant to be sheer madness until the last moment. But the game is worth this rollercoaster of emotions, that I can promise.
So that's pretty much the purpose of this update. As I explained in the above video, this allows us to reconfirm all 10 languages (besides English) that we were aiming for launch: French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
And that's it. If you need to ask questions or vent, go ahead!
—Agustín
You complained. We listened.
Greetings, everyone! I bring you a juicy update, possibly the last one before launch 👀
Quite a few topics to discuss, so let's get started, shall we?
Steam Next Fest
First, to confirm the following: we were planning to launch an updated demo today during Next Fest, but decided to hold on for the time being. Every day counts now, and we're applying coats of polish and fixing bugs everywhere. While the demo was quite fine overall, it still had a few kinks to work out (ie: new intro not color graded yet), so I preferred to have the team keep focusing towards launch.
Technically speaking, we already participated in a Next Fest years ago, and we might launch the demo next week in case you want to verify the game runs well on your device.
Localizations
When we removed the planned localizations from the store page as we wanted to launch ASAP, there were sad faces 😔
I don't like sad faces, so we put in motion an extremely ambitious plan with a group of translators we've been in touch with over the years. As I'm writing this, the localization strike team is sending me translated documents that we're already implementing.
How many languages, you ask? Here's the confirmed list:
French
German
Greek
Italian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Turkish
Ukrainian
While there's always the possibility that some of these might not make it exactly by launch since it's a tight deadline, we're talking about a potential delay of mere days. See and marvel at how the language selection works:
Hopefully this news will prompt more happy faces 😄
Voice overs!
Because there's no better sign of an imminent launch than recording voice overs. We're so satisfied with how the script turned out, that we licensed a technology called Speech Graphics to improve the lip sync of our characters. You can see and hear it in action in this video:
I know it's not AAA, but it's still a far cry than anything we ever did in this area for ASYLUM. Also, we're aware that the protagonist sounds rather flat in this conversation, and we're doing retakes. There's a sweet spot that's difficult to achieve here, since you're an ex-patient after all and meant to sound like a hollow blank slate. But just so you know, it's on our radar.
One more cool moment for you to check out:
Price confirmed
After a lot of thought, I've decided the launch price will be... *drum roll*... $24.99. With a 10% discount during the first week, and regional tweaks for certain countries.
People tell me this is awfully cheap, but we're not in this for the money — just the fame and glory.
More goodies
There's been lots and LOTS of work on the sound design department. This was the #1 feedback from the earlier demo and internal testing, and we addressed it. It's a massive improvement across the board, with a fully revised soundtrack, weird ambient noises, screams, sploshes, gooey stuff... The Hanwell Mental Institute is now fully alive and breathing. Check out a short clip of your upcoming visit to the high-risk section here:
One more thing: recently followers in our social networks sent us a series of questions that I responded in a recorded video. It was very well received, more than I expected, so here goes in case you folks want to take a listen. It's 30-mins long. There's insights about the development of ASYLUM, Scratches tidbits, gamedev advices, and news about what's coming next from us:
Finally... Store page update!
And with system requirements! We confirmed these just today. The ones that were listed until now were a bit dated, but the good news is that it's not a dramatic difference. Basically, a 10-year-old PC will manage just fine.
Check them out for yourself, and also do note the amazing new GIFs 🤓
And... that's it! I'm sorry if you were expecting today's Next Fest demo, but hang on in there — just a few more days!
-Agustín
Wishing you a Creepy New Year!
As if life wasn't horrifying enough in 2025, we're getting ready to unleash more terror and dread upon you. Yes, in case you somehow missed the news, ASYLUM is launching on March 6. Many skeptical eyebrows have been raised, but true believers have accepted this news as a sign of the impending end of the world. So enjoy it while it lasts, because it's really happening this time!
I'm happy to report that the new trailer has been very well received, so much in fact that it became our most liked video ever on YouTube. But the good news don't stop there: we've surpassed 50.000 wishlists here on Steam, which puts us in great shape for launch! In fact, it's closer to 52k as of this writing. There's still time to reach 66.666, so make sure you tell your loved ones, heck, why not your hated ones too, about the game!
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There will be a few more updates here before we go live, and I'm eager to tell you about the materials we're preparing for the Steam crowd: emojis for every occasion, trading cards, cool wallpapers you'll definitely want to use... oh, and it's already running well on the Deck too! We need to adjust controls and a few other tweaks to get that Verified ✅ checkmark for launch.
We also confirm that ASYLUM will be featured on Next Fest February with a fully revised demo. There will be a bunch of fun activities and streams. And if you're looking to get one of those coveted Scratches keys: another big giveaway is coming!
The whole team is stoked with how the game looks and feels, and I trust the passion and dedication we invested into this thing will soon show. Everyone is working hard to ensure we deliver a smooth and bug-free experience. And thanks for the patience throughout all this time — the community here on Steam is just great 😊
See you soon!
ASYLUM opens its doors on March 6, 2025
No, it’s not April Fool’s. It’s Halloween, and tradition dictates horror related stuff is announced today (in addition to pagan rituals and avoiding masked killers).
So we got an announcement for you alright. An important one: fate has decided that ASYLUM will launch on March 6, 2025. Yup, mark your calendars, this is not a drill. We're finishing this game for once and for all.
And look at that, there’s even a gorgeous new trailer to celebrate the news:
Of all the promotional materials we've ever released, I feel this is the most realized one, conveying the tones of impending doom and bittersweet melancholy you’ll find in the game.
One big note, folks: we updated our store page and intentionally set the release language to English only, to avoid false expectations of available languages at launch. Of course we’re still planning to translate the game to as many languages as possible. We don’t know exactly which ones will be ready for next March, but as they get confirmed, we’ll re-add them.
And that’s it for today. Look at that, so very few words this time. I’ll let the video do the talking. Hope you enjoy it, and see you soon.
Now watch… WATCH…
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A huge, mean Friday update. With videos.
Hello. Happy Friday. This is a new ASYLUM update.
BUT! Contrary to the past few ones, this joyous new collection of words is meant to hype you. Yes, you wonderful people -- we're very appreciative of the strong reception to our previous write-up, and we're going to increase the rate of communication as the release date draws closer. So here's what you can expect in this mélange of tidbits:
- Fewer words than usual (I'll try). - Eye candy and mood. Lots. - Some cool technical wizardry. - Next steps and tentative timeline of major events.
Read on for the goods!
The good things always happen with the rain
One of my favorite quotes in a movie, it's from John Frankenheimer's Seconds. A poetic line by itself, but has a special meaning in the context of the film. In our context, though, it would be more like the horrific things always happen with the rain.
Anyway, a critical goal in ASYLUM is to ensure the environments feel engrossing, you know, as in the moooood and the feels absorb you. Scratches had a good dose of ambiance, yet everything felt somewhat static and lifeless (in a way, it kinda fit with the style of the game). But, we've always aimed for a big boost with its successor -- ensuring the passage of time is well represented during the night you spend in the Hanwell institute, with as much detail and movement as we can. Different stages of weather are an excellent way to establish a notion of urgency and dread. For example, rain:
Really dense rain, gloomy clouds, distant lightning, raindrops hitting surfaces, both inside and outside, all combined with a cared-for sound design. Remember, this is pre-rendered graphics -- there's arcane knowledge applied here to put those splashes of raindrops on top of the car.
Speaking of sound, we finally have a full-time, dedicated sound designer (Nico Franza, who worked on some of the spookiest scenes from Silent Hill: Ascension) enhancing all the gloomy places you'll visit. This was a big note from beta-testers, that audio ambience overall needed an extra kick. Well, people shall be happy:
Moving on, I mentioned characters are being polished as much as we can, and testers also mentioned inconsistencies, such as Lenny missing while you open the door and move from one room to another. Again, this isn't regular 3D in which you seamlessly move between real-time geometry, you must render separate videos with and without Lenny. It's a crazy amount of work but we're doing this out of sheer love.
And before I close this section, here's some more footage with visual effects being worked on, such as flying leaves and puffs of dust as dusk falls, or heat haze near a menacing boiler. We know fans of Scratches like boilers very much, so we must get them right.
Oh, yeah... and FIREFLIES!
What kind of sorcery is this
This is my favorite recent development, because it's a feature we briefly explored but left behind. With an old-school style and pre-rendered adventure, there's so much movement and sense of depth you can have... unless you have a stellar team with great ideas and skill. The theory worked, but we never got around to establishing a pipeline that would allow us to scale this visual treatment across many environments. It's pretty wild. Let me first show you this old video how it's meant to work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF0uAUgyHNg
You see what happened there? It's four flat images projected on the sides of a cube. But then I put a light inside the cube, move it around, and the flat geo projects... shadows? How on Earth?
Well, as they used to say, learning algebra is important. And I finally found a good use for it! Look, it's like this:
That's the diffuse map (the very same texture you see in the game, as part of the cube) and a normal map. You're likely familiar with normals -- they're additional information for diffuses, so that a game engine like Unreal knows how light is meant to propagate across the texture. That's what they call Physically Based Rendering or PBR. Normals are used to bring an extra dimension to a flat texture without adding costly additional geo, such as cavities, cracks, holes in a piece of fabric, and a looong etc.
Well, in this case, we're using the normals to tell Unreal how the light should propagate across the "fake" room. There's more than just applying the normals, they have to be rotated in a certain way to avoid artifacts and some obscure magick that goes over my head. The result is that we can do stuff like this -- pay attention to how parts of the room react to blinking light, as if they were distinct surfaces:
It's a darn clever implementation, if I may say so. Credit for the original idea goes to Fran Tufro, and then Pablo Forsolloza for the 3ds Max scripts. I worked on the Unreal shader, then more recently Dani Herrera and Tomás Fernandez established the pipeline. Great job, guys 👏 We exaggerated the effect for the Infirmary, a larger area with plenty of stuff that serves as a good example of how this works. Take a look at the jars, different parts of the walls, beds... there's *depth* where there's not supposed to be:
I don't believe any game has done this kind of lighting before. As a bonus, that video features a new music track from Pablo Cordes. The soundtrack is now clocking at 50 minutes, and it's quite reminiscent of Scratches and John Carpenter. I'm deeply in love with it.
Closing words
Holy crap, I said fewer words, but I can never help it. OK, so here's the summary:
I'm thrilled with the overall status of the game, and the team feels the same. The past few months have resulted in a huge lot of progress and stuff that we consider final. Seal of approval and ready to go. But there's still work left to do. Early October we'll share another build to beta-testers with most feedback addressed. The big pending before submitting that multiplatform build (Win, Mac and Linux) is me -- I need to review the script, prioritizing dialogue lines so that actors can start recording.
We're definitely close. Mood-wise, it's pretty much there. ASYLUM is stubbornly anachronic, but plays well, like any modern game. The best way I can describe it is that lets you feel what it was like to play an Infocom text adventure, without dated design annoyances such as dead-ends or sudden deaths and in glorious (pseudo) 3D. All while harkening back to a particular era of the adventure genre in which experimentation and ingenuity were common, as 2D was transitioning to 3D. It's a heartfelt love letter to the genre.
It still needs the cherry on top, which is the well-executed story, and that's entirely on me. There's still some of that glue missing in key moments, and I can't tell right now how long that will take. But, our goal is to release a new teaser or maybe even a full-blown trailer by Halloween, also update our Steam page, and settle on a launch date by then. I have my producer Fafa Cabrera breathing down my neck to make that happen. So there, that's solid news. And no, we're not going to show up in Halloween announcing a launch date in 2274. I'm talking about a handful of months at most.
In more conclusive news, we're going to have a new game jam during October! And I think it's going to be fantastic. Previous instalments yielded excellent games, even very well-reviewed commercial ones such as Partum Artifex, so we're hyped. Keep an eye on our Discord community if you want to participate.
OK, hope you liked the update. Time to eat pizza and watch an obscure horror movie. See you soon!
—Agustín
Ah, the beta testing. The sweet, sweet beta testing.
Salutations from malodorous, fungus-laden crevices of the abhorrent Hanwell Mental Institute. I have combined these assorted words to convey some degree of meaning and bring you a report of recent occurrences. There's been an influx of anxious inquiries since we announced that beta-testing of ASYLUM had commenced with fresh new eyeballs and bodily appendages. And yes, there be news. Here's the quick lowdown:
People are truly liking it so far! They highlighted its atmosphere, what it feels like to explore the vast and intricate design of the decaying building, and the compelling story.
No major issues were reported, other than technical annoyances to be expected during this period. The build we distributed is more stable than anticipated, and most feedback we received pertained to quality of life improvements, which the team is tackling en masse.
There are design quirks we still need to sort out, notably characters being underused in latter stages of the experience. As in, they have little intervention in plot points and too few dialogue lines. I agree with this balancing issue, and it's wonderful to hear folks cared enough about our asylum denizens that they wanted more from them.
Before you ask, no, we're not ready to disclose a release date. Yet. So please don't expect one in this update. When we announce it, rest assured you'll know. All I'm going to say right now is that we're very seriously gauging a launch window.
I'll elaborate more on the tasks at hand next, but overall, things are looking fantastic!
Elaboration
So it's a pretty intense period in which decisions and approvals have that 'final, but really final' feel. The Senscape team is doing an exceptional job, and I couldn't be happier with the progress we're achieving every week. We recently onboarded new team members to apply a nice coat of polish to characters, lighting, animation and cutscenes. These are some of the same folks that worked on the hours of cinematics from Silent Hill: Ascension, and they're bringing plenty of experience in their respective areas. We even have a dedicated producer now who is flooding me with Jiras eeevery single day, but hey, I asked for it. I need to be kept on track too.
You could say we're entering in post-production mode. The gorgeous atmosphere, which testers enjoyed so much, is receiving profound attention in our QA, with scenes being color graded, brightness levels properly adjusted, ambient sounds everywhere, and lots of neat visual effects to boost the mood. Fans of Scratches will be glad to hear that we added masks to every window in the Hanwell building, so that at one point in the game we have rain and lightning outside. We almost scrapped the feature since it was a lot of work —remember, ASYLUM is stubbornly old-fashioned and all environments are pre-rendered— but it's worth it. I mean, no game can claim to be the true successor to Scratches without a gloomy, rainy night and suitably mysterious music, right?
Another area of focus has been animations, since quite a few of them were wonky and even the character rigs needed a bit of extra love (and don't get me started on the fingers). The cutscenes are more impactful now, and I'm happy to report we're nearly done with them. You might remember from earlier updates that I mentioned these were going to involve a good deal of work, and we're now close to wrapping them up. See, we ARE making progress!
Honestly, it's kind of surreal after all this time. Some of the more crucial moments in the story, the ones that were devised years ago, are reaching the place they were meant to be. I look at them with a big grin on my face and think to myself "yeah, this is good for launch".
One more note I'd like to add: testers have reported a healthy game length, averaging 10-12 hours. Some spent less, others more. That's in line with our estimations, and there's still some content missing (notably achievements and easter eggs we're keeping secret). Overall, folks reported the game length feels "just right".
It's in the details
We can't thank enough the dedication from the folks who are currently playing the game, and we did listen to their feedback, which ranged from puzzle design to interface. For instance, one area we have been improving in the beta is the diegetic game menu. We've always wanted to treat this familiar aspect in all types of games these days with our own touch of flair, but that doesn't mean it should be impractical. So we addressed save game management while keeping that sort of journal approach, and added a feature to log conversations with NPCs, among other tweaks. It does add to the overall experience since folks sometimes reported missing key information in dialogues. This is a win for customer service.
Also, I like how this addictive menu has been dubbed by one of our most dedicated fans as "flippity-flappity pages". You nailed it, yo.
Another one is a 'zoom' feature which is quite neat to use overall, but was in truth implemented with handhelds in mind. All we can confirm for now is instant Steam Deck support at launch. As a BIG fan of the device, where most of my gaming is performed these days, I'm eager to support it properly. It's currently the only way I have to gradually finish games from my Steam collection, and I'd be making tons of progress if it wasn't for Vampire Survivors. Of course, this also means that gamepad support is good to go as well!
As for me, in addition to leaving bucketloads of notes in the endless stream of Jira tickets that torment me every day, my next area of focus will be in-depth script revision. The big pending that I have left is to review every line of text in the game and further develop some documents you find scattered around, as well as key sections in the journal. Backers noted that a few moments in the game needed more nudging and feedback from the protagonist to avoid aimless wandering, which is another valuable note. This is my top priority, and as soon as it's settled we'll be ready to... drum roll... record the voices. Since this question was brought up in our Discord a while ago, adventure game fans will be delighted to hear that Josh Mandel is very much still attached to the project and ready to start working with us.
I'm sure a few of you are going to ask, but remember that we're currently testing with a subset of Kickstarter backers (about 300 people have access, but not everyone is playing), so we're pretty much covered with the QA and not accepting new testers at this stage.
We're reaching the end of this update, but I'm going to keep the line open with more frequent signs of life as things keep ramping up. A lot has been said about ASYLUM, and believe me, I understand the frustration (it's been a looong time coming). Yet everyone here is ready to wrap things up and launch a game we —along with you— will be proud to have been developing/waiting for the past few years.
Until next time.
—Agustín
ASYLUM is in beta!
Hello there! I come from the darkest depths of a dilapidated mental institute bearing news: for the past couple of months, we’ve been circulating a completable build of ASYLUM to our group of community mods, and it’s been an extraordinary success. This is was the first time people outside the Senscape team played the game all the way through, with barely any input from us.
Takeaways and general comments are as follows:
Actual quotes: “it’s an instant classic”, “the writing is engaging, music is amazing, environments are creepy, love the small nods to Scratches and just like it, Asylum has that beautifully eerie exploration feel”, “mood and atmosphere is unmatched”. Also: “This will be the game everyone remember and use as an example of classic exploration horror point & click adventure game”. Wow!
No show-stopping bugs! Yes, of course we received bucketloads of feedback –that was the whole idea– and we have our own to-do list as well, but the fact that folks without any prior knowledge of the game were able to complete it without handholding nor dead ends is good reason to celebrate.
Our length estimation is spot on! Our mod team overall spent 12-15 hours on average playing, with only someone doing it faster on purpose. And yet, someone else claims to have spent at least 30-35 hours in the game (!!). Considering that we haven’t implemented all achievements nor readable documents, it will be up to you how much you’ll want to squeeze out of ASYLUM. But it’s an engrossing and lengthy experience, that’s for sure.
Oh, and Steam users will be delighted to hear that we have full controller support implemented already, with Steam Deck compatibility coming up, so you can lose your mind on the go.
Next steps
We have more work to do. This first round of fresh feedback we received has been invaluable, but so far it presents a crucial milestone: the biggest worry for me has been the game might be too intricate, obtuse, or difficult to digest. Yet what I’m hearing is that, while further tweaks are required, ASYLUM is fun to play, the story is engaging, and keeps your interest until the end. Good exploration is hard to pull off: there’s a fine balance between giving the audience plenty of freedom and things to investigate while retaining a sense of direction and goals, to ensure the experience does not become frustrating. And it feels like we’re on the right track when one of the primary compliments I hear is that the Hanwell Mental Institute is a joy to explore. This is an accomplishment on a personal level, as the ability to explore at leisure has been the #1 thing I enjoy in games since I played King’s Quest for the first time many, many, many years ago.
I wanted to be careful before we claimed beta. We’ve said this a number of times in the past: it’s a large game, and it’s no secret it’s been a challenge to develop over the years. But, the preliminary feedback we received from dedicated fans of the genre has alleviated any pending concerns. So, we’re ready to deliver the final blow. There’s six people actively working on ASYLUM besides myself, and one or two more folks may join the team during January. The big areas of focus will be tightening the storytelling and of course fixing bugs. The plan is to roll out this beta build after a first round of polish to VIP backers (around 100 people) soon to gather more feedback and impressions. As we get closer to launch, we will share another build with the rest of our Kickstarter backers.
In other news
2023 has been quite an exciting year for Senscape. It’s hard to believe all that took place! We’re about 40 people now remotely working across Latin America as well as a bunch from Spain.
One of the big developments was our involvement in the Virtual Production department for the horror movie When Evil Lurks, from acclaimed Argentinian director Demián Rugna. You might have caught Terrified in Netflix, a great entry in the genre, but When Evil Lurks blows it out of the water. Great story, sublime production and cinematography, and outstanding gore effects that rival the very best from Lucio Fulci. Have a watch if you enjoy horror, and pay attention to a number of interior shots of trucks in the road – the environments were designed by us in Unreal Engine to match real life locations.
Last, but not least, our involvement creating cinematic content in the interactive horror series Silent Hill: Ascension from Genvid was disclosed earlier this year. The series demands hours and hours of footage spawning over the course of several months. It’s like a community-driven Bandersnatch or TellTale Game (in fact, we get to work with wonderful ex-TellTale folks!). Here’s one of my favorite scenes so far – I’m very pleased with its mood and choreography: https://twitter.com/SHAscension/status/1720148103234572544
The show is currently in the mid-season break and set to resume in early 2024.
And that’s all, folks. As always, thank you for patience and sticking around. I think this year was only the beginning of a new era for Senscape, and we have a very exciting 2024 awaiting us.
Until next time, and Happy New Year!
–Agustín
The ASYLUM Strikes Back!
Hello there! We take the dust off this news hub with, well, news. Yes, we are still here and, most importantly, ASYLUM is still very much here as well. And we keep working to ensure it gets there, wherever you are, as soon as humanly possible. You must be anxious to lay your hands on the game just as we are to get it out of our systems. So let me summarize where it's standing today, as I decorate this update with some GIFs and assorted stuffs.
It has been possible to play the complete story from A to Z for a while now, but only recently we began doing proper QA. ASYLUM is in a situation in which we can immediately identify areas that need polish while playing and fix on the spot – for example, graphical glitches, a puzzle not working as intended or (*shudders*) unexpected dead ends. Luckily that one is very rare and only happened once by now. While there's still placeholder stuff that needs to be updated, the experience is beginning to feel strong and cohesive.
I've mentioned this many times in the past, and yes, I'm sure I sound like a broken record by now, but ASYLUM is one heck of an intricate game. Its game design and story have remained virtually untouched since development began unfathomable aeons ago, save for a puzzle branch that needed adjustments. While areas such as visual style and UI/UX have received many iterations over the years, the core concept and philosophy never changed.
It took me some time to understand that ASYLUM owes a lot to classic Interactive Fiction: the map design, its highly non-linear nature, characters moving around the environments, passage of time, etc. It all should feel like playing an Infocom adventure of a bygone era, sans the annoying parts that didn't age well, in glorious 3D. And this why new people being able to play the game from beginning to end without relying on hints and without stumbling upon blockers is a huge relief. Thank goodness this thing is working well (for the sake of our sanity).
So in addition to QA, tweaking and balancing, we've been creating cutscenes for the game. Some are occasional transitions, others are story-related, such as flashbacks of past occurrences, or mysterious glimpses of how daily life was in the Hanwell Institute. These are video elements that can take their time to produce and render, but are quick to implement and test. All of this stuff can be spoiler-heavy, so we'll only show a few bits and pieces in blocking form. You know, this is often how entire cinematics are blocked out, and it's even common to work with rough geometry while other assets are being produced!
Finally, another area of big focus at this moment are text revisions: many passages and dialogue lines were quickly drafted for the purposes of programming and testing logic, and there's still a good deal of work we must beautify. In ASYLUM the story comes first, so expectedly we're putting the same amount of care in the script and the words you'll read as in the visuals.
And as we move forward, perhaps we stumble upon a room that feels somewhat empty compared to the others, so we might add an extra hotspot or two to spice up the exploration, maybe dropping a new item for the purposes of set dressing, including but not limited to the kind of creepy toys you'd expect to find in a seemingly abandoned asylum. Imagine yourself entering a surgery room covered in filth and decay with unidentified distant sounds echoing through the winding corridors outside and then this weird doll sitting on a table... yikes.
Well, that's it for this update. I know the pressing question in your minds is "When? When? WHEN?", but we're not ready to disclose a release date yet. There is a plan in action, and a tentative launch window. Next steps involve boosting our community management efforts, relaunching our Senscape website, and bringing you more frequent news. Just stick around, because there's more coming, and we're not going anywhere.
–Agustín
Come see the ASYLUM shiver with antici... PATION!
Well, hello there! Allow me to dust off this forsaken corner of the internets. Yes, it's been a while since my last mega-update around these parts, so I'm looking forward to give you the full heads up about all the happenings with Senscape. We have a lot of catching up to do!
Just let me say right off the bat 🦇 that ASYLUM is progressing terrifically, and we're swiftly getting to a point in which we can start testing the game with fresh new eyeballs. That is, we throw disembodied eyeballs at the monitor and see what happens. Very exciting (but messy). There's a chance the owners of those eyeballs might get to play the whole game too! But before we remove their eyeballs, of course, otherwise playtesting might get complicated.
Anyway...
The lowdown
The haunting, twisted, and monolithic asylum you all have been expecting to play has seen advancements all across the board. Now that the game is fully playable, there's a lot of balancing and adjusting that we're doing. The main game logic (or critical path) is being finalized, we added a wealth of documents, notes, clues to flesh out the story, and also the implementation of achievements is underway. This decaying and utterly foul place is being brought to life with a gazillion things to see and do: there's something to discover around every corner, from a curious item that harkens back to past life in the asylum, to historically accurate documentation about early and sinister health practices, to an unexpected flashback as you're playing that brings chills down your spine. Even completing the achievements might feel like playing a separate game! As you may recall, these were designed with context in mind, and discovering them will reveal more of your profile as a patient. Me, I especially like the Scavenger and Melancholic ones 😊
Why, look at that! We're now using Confluence to organize our work. My, are we fancy.
Another big consequence of this balancing act was the polishing and regrading of most environments in the game. The so-called beauty pass, which is resulting in gorgeous new 4K captures that we'll be using to update our store pages soon, some of which you are already seeing all over this update. ASYLUM has never looking this gorgeous — and I'm saying this in a truly deviant way.
(btw, there's an Easter egg for fans of Scratches in that image — can you find it?)
Something else we're doing right now —and I hate not being able to tell you more about this— is beginning to implement the last moments of the game. It's both exhilarating and scary to finally be at this stage after all this time. Playing through the entirety of ASYLUM, and experiencing what was designed ages ago, has provided us with a new perspective on what the game was always meant to be. I mean, of course we knew what we were trying to accomplish all this time, but let's say that we are now... connecting the few remaining dots somehow. Every detail in the game has a purpose, and even seemingly random details that we included during early stages of the project have now gained a revelatory new meaning 👀
I really love how the game unfolds, and how everything converges at the end. I think you will too! There are no more questions left — everything works as expected. But, as I said in the opening paragraph, it's time to let new people play the game and give us fresh feedback. And our first test subjects (now that is appropriate!) will be the lovely Mod team of our Discord community. They don't know what's coming to them, hehe. Poor souls. Bwhahaha! They shall experience THE MADNESS in all its gory glory!! Hehehehe... eh... but I don't want to lose my Mod team 🤔
Anyways, that's the lowdown on the status. There's been many other developments, such as the logic behind Lenny (who essentially behaves like a character in Interactive Fiction games, featuring an internal "schedule"), many explorable items were added, and so, so much more. I wish I could show you what a hugely complex game this is, but alas, that would mean spoiling the whole thing for you. Just take our word for it: there is no other game like ASYLUM in the industry. It's going to be very special ✨
Happenings at Senscape
In other related news, it's been a rollercoaster of a year for us, and especially for me. Actually, mere months, which felt like a lifetime! Not too long ago, Senscape was only four people, a cozy little team that only needed a single Discord channel to organize their job. Yet since the beginning of the pandemic we have tripled our size. Yes, we're now a dozen folks at the company, with likely more coming! Reason for this growth of course was boosting the development pace of ASYLUM on one hand, and then forming a second team for a number of exciting opportunities that came our way. As you can imagine, I had to adapt to a whole new scenario at the company, at last needing to conceive something resembling an organizational structure. So we're slightly less scrappy than before, but still a cozy family who is super motivated to make great things together 😄
There's basically two branches at Senscape now: Video Games and Virtual Production. The game team is solely focused on ASYLUM and consists of 7 people (besides me). We never had so many folks working on the project at the same time! I've always been doing way too much myself: design, writing, programming, even sound compositing, and this larger team is relieving me of many of those responsibilities. I can focus on direction, management, and steering things forward, without becoming a bottleneck as before.
The Virtual Production gang have been tackling a number of exciting projects that I'll share with you in the future. For instance, we've been involved in the production of a film creating virtual backgrounds in Unreal Engine for LED volumes (the so-called "Mandalorian style"). We made an actual movie, folks! And with cutting-edge technology, which is pretty nuts. We learned a huge deal too, and the team is looking forward to bring some of this filmmaking experience back to games. Do we have fans of FMV adventures in here? 😬
Another big upside of this growth is that the company is enjoying good financial stability. So fear not about the development of ASYLUM: it's all in solid shape.
Brand new faces!
OK, now let's talk about the new faces in the ASYLUM team! In our last update we discussed the inclusion of Manuel, who did an outstanding job doing internal QA and making note of every corner in the game needing fixing and polishing. More recently, Tobías Moscoso and Anabela Stankiewicz hopped aboard to join the fun. Let's give them a warm welcome! 👏
Anabela is a crazy talented 3D modeler and sculpter, and is taking care of additional set dressing we're doing here and there to enhance your future exploration of the asylum. She's already bringing a special personal touch to the game! Then Tobías, an auteur who participated in our latest Adventurous Game Jam, creating one of the Top 5 winners, the quirky and mysterious if, which I strongly recommend you play. It features some first rate (and incredibly challenging!) puzzles. Fans of old school adventures, you are in for a treat.
Tobías is handling the additional design and writing to ensure the ASYLUM experience is always cohesive. This includes the achievements and in-game documents featuring a wonderful backstory. Details count, and Tobías is very attentive to them. It's a pleasure to have them both in the team! 🤗
Look at all those happy faces! Well, serious looking-faces of people doing very serious work.
Not pictured here is Azul who couldn't join this particular Zoom meeting. She's getting close to finalizing the writing of dialogues, including the intricate branching that was featured in our public demo. I've always been apprehensive of having other people doing writing, but Azul and now Tobías have excelled in this area. They brought fresh perspectives and ideas, a diversity that is crucial in a huge game like ASYLUM.
What's next?
Well, this was quite the read — there's much going on. We had another period of uneasy silence, but remember that we're always here. I keep hearing words of comfort and encouragement, you know, insisting that the game will never be released, that is vaporware, or that we are complete failures. Guess we must be very stubborn people because we're still working very hard to get this project done. To all of you that are sticking around, believing in us, and taking the time to say something nice, THANK YOU! The Senscape team is creating the horror game of your dreams... ahem, nightmares, intricately designed and painstakingly produced. And now that everything is coming together, we are extra sure you will love every moment!
Remember that we have a highly active Discord community in which Manuel has been posting weekly updates. It's the best place to remain in touch and be up to speed with the latest developments.
I'll see you next time, likely with decisive news and impressions after new crew members have played ASYLUM! 👋
Have a disgustingly beautiful weekend, —Agustín
It Came from the ASYLUM! On Friday!
Salutations, you highly esteemed folks! We finally have an overdue and proper update for you. And a big one with all sorts of news. It’s not like we were that quiet lately: there’s been lots of activity and tidbits across our cozy little spots in the vast extension of the digital world, but it’s about time we summarized our status in a nice writeup. How about we get started?
It's in the details
Our focus for the past few months has been to finalize the “critical path” of puzzles in ASYLUM and ensure the number of details in our scenes are consistent across the entire experience. This last bit means that there’s enough stuff to do or investigate in every location of the game, albeit not strictly necessary. If you played our demo, you know there were plenty of objects you could look at, receive a feedback, or perhaps zoom in, such as corkboard with a couple of easter eggs. This takes much time to implement, especially for a game of this size. The least thing we want is an experience that feels strong at the beginning but slowly becomes rushed and lifeless near the end. On the contrary, the whole game has been designed so that its conclusion shatters your mind, which means consistency and strong pacing. I dislike myself rooms without anything to do in adventure games – simply put, we don’t want to waste your time with lifeless locations.
Critical path means that every major puzzle has been implemented and the game can be completed from beginning to end. And we’re almost there: only one puzzle needs to be implemented from scratch, while two others are in the polishing phase. They’re complex ones and for obvious reasons I can’t provide more details (spoilers!), but we’re really getting close. In fact, we’re already performing internal QA and, good news is, there’s a growing list of content that’s quickly falling into the “we’re not touching this anymore” category. We do have a wishlist of stuff that we’d love to see in the game, and the question remains how much time we’re going to devote to that. But for now, our mission is to bring ASYLUM to a shippable state.
We devoted this week to compile a thorough list of pending assets, meaning a video, an image, sound effect, text blurb, etc., either due or requiring tweaks. Absolutely everything that’s required to have a Release Candidate version, down to the T. We’ll use this list to come up with a realistic schedule and a tentative launch date that we can share with our community. We still do have a few gray areas that are very hard to estimate (namely pending cutscenes), but those are dwindling by the minute.
To address a particular request in the forums: the demo we released last year in the context of the Steam Festival was truly meant to be limited, key reasons being that it wasn’t 100% representative of the final game. Missing voice acting and sound effects for instance hurt the experience to some extent and were among the biggest criticisms we received. After the demo was taken down, we distributed keys to fans that kindly asked us to play it on an on-and-off basis, but we stopped doing that now. The game is in an even better shape than it was last year, thanks in no small part to entirely reworked soundscapes (more about this in a moment!) among other crucial tweaks, including lots of feedback you submitted. Yes, we know you’re anxious to play the game, and yes, we may re-release the demo with these upgrades and voice-overs, which we’re hoping to being recording soon.
Increasing the family
OK, now let’s proceed with news about our team because, trust me, we want to finish ASYLUM as badly as you want to play it! Our newest addition is Manuel Jofre Poza, student of a filmmaking career in a public university (UNSAM) who brings a fresh new perspective to the project and happens to be a longtime fan of… Scratches! Which is super cool because he’s incredibly talented and attentive to detail, exactly the kind of role we needed at this stage. Manuel is doing thorough QA (and I do mean thorough) pointing out each thing that seems out of place. His first playthrough was a big success as he was able to complete a large chunk of the game in one go and without any hints. Yay! I love when he posts in our Discord group quick progress reports with our logo and cool info. Very professional.
It’s interesting to see the process here, identifying anomalies in a scene and quick ways to improve the atmosphere. For example, Manuel’s initial plan for the Boiler Room was to bring a sort of hazy look and volumetric light to the fire, but that’s easier said than done because this is an animated video on top of an image.
The faster workaround was to spawn a warm point light in that area, and voilà, more immersive flames! I really like it. I mean, you can almost feel the heat coming out of that thing.
So, big round of applause for Manuel, our newcomer who by the way just got married!
Next, I’d like to mention the involvement of Cornelis Sjöbeck, who happens to be a Kickstarter backer. Cornelis approached us a short while ago with a neat proposal: as a student in the final stages of a career in computer science, he needed to work on a master-thesis which he wanted to orient to composition/audio design and kindly picked ASYLUM as his subject matter. So, after a few meetings, Cornelis put hands to work on several new sound effects, as well as redesigning current ones. The improvement is shockingly good: beautifully balanced and mastered soundscapes bring a whole new level of immersion to our environments. Waterdrops, crumbling debris, gurgling sounds, buzzing lightbulbs, distant machinery, and a variety of ambient noises among a plethora of new sound effects. It’s a brilliant work and we couldn’t be more grateful for his involvement.
I mean, the guy went as far as using actual bones to produce a particular effect (I didn’t ask about the source of the bones, nope, don’t want to know).
Thanks again Cornelis for contributing to the project! You rock!
And the final but very important bit of news is the promotion of Elizabeth Burner, more commonly known across our networks as McQuigan, as the official Community Manager of Senscape! You’ve probably seen her doing the rounds on Discord and Steam, addressing all kinds of inquiries and topics, organizing activities and so forth. Senscape owes her a big deal, and this is an overdue promotion. Beth is closely aligned with the vision and ideals that make our community such a friendly place to be, so we’re all super happy to have her in the team.
All of this means that, yes, we’re growing and it’s an exciting time for the company. The most exciting times are yet to come, of course, as our mammoth project begins looking like a finished game. There’s never been a team this large working on the game (six people now!) and each passing day fewer tasks remain. I want to thank you all for your patience and support. Contrary to some things being said around, we are working on ASYLUM, and it will be released. I’ve always encouraged and addressed constructive criticism but for some reason, perhaps the times we’re living in, you often read comments that are downright cruel and hurtful. But for each one of those, there are many more words of encouragement that still remind me why we love and believe in what we do.
Anyway, I promise the next update will come sooner, hopefully with more decisive news. Until then!
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