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[Frece]

The tracking shots in the beginning are beautiful as is your look as a whole. For me the video went a bit too much into detail verbally, because your world is a strange and mysterious one that maybe does not need a lot of explaining. Your imagery is strong enough to speak for itself, I think. But this is just a thought of mine, I still enjoyed watching a lot!

I am very glad you like it  and I agree with you. This video has too much of talk in it. For a proper trailer I would probably not use any voice at all, and if I would- then not mine =D. The only purpose of this video was to show and tell about the game and it's story so that people can get an impression of it.
You'll see more mood in the future  (I'm an absolute fan of wordless storytelling)

[Alain]

The only purpose of this video was to show and tell about the game and it's story so that people can get an impression of it.

That totally makes sense. I'm looking forward to get more impressions of the world you are building!

[Phodex Games]

Today I finished my work on the video. 
Check it out =)

Yes yes yes =))) I finally made it.  thinking about it, I wanted to have something like this video for a long time, but I never really had an idea about how to do it properly. But now Im glad to have it. This will be very helpful to explain people with just a leisure video, about my game.  Really hope you like it.

Also, the work on the Steam-Shoppage is done. As I meantioned, the demo should go online soon for all of you as well. Can imagine that this may take a little longer than planned tho, but its depending on my main-jobs. 

So next up:
- Additional Demo fixing
- First Steambuild upload
- Working on the next level (Finally some content creation again  )

Visual quality is superb! Also the art style is very well done. You don't see that very often with indie games. From your voice I would assume that you are german, am I right with that?

[Frece]

From your voice I would assume that you are german, am I right with that?

Exactly  Excuse my mistakes in grammar or formulation. This video was not meant to be 100% polished perfection. Just to have something to send out for people who are interested in the project.
Anyways - Thank you so much for your kind words. It is exactly what I was aiming for.

[Phodex Games]

From your voice I would assume that you are german, am I right with that?

Exactly  Excuse my mistakes in grammar or formulation. This video was not meant to be 100% polished perfection. Just to have something to send out for people who are interested in the project.
Anyways - Thank you so much for your kind words. It is exactly what I was aiming for.

It's not that you made mistakes, it's because I am German as well, same as Alain by the way  . Nice to see quite some german devs hanging out here  . We're slowly taking over the forums

[Frece]

It's done. 

the task list of my last post is done - and there have even been additional tasks addet as well as been done too. 
Lets see:
- Additional Demo fixing
- Creating better graphic-settings 
- Make graphic settings actually save (Interestingly that userinterface was another smaller task which I pushed in front of me again for quiet some time. It seems like these smaller tasks on which I don't really know how to solve them yet are the most neckbreaking. Good thing is - after solving they are not that scary anymore. 
What I hate about these kind of tasks is that they are not adding to the actual game-Content, but they are VERY important anyways.
These details are making a game - A real game I think. Here are they in their current state. 

I really think that these settings will change a lot in the final game, but I wanted to provide propper settings for the demo already. So these are the unoptimized ones =D.
Good thing is - you get settings to play with and I already learned so much about UI and how it works in Unreal so that I am strong for the real UI when it comes. (In maybe half a year or so =D)
Anyways - I am not sure if you saw it but I also wanted to share the main menu:

Additionally I addet some prescreens when you are starting the game - Showing the Logo of the game and that it is powered by Unreal to show tribute. But not only that, I also created a Logo for my "Company". Honestly, since I am creating the game all on my own I don't even know if I should set up a company anyways, but if I am not setting up a company I will use this as an Artist-Name: BUGMAN
Check out the new Logo  :

I am fairly happy with it. Motive and Colors, as well as the Name and the Text-Style. Though I may simplify it in the future.

Last but not least I had to clean up the demo from anything which is not included in it since I deved a bit further. Righ now there are 5-6 levels created but only two of them are meant to be in the Demo. So I wanted to delete the not-used levels to make the game as small as possible.
In the same way I seperated the Demo from the main game. This means that everything I will polish in the Demo have to be polished in the main game too, but I think it's in a pretty good state so that there wont be any big things to change in the demo.

AND THEN
FINALLY!!!

- First Steambuild upload
Yesss!!!  Yesterday night I uploaded the Demo of Exodition on Steam for public. It is now ready on "Will be proved" in steam and should be done in about 3-5 working days. We'll see. Let's hope that there will be no bigger issues. If you have a Win 64 System you'll be able to play the game as soon as the proving is done. I will make another post when the Demo is released 

These were some big tasks in terms of providing the game for players. Not much for the gameplay itself but then again - the feedback I hope to get by sharing the game so early will be a HUGE help while creating it. By the way - you can alread go on the steam page of Exodition. It's there!

I have a whole lot more to show. Some new enemies and a new area - but I will just make another post on the upcoming days.

GUYS!! Exodition is moving on. Thanks for reading 

[Alain]

I really like your title screen!

As for making UIs in Unreal: I heard a lot of people complain about UMG. But honestly I can't chime in: I never had any major trouble with it and think it is a robust system.

[Frece]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1518650/Exodition/

Yes Guys!!
You can play the Exodition demo yourself now on steam.

The process of uploading the demo on Steam was quiet strange in many ways, but I managed it anyways FINALLY!!!
I would greately appreciate any feedback you guys have on it 

---

After the last weeks where I created the UI, made a lot of tests and bugfixing for the demo as well as setting everything up on steam I am finally back on the "real" gamedevelopment of Exodition. Leveldesign, enemiedesign as well as more detailed storywriting. My favorite processes. Nevertheless I have to say that I enjoyed the latest tasks a lot anyways.

So next on the to do is:
- Looking at feedback from demo players and fixing more bugs and maybe polishing the demo a bit.
- Finally creating more levels for Exodition. I already have 5 and a half  In one of the next posts I probably will show you my overal level-plan.

See you guys and have a nice play 

[Alain]

Nice job on the Steam capsule, love it!

I played the demo a bit. Your menu screen is gread already with regards to atmosphere and I like the typography and colors, great job! Same thing with the intro cutcene. You could work with a bit more light and darkness here in my eyes. Just show a bit less and this is in amazing shape already.

While playing, I loved the critter in the water and insects flying around. I had a bit of trouble with the platforming, but this is just me, because this is not a genre I am familiar with. I encountered a little bug where I was set back to the higher pipe after the walking cutscene when entering the "building", it should have put me in front of the squishing machine. But it worked when I entered the second time.

You have some nice level design going on there. Love these yellow fruits on the ground and the moment, where the space opens up after the first squishing machine is golden. I was quite proud of me that I did these following jumps

I really enjoyed the exploring and it was not too easy and not to simply to find my way. I love that there are a lot of checkpoints. A minor thing that bothered me is that I had to wait through the death animation falling into a swamp again and again. The animation with the creature is great, but I want to get to try this again. NOW!

I could not make the last jumps with the two squishing machines and the crumbling wooden boards. But again, any skilled player familiar with the genre will, I am sure.

The only major concern I have is that the basic mechanics do not feel snappy enough. As I said multiple times, I am not familiar with the genre, but I did not get the feeling that I have great control over my character. It feels a bit slow. This might be what you are going for and I am sure you will find people way more qualified to give you their feedback on this.

Overall, great job. This project is going somewhere and it is going there fast. Keep it up!

[Frece]

Hey Alain,

I am so glad to read your feedback and it's a great honor that you played my game. I can't wait to play yours =D.

To answer some of your points:
The level transition bug is already fixed with the latest update. Interestingly this bug didnt happen to me while testing and so I didnt knew about it until some people had this problem.

About the long death animations, you are probably right =D. I already have an idea how to solve it, but its not in the latest update yet.

Too bad that the jump with the two squishing machines put you off. It was actually the last jumping puzzle, followed by some cutscene and story =J.

About the slow-feeling basemechanics. I guess it is something personal. I heard from some people, that they really feel good with the controls and movement. Nevertheless, I know what you mean by "a bit slow". Actually - my idea  is to increase the moving abbilities later in the game. In my streams I already built in the very satisfying double jump =D.
I already thought of placing this doublejump mechanic in the demo, but this would have meant that I would have to create a very different demo branch, which I want to avoid. It should basically flow in the rest of the game.

Thanks again for testing and feedback. It's greatly appreciated. 

[Alain]

Too bad that the jump with the two squishing machines put you off. It was actually the last jumping puzzle, followed by some cutscene and story =J.

I would have loved to see the cutscene :D But again, I am really really bad at platforming, especially in 3D. I am quite confident that it is not to hard for anybody familiar with the genre.

About the slow-feeling basemechanics. I guess it is something personal. I heard from some people, that they really feel good with the controls and movement. Nevertheless, I know what you mean by "a bit slow". Actually - my idea  is to increase the moving abbilities later in the game. In my streams I already built in the very satisfying double jump =D.
I already thought of placing this doublejump mechanic in the demo, but this would have meant that I would have to create a very different demo branch, which I want to avoid. It should basically flow in the rest of the game.

I saw the double jump in one of your videos on Youtube. It is the one with the wings, right? This looked so cool and so much fun to execute.

I also realize that I might be contradicting myself a bit: I am too bad to do the jumps, but at the same time say that the movement felt slow to me. If I was moving faster, it might be even more difficult for me. Maybe a little bit more air control would make it easier for me, but this is a design decision and understandable if you don't want to go that route. By the way, when I say "a bit slow", this is really granular. Movement is at a very good stage in my eyes!

[Frece]

Hey guys,

finally another devlog update. It has been quiet a while. My last entry was in May and there are three major reasons for the long quiet.

Firstly I had the Idea of changing the devlog from text to video to be more entertaining. I actually made a record, but there was a problem with the mic and everything was lost. As you may know losing a file can be frustrating and for some reason I never tried it again. I always thought that I will soon do the videolog again, but I pushed this task in front of me until today. Though to be quet for so long, annoyed me too much. So I create another Text-Devlog, that you guys know I'm still progressing. That being said I can really imagine that the next devlog will be a video.

Secondly it was hard to decide what exactly to show you. There are a lot of construction sites all over the game. To make a quick list of all the things that have been (Roughly) implemented since my last post:
-A 6th level for the first passage has been addet
-Level 7 has almost been done
-Level 8 and 9 had been blocked out roughly
-The first enemy in Exodition had been sculpted, retopologized, textured, rigged and animated (Huge task)
-I created the first Lours enemy (THe big evil bosses)

Check out more views on this tweet: https://twitter.com/ExoditionGame/status/1401584675122868225?s=20
-Together with my current intern we created even a second lorus character lately (the general citizen)
-Added a skyrail-train with cool external engine
-Immiliorated the Traffic system in the second passage
-I created a Website (!!!) Go and check it out here: https://www.exodition.com/

-Soundtrack have been expanded
-Added a big number of new puzzle elements throughout all latest levels
-Created a double jump for the main character
-Created a FONT file for the Exodition-Writing System.
- Created a trailer video - check it out here:

-I invented a theoretical board game of the Lorus, which is pretty close to Chess, or Shogi. I will love to show this one to you.
-Also I setted up everything a Kickstarter page. Its far from publishing, but the rough planout has been done.

Damn.. I have not noticed myself how much I worked on the project the last 6 months. Honestly.. I am really surprised while writing this lost, how far I came. To me it felt like not so much because I always had the feeling that I could work more on the game besides my jobs, but I often felt too exausted.
The good thing is that yesterday I finished a Level on which I started working months ago. This felt like a HUGE thing, even though it was just one level. Though it will deffinately be one of the most compliced ones so it's a good progress. Anyways - a lot of these tasks are not yet fully polished and I always felt that I wanted to present them in their final stage. ..Strange because some are really done but that's exactly why I create this post here now.  

Thirdly as I mentioned I felt that I havent done so much progress on the game and I felt that I'd rather focus on gamedev instead of creating such a devlog, because as you all know time is rare.

Honestly I can tell you that after publishing the demo I realized that after that first milestone I have this huge mountain of work in front of me and that was quiet intimidating. Nevertheless I am proud to have done so many things in the last 6 months anyways. The devlog post is a good reminder for that right now and the last days have been full of new things for the game so I really feel back on track. All of this is a good motviator.

So whats next? My tasklists goes as follows.
- I really need to gain more followers for Exodition since I want to launch a Kickstarter in the near future but I first need a good follower-count. Please spread the word as much as you can. You can find all social media links here: https://www.exodition.com/community
- Together with my intern I want to finish all the planned Lorus designs in the upcoming weeks. Let's see if we will be able to do it

- I usually created cutscenes between the levels and these are still missing in the first latest created levels. I probably change that in the upcoming weeks
- Carry on my work on level 8 (a giant conveyor-belt factory)
- Probably blocking out all remaining levels to get a better overview of what is in front of me
- Really want to push some cutscenes related to the Lorus. I want to see how much work these will be to estimate how many cutscenes I will be able to do
- Maybe expand the Exodition-Wiki a bit more
- I wanted to push the sounddesign a bit because a lot of the newer game elements have no sound yet
- Work on marketing assets for convention-booths on cons like Gamescom
- Also I want to set up some nice devlogs in the near future too. To talk more detailed about the done things I did over the last months. Publish the new logs here and on steam as a video + a bit of text.
- I also want to do more devstreams soon xD AAAA

As you can see there are so many tasks and each one is so important. Basically everything what I do of these tasks will be good progress so I will just follow my intuiton as I did all the time.

In conclusion I can say that Exodition will become a big game with so many different things to discover. For me it's a huge accomplishment so far already and every day it feels like I am getting further and more advaced. I can say that Exodition will be one of the biggest undertakings I will ever have done in my life and this makes me so proud.

Until next time
Have a nice one =J

[Alain]

Firstly I had the Idea of changing the devlog from text to video to be more entertaining. I actually made a record, but there was a problem with the mic and everything was lost. As you may know losing a file can be frustrating and for some reason I never tried it again. I always thought that I will soon do the videolog again, but I pushed this task in front of me until today. Though to be quet for so long, annoyed me too much. So I create another Text-Devlog, that you guys know I'm still progressing. That being said I can really imagine that the next devlog will be a video.

Aw, man, I feel you. It really sucks when things like that happen. Don't let it drag you down, a written devlog is also great.

So whats next? My tasklists goes as follows.
- I really need to gain more followers for Exodition since I want to launch a Kickstarter in the near future but I first need a good follower-count. Please spread the word as much as you can. You can find all social media links here: https://www.exodition.com/community
- Together with my intern I want to finish all the planned Lorus designs in the upcoming weeks. Let's see if we will be able to do it
- I usually created cutscenes between the levels and these are still missing in the first latest created levels. I probably change that in the upcoming weeks
- Carry on my work on level 8 (a giant conveyor-belt factory)
- Probably blocking out all remaining levels to get a better overview of what is in front of me
- Really want to push some cutscenes related to the Lorus. I want to see how much work these will be to estimate how many cutscenes I will be able to do
- Maybe expand the Exodition-Wiki a bit more
- I wanted to push the sounddesign a bit because a lot of the newer game elements have no sound yet
- Work on marketing assets for convention-booths on cons like Gamescom
- Also I want to set up some nice devlogs in the near future too. To talk more detailed about the done things I did over the last months. Publish the new logs here and on steam as a video + a bit of text.
- I also want to do more devstreams soon xD AAAA

It seems like you got done a lot and the things planned for the future are exciting, keep us posted!

[Frece]

Hey Guys,
time is running like crazy.  I just noticed that the last Devlog is already 5 Months ago. That's almost half a year. Unfortunately I havent had much progress in that time. I was very busy with my Freelance Jobs and some other smaller ideas. BUT!!
I finally made a decision. I decreased my workload in many of my jobs and so I will be able to push a lot more on the project in the near future. In fact, I reduced my jobs so much, that I have plenty of room for development beginning in may. Together with my savings I can keep this situation until more than the rest of the year  and my plan is to really start to push it in May.

I am planning the following:
- Multiple hours of dev per day.
- Regular Devstreams of Twitch
- A lot more Social Media activity. More recent Devlogs etc.
- Around end of the year I want to do the Kickstarter finally.

With the current planned scope of the game, I should be done with the entire game in a pretty rough state around the end of the year. Nov/Dec.  Depending on the other jobs again. Tho I really want to avoid accepting new jobs in the rest of 2022.

I basically really want to finish this dude.

So what do I have for you to show in this devlog.  Well.
Here you go:

The Lorus Citizen finally made it into the game.


The Doc of the Lorus also have been done. I thought about anyimating him a bit androgynous  this will be SO cool!

and also:

I pushed the factory level to a almost 'done' state where I just need to add some small details here and there.

So that's it for this devlog. I'm really looking forward to 2022.
  Let's do it! 

[Alain]

It is great to hear, that you will be able to put more time into the project this year, Frece! The creature design is gorgeous as always.

[Frece]

*Insert dancing Gif here*

Guys!! Lately I am feeling the sweet joy of Exodition-Dev again.  

In the last two weeks I did a bunch of things:
1. I set up Git for Exoditon to have it more safely backupped but also to work simultaniously on the project with different people. Because lately I decided to search for helping hands on the level designing. Designing each level in Exodition takes almost most of the time of the development so it would be really good to have someone helping me out there. I recently found someone new there and I probably tell you more about him in the upcoming posts.  
2. With some help of one of my interns I finished the work on a long planned new Enemy-Monster in Exodition. It bacame a true beauty. Have a look yourself:

And I even managed to animate this dude. Check it out:

These guys will called 'Karnotex' and they will hunt you like a bull. Exodtion will be a dangerous place.
I even managed to import and implement their logic. It's crazy how fast this went. And since it was so quickly done I decided to create a concept for a new little nightmare. Check it out here =J

Those will come in groups and fly deep above the ground like furry bats  . Creating their nests with spiderweb-like substance. Ramming their poison tongue right in your head by falling down on you.  

I may have lost myself in the monster creation of Exoditon but it's one of the main reasons I created that world. To dream about the strange creatures which live in this dark world.

3. I also implemented the little 'Poxys' which I created quiet a while ago. Think I just shared them on my twitter. https://twitter.com/i/status/1396873637655814145
Funily I created the model almost one year ago and now they finally made it into the game. But in a way it is a good sign to me. When I finish a long slept task on the exodition-todo-board I always feel this good mood in my heart where I think: YES! And all the other tasks will also be done one day. (You may know how intimidating a huge taskboard can be. and crossing things out always feels like gold!)

4. I made some small changes in the level structure and thought about adding a Canalisation. Yes!! It will be a spacious tube system you may go through to come to the final stage of the second passage. Speaking of which. I already often talked about my 'great' level planning and finally I wanted to share it with you. It alreay changed in the process but nevetheless I want to show it to you so that you can see how I already have the whole game planned out. This plan was created around 2 or 3 months after I started the Exodition Development and it helps me to always keep track about where I currently am in development.  

To Explain: You start at the bottom left and go to the right until you follow the flesh up and then you go to the left and so on.
As you can see I planned to seperate the levels in 3 major passages. 1-The underworks 2-The mid area and 3-The city tops.
In terms of level-building I am already at 50% (Roughly at the station level). So I'm almost done with the second passage   The top passage will be another huge joy to build I cant wait for. I basically LOVE all aspecs of the development on Exodition.  
Anyways - So I set up the blockout for the canalisation in no time and focus now on actually building it.

5. As always there have been small but good little changes everywhere in the game which may not seem very important, but for me it absolutely is. I can only suggest you to do this if you  create a game. Go to older areas and add/polish something here and there. Your game will become a lot more 'Rounded' (They say in germany )

On my list now:
1. Implement the flying little nightmares
2. Finishting the Canalisation and the 'Station'
3. Creating textures for some assets I created a while ago.
4. Maaaaybe doing some polishing already in the currently done levels. I recently went through them and noticed that there is some additional polishing nessessary.

Still I am heavily focussing on setting up the Dev back to 100% on May.  
Until then I will finish some more tasks already.

See you soon hopefully <3

[Frece]

Hey Guys,

here I am back with a new Devlog  . Check it out in this brand new video <3

I hope you like this new format.
If you have any feedback send it over. I thought about keeping the videos much shorter in the future, but if you think the length is okay like this it would be good to know.

See you in the next Log <3

[Alain]

Good to have you back, I enjoyed your devlog! I don't think it needs to be shorter, you had quite a few things to talk about.

[Frece]

Guys!!
Finally!!  
Exodition is getting closer to the Early Access Release!

Check out the new Trailer I made <3

Please share and wishlist the Game.  

[Frece]

  Early Access on Steam - May 1st!!  

This week I'm working like crazy to prepare everything for the release NEXT WEEK!
Here is a node settup I created today  



Below you can see the result.
 


Cool thing is - I can now easily recreate the Portal-Transition at very different Points to built in all collectable secret Statues much more efficient.  
May the next days be as productive as the first two ones of that week.

Please Wishlist guys!!  
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1518650/Exodition