Blog #7: Demo Updates August 25
Well damn we've been doing a lot in the first half of the year, here's some highlights!
Re-introducing Violet Leon.
After our last dev session we ended up with a bunch of jobs, including a lot of new art. And Stuart has delivered!
Violet has been through a few iterations and this time we nailed it. Our knowledge hungry seer with a side of whimsy. We can't WAIT for you to meet her.
A very productive IRL session
Gianni fixed some missing walls (that was definitely nothing to do with Roxanne now having her hands on the build), we made some big breakthroughs in narrative connectivity, and plotted out the second and final demo puzzle.
Environment & Art Updates
After a quick Unity 101 session with Gianluca, Roxanne has been in the build feng-shuing and adding personality to the house. You might remember from our last blog we made some big breakthroughs recently. One of them being that you'll use your Vision Cards to travel to different instances of the Vukana House, which will allow you to meet other witches, warlocks and magical beings. And yes, that means multiple versions of the house, and yes they all need to work together. Gianni's on it.
Stu has also created new models, avatars, and designs for our spiritual beings, AND a new addition, the Vukana House Cat, more on her another time.
What's Violet's Visions?
If you're new or need a reminder.
Violet's Visions is a witchy point and click, narrative, puzzle game. As cat-witch Violet you'll use your seer powers to call upon powerful Visions that allow you to explore thousands of years of history (and future).
Take a straight path to unlock Visions and solve puzzles, or take it slow and uncover secrets, meet new witches, and get to know the land of Erenay through exploration.
What's next?
We planned for this demo to be ready by Spring (oops) but we're now aiming for Late Autumn when we'll be hosting a play test evening. It's been a complete overhaul, with new base mechanics, updated systems, new art, hopefully some voice, hell we've added new characters. It's been 0-100 after a year off and we've all learned and grown a lot since we came together as a three in 2023.
Thanks for coming on this journey with us.
Gianluca, Roxanne, Stuart.
It’s interesting to see how much progress comes from bringing art, narrative, design, and technical development together. The updates also show how important coordination and a well-organized environment can be when a team is working through creative and technical challenges. A similar approach is valuable in professional workplaces, where integrated FM services in Jeddah can help coordinate different facility needs and maintain functional, comfortable spaces for teams.
It’s interesting to see how much progress can come from bringing different skills together, from art and design to narrative development and technical work. The behind-the-scenes process also shows how creativity often needs the right environment for ideas to develop and teams to collaborate effectively. For creative teams and growing businesses, choosing an office for rent that supports both focused work and collaboration can be an important part of that process.
The development update was interesting, especially seeing how the team is improving the characters, environment, puzzles, and overall story after a year away. I could relate to the focus on learning and building new skills because I once explored Medical school caribbean while researching different educational paths and what they involved. That experience also showed me how much planning and gradual progress matter when working toward something complex. The same steady effort really comes through in this update.
I really enjoyed reading this update because it shows how much care and effort has gone into improving every part of the game. While working on a study schedule last year, I spent some time looking into GMAT exam help, and it reminded me that both game development and learning take many rounds of testing and improving before everything comes together. It is always nice to see creators stay patient with the process, and I hope the play test goes well.