Another week of progress! And this week, while we toil away as ever on all the many aspects and pieces of the game. We would also like to talk about what exactly it is that we're doing now besides optimizing the demo. Which, in itself, is part of a larger concept. And that would be the concept of polish. The term no doubt is one that many who play and many who make games have encountered. And we would like to take this update to inform you what the process of polish meant for us and what we have been doing to accomplish it.
Now for those who don't know what polish exactly is. The process of polish is one where we take what we have so far and try and refine it. By which we mean examining every aspect of the demo, identifying both problems and places to improve and acting upon our findings. This, includes everything from the visuals, to optimization, to gameplay balance, and so on. The process of polish is one that is essentially without end. As nothing is ever perfect. And so, the polishing phase, demanding and long-lasting as it might be, eventually still has to come to an end. And for us, we feel as though we are closing in on a satisfactory level of polish. Nothing is ever perfect, but we can certainly try to come as close as we can.
Without polish, or without enough of it at least, a product could never reach its true potential. For example, imagine needing to create a single realistic room, one that has seen some use. You have the walls, the floor, the furniture and you put them all together. Indeed, on the surface, your task is done. The room exists. But simply tossing the elements in some measure of basic order results in a rather dull and lifeless room. To truly make it a room that feels as though it has life to it, you would need to tweak how everything sits in it. Again and again, while keeping all manner of questions in mind, such as who lives in this room, what do they do, how often do they use it. Using this as guidelines to all the elements you need to change.
That, of course, extends to everything we do while making our game. Beyond how environments changed and grew along with us, our story, and the changes we made. This process of endless tweaking and updating also demands that attention would be given to balancing, level design, sound design, and yes, even optimization. From the technical to the artistic, this process is what truly breaths life into a game and the way it feels. And with the concept of polish out of the way, we are excited to announce that the next update, in all likelihood, would announce the release date of our pre-alpha.
For this week's tease, we thought it best to share what exactly had happened during our polishing phase. At least when we're talking visuals. And to do that, we would show you a few before and after pictures of how things evolved and changed. And of course, a tease of a new asset.
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