Alsakin

Steam store page is up with the new demo (first two chapters). store.steampowered.com/app/4708270/...

The Uses of Emptiness (Fajr Remix)

The Uses Of Emptiness (I Was Not Wrong Remix)

The Red Weight crossed 300 followers on Steam today. Thank you Valve for this great store front and the Steam Next Fest event! #nextfest #steamnextfest

The Red Weight demo is in this October's #steamnextfest I am very happy with the entire process. Valve let's all of us get exposure equally. I guess I just wanted to counter some of the negative coverage around "slop."

Umm Walid pays attention to her customers like a mountain pays attention to the weather around it. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

Adding objects to the game you can look at and interact with. Final update to demo coming out next week ahead of Steam Nextfest. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

The Uses Of Emptiness - Low Grade Certainty Remix

LINA now recites Arabic poetry, among other features I'm adding. #screenshotsunday #gamedev #indiedev

Fuad: Najma never knew a world that was not silent. #indiedev #gamedev #screenshotsaturday

Umm Walid now schedules regular belly dances so she can pour more of the synthetic arak for the off shift miners. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

Fuad: Petrov was not watching me. He was doing the specific not-watching of a policeman who had already decided I was worth watching. #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #indiedev

Umm Walid keeps a private reserve for those she judges worthy, and in my experience, her judgements are usually accurate.

Fuad: They still call it the souk, the way a street holds a name long after the thing it was named for is gone. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

Just localized the demo to Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian. Also Steam Deck support incoming. store.steampowered.com/news/app/470...

Fuad: Something crossed his face. No Anger. The cousin of anger. The one who stays indoors. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

@maniacalinc.bsky.social thanks for streaming The Red Weight!

Najma's theme

Petrov: "Cause of death?" Fuad: He asked it the way a man asks if dinner is almost ready. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

"That low-grade certainty that runs ahead of the words.." The Red Weight. Play the demo today. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

"Two billion years of silence." #indiedev #gamedev

The demo (about a half hour long) now shows your choices on the end screen. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

Updated map of the habitat. #screenshotsaturday

Amara: "You said, impossible." Fuad: "I did." #indiedev #gamedev

Finished a soft launch of the demo. Chapter 3 content is still gated but if you wanted to jump back in you can on itch right now. Hoping for steam demo in a couple of weeks with chapter 3 content if I can manage it.

The new update should ship mid July to the demo. I've added a much requested feature called assignments (really quests lol) #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

"The dullest stones keep the brightest interiors" #indiedev #gamedev

"A man who studies old rocks knows a thing can be old and ruined and still have value." #indiedev #gamedev

Spent the weekend adding reactivity everywhere in the upcoming update to the demo. Depending on how you approach Amara in chapter 1 she changes the way she talks to you. She also asks where to meet unless you bring it up first. This should make the characters feel much more alive. #indiedev #gamedev

A few weeks away from the update to the demo. Among the new character is Najwa: #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

You gotta eat somewhere. #indiedev #gamedev

Built a tool so I don't have to edit json myself and keep all the scene node connections in my head. It's still a bit baroque but gets the job done. Now I can bang out a template of a scene then come back and make lots of changes.

The colonists still kept copies of Lina, even twenty years after the disaster. "With what shall I console myself -- no kin, no homeland, no companion, no cup, no rest" #indiedev #gamedev

A promotional poster for: Askar and Yasmin the first two colonists on Mars.

Working on the update to the demo. I'm adding more deduction sequences with better gameplay. Here Fuad is discovering 10,000 year old dust on a planet that has been dead for 2 billion years. #indiedev #gamedev

Been remixing some of the tracks in the game. Working hard on the update to the demo. This is the remix of the intro track: "The Uses Of Emptiness (The Private Reserve Remix)." #indiedev #gamedev

Almost done with the UI updates for the upcoming open world update to the demo. There are a few more elements to add/tweak. It animates now on calls from the comm, and has a "quest" tracker. #screenshotsaturday #indiedev #gamedev

Experimenting with more of these small vignettes. #pixelart

"He was not wrong and it would not improve him to say so." #indiedev #gamedev #pixelart

This weekend was productive. Got a lot done on the open world update to the demo. Soon you will be able to explore Bab Al-Hadid and the northern reach on Mars. In the meantime I backported all the voice acting to the demo that's up on itch. #gamedev #indiedev

"I explained that Mars was not the end of the world" #pixelart #gamedev #indiegamedev

Working on the new UI for the open world update to the demo. I added time periods to the game as first class flags. Even though this takes place inside a habitat, characters go about their business on a schedule. #screenshotsunday

Spent the day redoing the narration voice until it came out right. I think now I finally nailed the intro. #indiedev #gamedev

The demo now has tooltips explaining terms that I got feedback on. There's a in-game codex as well. I did third pass on voice acting for chapters 1 and 2. Still working on the big chapter 3 open world update for the demo #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #indiedev #scifi

Voice acting good or bad? If you've played the demo does this make it better? #indiedev #gamedev

"Great winds come to those with great resolve" -- Al-Mutanabbi

Adding more locations and characters for the upcoming open world update to the demo. There's an old souk now and stores surrounding it in the arab quarter. #gamedev #indiegame #pixelart #godotengine #narrativegame #scifi #screenshotsunday