- Diary Page #12: Systemic Architecture (Part 2) - 2 January 2025
Dear Scholars, Continuing where I left off in the first part, I would like to show you the building blocks of my new architecture and how it compares to the typical ways of working in the Unity engine. Inspiration The idea for how the code architecture in Selenwald is going to look didn't come out of nowhere. The biggest influences were: my past experience with Entity Component System (ECS) style framework (Entitas, to be specific) which I had previously worked with on a different project, Brian's Bucklew's talk on the systemic and data driven architecture used in Sproggiwood and Caves of Qud, my own journey of gradually making Selenwald more and more data-driven (mostly through various ways of utilising Scriptable Objects, heavily influenced by Ryan Hipple's talk on this subject) throughout the recent years. Not ECS Whether you're familiar with ECS frameworks or not, I should make it c…
- Diary Page #11: Systemic Architecture (Part 1) - 1 December 2024
Dear Scholars, It is time to finally give you some behind-the-scenes look at what makes Selenwald tick - especially that it has been a while since the last entry and you deserve something more than just a status update. This entry will be first one of a small series on the code architecture because the topic is too big for a single post. The first thing I'd like to write about is the reasoning behind what has been in the works for a very long time. As I mentioned in the past, I have started a massive code rewrite exactly a year ago. It was never supposed to be a minor refactor or a mere clean-up but rather a complete change of the underlying architecture. Scary? Sure! Needed? Absolutely. But why? Technical debt: Back when my main development goal was to get a publisher or an investor, my priority was to create a publisher demo that's representable enough to communicate the vision and sh…
- Diary Page #10: Rebirth - 22 July 2024
Dear Scholars, It has been a while since the last entry. Usually that means an exceptionally busy period and this was no exception! I'll give you a personal update first and then tell you about some of the progress we've made in Selenwald's development recently. Stronger than ever First of all, the last 3 months were an incomprehensibly busy period for me. I've always worked a lot but recently I've managed to beat any of my previous personal records, working ~90h weeks quite consistently. No worries though - I'm also physically active (cycling every single day), eat healthier, and most importantly I'm feeling great mentally, so it's all fine! As those of you who are on the Discord server already know, all the struggles I've had for over 3 months beginning in early January have finally ended. At the end of April I started a long term job at a studio I've been freelancing for for around 1…
- Diary Page #9: Music of Selenwald - 16 March 2024
Dear Scholars, Those of you who are members of our Discord server community may have noticed I am very passionate and enthusiastic about music in video games as it's my favourite genre of music (if "genre" is even an appropriate term here), which always accompanies me when I work, evoking vivid memories from my beloved game series and inspiring me in my own creations. Naturally, I wanted Selenwald live up to my auditory standards and have a memorable soundtrack that greatly fits the game's atmosphere. First Pieces It all started back in 2021 when I met Markus Zierhofer - a composer and one of the people behind Audio Creatures. I immediately knew he would be a great fit for the project as he quickly understood the vibe I was after and was excited about the references I suggested. Not much time passed before he began working on the first two pieces - an exploration track and a combat trac…
- Diary Page #8: Call for Help - 2 February 2024
Dear Scholars, I never thought I would write about anything negative as I am usually all fine and the development of Selenwald is going well. However, due to the current unusual circumstances I have decided to write this particularly personal entry. I'd want to tell you about the distress I'm in at the moment and about how you can help me make the dark clouds go away. Those present in our Discord may have noticed I haven't posted much about progress this month. Unfortunately, the reason has been that there just wasn't a whole lot of progress being done during that time. This January was one of the roughest months in my life. Let me tell you about what happened. Death First, Tinka—my dear cat—died on January 8th after an almost 3-year long battle with lymphoma. Luckily, despite it being an incredibly painful loss, I've managed to deal with grief relatively quickly. After all, this didn't…
- Diary Page #7: The Decision - 3 January 2024
Dear Scholars, In my previous entry, I pondered the paths of seeking a publisher or investor versus embracing full independence for the journey. Today, I'm excited to announce my decision to finally cease my pursuit of a business partnership. It was a time consuming process that ultimately proved fruitless because of what state the games industry finds itself in right now. Due to some expected crash, it's nearly impossible to secure funding for a game even by an established studio, let alone a debuting one. Without the further need to keep polishing the publisher demo in hopes to appease some people in suits, I can now dedicate my energy entirely to the long term goal of bringing the game to your hands as soon as possible. This means my "Plan B" is being put into motion and that is preparing for an Early Access release, which would otherwise be skipped if I managed to get funded via a b…
- Diary Page #6: Crossroads - 28 October 2023
Dear Scholars, It has been nearly a year since the last entry. If you're concerned something might not be right, I'm here to reassure you it's actually very much the opposite. It has been an incredibly productive year so far and the restrain from writing dev diary entries was one of many, small, conscious decisions I made to ensure I can put as much time into Selenwald's development as humanly possible and arrive to a point of having a feature complete playable build. Feature complete I know what you're thinking - the release must be right around the corner, right? Well, not so fast. Let me clarify. While it's a remarkable milestone worth celebrating, it might not be what you expect. To set the stage, let me shed light on my primary development objective over the past months (or should I say years). As I might have mentioned previously, I aim to sign a deal with a publisher or an invest…
- Diary Page #5: Reliefs and a Relief - 18 January 2023
Dear Scholars, I usually try to focus on one thing per entry but this time I have several different things to write about. I'll try to keep them condensed in return. Behind the scenes The process of creating games was always something I was very passionate and enthusiastic about - not any less than about the end goal to release the game and see people enjoy it. Because of that the idea of live streaming the development process has been lingering in my head for a long time. The reason that I've waited so long to do it is probably that I haven't really had time to do much 3D art in the recent years since programming has always been the most time consuming and high priority thing to work on for Selenwald. I also mostly stopped doing 3D modelling for hire years ago because I needed a more time efficient way to earn for a living. Tech art (shaders, tools, etc.) and programming are paid bette…
- Diary Page #4: Boards and Metrics - 4 November 2022
Dear Scholars, There is something satisfying in bringing an imaginary world to life in a physical and tangible form. Although it doesn't beat the joy brought by the sole process of the world's conception and development, the sensation of touching baroque style furniture, wallpaper, and decorations makes it seem like Selenwald is no longer confined to a program. Selenwald has recently seen the light of day for the first time. It was shown at Poznań Game Arena - a gaming expo in Poznań, Poland. One of the major things I was focused on in September was bringing the rough demo to a somewhat presentable state so I wouldn't feel bad showing it publicly. Luckily, despite having many flaws and requiring a lot of assistance and explanation, it has made a much better impression on players than I had anticipated. If you were there, thank you for visiting and playing - it was nice to meet you! If y…
- Diary Page #3: The Paradigm Shift - 3 September 2022
Dear Scholars, I have a feeling I've only been writing about breakthroughs so far but bear with me - August has brought another groundbreaking milestone. After all these years Selenwald finally has a first trailer. In case you haven't seen it yet, head over to the game's store page and watch! Before that, Selenwald has been hiding in the darkness, obscured, waiting to be discovered only by those who dare venturing into the deepest chasms of Steam. Now everything changed forever. There has been a lot of traffic since the trailer's release. The video on YouTube alone has just surpassed 10,000 views. A lot of sites have written about Selenwald as well. More people have discovered the game during the past 2 weeks than during the entire year prior. All of it fills me with joy! But enough of this - although I was crazy busy with the trailer last month, it isn't the only thing I made. Let's ge…
- Diary Page #2: Team of Dozen - 31 July 2022
Dear Scholars, In the last entry I gave you a rough timeline of the first several years of Selenwald development. I showed you an early proof of concept dated back to 2013 and described the gradual build-up that started when I made first prototypes in 2016. The long journey of mostly solo development that has suffered a plethora of interruptions driven by the constant need to do side work in order to be able to pay the bills has finally led to an important milestone in 2020. Today I would like to tell you the rest of the story that has brought the game to where it is now. The unnamable In April 2020 I decided to officially establish a studio as I knew some opportunities to accelerate the development were impossible without a registered business. Thus Unnamable Arts was born. Not much time has passed and I used some of my humble savings to hire first freelancers to help me create some th…
- Diary Page #1: The Origins - 5 June 2022
Dear Scholars, Welcome to the very first development update! In this periodic series of posts we'll be highlighting some of the features and content we've been recently working on. Sit down, relax and read the first part of the story behind a quest to bring back the long lost essence of fantasy RPGs and introduce the most intriguing take on the roguelike genre you've seen in a long time - a game that's ambitious, deep, challenging and unlike anything you've seen in past years. A game that's already almost 6 years in the making. "Why so long?" - you may ask. Let us continue and find out. Prehistory In order to start from the very beginning, we need to go back a whopping 9 years. Let me put plurals aside for now since there was no "us" back in the day. It was just me - Wiktor - and I had already decided that when I start my own studio, a roguelike would be my debut game. Not just any rogu…
