We are back and ready to go at it once again! This month's DevBlog will be a bit of a deep dive into the current development of Arrival of the Punnu and what will happen within the project in the near future. We are so excited to be able to show you our new and improved game soon, but unfortunately, it will come with a cost as well.
Those of you who follow our other socials may have noticed our absence in the past month or so. Now that we're hard at work reworking the project in Unreal 5, there unfortunately won't be much to show content-wise of the game for the indefinite time being. Worry not though, we are working very hard behind the scenes to bring the new content for you as fast as we can, and the easiest way to follow our process is from each month's DevBlog. Also, we've been planning other types of fun content soon, so be sure to subscribe to our socials so that you won't miss anything! :)
Join our discord to support and hear about launch info early!
NOORA
I’ve been mostly doing some documentation to have clear, written guidelines about the art style, budgets for optimization, and just the overall pipeline of what needs to be done to the art assets before they are ready to be used in the game. I also set up some naming conventions and folder structure guidelines to go with it. I helped Joonas finish the new model for the boy and I’ve been working on transferring the old rig to it. I still need to add some of the extra bones it needs, skin the character to the rig, and then it can be animated!
TIPI
Arrival of the Punnu is going through many changes. The team has been also reflecting on features, the story, and the whole overall gameplay.
This has taken a lot of design work to make the big picture work as should. I am still in the process of refining, redesigning, and rewriting the documentation.
Arrival of the Punnu is meant to be an epic and meaningful experience for the player and we don’t want to compromise that. The postponement of the final launch is inevitable, as we are really looking forward to bringing the next great experience to our players.
Design-wise I feel there are a lot of new challenges. When we are scoping down and crystallizing the core gameplay the effects ripple all over the game development processes from animation to code to the concept, even to the boy character himself.
I feel like the Punnu are in the center of this project thus they should be a more active part of the adventure. After several iterations, we have a better understanding of the Punnus role in the game, but it will take a LOT of work to get the project done.
But not to worry! Arrival of the Punnu is progressing, even though it might seem silent, things are happening all the time.
MIKKO
Started implementing the very basic mechanics in UE5. I had to start by watching a few tutorials about the new input system which seems to have the potential to be very useful in the future. We have the opportunity to make everything right from the start so now we’re focusing on getting the very basics as good as possible. That means creating proper customizable systems for UIs, movement, and inputs. When those are done we can move on to localization and level design tools. Exciting times for those of us who get their kicks from these things.
JOONAS
I have led our talented interns, who made beautiful environment stuff for Finland and Plitvice levels. We got QA results from our last demo, and I tried to analyze what went wrong and what works, so we learned a lot. On the art side of the game, I have concepted new enemies also to the game, maybe in the future someone has time to make them. In another hand, I tried to make a new model for the boy, and also Noora helped me at the finish line so that we get done in time.
TIPI
I was the lead organizer at the FGJ Turku Hybrid and that has taken a lot of time from projects, but it was amaaaaazing. We got over 100 participants and 24 games from Turku! And we had so much fun!
The Punnu team was doing their own thing during the jam and we will be revealing what has been cooking soon during this Spring so stay tuned! It will be absolutely awesome and I have had a great time drawing level design and writing stories. 🙂
Other than that, a lot of conferences are coming up this year so I got some prepping to do and also more events, hustling, and a LOT of writing in the Game Design field.
You can also spot me talking about embedding impactful messages and good values into the game worlds without making educational games at Aalto University Games Now! event series next month.
That's it for this time! We are really hoping to see you here next month as we continue our development and adventure!
With best regards,
Punnu Games Team
