Citizens of Santa Maria dos Sussurros,
The signal has been unusually active lately.
Over the past month, development has continued at full speed. New mechanics have been built, existing systems have grown, and work on the narrative and music has moved forward alongside all the less exciting, but equally necessary, bureaucratic work happening behind the scenes.
For a long time, many pieces of the game existed separately.
Now, they are starting to find each other.
Something Is Playing in the Distance
Music development has continued alongside the rest of the game, and our soundtrack is slowly finding its identity.
We have been experimenting with the sounds, instruments, and atmosphere that will accompany you through Santa Maria dos Sussurros.
Some melodies are meant to inspire faith. Others seem to twist it into something else entirely.
Below is a small fragment of one of those experiments.
It might be part of the demo.
Consider it a glimpse of something sacred that has gone terribly wrong.
Or perhaps it was never sacred to begin with.
Building the World
A large part of this month was dedicated to development inside Unity.
Alongside implementing new gameplay mechanics, we have also integrated new tools and packages into the project to improve our workflow and help us build environments more efficiently.
Some of these tools solve technical problems. Others help us populate and shape the world.
Together, they mean we can spend less time rebuilding the machinery behind the game and more time deciding what should be waiting for you inside it.
The Story Found Its Way In
We have also consolidated the tools we use to write and organize the game’s narrative.
Arcweave is now part of our workflow, allowing us to build conversations, choices, branches, and narrative logic visually.
More importantly, it is no longer isolated from the game itself.
We can integrate what we write in Arcweave directly with the dialogue system we previously built inside Unity. This gives us a much clearer path from writing a conversation to actually seeing and playing it in the game.
And since we are already letting you this close, perhaps you can read a few of them.
A small fragment from the demo:
Gabriel havia chegado na cidade há pouco mais de 2 semanas, ainda não entendia bem as principais estruturas da cultura local. Uma coisa percebeu logo de cara: não era uma cidade do interior comum. A tal da Família Prorovici, supostamente de origem russa, exercia grande influência ali. Ele nunca havia visto uma igreja como aquela antes…
Agora refletindo e pensando no que viu do lado de fora, para Gabriel, aquela igreja toda era bem destoante em relação a toda a cidade, como se estivesse mal encaixada. O altar era belíssimo, diferentes estruturas e suportes de madeira sustentavam dezenas de imagens e outros paineis. Os quadros que cobriam todas as paredes exibiam um dourado chamativo, mas angelical.
The words on the page can finally find their way into Santa Maria.
Choose them carefully.
The Sandbox Is No Longer Enough
Until now, much of our gameplay development has happened inside a sandbox scene.
It existed so we could test movement, interactions, dialogue, inventory systems, and all the other pieces needed to make the game work.
But many of those pieces are working now.
At the same time, we have finished the external models needed to begin constructing the first environment planned for the demo.
So, we are leaving the sandbox. Development of one of the game’s actual maps is about to begin!
We won’t show you everything yet, ut perhaps a silhouette won’t hurt.
The Signal Is Spreading
Development isn’t the only thing that has been moving, we have also started putting more effort into showing the game to the outside world.
Instead of waiting until everything is polished enough for traditional trailers and announcements, we have been turning parts of the development process into memes, short videos, experiments, and small glimpses behind the scenes.
And people are finding us.
The response so far has been surprisingly positive, bringing new eyes to the project and, hopefully, to the demo that will eventually emerge from all of this.
Follow the Signal
There is still a lot to build.
But something important has changed.
The systems are connecting. The story can speak to the game. The soundtrack is taking shape. The first real environment is ready to leave the drawing board.
For a long time, we were building the pieces.
Now, we are building Santa Maria dos Sussurros.
More transmissions will follow.
Until then, follow the signal.