Sui Generis Post-funding Update #31: Prelude Alpha Released

The latest post-funding Kickstarter update for Sui Generis announces the release of the prelude alpha build for the title, dubbed “Exanima” by the developers. There are still a lot of features to implement, but apparently the biggest technical hurdles have been overcome and, according to the devs, the build might even appear “very complete and polished”. Hopefully those of us who didn’t back will get some video diary to see how the project is shaping up soon, but in the meantime, here’s a snippet:

This alpha is fairly short and doesn’t have a proper conclusion, that’s because it’s the earliest part of the prelude. Once we’ve gone through some initial testing and completed the most urgent features and improvements we’ll be opening up more of the prelude and then going into beta. The first full release should be close behind. Don’t underestimate the volume of content though, you will have to be quite thorough to discover everything and all doors except the big double metal ones can be unlocked.

Please be sure to consult the control reference in the first run screen or the included readme file, you may have difficulty with certain interactions if you don’t know the controls! Customisable controls in the in game settings screen will be included in a future release.

As mentioned before we will continue to add features and improvements to Exanima as we develop them for the full game. This will allow us to get your feedback as we continue with development and improve both the prelude and full game experience. In the near future we plan to release a roadmap of major development goals. This will give you a clear idea of what we’re working on and perhaps even allow you to influence how those goals are prioritised.

Some of the more urgent things that didn’t make it into this release:

• More AI behaviours, with some very significant gameplay implications!
• Greater environment interactivity
• Walk/step backwards out of combat (with keyboard)
• Automatic input correction to assist walking very near obstacles
• Improved performance
• Saving progress for multiple session playthroughs
• Customisable controls
• Various control improvements
• Doors affecting room visibility system
• Improved animations, especially for undead

The game is quite uncoventional in many ways but it shouldn’t take long to get used to everything. It’s fairly limited in scope for now but don’t treat it as you would an action RPG, take your time and consider what you do, the most obvious thing is rarely the best.