Latest Posts
Locked in at 30fps
I’ve been rather productive the past two months, but have unfortunately been less on top of blog posts and posting on other social media. There were a lot of rapid improvements made thanks to the private playtest service I signed up for. The playtesters have given constructive feedback and found bugs I would otherwise never…
SXSW Sydney x Memoirium
SXSW Sydney 2025 was an absolute blast. I am honored that Memoirium was invited to showcase, and I am still recovering from how much fun it was to be there. While I was only in Sydney for six days, each day was filled with merriment, learning, and a lot of standing by Memoirium’s booth. SXSW…
Optimization, polish, and achievements
I’m currently in a special stage of development, the optimization and polish stage. This is where I’m hunting for bugs and adding extra shine to as much as I can. With the relatively simple aesthetic of Memoirium, a lot of polish goes a long way. Some examples of polish I have recently added: items when…
I lied! I am not truly a solo dev.
Sort of a clickbait title, I do admit. I am still developing the game by myself. But I wouldn’t be able to do it without the support from Outersloth, my fiancé, my best friend, my brother, my parents, my cousins, my friends, my family, my fellow gamedevs, and my early playtesters. I am writing this…
To play the player
It’s funny how often in Lies of P you see an item or a room and immediately know it’s a trap. You should be able to pick up the pattern after a while, and it really feels like your fault when you fall for a trick that you knew was waiting for you. This made…
Camera closer
I spent this week working on the little things, like UI updates and pushing the camera closer to the player. In the equipment screen, the boxes were previously empty, and I put helpful background images to show the player what goes into them. This should be useful, especially when the boxes grow more numerous. I…
DysConnection
This week, I spent a lot of time painting shadows. It’s much like baking lighting if you baked with your hands in the oven. I had painted some things with shadow before, but I overlooked how much better everything would look if I painted EVERYTHING. Well, I painted as many of the objects that I…
Instrument Quality
It’s a strange and fulfilling feeling being able to complete a playthrough of my game. I landed somewhere close to 12 hours, which I think is a good length for the size of the game. Plus, it will probably take longer for others since I do have the advantage of knowing the game back to…
Weapon Lullabies
Not a very crazy week. Well, a little crazy since I decided I wanted each weapon to have an even more distinct identity. I felt that the choice between weapons didn’t have enough impact, then I thought about what made weapons special or unique in other games (particularly games in the same genre). In Elden…
Positive feedback!
Playtests are great! I could play my game 100 times and find 5 bugs. One play tester could play once and find 10! So far the feedback I’ve gotten has been positive and the suggestions are extremely helpful. This also means I know I’m on the right track. There was a lot I improved in…
Piece by piece
Another relatively productive week leading up to the playtest. So far in my experience, game dev has been a combination of wildly unobstructed progress and fixing obstructions I have made for myself in the past. Now that I’ve finished most of the game’s “meat,” I can focus on the finer and more grueling details. I…
Playtest signups are open!
The dates for the limited playtest are May 2-10! Signup should be open on the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3294440/Memoirium/ My goal for this playtest is to get early feedback on how the game feels. I want to see if there are any common issues and suggestions. Besides that, I am open to whatever this playtest will…
Limited playtest soon!
I’ve been gone for a bit, but now I’m back at it! There’s not much in gamedev that feels better than knocking out items in a to-do list. The next big priority on the to-do list is to start the limited playtest. I am hoping to start it by next week, depending on how fast…
The typical soulslike is a turn-based game
When developing the combat for my game I wanted to understand and pick apart what made the combat in Souls games so fun and special. Looking at it from a design perspective I slowly came to realize the Stamina bar that is present in all of their Soulsborne games can be seen as the amount…
All games are puzzles
I spent this week adding some more spells, weapons, and “new” enemies. You may notice, dear reader, that I put new in quotation marks because these new enemies either have previous boss’ movesets or a mix of other enemies’ movesets. In one case, I simply changed what an enemy throws, but that already largely changes…
Dream game is a dream come true
I’d love to talk about what I was working on this week, but I would rather keep it a secret. A great part of any game is the surprises! Since I’m chipping away at the final parts of the whole adventure, I wanted there to be so much more for the player to do and…
Paper to PC, from DM to Gamedev.
I want to briefly talk about how I didn’t realize I was a game designer long before I became a game developer. Ever since I was a wee child, like many geeky kids, I loved to play pen-and-paper games with my friends and family. However, instead of following any rulebooks, my family enjoyed making games…
Cat development
Much of the work I’ve been working on this week and for the foreseeable future will be in the realm of spoiler territory. As I am on the final chapter of the game I want to keep it under wraps as long as I can unless I need to use it for marketing eventually. So…
I am posting again?
Oh wow, where to start? I started off this week by announcing my partnership with Outersloth. It’s a dream come true honestly, and is another massive step to finishing the game. Not many of my plans for the game as a whole have changed after receiving their help. I knew from the beginning what I…
Paolo’s Personal Site
Has my blogging returned? Yes, I have started developing a new game. It’s been a few months, and I’ve been sticking to making videos on YouTube. Initially, I made this website to chronicle my work on Undying Lantern. A bit wasteful to do nothing with it, so instead, I’m turning it into a personal website.…
It’s finally out
My game is out now on Steam! It’s pretty crazy. This is another new beginning. Now I gotta get more sales.
Catching and fixing
It kind of terrifies me when I find an issue with a mechanic especially one that I did a long time ago. I end up wondering what else I may have overlooked. There was a problem with how my blocking and the damage mitigation worked. Basically, it didn’t work at all and I never noticed…
New Trailer
I did some more polish and added some new stuff as well. The character stops sprinting when they get hurt now. I put button prompts on the powers to remind players of what they are. This will be useful if they decide to rebind the key. Then I spent most of my time creating a…
Wave Attacks
I improved the wave attacks which look great moving across the reflective ground. I added a collision box that plays a sound if the player passed through it. That way it gives the illusion that the actor has moving audio. I also packaged the project and tested it on Steam to see if everything was…
Northern Lights
There were a lot of things to fix for the whip as expected. Over the weekend I changed how the whip affected objects. When whipping an object it won’t be thrown right away. Instead, it will be dragged with the player until they decide to throw it again. Today I fixed the limit of the…
Whip it into shape
As expected there were a lot of things to improve and fix for the whip. It’s only fitting that the main mechanic I first started with is going to be one of the last things I touch. I made sure that there was only a reaction on physics objects. Since the whip can affect some…
Time and Change
While clicking through the menus I saw that the custom mouse wasn’t accurate to where the cursor was supposed to be. I found that the edge of the point had to be at the middle of the widget I made for the custom cursor. The name selection menu had been annoying me for a while…
Dodge Distance, Desk Deletion
I removed the desks from the first level because they had a weird shape that could easily mess with the physics of the capsules. I increased the distance of some of the dodges so they felt more useful. I adjusted the modulation of several sounds, especially the ones that play more often so they don’t…
Whip Overhaul
After posting a combat preview on Reddit I got great feedback about the whip. It was a bit too easy to use especially since it had auto-aim. That made me rethink the type of game I was going for and the mechanics I want the player to have fun with. The whip was indeed too…
Adding toggle
I don’t usually work on Fridays and today is a holiday over here but I was in the mood to add a new input. It is scary when adding any new control though this one was fairly straightforward. Since the sprinting doesn’t take up any resources I feel the player would be sprinting more often…
Set Dressing
A building in the final level was looking very barren and it made me appear lazy. I added random props and objects to fill it up and give it more life so to speak. I created a new material instance that had a different color from the usual objects so it would be clearer which…
Time Altered
I made some updates yesterday but forgot to make a post. I adjusted some sounds to have them more varied, especially the ones that are repeated quite often. The first boss now alternates between two staggered animations because he is the most likely to get stunned. I also removed the shelves from the arena because…
Bloody Oops
Made an adjustment to the save slot text to not include the colon (now a hyphen) if the save slot is empty. There was a glitch with the projectile as it could activate boss triggers. I changed the objects it can overlap and collide with. In the final level, there was a visual glitch when…
Ancient fix
While playing through the game I realized I wanted to fix the impact effect of the projectile that the player can throw. Instead of spawning the effect on the actor it hits, I instead spawn the VFX where the impact was made. It looks way better this way. After doing this adjustment, I found that…
Two cats
Mostly small changes today. Some objects weren’t displaying the proper particle effect. I found that I did not put any effect on the rock materials. Added a change to the objects in the third stage to make sure the inspection screen closes when the level is shifting. Moved the barrels in the fourth stage to…
More save slots
While working on improving the main menu yesterday I found a widget switcher for the UMG. What it does is set different tabs on the widget so you can lots of different menus and switch between them easily. This would have been very useful for other menus. Anyway, I took advantage of this new knowledge…
Custom Cursor
Watched a quick video on how to add a custom cursor and it was incredibly easy to implement it. I used the same image that appears on buttons for the image for the cursor. It doesn’t change much but it adds to the game refinement as a whole. I then updated the journal entries so…
Release Date
I’ve been making a lot of small changes to the site and I addressed some bugs over the weekend. I finally have a release date for the game: May 28, 2022. That’s not too far and I’m hoping I can have everything sorted by then. I made sure the UI disappeared when it was supposed…
And another one
Did another full playthrough of my game. It is short already and even quicker when you know what you’re doing. I adjusted some objects to make it clearer that they can be interacted with. Some objects didn’t have the proper physical material, so I fixed that. I noticed cause I was walking on something and…
Sight and Sound
Going through the game again slowly and methodically. Adjusted collision on a door to make it bigger. Added more UI elements that will remind the player of the inputs for the powers and what they do. I wanted a relatively simple UI with no input images at all, but the powers themselves change with each…
Achievements Unlocked
Been doing small work ever since my build was approved by the Steam review. I was able to accomplish most of the things they asked me to fix for my game. I didn’t know there was a default configuration for gamepads that I could set within my game. They recommended I also have the game…
Marked For Review
Haven’t been doing much in terms of game development. Doing small pieces of work such as checking for bugs and accomplishing short playtesting sessions. I’ve gotten a few more emails for the mailing list, but I will probably need more. Then I put together the latest version of the game and uploaded the build onto…
A Needed Break
Took a week off from working on the game and played Elden Ring. I would also like to consider it as part of research for game development. The game is extremely fun and I’ve learned a lot. Since souls-likes are my biggest inspiration I was reminded of what I wanted my game to be. I’m…
Market Study
Did some short improvements on the fourth boss. Flipped the material on the shield so the larger part is the reflective material. It looks prettier and shinier. I also added improved sound effects to the boss for the fight. In terms of marketing, I went on steamdb which has a lot of info on all…
Slow Roll
The journal page wasn’t nice to look at so I moved around the text and image. It should be more pleasing to the eye now. The sounds for some of the items in the game didn’t feel right, so I went through all of them and assigned more appropriate effects. I then started on putting…
Sorting more things
Started off with more testing as usual. Went through the game with all the abilities unlocked to see what other bugs I could find. I did find one that was quite clear but not game-breaking. The character somehow skipped the death animation when dying, but the player could still continue. Jumping up in high places…
Hold to throw
Outside the game, I’ve been doing research in preparing for publishing a game with Unreal Engine. I added credits to Unreal in the final credits for the game. Besides that, I will need to submit a form before I officially release the game I added one final achievement because I wanted to give props to…
Teaser Trailer
In between the testing I put together a teaser trailer for the game using clips from the sequencer shots I had and I used the exploration music. DaVinci Resolve is a free and great editing software I found. The video can be found here. Besides that not much more to update on for today. Without…
Gamepad Type
I tested my game today using my controller. I had done it before but it’s important to try it again. My run went smoothly and I searched for a place where I could inform the player of where to change the Gamepad Type. I found that the best place for it was in the first…
Pics and things
I did two birds with one stone by playtesting the game and taking screenshots of what I thought would be appropriate images for the achievements. The engine has a mode where I can remove the filters, so it is just flat coloring. I used that for all the pictures and it turned out quite well.…
Achievements Unlocked
I scoured the internet, in other words, the first page of google search, for many hours today. A lot of the searches returned the same pages, but the most powerful part of those tutorials, videos, and forum posts were the comments. I tried the common solutions then I dug deep into the comments to see…
A wall
Inserted more achievements in the game, but it doesn’t matter at the moment until I find a way to get it working with steam. Spent a few hours trying to find ways to make the achievements work. Nothing has worked so far after testing it in the engine and on Steam itself. I have hit…
The Cloud
I took a quick look and read up on how the Steam API works with the Cloud and Achievements. I learned how to insert achievements into Unreal Engine and also where to put it in the Engine text file so it hopefully updates on the Steam Achievements. The Cloud wasn’t too complicated. I just had…
More shots
I quickly added the final power for the game. It isn’t a crazy one like some of the previous abilities but it is significant and makes a difference in combat at least. I won’t be sharing what exactly the power does. The hammer skill isn’t in a great place so I added the updated collision…
Some shots
I didn’t have much time today, so it’s almost not worth posting anything. But from what I’ve been repeating to myself since day one, is that as long it isn’t a zero percent day it’s fine. Went through sequencer again and played around with different camera angles. It’s really fun because I feel like a…
Concealing Light
The title of this post is the title of the new song I had commissioned and received. I absolutely love the song and I spent most of my time today making individual music for each stage using the separate tracks. Like the boss song, I mixed and matched what instruments I thought fit the level.…
Glitches and cinematics
Went through the stages again and found a few more things that needed fixing. Of course, the main issues were with the third level. I did what I could to alleviate some of the bugs, but it’s mostly to do with collision. The best solution for my purposes was to give players a way to…
Sounds and saves
Used a controller for most of the testing today. It works fine and no changes were required for any gamepad settings. I created a new sound of the final boss’ death and added it to the montage. I adjusted the save lots UI so it looks clearer in the main menu. I also adjusted several…
Credits
Added short and simple credits that will show after defeating the final boss of the game. Since I am the only one working on the game there is not much to write about. The credits aren’t final of course. I may put a word of thanks and say other things. I fixed a few more…
What lies underneath
Added some more clues to guide the player with one of the trickier puzzles. There was an error with some objects and I disabled their collision to fix it. No issues afterward. It is frustrating to find a bug in a mechanic that I thought had no more issues. The sprinting had a problem because…
Tree line
Trying to break my game is both fun and tedious. I enjoy looking for what I can improve while at the same time it also requires me to play the same parts over and over again. In the second level, I have an invisible blocking volume around the level that keeps the players within its…
Tiny tests
I updated the journal entries for all of the levels. It is primarily for the players who are interested in following the story. I packaged the game to see how it would run on its own because I’ve been running into long load times in the engine. It seems to run with no issues which…
Unforeseen roundness
I got a free plugin last month that cleaned up unused assets within the project so I let it take its time to remove all that. It was nearly 3 gig worth of files and it didn’t take too long to remove. Once it was finished it had to recompile a lot of shaders. Then…
Begin again
Added the voice lines to the final stage and tested the boss a few times. I added some more interesting interaction between the puzzle and the boss then tweaked some of the difficulty to hopefully make her a bit more challenging yet again. There wasn’t a lot left to be done and I thought about…
Difficulty adjusted
The special attack for the boss was a bit too repetitive so I went back to the vfx and added three more. They went well with the fight and it looks a lot more interesting visually. Every time I beat the boss I tweak her slightly to make her a little bit harder. I adjust…
Better and better
I thought I wouldn’t be adding more to the boss, but the more I fought her the more I wanted the interaction to be more challenging. I started off by making sure that the colors of her weapon shifted faster than her cloth. I added a new tree to her AI that will make her…
Bloody Finished
This update will be for yesterday and today since my internet was down. I improved the boss’ attacks. Basically added more and made sure that she attacked differently based on distance. I found a way for an actor to rotate while still under root motion. That means that the boss will not fully track the…
Many attacks
The challenge with adding attack states to the whip is that not every movement is an actual attack. I had to go back to the body animation to see what looks like motion that should deal damage. I went back and forth between both montages to make sure it was lining up properly. After I…
Back at it
A new year and have started by getting back into the groove of development. There are fewer distractions and no more holidays so I started by searching for the best vfx for a special attack. I lined them up and watched them in game. Once I found the ones I liked I created a new…
Tiny steps
I added and created the montages for the boss’ attacks. With the whip moving in such a cool way it has not dawned on me how I am going to make its hitting effect. I may have to use the object’s collision and hopefully, that will work. Seeing all the boss’ moves is really cool,…
The final puzzle
I’ve finished work on the last puzzle. It is not my best work or a particularly interesting thing to solve. I have slowed down with game development due to a mixture of things from the holiday spirit, personal things, and laziness. It is still nice to slowly work on something though. I had done some…
Red floors
Finished up the puzzle for the first part of the stage. I added necessary effects that required some a loop with break and created an array of the particle emitters. There was a cool portal effect I placed as well that will transport the player to the outside. While messing around with the water asset…
Lore Dump
I’m using the final stage as an excuse to dump a ton of lore I haven’t mentioned. A lot of it doesn’t paint the full picture but I felt that I had written a lot that I wanted to share. It would be a shame if I kept everything secret. I simply added a lot…
Bright whip
The work on this boss will be long and fun. I started by creating the blueprint for the animation and plugging in the movement for walking, running, and idle. Since the whip has its own animations it needs its own animation blueprint. This isn’t too troublesome but the big problem is when I figure out…
New Assets
Been slow the past few months. Life of course tends to get busy. Anyway, I’m starting to ramp up again with the game. I fixed the puzzle because I realized I didn’t have to subtract from the final number. All I had to do was reset it then add the numbers that are “on.” Besides…
Sort of a puzzle
I figured out how I want the start of the level to be, so I quickly put it together. Then I dressed it up a little bit then proceeded to the technical part of the puzzle. It was a lengthy process because I am not as bright as I hope to be. Using the blueprint…
The spirit of things
I have still yet to land on the foundation of the backstory for the level. Blocking things out with rough shapes only really works if I know I will replace them with custom or specific models. Since I don’t have a solid idea yet that leaves a lot of things up in the air. I…
Colorful
Finishing the model didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I didn’t wanna add too much to the point it became distracting. I put enough detail that I liked and thought would be cool for the character. I used lots of colors and imported it into the engine. Then I added the clothe…
The final and last
The course on the engine structure was quick and very general. It helped remind me of the foundation and flow of Unreal while teaching me a few new things I didn’t know, such as how the engine is separate from the editor and the project as well. I didn’t take down too many notes, and…
Death defying
Started the short course on Global Illumination. Most of what it taught I had already learned but there were a few interesting aspects such as using an emissive texture as static lighting. That may come in handy if I do go back to static sources. The lighting I have for the game is all moveable.…
Resolution and Complexity
I went through the levels and as I expected there weren’t a lot of objects that needed changing. I had been prioritizing optimization for a while now and made sure that there wasn’t anything too crazy. Granted, some objects do have a red/bad level of shader complexity but nothing is white which is extremely bad.…
Further lighting and optimization
I finished the rest of the course on being an Environment Artist today. I learned more about the reasons behind creating blockouts and how helpful it can be for a team and in general when prototyping a level. So far my blocking hasn’t been that great and I can definitely improve in that aspect. The…
Environment Artist 101
Today I have gotten through half of the course on Becoming an Environment Artist in Unreal. Most of the topics covered so far I already know, but this is the first course that actually talked about what it meant to do or have a specific job. In the case of this course, it talked about…
A new landing
Currently, my audio design is quite limited and simple. I am fine with that and I still need to get new music so I can put everything together. The jumping sound is finally in a place where I believe it won’t need any more adjusting. It isn’t too loud or too soft. My biggest issue…
Sound scape
I continued the work of improving the sound and adding more interesting audio design to the game. There’s so much I can do but to stick to what I have been doing I am going to keep things as simple as needed. If I absolutely feel the need to go the extra mile or two…
Understanding sound and space
Started the first course of my reasonably lengthy list of courses. The sound and space lessons were fairly straightforward but hard to master. I continue to gain more respect for those working in game development and hone their specific skills. I do what I can to understand the surface of each aspect of what goes…
Game tester
Being my own game tester isn’t too difficult. I just have to poke and prod everything repeatedly and try my best to break something. So far, I found a few bugs while going around the levels and also testing some settings. The crosshair settings would break after it was saved because I had not actually…
Back to basics
I changed the color of the Buttons so it matches the theme more and is less obnoxious. I went back to the first stage and updated some tutorials. For the fifth stage I had forgotten to add a tutorial for the new power, so I put one there. When the Primelight is full I called…
Finished touch
I added the other story elements for the stage which are the journal details and the voice lines that I recorded and edited on Audacity. The walls still have issues with being able to ramp up the player’s speed but I tried to fix it by adding more pillars/obstacles around the edges. Plugging in the…
Rampage
I felt that the boss was lacking one more attack. The new one I added is still similar to the projectile but this one is bigger, lasts longer, moves slower, and has the appearance of a running figure. I thought it would be cool to have another thing that appeared very menacing. I will probably…
Strings
To make the fight feel more varied I limited the attacks for the boss until they are at half health. Then I added the time shadow montages as I do with every boss to guarantee that the mechanic works for this boss as well. It probably won’t be too useful on this boss since he…
Bright white
I made sure the boss had three distinct attacks. It can send out a normal projectile, a pillar that spawns on the player, and a ring. The ring started off as the same one from the first boss, but it became far too large in the big field. Eventually, I changed the scaling of the…
Light attacks
I added notifies to the boss’ walk animations so it would make sound for each step. Nothing really feels concrete without sound. I also gave him a nice staff/weapon with a lantern on the end of it. The boss has a thing for lanterns so why not go all the way. There was some problems…
Some plugging
I got the asset today, but I only had time to use the animations to replace the current movement of the boss. At least I got to see what it looked like idle and in motion. I like the look of the animations and I expect to be very busy with this boss for quite…
UI Overhaul
I am not a great vector artist, and nowhere near a good UI artist. Today I spent the time creating new UI images for the game using Inkscape. Some I am happy with, others I am only okay with. Since I am new to the program it took awhile for me to get used to.…
Scenery changes
I was not happy with how the arena of the boss fight looked. It was a nice idea to have it up in the sky looking down at the flowers and tombstones. But in the end it was a boring glass box. The feeling of fighting there wasn’t what I wanted. I scrapped the entire…
Bad math
I learned that a rotating component can target a specific component on a blueprint. This means it doesn’t have to rotate the entire thing. This was helpful in my newest update because I was considering creating a new blueprint, but that would have been too much extra work. The rotation happens on floating gems. My…
Elements
Started work on a new object that will be the puzzle for the boss fight. Like the other puzzles the player doesn’t have to interact with this one. Half of my time today was probably spent on the planning stages, as I did say I would be slower and more methodical with this one. Now…
Lots of glass
Started on the foundations of the fifth level’s boss. I made sure the trigger worked and it brought the player to the boss room. I tried fancy ways of making the boss room, but I found that it was easier to just move the player and have a camera pan. The pan itself acts as…
Starry sea
Added data to the level’s save file to track and update the position of the dog when the player saves and loads the stage. This will make sure the the dog is in the same place the player leaves him. I wanted the dog to look at the player so at least there was some…
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