Another year, another Secret Santa Jam.

As always, we had a lot of fun participating. With the letter from our giftee received on December 1st, we got right into brainstorming and quickly landed on:

"A cozy survival game in the woods, but filled with mysteries and paranormal elements."

With very limited experience in Unreal Engine, implementing the basic systems like dialogue took quite a bit of time, but was a great learning experience. We used Low-Poly assets from Synty, along with some hand-made 3d models, as well as "Ultra Dynamic Sky", which is a lifesaver for easily setting up nice lighting in Unreal Engine.

For the voice lines we used elevenlabs, but at a later point in time we'll probably switch to actual voice acting.

With the fundamentals and the worldbuilding done, we got into coming up with characters, locations, events, and all the stuff that fills the world. 

With the jam approaching its end and quite a bit of bug fixing left to do, we barely got the now uploaded prototype done, which consists of a few minutes of gameplay, but we are very excited to continue this project, after taking a timeout throughout the holidays and getting some work-related business done.

If you have any ideas or feedback, let us know in the comments below the game.

We wish you a nice and cozy Christmas time,

Janis & Marie