- The full Game is released!!!!!! - 6 October 2022
Gamer Greetings! Look, the game is out! The little widget below even says so! (Or so I hope!) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1704730/Vacant_Kingdom/ What else is there to say? Thank you to every one who played the original Prologue demo, left feedback, and kept an eye on this project over the years. This game wouldn't be what it is today without you. I hope that the rest of it can eclipse your expectations! Join the Discord! Oh, I made a Discord if you'd be interested in chatting with me and the other players. It's a good spot to leave suggestions, ideas, and feedback or report bugs too. See you there! About The Soundtrack! Also, in case any of you are looking for the soundtrack: that will be available on Steam in a few days on October 10th. Until then, I encourage you to check out the the pages of the game's musician, Me and My Kidney: Bandcamp & SoundCloud. The soundtrack is actua…
- The Full Game comes out Tomorrow!!! - 5 October 2022
Gamer Greetings! I'm just popping in for a quick reminder that the game's coming out tomorrow! (Or if you didn't catch the last post then... surprise!) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1704730/Vacant_Kingdom/ It'll go live at about the time I'm posting this now. So like... 6:00 AM PST / 9:00 AM EST / 1:00 PM GMT / 3:00 PM CET / 10:00 PM JST ... -ish. I have to manually click the release button, but around this time if nothing goes wrong! That's all for now! I'll leave you with a comparison of one of the earliest gifs I took of the game, and a more recent one! See you again soon... hope these announcements aren't getting annoying, （⌒∇⌒）ﾉ""ﾌﾘﾌﾘ
- The full Vacant Kingdom releases on October 6th! - 24 September 2022
Gamer Greetings! You've seen the title, the full version of Vacant Kingdom is almost upon us! October 6th is the release day! Wishlist it, mark your calendars, and let your nephew Graeden know! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1704730/Vacant_Kingdom/ The game will be priced at $8 USD, or your regional equivalent. It'll launch at a 10% discount, as games on Steam often do. Lengthwise, the full game should be about 4-6 hours long, although some people may take a fair bit longer. If you've played the new demo, that's the first 40% of the game or so. And a reminder: if you haven't played the new demo yet, you can do that now and your progress will carry over into the full game when it's out! I won't say much else, but here's a quick peek at a new weapon I added recently. So excited for everyone to play it, shru (U・ω・U)ノ
- Play the New Demo! - 13 June 2022
Gamer Greetings! Today I have a short but very exciting update! I've just released a new Vacant Kingdom demo for you all to play! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1984700/Vacant_Kingdom_Demo/ Just to manage expectations: The demo mostly contains the same areas that you've probably already played in Prologue For A Vacant Kingdom. However, these areas have received 3 years of polish and improvements. So I think you'll still have fun fighting new enemies, exploring new rooms, collecting new items and weapons, and hearing all of the bumpin' new music. Also, whatever progress you make in the demo — you'll be able to import your save file into the full game once it's released. Consider making a donation to your local gamers' shelter, shru (≧ω≦)ゞ
- New Demo on June 13th - 14 May 2022
Gamer Greetings! I have a couple things to share! First, I'm happy to announce that there will be a new Vacant Kingdom demo that you can play at Steam Next Fest on June 13th! Just to manage expectations: The demo will mostly contain the same areas that you've probably already played in Prologue For A Vacant Kingdom. However, these areas have received 3 years of polish and improvements. So I think you'll still have fun fighting new enemies, exploring new rooms, collecting new items and weapons, and hearing all of the bumpin' new music. Also, whatever progress you make in the demo — you'll be able to import your save file into the full game once it's released. Second, to go along with this announcement, I've made a new trailer for the game! I'll let the trailer speak for itself, it shows off a fair amount of content that I haven't shown before. I'm sure you're all wondering about the rele…
- Dev Log XI - Gameplay Footage - 10 March 2022
Happy March, Gamers! I've been quietly working on the game and it's getting closer and closer to completion. I thought I'd check in quickly and share a video of some uninterrupted combat and exploration. There's at least a couple of little gameplay elements that I don't think I've shown off before, so see if you can spot them. This video is also the first time that I've shown off any of the new music for the game. Vacant Kingdom's development is no longer a one man show, for about a year now I've had a musician helping me out. (Their personal project is Me and My Kidney, I'll recommend checking it out if you like harder electronic dance music, especially the kind found in Japanese rhythm games and such.) There's a ton of awesome original music in the full game that I'm really excited for everyone to hear. If you recall from Prologue, all of the bosses shared one song — in the full game…
- The Vacant Kingdom Store Page is Up - 21 December 2021
Happening holidays, Gamers! I'm sorry that it's been a quiet year from my side, but I have some really good news today! The store page for the full game is now up! Vacant Kingdom is not actually released yet, but you can add it to your wishlist so that you find out the exact picosecond that it is! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1704730/Vacant_Kingdom/ I'll try to keep this update brief and let the store page speak for itself. There's one screenshot in particular which shows a little hint at a new game element which I don't think I've talked about yet. Have a look! I've been ridiculously bad at time estimates so far, so I'm leaving the release date as an open "2022" for now. But I promise you that it's pretty close to being done. I think I'll be ready to start beta testing a few months from now at the latest. (By the way, if you're reading this -- please feel free to leave a comment…
- Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene talks massive-open-world survival project Prologue - 3 September 2021
Back in 2019, PUBG creative director Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene shared a teaser video for his mysterious next project Prologue, and now, following news of his departure from PUBG parent company Krafton , the developer has revealed more. Prologue started life at Krafton's Amsterdam-based PUBG Special Projects, and will continue to be developed at Greene's new studio PlayerUnknown Productions, with Krafton investing in the new company with a minority stake. Setting the scene for Prologue in a new video shared on Twitter , Greene explained, "I've held this deep fascination with sandbox-style open-world games and the freedom they give their players but I always just wished they were a bit bigger, so that's our mission as a studio - we want to create realistic sandbox worlds on a scale that's seldom attempted." Read more
- PlayerUnknown departs PUBG company to found new studio - 1 September 2021
Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene has left PUBG parent company Krafton to set up a new indie studio, PlayerUnknown Productions. It has been a couple of years since Greene was involved in development of PUBG. In 2019, he launched PUBG Special Projects, a new Amsterdam-based division which had been working on a fresh project codenamed Prologue . Greene's new company is also based in Amsterdam and looks like it may continue working on Prologue, with Krafton investing in the new company with a minority stake. Read more
- Dev Log X - 14 May 2021
Greetings to the gamers of the world, I just thought I'd stop by and share a little peak at some of what I'm working on. https://i.imgur.com/cTsF4Q7.png In addition to working on new areas, I've also done a fairly extensive reworking of the start of the game. Perhaps some of you will recognize the area pictured above. There's now a good amount of combat with less intimidating enemies before you have to face off against the first boss. So new players will get into the action sooner and have a chance to get familiar with the systems under less pressure. (Probably not a great concern for the audience of this post, but I think you'll enjoy fighting the new enemies too.) That's all for now, shru ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣▽￣)┘
- Dev Log IX - 10 December 2020
Seasonal Greetings Everygamer, Sorry for the long silence, please rest assured that I've been quietly working on Vacant Kingdom this whole time. I've come to share some more details of what you can expect in the full game. The area I've been working on lately is the Neptune Bath House. Neptune is a formerly-lavish site which was once a popular destination for those in the kingdom to relax at. These days the bath house has fallen into disrepair; all of the baths have frozen over, the power isn't running, and nobody can even get the front entrance to open. You'll be able help fix those issues and restore the Neptune to its former glory. There are a few characters who have their own agenda around what they'd like to do with the bath house. You can choose to help them out... or not. :) Another thing which I've been focusing on is making the combat more dynamic, and giving players more oppor…
- Dev Log VIII - 9 April 2020
Happy Easter, Gamers! It's been a while! https://i.ibb.co/WW8jnDD/2020-04-09-sleepy-beetlemin.png You might have noticed that I haven't posted one of these development logs in a while. There are a couple reasons for this: Firstly, it's a reality of life that one needs money to live. I had a certain amount of money set aside to survive off of so that I could work on Vacant Kingdom full-time, but that ran out. So, since December I've started working part-time at a "day job" so to speak, which has slowed development to some degree. Don't get it twisted though, Vacant Kingdom is still a major priority in my life and I have dedicated time set aside every week to work on it -- It's just not as much time as it used to be. Thanks for your understanding and sorry to those of you who were hoping for the game to be finished sooner than later. I'm still working very hard to try to have some more co…
- Dev Log VII - 8 November 2019
Gamer greetings! https://i.ibb.co/Tr8fMBd/2019-11-08-slime-homing.png I just wanted to check in and share a little peek at a boss that I'm working on at the moment. As you can see, his gimmick is to cover areas of the floor with acid. He'll keep you on the move and make you think carefully about your positioning, as getting boxed into a corner is always a threat. https://i.ibb.co/tq2VRsx/2019-11-08-slime-death-swirl.png Besides that, I've been working on a lot of engine optimizations and am very pleased with the tuning that I've done. Not that Prologue was especially choppy -- but all of the problem areas which would sometimes drop frames now run at a buttery smooth 60 FPS on my machine; even on Masochist difficulty, where the screen is utterly littered with bullets. I think that those of you with lower spec rigs can definitely expect a smoother experience when the full game comes out.…
- Dev Log VI - 4 October 2019
A special Friday Gamer Greeting to you! A common suggestion I received from those who played Prologue was the wish to have some lower-tier enemies to fight while exploring the overworld, instead of just being bosses only. I agree that it's a good idea and have gotten to work adding enemies into the game. https://i.ibb.co/6sh3Dj1/2019-10-04-moths-2.png The goal here is to give the player a bit of a break from boss fights, and to let them experiment with any sub-weapons or other equipment they've obtained in a lower-pressure environment. So I'll be aiming to have rooms with enemies be a bit challenging, but have them be the kind of thing that most players can get past on their first or second try if they're playing patiently. (I'm not sure if the GIF I've attached is consistent with that description?!) I'd also like to go back and retrofit the first act with some regular enemies. Especial…
- Dev Log V - 26 July 2019
What it do, what it does, gamers!? In the past month I've been hard at work on the 2nd act of Vacant Kingdom. A fair amount of the NPC and dialogue work has been finished, so I've been able to start working on some of the "gamier" elements. One thing I've been working on is a new puzzle mechanic where you place pieces of pipe to redirect water. This is similar to the puzzles in the Spectral Suites Courtyard where you use valves to manipulate water through pre-set channels. However, I find this new mechanic a lot more flexible for design, and I'm much happier with how the puzzles are turning out this time around. https://i.ibb.co/xYZYxLk/2019-07-26-aquafloor-puzzle.png Of course this footage is not final, I'll be adding some animations so that the pipe pieces don't just appear floating above your head. This time around, I'd also like to have some optional extra-difficult puzzles which gr…
- Dev Log IV - 24 June 2019
Happy Monday, gamers and gamettes! It's been a while since I've done one of these updates, so I thought I'd share a couple gifs of some things I've been working on. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2F944ab5e6f294be7bcb2769d16c0b46b7520b761f.gif This Lilin, a new friend you can meet in the act 2. She's traveled to Dusky Heights with the goal of restoring a famous abandoned bath house and opening it up for business again. You'll have the option to help her accomplish this as part of the main questline for act 2. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2F580b6c612c76e7e832a6b1ff439dd0ec7ebbfbae.gif That's all for now, shru (ᆼↀᆺↀᆼ)
- Dev Log III - 31 May 2019
What's up, gamers! I'm back with a little peek at another new area. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2Fd62ab1524e7bf9b41b1c97c8fed3f9bee7504be8.png This is Dusky Heights, which will be where the bulk of the Second Act will take place. It's an autumny locale which is home to an abandoned bath house and a secret network of underground tunnels. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2Ff5e254b9798351066b9eed5ac73d2e4e0480add9.gif One of the characters you'll meet in Dusky Heights is Ashta. She's a zoologist who is currently studying a curious group of critters who have started appearing in Dusky Heights, the "Mui". Not all is well with the Mui, though. You will be able to work with Ashta in order to help them out. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2Fa0acd3ee5454192da2221ad769b%25E2%2580%25A6
- Dev Log II - 10 May 2019
Hey gamers! I just thought I'd give you folks another peek at what I've been working on. I've started building a new area. It's still a work in progress, but I think so far it's shaping up to be the best looking locale in the game so far. https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2Ffd0a2870811fc903bf53ef0366957cc97ab94415.png You might notice that the colours are more vibrant than anything in Prologue. That's because I'm experimenting with a new way of constructing my colour palettes, where lighter colours are more saturated and darker colours are less saturated. In contrast, most of the art in Prologue is the opposite, where dark values tend to be the most saturated. This new way of constructing palettes gives the the art a more "crisp" and bright feel, which I think works well with the relative cartoonishness of the characters and environments. Let me k…
- Dev Log I + Patch Notes - 26 April 2019
Vacant Kingdom Dev Log I Hey gamers! This is the first entry in a series of little development logs that I'll be writing in order to give you a sneak peak at the things I'm working on for the final Vacant Kingdom game. I'm going to try to turn this into a weekly thing, but no promises!! The theme of development for this week was definitely "Combat Enhancements". https://i.ibb.co/7QC5L9K/2019-04-24-boss-hp-bar-and-phase-time.png First up are some changes to the boss HP bar. I tweaked it to show how much damage was done in the last 1.0 seconds and added a time tracker for each boss phase. The first change should help give better feedback for the DPS difference between safe/risky positioning. I hope the time tracker will give players a better sense of improvement as they work their way through multiple boss attempts. https://i.ibb.co/whWWxbd/2019-04-26-acquire-coconut-lantern.png The other…
- Steam Launch Update (Patch Notes) - 18 April 2019
Hey gamers! Prologue For A Vacant Kingdom is launching on Steam today, did you know? About a month ago the we launched on itch.io, but the version that's launching today has been updated with new content and changes. I'll highlight them here for those of you who are curious! https://cdn.steampulse.org/steam/asset?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsteamcdn-a.akamaihd.net%2Fsteamcommunity%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fclans%2F34684926%2F2388d478be8cda9a4ed506a423ba2ff1ef114cf9.gif A New Optional Boss A brand new boss has moved into Spectral Suites. She's a little bit hidden, and actually fighting her involves a small side-quest of sorts. I won't say much more than that so as not to spoil anything. I hope you'll all have fun tracking her down and battling her! Technically speaking, I'm very proud of her. In particular, she comes with a new dynamic music system where the music builds up and becomes more dramatic as you get further and further into the battle. It's a touch sub…
