Devblog: UE5 Update (Patreon)

Hi All,

We're working on such a variety of different elements at the moment that it's very difficult to select an element to focus a dev blog on. We've decided to cover some of the world design changes and visual upgrades in this blog.

Firstly we've punched up the contrast of the world. When you look at something for too long it's easy to lose sight of how small changes are adding up. We became aware that Sabu had begun to drift away from our vision of an arid place where the baking heat of the desert sun leaps out of the screen. Our existing tones were true to Egypt, but Sabu is not Egypt.

We've now moved back in the direction of punchy, vibrant tones supported by sand accumulating everywhere. Even our greens are a bit less dead. 

Our building materials got a rework as well, further optimising them whilst making them read better at range. There are a lot of painted murals in Sabu, with different villages and races expressing themselves in unique ways. The new materials give us a better canvas for these artworks.

The material rework extends to characters too, even how hair is implemented in our UE5 build. The hair we ported back for last month's update was a test asset for UE5 - the hair in the new build uses an entirely different approach and the improvement is night and day.

The difference in the world extends beyond the surface changes however; mechanically we've changed our approach to dungeons, tombs, and other places beneath the sand. Reworked tombs won't feature in the initial UE5 release, but will come in one of the first updates. Rather than a "push the button" or "find the key" approach, tombs feature fully designed puzzles and traps, existing as a quest subtype in their own right.

In this screenshot above we can see a tomb that sits beneath The Rampant Lioness, Damaris' Taberna. So close to town its likely already been picked clean... though who knows, perhaps you'll find more than you expect from exploring it.

Sabu has always been filled with crumbling ruins, the entrances often blocked by debris. This is another example of how things are changing in UE5: player stats now mean that some otherwise inaccessible tombs become enterable if the player has adequate agility or strength.

Obviously this isn't the only way stats impact gameplay, nor are these the only two stats to choose from. Players will gain points to spend each level, increasing their Arcana, Agility, Endurance, Fate, Presence, Strength, and Vitality as they progress through the game. These stats will impact everything from how fertile a player is, what weapons they can use, and whether an encounter ends in combat or ecstacy.

A bigger world means new modes of travel and more ground to cover, so landmarks are changing too. In a world as large as Sabu it can be easy to get lost, new common landmarks will help guide your path. Here we can see two pillars, one on either side of a safe point to disembark from your boat. Spotting such pillars in the world will lead you to a beach and whatever settlement or temple it was built for, though bear in mind the occupants may not always be welcoming.

There are many megastructures coming to Carnal Instinct too, giving you points of reference to navigate from; pyramids, temples, colossi, and many more.

This is just a taste of what we're working on in the UE5 build. Coming soon will be more creatures of the dunes, new enemies, new characters to romance, new quests to unravel the story of this land, and much, much more.

Team Carnal Instinct