Underground Blossom – Devlog 1 – A brief history

After sharing insights on the development of The Past Within, we are very excited to return with a fresh devlog for Underground Blossom #UBDevlog. Today let’s dive into the history of the project but first, we would like to share a list of what we are working on now (with only 3 weeks left): 

– Finalising all the achievements: Every station will have its own secrets!
– Our amazing group of translators are finishing the translations: the game will be available in more than 21+ languages!
– We are adding the last sound effects and music: Stay tuned for more on that in the next devlog!
– Optimising the game performance: We don’t want you to experience any lag when a new train arrives.
– Adjusting the game based on all the feedback we received at Gamescom: Thank you to everyone who came by our booth!
– And most importantly: testing, testing, testing to make sure the stations are bug-free.

These upcoming weeks will be crazy busy for us, but we are doing everything we can to ensure this train will arrive on the 27th on all platforms: iOS, Android, Steam, GOG and itch.io. A small reminder that a ticket to enter the train will cost: around 2,99 €/$ on mobile and around 4,99 €/$ on PC (with a special release discount during the first week)! 

For this devlog we want to dive a bit into the history of this special project. We’ve already brainstormed about this concept for quite some years. Having a train station is an interesting location: new trains come by, new people arrive and, in a way, taking a train to the next station symbolizes a new chapter in someone’s life. Laura has been one of the main characters throughout the Rusty Lake series and since we have been quite secretive about big parts of her life, we thought matching this concept with Laura was a perfect fit.

We only had to wait for the right moment to start working on the first prototype.

These screenshots are from back around the time we started working on The Past Within. For quite some time we worked simultaneously on these two projects. If we got stuck on one project, we could continue with the other. With The Past Within we faced a lot of struggles to create our first co-op experience (feel free to check our previous devlogs). But also while the structure for Underground Blossom was laid out very quickly, telling Laura’s life throughout different stations was not as easy as we thought. So being able to switch between the projects in the beginning was very helpful for us in shaping both projects.

However, we soon realised that focusing on multiple projects at the same time is very difficult, especially with a project like The Past Within, where a lot more people are involved. Thus we decided to go for – some might argue- the riskier route, and focus on finalising The Past Within first. Luckily this decision had some benefits for Underground Blossom as well. The Past Within got us to step up our game with both the sound design (Jorick and Giliam from Driftwood Audio were excited to join) and music (Victor Butzelaar rented a studio this time). Since people enjoyed these improvements so much from The Past Within, we carried this level of attention to detail into the development of Underground Blossom.

After doing as many playtest sessions as we could, we also discovered that something was missing in the form of content. As a result, more stations/levels were added and the game became somewhat bigger than we initially planned. All in all, it was nice for this project to lay on the shelf for a while so it could blossom in its own way.

This leads us to right now, the present, hardly able to believe that we are almost there again: a new release. And, luckily, within a year of our previous release. It means a lot that we can keep sharing these experiences with you all and we hope you have a bit more patience till this new journey arrives. 

Next week we will be back with some special behind-the-scenes material from our beloved composers Victor Butzelaar and Sebastiaan van Halsema and our amazing sound designers Jorick and Gilliam from Driftwood Audio.

Also, feel free to share some questions/ curiosities you might have regarding our project in the comments because the third and final devlog for Underground Blossom will be a Q&A!

Thank you for reading and for your continued support,

Rusty Lake

Ps. Make sure to wishlist / pre-order Underground Blossom on all platforms. Only 3 weeks left!