SEAR DevBlog, week of 3/23/26: Upgrades, epiphanies, and anxieties

Now that's an antigrav track

Major updates this week include what I would think of as our first "true" antigrav track, taking into account the Vashjir Problem I talked about last week to incorporate some true vertical antigrav-style racing into a setting that is still dependent on a sky story and triggered story events as you progress through it. This is still a work in progress but I'm happy to report that the physics, the new track blueprint, and the level design all seem to be integrating well to bring SEAR to the next level. This is a pretty big deal and I'm really happy with it.

The Groove mesh is also done! Materials are still underway, but this model should be in the game hopefully in the coming couple weeks which will be an enormous step forward along the path of the art direction revision. No more retro vehicle for the player, though we may still need to use some of the retro models for NPC vehicles for awhile yet. I'm also thinking about allowing the player to drive the retro-style Needle if they want to - why not?

For my part this week I started with some deep introspection on where we're at financially and how to maximize the odds of a successful launch. Kickstarter is always risky in the video game world but after looking at all the risks, potential benefits, and the uniqueness of SEAR and its potential appeal to innovators, I think it's better positioned to benefit from a KS than many video games. More on the KS as it gets closer, but for now suffice it to say we'll be gathering data to help decide how much benefit KS may hold for us before fully committing.

We're in to that phase of the project where the anxiety is running about as high as the elation most days. I'm always jerking awake up at 5:30 in the morning these days, and it's a throw of the dice whether it's out of excitement or stress. This week, happily, there was a lot of excitement. I had epiphanies about the design solutions for a number of situations that SEAR really needs resolved that we haven't had a good answer on for awhile. The big one is for phase transition animations. I've made a ton of progress on the design, testing, and even implementation of those animations just in the last week. Where I originally had trouble conceiving of a solution that wasn't hard-coded per transition, I've now got a couple different categories where the logic can be laid down and the data fed in. We will still have some highly bespoke, fully customized phase transitions, but the standard transition based on a single 4/4 bar will look great and can be data-driven, which is really exciting. I know I say "really exciting" a lot, but seriously, the lack of good phase transitions has been plaguing me since the project began. To finally be so close to getting this implemented is... well, let's just say it's giving a lot of renewed hope at this point. I'm really looking forward to moving past the "prototype" look and into showing off some of SEAR's cooler integrated audio/visual ideas.

Oh! And SEAR will be getting demoed at VGMCon in April! My daughter and I will be in the indie hall with a setup to let people try out the prototype. If you're in the area, drop by!