SEAR DevBlog, week of 3/30/26: GROOVE

Groove, live in the project

This week's biggest development: the new Groove model is in the project and, if I do say so myself, looking REALLY good.

This is our primary key art asset and it’s going to be everywhere the SEAR logo is, and I think it’s strong enough to bear that weight. It shows off a lot of the ideas of the game in its design, which was the idea. All materials are done and this week we’ll be reconnecting functionality to the transmission lines and diegetic UI elements so that everything works how it’s supposed to. Hopefully it will be fully integrated and ready to drive at VGM Con in a few weeks!

This week was Kickstarter prep, continued work on the annual budget and transition animations, and the Escape from Korus level.

The budget work this week was eye-opening and required some adjustment of priorities. There are a lot of pieces that are good enough to head to the KS with that we need to leave where they are and focus on the truly important pieces that are still outstanding (such as the strongest possible transitions). This resulted in some hours adjustments I’d rather not have made, but I had to do what was best for the project. If we can have a strong showing this year, we’ll be revisiting these other elements when there’s funding for them.

I also got a banner and some cards that people can take away with them for the booth at VGMCon. I’ve never staffed a booth at a con before and I’ve never shown SEAR to a bunch of con-goers in person. Really looking forward to the experience and I hope some people find it even half as cool and promising as I do!