Welcome to the first Memory’s Reach Dev Update! This is something I have been wanting to do since announcing the game last September, though it has taken me a bit of time to get the ball rolling on it (actually making the game keeps getting in the way). But going forward you can expect this to be a semi-regular thing, with new posts every month or two covering a range of topics about the game, including news, announcements, development updates, and even a few design deep dives.

For this first update, we're going to look back at GDC (with screenshots from the demo playable at the show), and a quick development update.

GDC 2023

The Game Developers Conference, the big annual event on many a game dev’s calendar, when devs from around the world gather in San Francisco to share their craft, learn from others, meet, greet, do business, and drink an alarming amount of bad American coffee :P

I was in attendance this year with a playable demo of Memory’s Reach. This would mark the first time the game was playable at a major public event, having previously only shown very rough builds to friends and family and at one small local dev meetup. And the response, I’m pleased to say, was fantastic. People picked up the controls quickly, the puzzles made intuitive sense, and most importantly - they liked what they played :D

The highlight of the week was the Bring Your Own Game event on Tuesday night, where a huge number of indies crowded into a pub with their laptops and Steam Decks to show off their games. I was set up at the far back upstairs corner of the pub, well out of view of anyone who was more than a few meters away. But despite this the game was never short of an audience, so much so that I was unable to find any time to check out anyone else’s games!

It was a great opportunity to show the game to other developers and I walked away with a lot of great feedback and playtesting notes. I left the San Francisco with renewed excitement, eager to jump back into development.

And speaking of development…

Development Progress Update

Development of Memory’s Reach is plugging along at a steady pace. A lot of time recently was spent preparing the build for GDC, so it’s good to be back and working on the full game. In fact things are about to ramp up considerably. Up until now Memory’s Reach has been a solo project, but in the coming weeks and months additional devs will be lending their expertise to the project. Specifically I’ll be bringing on board audio, narrative, and UI specialists, while design, 3D art, and code will remain my responsibility. I look forward to being able to share samples of their work in future updates.

Next Time

That’s all for this update. Next time will be a Design Deep Dive where I talk about blending genres and take an in-depth look at the structure of the game. Keep a lookout for it by following on itch.io or Steam, and don’t forget to give the game a Wishlist while you’re at it :)