Arise - Evallis

I am beyond thrilled to officially announce the start of development on Arise! This game is the culmination of my lifelong love for fantasy, world-building, adventure, and creative expression.

Since I was a child, I’ve been crafting a world called Evallis. Whether I was drawing world maps during recess or writing backstories for characters in my spare time, Evallis has become a place near and dear to my heart and the time has finally come to bring that world to life!

As a child I would always end up incorporating the same symbol into many of my sketches and drawings wherever there was a flag or banner. Now all these years later, I find it fitting to use it as the logo for Arise.

Joe’s Reoccurring Childhood Symbol (2002 – Age 7)

Logo 3D Model

What Is Arise?

Arise is an open-world, multiplayer, fantasy, survival game that invites players to step into the vast and lush world of Evallis. In Arise, this forgotten corner of the world you find yourself in has remained untouched for centuries, its ancient ruins and lost history hidden beneath countless layers of time and overgrowth.

Your journey begins humbly with survival, as you tend to the basics of food, water, and shelter. As you gain your footing and begin to explore the world around you, the game begins to shift, and becomes a story of exploration and discovery, where every biome and corner of the map offers new materials, mysteries, and lore waiting to be uncovered.

As your skills and resources grow and grow, Arise shifts again, introducing community and civilization. You may construct homes that blossom into thriving towns, welcoming settlers to the land. Settlers can take on essential roles and free you from having to burden the weight of every task yourself, be it harvesting lumber, or mining minerals, farming crops, or crafting items.

Whether you’re a humble homesteader, content to live a peaceful life in your abode, or an ambitious builder striving to expand your city and reclaim the land from the dark forces that brought it into obscurity in ages past, the choice is entirely yours.

What excites me most about Arise is that it’s a game where the player’s experience is as expansive or intimate as they choose. You don’t have to follow a rigid path or meet any expectations. Instead, you can forge your own journey in a living, breathing world. This is only the beginning of what I hope will be an incredible adventure.

I can’t wait to share more details, updates, and progress as the development of Arise unfolds. Thank you for joining me on this journey!

Stage 1: Survival Pass 1

First, the very basic mechanics of the game are created such as a player controller that can move around, a basic inventory system, interaction system, and stat system that handles hunger, thirst, etc. As well as simple UI such as a pause menu and inventory screen. By the end of this pass the game should be technically playable in its most basic form with just a simple survival game loop.

Stage 2: Survival Pass 2

Next, mechanics are created such as crafting, storage containers, harvesting items from objects such as trees or rocks, and additional stats and their mechanics such as sleep/fatigue, temperature, illness, etc. Animal AI development is begun including their ability to wander, find and eat food in the world, flee from enemies, and any items they produce (eggs, milk, etc.) or are harvested from the animals (meat, bones, leather, etc.) are created. The survival loop is now expanded to include more advanced processes and sub-loops.

Stage 3: Construction Pass 1

Next, the building system is implemented. The game world is expanded and the first ruins are created built upon the building system, allowing players to destroy, add to, or otherwise change all existing structures in the game using the building system. The generic terrain used up until this point is removed and replaced with a very basic voxel based terrain system also working together with the building system, allowing the player to dig into the terrain. Everything in the world will now be entirely dynamic and destructible at the end of this pass.

Stage 4: World Generation Pass 1

Now all the basic pieces are in place to begin work on the world generation system. When creating a new game, you my choose between a pre-made world (Evallis) or a generated world based on a seed. Using the building system and the voxel terrain system, a world generation system is created. This initial version of the system will be very basic and most likely just have a single biome and serves as a starting point to further develop the system as the game grows.

Stage 5: Story Pass 1

Next, the story and lore may begin to be created in the world. This includes various systems such as a book reading system. The starting area of the world is shaped and the opening cutscene is drafted. Various books and scrolls are written and added to the world generation system to be scattered throughout ruins and other spawn locations.

Stage 6: Survival Pass 3

Next, the survival system gets some more work with the addition of more animal types and AI systems, a fishing system, an agriculture system, as well as more naturally occurring food and water sources in the world. In addition, a basic enemy is implemented for the player to fight, as well as its AI and spawning system.

Stage 7: Cleanup Pass 1

In preparation for its initial release onto Steam early access, all placeholder and temporary meshes, textures, sounds, music, or other elements will be replaced with their custom versions. This will be quite a large stage as everything up until this point was made with placeholder versions, but now that the game is more developed and the exact art style and feeling of the game are more defined, these can all be replaced. In addition, various feedback systems are implemented to allow players to report bugs or give feedback directly from inside the game.

Steam Early Access Release

By this point the game is in a state where it can make its initial release onto Steam early access! Your feedback from this point on will help to shape the game on its journey towards its final release!

Stage 8: Post Launch Cleanup

Once the game has been launched on Steam, this stage deals with any bugs or other issues encountered by players to help begin the next stage more smoothly. From this point on, every stage will begin with a feedback pass, where various feedback items are addressed or implemented where appropriate.

Stage 9: World Generation Pass 2

Next, the world is further expanded with the addition of multiple biomes. Each biome has its own generation rules, structures, fauna, flora, and other unique characteristics. Any additional tweaks or additions to the voxel terrain or building systems are addressed as well.

Development Log #2: The Roadmap

Development Log #1: The Beginning of Arise