Coffee Diary - September 2026 — Exanima News

Hey Exanimates,

We recently released an update which added some pretty big new features including a save system. This did include some small content updates, but there won't be large content additions until version 1.0. As we expected, this update wasn't well received by everyone. Some of the people who wanted a "save system" really wanted a zero friction savescum simulator. We've seen too many games utterly ruined by developers giving in to these kind of demands. We put a lot of effort into this admittedly complex design, we gave our reasons, it takes a lot of things to craft a specific experience and atmosphere. Discovery, mystery, tension and player ingenuity are core to Exanima's. We're not going to abandon that and try to appeal to everyone. At some point you have to accept and respect that. As long as you understand and value the spirit of the game, this update had some impactful additions and indeed a way to permanently save your progress late into the game, which at this point was warranted.

There's a lot going on right now, but only so much we can talk about. There's a few reasons we might not want to go into details of what we're working on, sometimes it's because it implies heavy spoilers, and sometimes it's about managing hype and expectations for features that may still be a long way away, or may never see the light of day. We attempt a lot of unprecedented and complex things and often this means we don't know what difficulties we'll run into until we're quite far along. Games usually build on the mistakes and successes of past games, but we're on a whole different path. One thing we've learned is that players don't generally know or care why doing something different should carry trade-offs. The best of every world with no compromises is kind of the default expectation. New things just aren't well received unless they're in a very polished state and there's very little compromise. With something new and unproven this is a very tall order.

Sometimes we just need time to explore new ideas and approaches, and we don't know what we can actually deliver. We've tried to be very open about what we're exploring to get early feedback, but plans and priorities change and we've grown cautious as people tend to build unrealistic expectations and are dismissive of the many difficulties and compromises that besiege every detail. We're constantly learning to navigate the labyrinth of implications, and the more we learn it only gets more complex. These are not things we can really expect people to understand. What we can say is that we're not embarking on some new side-quest and changing our plans, we're just figuring out how some things might work and what it means for our development process.

All that said, we can talk about some things that may still be a while away, but hopefully with that preface you can meet it with some understanding. Some of this will take time to develop and is subject to change. Recently we've redoubled our efforts to finalise the design of the alchemy and dye systems. While there's still details to figure out, we think we've established enough that we can talk about it and also move forward with its development.

We have been gradually building functional features to support these things, like showing liquids inside bottles, 3D item previews, procedural item features and interaction mechanics etc., but the biggest challenge we've faced and what prevents us from putting it together is that of design and world building. We take a lot of care in creating a cohesive and believable world, and we strive for depth while trying to rein in complexity. We carefully avoid heavily abstracted gamey interfaces and interactions. Alchemy and dyes are very complex things in the real world, we want something that is simple and accessible to players while still feeling realistic and logical within the setting.

We've done a huge amount of research into all this and even hired a chemistry expert consultant. There are endless cool details in the real world that could be used to add depth to our world and these systems, but they're incredibly varied and intricate so they don't translate easily, if at all. We can't have players managing hundreds of unique ingredients with varied effects and elaborate lengthy processes for their use. Going too far in the other direction though abandons all realism, and you have something that feels very gamey and not at all convincing. The same goes for what you can make (and find), we want a relatively small, but meaningful number of items and recipes.

A lot of the work here has been coming up with all the possible alchemical products, recipes, dye colours, ingredients, sources of ingredients, their value, process of refinement, production and application and so on. Coming up with lore friendly names for all of these is also very difficult, and how they all fit within the world in a way that is believable, yet not overwhelmingly complex.

The alchemical effects are not fantastical and flashy, alchemy is the "medieval forerunner of chemistry" and we're sticking to mostly subtle or realistic effects. These include things like antibacterial agents that can aid healing (don't think healing potion!), psychoactive compounds with various effects, pain killers, poisons and antidotes and even different types of explosives, among other things. Dyes and related products would also be something you can make with alchemy.

To avoid having a huge number of dyes, but still a varied and versatile colour palette, we will give dyes some parameters you can adjust when applying them. You might make a colour more or less intense, darker or brighter. There will be some typically rarer dyes that allow for more intense colours. Additionally, some extra products like fixatives will allow applying strong colours to materials that can't otherwise be easily dyed, or give different finishes.

Eventually we also plan to have an alchemy skill, among other "utility" skills. Unlike the current skills, these would advance through practice. The idea is that what you're able to reliably produce, and also the quality of it is based on your skill. Alchemical equipment that you carry or is in your immediate vicinity would provide bonuses. Recipes can be learned from written or other sources, or through experimentation.

Everything is based on the real world, obviously we have to take liberties to make it game friendly. Even if you don't know the real world parallels, taking inspiration from the real world is always the best way to make something feel realistic, plausible and give it a depth that goes beyond what can generally be imagined. We need to have all these details figured out before we start building game systems and adding content to the game, but once the most important things are defined we should be able to flesh out the features and add items somewhat incrementally.

Best,

Bare Mettle

This announcement was written and published by the developers/publisher of Exanima on Steam; it is mirrored here unedited for readability, with full credit and a link to the original above. © the respective rights holders. Rights holder and want it removed? Email us — we take it down promptly.