NaissancE developers Limasse Five have released a big update for SenS, their early access open world spelunking game in which you search an enveloping Structure for Unique Places, tools and artefacts. The ExistencE of SenS is news to me, despite it being very much my cup of ImpossiblE ArchitecturE.
Launched on Steam in 2022, it’s a work of torqued cuboids, sunken pockets of city, and vaguely fractal fissures. While there are no living or active threats, as far as I can tell, you do have to worry about traps and Unstable Zones – “simple or even abstract architectural structures at the beginning, but getting more complex, vast and labyrinthine the further you go.” Unstable Zones change in the dark. So you’ll need to use Luces – glowballs – and other tools to solidify paths and access points.
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The Unique Places, meanwhile, are “strange and beautiful” portals to other parts of the Structure. Some harbour objects you can decorate your starting home environment with. Others contain tools such as “bags to carry more stuff, tools, candles, lanterns and gas, lamps and electric cables, ropes to climb [and] ladders”, plus objects that give you new “capacities”.
SenS is “the evolved vision of the Naissance project”, lead developer Mavros Sedeño writes on Steam. It’s certainly not hard to trace the throughline from NaissanceE, though this appears to be a much larger gameworld. The developer’s cited influences may not surprise you either, if you’re a seasoned blunderer of the Backrooms – Blame! mangaka Tsutomo Nihei, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and Foundation SCP.
The new update, released earlier this month, follows a long break in development. It makes it “possible to experience some layers of the exploration gameplay”, including “a few unique safe places hidden inside the Unstable Zone”. Sedeño cautions that the game’s systems are still at the prototype stage, and that you can expect a few bugs. It sounds like the bugs will be perfectly at home in these cosmic dungeons.
Sedeño hopes to offer more regular updates in future, which “should be easy considering the last update was over a year ago”. He already has some new Unique Places to add, but it “takes time to build an interesting level design to reach those, as well as coding and debugging new features to improve the gameplay up to what I have in mind”.
He would also “love to improve the visual quality on the level art, effects, sounds and music, but it’s also very time consuming and I prioritize the work on the overall game experience, [leaving] the game art in unfinished state for now.” I’d say the game art is pretty eye-grabbing as it stands.
SenS is clearly a long way from done, but if you’re convinced, it’s 20% off till 4th February. I adored NaissanceE’s space and architecture, though I agree with Jim Rossignol’s (RPS in peace) withering assessment of certain jump puzzles. I look forward to getting lost in this new cathedral of godflesh.
