Underworld Chronicles, Part 3

PGA 2025 - Before and after

Hi, Kris here!

We’ve taken a bit longer to bring you a new entry in the Underworld Chronicles series of dev blog posts, as we were completing a build of Into the Underworld intended for Poznań Game Arena. PGA, which took place between the 24th and 26th of October, is an important yearly event for our studio. It not only allows us to connect with our friends in the industry (and meet new ones!), but most importantly it lets us show our work to the public. Observing how people interact with the game and taking feedback on systems and balance are very important in any creative project, but especially so for video games - and PGA is a great place to do it.

Adam already showed you some sneak peeks into the changes made to the game in our previous blog post, but I’d like to go through some of the content that has seen the most improvement - and its reception. Poznań Game Arena was actually not the only show we attended this year: in July, we also showed an early, work-in-progress version of our intended PGA build at a small local event in Kraków called SteelWorks Game Fest.

There’s a reason I mention SteelWorks Game Fest while presenting a look at our current Citadel menu and its Tutorial - the feedback we’ve received from the attendees then was crucial in making this section of the game flow better for PGA. I made a few assumptions about how a game like ours would be played in a public setting, and seeing people playing in July verified those pretty much instantly. This prompted us to rethink the volume and order of information presented in the Tutorial and the way elements are arranged in the Citadel, which resulted in a much better, smoother experience just a few months later.

Another thing that we anticipated and quickly confirmed during July’s event was that the card UI still required improvements in legibility, and we needed to revisit the game’s lighting settings. Darker scenes, like Battles, were difficult to parse on small laptop screens - which are our go-to hardware for conventions - and a small font made some cards very hard to read. In a game as dynamic as Into the Underworld, both of these are potentially huge issues. We took steps to address these problems, which in turn inspired a few additional features, like some extra animations on cards.

Full controller support was a big addition to the game, which Adam managed to implement into the PGA build at the last moment, so we observed closely when people picked up the pad. As expected, not everything went quite as smoothly as we hoped for - but seeing how players interact with the controls informed us on what changes should be considered. Suffice to say that on this front, as with others related to the UI, we return with many notes which we’ll be acting on in the coming months.

Outside of our own observations and player feedback, our many friends and acquaintances from the Polish game development scene found some time to give us specific pointers and suggestions for improvements to the game. It’s always great to get some friendly criticism from others who are gifted in their craft, and this time was no different. We were also glad to hear that those, who have played the last year’s PGA build, noticed the work that went into improving the game.

So, what’s next? Apart from all the small fixes and slight redesigns which we’ll apply based on the feedback gathered at Poznań Game Arena, we’re hard at work putting together the game’s campaign. This includes new creatures, new and improved character models, story beats which reveal some of the game’s intrigue, and - of course - new cards! All the while our collaborator, Mateusz, is deep in redesigning ITU’s different menus, screens and general UI - so expect to see further improvements to how the game looks and feels.

We’re hoping to share all of this and more in 2026. Keep an eye out!

Stay awesome,
Kris @ Awesome Games Studio