Lost Sanctuary

The Story

Back in 2016, managing to produce this kind of visual on my own felt like a revelation. I was passionate about roguelikes at the time, those games where you climb from dungeon to dungeon, floor by floor, searching for a way out. I wanted to bring that idea to life: a dungeon where the player, imprisoned at the start, has to escape.

Around the same time, RPG Maker's updates were becoming more and more inconsistent. I started looking at what was being done elsewhere, with real game engines. And I had a burning desire: to learn 3D. Unity became my way in.

The spark came from a series of tutorials on handling lighting in a realistic room. I told myself: "there's something incredible to do with this."

Under the Hood

I was studying general computer science at the same time, and I was utterly devoured by game development. I ate, slept and breathed it. I followed courses, Unity tutorials, and built the level with assets bought from Dark Fantasy Studio, my very first paid assets.

The concept: the player starts imprisoned in a dungeon and has to escape through waves of skeletons, warriors and mages. Then, stepping outside, they emerge into a mysterious night forest, only to discover a massive wall encircling the entire area. That trapped feeling, Portal-style: believing you're free when you aren't yet. I loved that mechanic.

My real playground was level design, and above all lighting. The code itself didn't hold up to much: I was at the very beginning of programming. But composing the spaces, playing with light indoors and outdoors, that was an immense pleasure.

Unity · Dark Fantasy Studio assets · Focus on level design & lighting

The Wall

The biggest obstacle was that I didn't really know what I was doing or where I was going. I took on a project that was far too big for me. I'd planned twenty dungeon floors, complex characters loaded with abilities. I finished two.

I got overwhelmed, piling up incoherent things, unable to gauge the real scale of the project. And what had to happen, happened: a technical wall I couldn't get past at that point.

It was very hard. My first real major failure. The one that made me doubt my very ability to develop games.

What I'm Proud Of

Despite the visuals looking dated today, I'm still proud of the atmosphere. It worked. If I'd known how to scope it properly, I think it could have become a genuinely interesting project.

And above all: it was my first 3D project. The leap from RPG Maker was enormous. Moving to a real engine where you have to program everything yourself, handle level design, blocking, the whole setup... it was completely uncharted territory. This project gave me skills I simply didn't have before.

What I Learned

The great lesson of Lost Sanctuary, the one I suffered through at the time, was learning to recognize when a project is no longer viable. Knowing how to take whatever lessons you can from it, then start again on healthier ground. Iterating instead of stubbornly pushing on.

It's a founding lesson. It still guides the way I work today.

Today

It's an archived prototype. A new artifact, this time of my first experience in 3D. It won't be revived, and it doesn't need to be: it played its part. It taught me 3D, lighting, and above all that skill so hard to acquire, knowing when to turn the page.