Boll's Journey

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• Announcements·27 Oct 2025Official

  Devlog 006 - Mountains

  Hi allSince the last quick update I've turned things around. Rather than working with full models for the mountains, I decided to take another approach.While the mountain itself only comes after the second part of the Silent Forest, I've had to make part of it already for that part, since I want a bit of continuity in the game, and not just a 'woop, here I am!' kind of vibe. It is taking 'a lot' of my time, and patience, but at least it's not wasted work since I can easily reuse what I'm making now in the actual Mountain part.To recap last week's update, and to give a better view of the change, here's last week's photos:As you can see the whole thing looks a bit bland and too much of the same. I know, last week I said it looked good, but the more I stared at it while making it, the more I felt I could do better, and that brings us to the following screenshots:What you're seeing here is just a part of the mountain, it will still become much higher.The new result looks a lot more natural, less repetitive, and takes about as long to make as a single model does. Once I got used to the tool I built for it, it even became faster.So, let’s talk about the tool that made this all possible.TechnobabbleIf you're into the technical stuff this little chapter is for you, if not, you can skip it all to the next chapter.The tool I'm using I've named CustomSpawnZone, and works together with two other scripts CustomSpawnZoneEditor and ConnectedDirtSpawner. Now, the spawnzone script itself is what makes the zone, the polygons, etc. The editor script makes it all work in the Unity editor, makes buttons appear that I'd need to add and remove the points, and makes my clicks register the points. The spawner script makes the actual spawns, but more on that later.CustomSpawnZoneThe whole reason why I decided to go this way, as mentioned above, is because I didn't like what the model looked like. I had to find a way to make it all more flexible, as well, since working on a hard, big, dumb mo...
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• Patch Notes·19 Oct 2025Official

  Unity Fixes

  Hi all!Here I am with a quick round of bugfixes. With the upgrade from Unity 6 to 6.2, there were some quirks with the start menu — sometimes it would appear when it shouldn’t. That’s now been fixed! I also went through other parts of the new version and made the necessary adjustments.Beyond these bugfixes, I’ve spent a bit more time building the new area of the Silent Forest. The trickiest part so far has been adding the mountain for the next section. While I’m still in the process of adding more models to make it feel fully like a mountain, I think it’s already shaping up nicely.Even though it’s been a bit quiet on updates the past month, work on the game has not stopped. The newborn is starting to settle into a routine, my wife has been doing an amazing job recovering, and that’s finally giving me more time to dive back into development.Hopefully next week I’ll have a full devlog ready instead of just a quick update.See you then, and happy playing!
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• Patch Notes·3 Oct 2025Official

  Unity Platform Protection

  Hi all!In between diapers and bottles, I got an important email from Unity about a security issue in the version I was using. I made time to update both Unity Hub and the Editor, and followed the steps needed to get everything running again.Unity shared a few key points:There’s no evidence this vulnerability has been exploited, nor any impact on users or customers.Platform partners worked with Unity to secure things further.Released games made with Unity 2017.1 or later (Windows, Android, MacOS, Linux) may contain the vulnerability.Unity has patched all major/minor versions from 2019.1 onwards.They’ve also released a binary patcher for older builds dating back to 2017.1.Since Unity recommended immediate action, that’s exactly what I did. I’ve tested the game on the updated Editor, and the build seems fine so far. I did notice a few small things that feel a bit off, and I’ll be checking those in the coming days — but the important part was to make sure the game is safe and up to date.Happy playing!
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• Announcements·7 Sept 2025Official

  Devlog 005 - Silent Forest Part 1 Release

  Well, well, well,It’s Sunday again, which means… a new devlog!This time, we’ll take a look at some of the new things added along with the Silent Forest — which also went live today. Well, part of it anyway. The first part.I ended up making the Silent Forest bigger than planned, so load times for this section are a little longer than I first thought. Right now, it’s around 37–38 seconds. Not too surprising though, since the level is packing almost 68,300 objects.It’s still a fair trade-off if you ask me — once you’re in, performance is smooth, and the forest feels as massive as it looks.Don’t worry: lots of objects doesn’t mean lower FPS.What’s New?Sequence Buttons / GateAs I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been working on a new mechanic: sequence buttons. They’re like regular buttons, except you need to press multiple in the correct order to open a gate. Mess up the order? They reset, and you’re back to square one.If you end up at the easy end of the Abandoned Highway, the buttons follow shape colors in reverse. If you land on the hard end… well, then you’ll be facing a bunch of same-colored buttons. Good luck!Here's the mechanic in action on a tryout that I did to see if it worked properly when failing:And here's the mechanic in action when succeeding:Falling TreesAnother addition: falling trees. Get close, and down they come, cutting off your escape and forcing you forward. If there’s a path ahead, that is.If not? You’ll be restarting the whole section.Right now it’s manual (so your play time resets too), but I’m still debating whether to make it automatic like the Appearing Bushes in the Highway.Here's a bunch of trees falling:What’s Next?The next couple weeks will be a little hectic — my wife’s about to give birth to our second kid (in exactly two weeks!). That means less devlog time and less progress on the game.I’ll still sneak in an hour here and there between diaper duty and hanging with our first kid, but expect more updates on polishing existing stuff rat...
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• Announcements·4 Sept 2025Official

  Little Reminder

  Hi all!This is your reminder that your chance to get Boll's Journey at a 30% discount is almost running to an end. To give you a bit more incentive to buy the game now, below you can find some of the (near) future updates.More puzzlesFirst of all, there'll be more puzzle types in the game. Adding to the current button and gate mechanic, I've dreamt up a little variation of the existing one: hit buttons in a specific order to open a gate, if you happen to hit the wrong button, the buttons get reset and you'll have to start over. This one will be added as early as the Silent Forest scene, which was supposed to come out early this week but has since been moved to end of week due to me dreaming up this new puzzle ːsteamhappyːSecondly, I'll be adding something with lasers in the near future. I've been playing with several different ways to do these lasers:One where you have to make sure that they don't hit you or scene reset (or Shapes show up or moves lost - this can already go in several directions)One where you'll have to make a laser get to a certain point by use of mirrors (or the opposite: find a way to block them to move on)One where you have to use lasers to hit ShapesI'll probably think of more ways to make lasers matter....Thirdly, the current collectibles, the Baybayin, will be a crucial part of something that has to do with instantaneous space travel, allowing for level replays, for example. I've already mentioned that the Baybayin is a script, so expect something to do with symbol combinations.....More enemiesOther than the current enemies, there'll be more enemies to deal with, both Shape-like as well as nature-y and possibly others as well. To start with, in the Silent Forest, for example, there'll be falling trees (not much of an enemy, but they can get you to get stuck) And I've been playing with the idea to do moving Shapes or Duds, but that'll be something for beyond the mountain, possibly only in the city - which is 7th on the list after the mountains...
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