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abusive relationship; alcohol and alcoholism; anxiety and panic attacks; blood; child abuse; classism; control; cursing and swearing; dead bodies; death; depression; diets; domestic abuse; drug use and misuse; emotional abuse; explosions and fire; fear; fighting; foster care system; gambling; gaslighting; grief and loss depiction; guns; harassment; homicide; hostage situation; human trafficking; incarceration; medical malpractice; infertility; manipulation; medical problems; memory problems; mental abuse; mental health issues; miscarriage; misogyny, misandry, and sexism; murder and attempted murder; prison; nightmares and sleep disorders; organized crime; pain; physical assault; ptsd and trauma; rejection; scars; screaming; self-hate; shaming; smoking and tobacco; stillbirth; substance addiction; threats; toxic friendships; verbal abuse; victim blaming; violence; weapons

Development Report – January 2025 – First Progress Video!

Happy New Year from the Unmasked Truths Team!

After a two-week holiday for the team to rest and relax, we’re back and running at full power for what is certain to be an eventful 2025! 

Before the break, we shared several screenshots depicting rough blockouts of the world of Unmasked Truths: Shattered Dreams as they were being initially laid out and sculpted by the 3D team and level designers. For January’s update, we’re sharing some of their progress — including our first-ever progress video! — in addition to some of the work done by the rest of the team, with hints at what’s to come in the next several months! 

The 3D and Concept Artist teams focused on some key locations and fixtures such as the gazebo, library, water fountain, and lamp posts, plus a ton of foliage and other furnishings.

A lot of time and effort has also gone into sculpting the poseable models of Alice and Thomas which will be used to create statues throughout the world. Several of the statues seem to be playing a game of hide-and-seek, so we’re hoping players will help us find them while they explore the world during their playthroughs of the demo… 
The script, sprites, and recorded voice lines have also begun to be pulled into the engine by the programmer, and along with some temporary UI we are now able to play through a handful of game sections and experiment with things like camera positions, shaders, and other tuning. With this accomplished, we officially have ourselves a functional—albeit still early-development when it comes to UI and visual design—visual novel in Unreal Engine!

Lucienne VA: Ryan Bartley

Maria VA: Heather Gonzalez

On the music side of things, we’re currently projecting to begin the live recordings in March. For more information on that, check out the Music page where you’ll find digital previews of several tracks, as well as a short message from composer Marco Salamida!

While all of this in-engine and other work has gone on, the directors and social/marketing crew have spent a lot of time researching and strategizing our approach to publishing the game. We’re in a unique position compared to a lot of other games in that we aren’t pitching a rough idea, early prototype, or technical demo in the next few months: we’re going to have a polished and playable first arc of a high-quality visual novel game in our hands that’s ready to drop.


Maintaining the same spirit we have had since the beginning as a group of friends who love games crafting a story that we’d love to play and theorize about with our friends is an important factor when looking into potential partnerships. We want to get this game into as many hands as possible and ensure that we can continue to pursue the vision we have for the years of development still ahead!


Thanks again to everyone who has supported us so far and followed along during our group’s game dev journey! We look forward to sharing even more updates in the months ahead.


Unmasked Truths Team
Happy new year from the Unmasked Truths Team with a postcard from Sophie and Jack enjoying the local beaches in Australia!

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