Game development takes time. Usually, a lot of time, and the ultimate build we get is often very different from initial ideas and concepts. Power Proc Studios, the indie dev team behind Soul Kingdoms, has a new video showing development progress on the game from the bare first playtests back in 2017 to the current 2024 build.
In the new video, back in 2017, they were, as the caption says, “equipped with nothing but capsules and a dream” and they weren’t kidding. We see colored capsule pieces, mostly named “Green Dude”, on a pretty empty, sand-colored board. These little green dudes hop around, launch attacks at one another and we see the basics taking shape but it is still quite basic.
In 2018, the little capsules are replaced by tiny humanoids that look almost chibi style, a functional UI, and a setting that looks like grass and stone. Instead of just hopping around and launching attacks out of nothing, these little guys are carrying weapons. It’s significant progress from the previous look, and things only get better from there. By early 2019, we see another look, this time third-person, and more detailed figures, weapons, and even magic effects.
And that's just the first 30 seconds or so of the video. By 2020 we see the world taking shape And in late 2021 we see being able to travel and run around the world. The current build starts at just over halfway through the video at around 1:25.
The full journey through Soul Kingdoms’ development progress runs under three minutes, but the brevity of the video covers a very side range of work. Being a few screenshots and hearing the developers tell some stories and maybe show us little clips also tell a tale, but this video is edited together in such a way where you can really see all the work that went through development of this independent game.
