OtherSide Entertainment have published the first Stygian Sentinel update of 2016, and in it…well, for one thing, they’ve announced that they’ll be posting updates less frequently (at least for a while):

Because things are getting busier with the team as we transition into production, we’re switching Newsletter updates every three weeks instead of every other. It takes non-trivial time to do these updates and we want to balance that against progress on the game. We may switch back to biweekly updates later if we find we can balance that and folks really want them more frequently, but we want to test this out for the time being.

Of course, the reason they will be reducing their output of updates — as is mentioned above — is because they’ve hit a significant milestone in the process of developing Underworld Ascendant:

As the New Year begins, we’re busy making the transition to full production. The focus shifts to building out all the game play elements. Right now, we’re barreling along on two tracks: art and design.

Our designers are heads down prototyping the quest and narrative systems, building out character skills, and working out how to create spaces that take advantage of those skills. We’ve even started coming to grips with the major characters in the game and the main plot points.

It’s fun to see a team switch gears from “Wouldn’t it be cool?” to “We all agree that is cool. Let’s build it and prove it!” Seeing an idea on paper isn’t nearly as awesome as seeing it the game engine. One of the most rewarding things as a producer is being the guy who gets the first look at everything. It’s like opening presents every morning when we reach this point in development. From something simple like getting a new shader for stalactites to testing out wall-running and ground-sliding for the first time, it’s never boring.

And of course, crowdfunding of the game continues:

Our plan is to continue to crowdfund on BackerKit and PayPal, likely through this summer. We have a few more stretch goals that we’d love to reach and are tantalizingly close to unlocking The Wailing Haunt. Less than $10,000 away now!

Click on through to read the rest of the update; there are a few details I haven’t excerpted here. It sounds like OtherSide are off to a cracking good start this year, and it’s great to hear that they’re at the point where they can begin developing the game proper. Not that it wasn’t cool to see all the things they were prototyping and spitballing, but let’s face it: we want to see Underworld Ascendant happen.