It's that time of the year: the month of horror! We're in the middle of the Steam Scream festival and ASYLUM is at an all-time low 30% off. Do tell your family and friends. Heck, even enemies too, because everyone deserves horror!

New reviews are coming in and we're seeing a renewed interest in the game. There's been plenty of positive reception to our previous update, so I want to thank everyone who chimed in with thoughtful comments. Today, we'll make it short and sweet: The ASYLUM Files is a PDF document now available for free that you can download and keep forever. It should be part of an automatic update as of this writing and pop up in your install folder; if for some reason it doesn't show up, you can get it here.

The nearly 50-page long document features the original script with 100 annotations, plus trivia, WIP images, and other groovy insider details. It's meant to be a companion to the game, especially for those who enjoyed debating and wondering "what does it all mean?!".

Are you getting answers? Of course not! Well, perhaps some. The document is self-explanatory and comes with a few disclaimers (major spoilers, draft texts, etc). It's all explained in the intro. I trust you'll enjoy at least a few sections.

That's pretty much it for today! We're still working on the documentary, art book, and other niceties fans are expecting. Also relevant for some of you: the native Linux version is very much still on the plate as promised.

And finally, while there's no patch, here's a horror movie quote for you to guess: "Agnes, it's me, Billy".

Have fun reading! 👋

Good evening, Wardens! Today's update addresses a few pain points in the endgame for new players and contains additional minor fixes. We're continuing to look into a few other things related to the postgame that we hope to address in the next update as well.

Thank you for your feedback and reports!


General

- Minor fixes to the individual mission timer in speedrun mode.


Tower of Darkness

- Previously failed to commit the adjustments to the Baelz section and its mechanics to help the final puzzle feel less finicky; Those changes are now active.


Zero Seconds to Midnight

- The distortion effect used when Kronii exits an anomaly will now properly hide itself when inactive, preventing it from making some objects on the screen distorted or invisible.
- The hitbox of the final checkpoint is now much higher to account for the portal exit's height.

Several balance changes have been made to the area after the first time rewind to make it less unforgiving to new players:
- Reduced the number of meteors launched at a time from 4 to 3.
- The spawn rate of the meteors has been spaced out from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
- The time between the final meteor's launch and the tail stab attack resuming is increased from 0.5 seconds to 1.0 seconds.
- Meteor explosions have a narrower hitbox, dissolve more quickly after hitbox activation, and are no longer infinitely horizontal.
- A Hope Spark now appears beside the checkpoint in this section.

Feeders,

I’m here today to introduce you to Planets & Moons.

Planets are the next major objects you’ll be destroying after asteroids.

They’re dense. You’ll notice a bit of a lull when you first encounter them.

Once you start cracking through them, you’ll unlock the chance for Moons to spawn. Moons like to hang around their Planets (clingy little things), but destroying them together grants you special buffs.

Let's see an example of increased breaker speed from some moons.

SHOW ME HOW IT WORKS! FEED THE HOLE!

~Cory ("Thornity") from Team Black Hole

　Steam Next Fest - October 2025 has wrapped up with great success. I had the chance to play many incredible demos, from Cairn - who knew climbing could be this engaging in a game - to Skater Story with its captivating presentation, and Final Sentence where the tension kept me on edge but landing first place felt absolutely incredible. Each game offered something unique, and honestly, exploring this diverse lineup was just as exciting as showcasing my own game during the festival. It was a week that reminded me why I fell in love with games in the first place.

　

> Cairn - The Game Bakers

　

> Skate Story - by Sam Eng / Devolver Digital

　

> Final Sentence - Button Mash / Polden Publishing

　

　#1 Quick Patch Friday (QPF) Launch : If you caught the mid-week update during Next Fest, you already know about this. I've introduced Quick Patch Friday - a rapid response system for critical fixes and improvements. Whenever urgent patches are needed, I'll deliver brief bulletins explaining the changes alongside the updated build. Think of it as my express lane for keeping the game smooth.

　

　#2 Upcoming Game Curation Series : I'm planning to start a curation series. While my game hasn't launched yet, I'm a developer who's also an avid gamer. Gaming is more than just my work - it's a genuine passion and hobby. I'm sure many of you feel the same way, perhaps even more strongly. So I want to share my gaming experiences and spotlight hidden gems you might have missed. It's not a difficult task, but it requires time and dedication to build up, so I'm starting early. Through this, I hope to not only promote my own work but also share the joy of discovering diverse gaming experiences with you all.

　

　During Steam Next Fest, I received over 50 pieces of feedback through reviews, forums, and Discord - both positive impressions and suggestions for improvement. After removing duplicates, that's roughly 40 distinct feedback points. First and foremost, thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts. I'm now working through each piece of feedback, carefully considering how to implement them while maintaining the game's core values and direction. Where possible, I'll incorporate all suggestions, adding extra layers of polish and detail to improve the experience. Stay tuned.

　

　

　As a developer, this past week was incredibly fulfilling, but as a player, it was pure joy. Even though I was showing a demo, I experienced such a vibrant variety of games, and I'm planning to purchase several of them. I hope you all had an equally wonderful gaming week, discovering new favorites and enjoying the festival's incredible lineup. Let's keep building this journey together.

　The Editor - "Your local community updates - let's build it together"

• Inverted control/design of Action Sequences to allow for injection of future (new) Results.

• Fixed multiple issues with Iterators in the "Fixed Loop" being properly reflected.

• Fixed a handful of slowdowns and freezes when performing various stat and combat calculations
  
• Fixed a bug where rerolling an item would reroll the Coherence stat. This was not intentional!
  
• Fixed a bug where leaderboards would sometimes report an incorrect Nightmare level
  
• Fixed one crash on exit

⚙️ New Devlog Live!
Ever wonder how a 2D game can pull off effects that look 3D? In this week’s Write Warz devlog, our VFX wizard Ben takes you behind the curtain to give you a sneak peak and to show how we built Sigrun’s new ability.

You’ll get a look at:

• ⚡ Modeling and texturing in Blender

• 🧩 Building the lightning shader in Unity Shader Graph

• 🎬 Animating it all with DOTween

• 🔮 Tying it into our in-game ability system

This breakdown showcases how Write Warz mixes creative storytelling with flashy visual effects to make every ability feel alive — even in a 2D space.

🎥 Watch the full devlog on YouTube:
👉

Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/drakecummings

Update 17 has released; Here is the Changelog:

Added new track Salinas Speedway

Added Old School Imports with Body Roll

Fixed Offset in one style of front wheels

Split Modified Import class into modified import and old school import

Fixed wing not being paintable in extreme import

Adjusted Weight for Radial 315 Class

Changed Bang Logic

Fixed a default paintjob on a diesel truck

Fixed a visual bug with ATV wheelie bars

Fixed a bug with repairs not showing properly

Split Top Dragster into Asphalt and Sand variants with different physics

Here are some more fixes and improvements while the Q4 update is built behind the scenes! Check out the Terrain Tessellation graphics setting if you haven't already now that the performance has been greatly improved

Fixes

• Fixed black squares appearing on the terrain near snowy footprints or dug out holes when MSAA is enabled

• Fixed shadow artifacts near snowy footprints when MSAA is enabled

• Fixed incorrect graphical calculations that would result in shadowy looking snow on steeper terrain slopes

• Fixed system to prevent Blight clouds generating in water by using a more accurate terrain height estimation process during initial world generation (as a result, you will only see this for new games after this update)

• Fixed rafts being deleted when left to drift down a river to the south or west into unloaded areas (east and north were unaffected)

• Fixed the calculations that determined when objects, grasses and the terrain are hidden when rotating the camera using a much more exact AABB frustum culling system. You will no longer see holes in the terrain or objects disappearing at the edge of the screen, especially when on or near very hilly terrain. The logic for hiding objects behind the camera was also fixed to prevent cases of shadows cast by these objects onto surfaces in front of the camera disappearing as the camera is rotated

• Fixed recently gathered wild plants not allowing selection to be dug up

• Fixed plants disappearing when planted and then dug up without watering

• Fixed soft clay roof tiles not having a weight so that they match the fired clay roof tiles

Improvements

• Finally added proper terrain mesh optimization using a custom-built quad-tree level of detail (LOD) system that should slightly improve performance for less powerful graphics cards, and greatly improve performance across the board when using the Terrain Tessellation graphics setting. As a result, Terrain Tessellation no longer has a performance warning and is enabled by default on higher quality setting presets

Other changes

• Removed the ability to overwrite autosaves in-game as these saves would be lost as the game autosaves more in the future

• Increased the brightness underneath cloud shadows to be more realistic

• Added stockpile support for small/large flints and sandstones