I began developing Lunar Descent in November and it's quickly approaching an alpha release. This is the first project of mine that has shown such promise and I would love to discuss what I changed about my workflow and habits to allow this perhaps in another post. This post, however, will focus on the intent behind the game, its current state (and when to expect a playable version), and the direction I could take the project in the future.

Intent
Lunar Descent is a horror game at its core. I want to make the player uneasy, so I've drawn from what terrifies me the most. I've found that media that succeeds in creating fear almost always draws from common or intense phobias, sometimes combining them to brilliant effect. Pieces that come to mind include the first Alien film, mashing the hopeless horror of space with the primal fear of being hunted, and the somewhat recent Barotrauma, drawing from thalassophobia, adding elements of astrophobia, and even claustrophobia with its unwieldy, death-trap submarines.
A real-life scenario that combines most of my own fears is that of cave exploration. The impenetrable darkness that could hold any number of untold terrors just inches away from a dim flashlight beam, the tight squeezes that could see you trapped with one wrong move, the miles of dirt and rock weighing down on the ceiling, ready to give out at any moment. This is the specific kind of fear I wanted to replicate with Lunar Descent. This is what inspired the cave diving section of the game. The threat of darkness and twisting cave generation make it easy to get lost, and tight tunnels will restrict your escape routes. On top of this, I'm using the game's setting to enhance the horror, adding more common fears to the cocktail.
Another thing humans hate is isolation. I think that's why I find space so terrifying. To this end, I've placed a lot of narrative weight on your isolation in the game. There will be no return flight. The only connection to the outside world is a one-way resource shuttle sent from an unmanned space station. In theory, it's utterly soul-crushing. Whether or not I achieve this in the game is for you to decide, whenever I decide to release it.
There are a lot of parallels between space and the ocean, which is why I've made oxygen such an integral resource. Oxygen is scarce, adding a sense of urgency to your cave dives. If you get greedy, you may not have enough oxygen remaining to return to the exit elevator, which incentivizes the player to carefully manage their oxygen supply. I give the player the tools to do this through extra oxygen tanks which can be ordered with company credits. These tanks have a higher capacity than your starting tanks, but unlike your initial equipment, they cannot be refilled, making their utility a luxury. The player will always have their initial low capacity tanks, which is why it is optimal, at least in terms of oxygen management, to carry extra tanks alongside your reusable set. However, the player only has four inventory slots, making it a balancing act between oxygen capacity and inventory space to carry samples. This, I think, plays into the natural fear of drowning. The idea of diving too deep and never surfacing.
On top of all this, of course, will be the entities. I won't talk much about entities in this post, but they are in the game, regardless of what the company tells you. I want monsters to be rare enough that the player will feel confident before they encounter anything. Perhaps I'll even have entities that invade the safe space of the base later in the game. But at the end of the day, I want the horror in this game to be driven by the atmosphere, the setting, and the basic gameplay loop rather than the big scary things that chase you around.

State of the Game
At the moment, the game is approaching its first big alpha test. The core of each mechanic is in place and I'm currently adding polish, balancing things, and adding more content. This is the most exciting part of game-dev, where the game is taking shape and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I sincerely hope that this game appeals to someone other than myself, and more importantly, achieves the things I want it to. That's why I'm posting about the game now, so I can grow a potential community that can help shape the game as I make it.

The Future of Lunar Descent
I have no idea when this game will come out. A good guess would put the first playable release around the end of this year, perhaps early 2025, but anything is possible at this point. There's a good chance that development will slow as I'm heading into full-time study soon, but I doubt motivation will wane given the stage of development I have already reached. The future of this game is bright, but uncertain. I hope you're just as excited about this game as I am.

Thanks for reading - Lunar Dev.