The Last Sanctum - Dragon Survival Game

Thank you so much! The flight system is going to improve a lot as well 💪

Really glad you enjoy them! Thank you so much :)

Implemented the Levin Darter Wyvern into the game! Still pending adjusting its number values for ideal movement, and animation transitions need to be fixed. Using a WIP flight system and placeholder map.
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Models & Misc Finished the T3 Dragon's Friendly call. We're keeping those calls short and simple so the calls of the T4 wyrms shine! Reorganized and reimported all files for all currently completed wyrms (Scoria, Iceclaw, Levin, T2/T3 Dragon, T2/T3 Wyvern). This has been a fairly time-consuming slog, and we're happy to have it finished for the wyrms! Began organizing and reimporting files for NPCs. These took a lot of time to sort out, and included fixing errors or adding animations that were missed before, or would otherwise improve things. (Ex: Juvi Wyvern was missing Swim/Underwater Idles, Bellbat now has a Glide and Dive, Common Venna has idle-to-eat and vice-versa transitions.) Materials have been standardized and set up in preparation for the skin system, and LODs have been set up. Made a new Eat animation for the Common Venna, which will be used most of the time. Its old Eat animation will now be a rare alternate one. Remade the size comparison charts, so now you can see an up to date version! Cetapod is in a separate image because it's Too Large to be contained in the chart with all the other creatures.

Coding Updated models in the animation graph logic. Implemented the Levin Darter as a playable! We mentioned this before when we added Iceclaw, but thanks to previous work done by us, implementing new wyrms is pretty quick! Adding the completed Levin and tweaking basic parameters in-game was a 20 minute task. Of course, we'll have to do much more in-depth tweaking to make the wyrm feel right, and add unique abilities in the future, but we're pleased that we can have a wyrm playable in a basic form so quickly! Here's your first glimpse of Levin in the game. There are some animation transitions to fix, so things might look janky. Levin still needs movement values tweaked, and the video is using a placeholder map and the very WIP new flight system, so there are many issues we're aware of. Hope you enjoy glowy Levin!

Biweekly Newsletter October 17/2025 (2 images, 2 links)

Size Charts: imgur.com/a/RBvAlMX
Levin Implementation: imgur.com/a/MUsda68

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YouTube video by Lindwyrm Studios Levin Darter Art Timelapse (The Last Sanctum Development)

We thought you might like to see the design process of the Levin Darter, showing all the sketches until its final conception! Do you like how the design ended up?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC8_...

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Biweekly Newsletter October 03/2025 (2 images, 3 links)

Climbing Clip: imgur.com/a/6HqeOFE
Seaglow Skin: bsky.app/profile/lind...
Wiki: thelastsanctum.wiki.gg

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Thank you so much!

That sounds like a good goal! ✨

Our new skin painter has finished painting Levin's Seaglow skin! What do you think?
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Coding Implemented flight design changes: Iterated several times on initial feedback (which was positive even with the first rough draft!) Technical details of flight update: Implemented pitch and roll bounds to replace force-based lift/drag acceleration. Implemented momentum preservation for speed and "by mode" to permit acceleration mechanics, such as lift from flapping and tap-flapping. Implemented player controls (and limits on player controls) to smooth rotations while still feeling "snappy". Implemented speed-based smoothing of flight rotations (e.g. flying faster makes it harder to quickly turn). While we still have to work on a lot more polish for a proper showcase, we'd like to show you a brief clip of our new flight design! You can note how it's much easier now for a wyrm to be nimble (of course, not all wyrms will have this level of maneuverability). The video demonstrates that we can control rotations per submode (ex. turning faster while flapping vs gliding), how pitch/rotation scales according to speed, and the overall improved interpolation and dive transition. Overall, this flight change gives us more control over in-game maneuverability, and the number values behind it! Updated Scoria and Iceclaw to be playable with general physics updates (pending number-tweaking to make them feel right). Iceclaw demonstrates a working proof-of-concept of general software engineering updates done previously. Because of a lot of work we put in before, adding new wyrms to the game is trivial!

Models & Animations Created transition animations from parachute fall brake to flight state for all flying wyrms. Added turning animations for new/adjusted flight/flap animations. Cleaned, separated, organized, and charted all existing skins into colour regions, in preparation for the skin system. Also set up some additional colour palettes for the Lichen skin; here it is with its four presets! New_Project41.png Currently in the process of fixing foot twisting on turning animations for all wyrms (Scoria and Iceclaw done, WIP on the rest). Polished various animations, including adding stronger wind effects to T3/T4 Wyvern and Scoria's flying animations, and reanimated Iceclaw's turn in place. Here's Iceclaw's very energetic turn in place animation!

Biweekly Newsletter September 19/2025 (2 images, 2 links)

Flight Clip: imgur.com/a/mQwEA8o
Lichen Skins + Iceclaw Turn: imgur.com/a/V1WIt0B

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Iceclaw has been released and is having a fun time frolicking in the placeholder map!
(Note this is an outdated model and outdated animations, will replace with the new ones soon!)
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Coding Wrote a design summary outlining extensive flight physics updates based on tester feedback. Focused on player controllability of flight. We aim to reduce physics simulation complexity to help with networking. Documented existing physically-driven flight system in sufficient detail to allow future code work, and possible alternate approach to flight physics. (Don't worry, none of this means our flight system won't be interesting! These changes are specifically to get us the flight system we want, which we think will be very enjoyable once we tweak) Models & Misc Finished the Broadcast call audio for the T3 Dragon. Improved Levin's Flap and Flight animations. Slightly adjusted Levin's Broadcast and Threaten animations to better match the new calls. Now we'd like to show you Levin's new calls! We know some of you might be attached to the old ones, and we are as well, but the new ones are overall a much better audio quality and fit the creature. Here are the new calls! https://youtu.be/CkwHv9Y7-YU

Biweekly Newsletter September 05/2025 (1 image, 1 link)

Levin Call: youtu.be/CkwHv9Y7-YU

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Showing off our new sand asset! If you look closely, you can see sparkles in the sand and wind moving over the surface.

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Biweekly Newsletter August 22/2025 (2 images, 2 links)

Trello: trello.com/b/4TRPdZUY/t...
Scoria Call: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dcc...

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❤️

Thank you! Yes, we also enjoy unique monster sounds :)

We've added a new sound designer to the team! They've been remaking our current wyrm calls. It still needs a polish pass, but here's Levin's new Broadcast call! What do you think?
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Models & Animations Finished cleaning and re-baking Iceclaw animations. Cleaned up Iceclaw's UVs (something we're going through and doing for all wyrms). Added a couple Iceclaw Climb animations, Climb Down Left and Right for diagonal movement. Cleaned up Levin's default skin. Prepared T2/T3 Dragon's Ossified/Mottled skins, T2/T3 Wyvern's Meso skin, and Levin's Default skin for use with the planned skin system. Began 2D concepting a Kickstarter skin. Started 3D painting one of Levin's skins, the blue and yellow one you've seen before. Called "Seaglow" for now. 3D painted a new skin for T2/T3 Dragon, called "Mottled". Here's what the Mottled skin looks like, as well as a couple colour modifications that players could make! It isn't only limited to these options either - there are more colours to choose from, and individual colours can be swapped. Map Purchased some new environment assets that will help us out a lot! This includes some interesting rocks, more trees/grass, and a collection of snow and desert assets. Started painting some biomes with autotextures. Experimented with assets for a swamp biome. Found a new cliff texture, which we think makes cliffs look a lot better!

Biweekly Newsletter August 08/2025 (4 images, 1 in replies)

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The ones pictured are the older juveniles, but the younger juveniles have some of the features you mentioned!

We spent a little time adjusting the faces of the juvenile Dragons and Wyverns, mostly by narrowing them. Do you think it's an improvement?
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Map & Art Finished the largescale rock work for the big mesas. You saw a preview of them on Bluesky last week!, Altered the base procedural grass to add more detail., Added more textures and corresponding procedural "grass" (it doesn't have to be grass, mud is rocks and sticks for example)., Started working with foliage and texture painting around the big mesas., Concepted some potential NPC creatures for the demo and beyond., Coding Updated and improved Fall Brake. Fixed up acceleration/drag model of fall-brake., Set up transitions to flight from falling and fall-brake., , Did significant exploratory work on flight mechanics based on testing feedback after extensive QA testing. We want to stress again how helpful our flight values dashboard is! You might remember from the coding stream, but we have a dashboard of important number values related to flight, which is very helpful for tweaking feel since it can be easily changed even by non-programmers. Added in a system for tighter control over rotations. You might have noticed in our flight video from a couple weeks ago that turns felt very "banking" and not very tight. We've introduced a "fudge factor" that gives us the ability to turn much quicker. We also lowered gravity overall, which makes feel jumping less floaty, and makes the wyrm feel more weighty when falling. In this new video, the first half demonstrates the new gravity (with Fall Brake) and the second half demonstrates the new turning. Of course, not every wyrm will turn this quickly. We just want to have the option to do it that way!, , Worked on solutions for better control over wyrm pitch and overall movement flow.

Biweekly Newsletter July 25/2025 (1 image, 1 video link)

Video: imgur.com/a/fFj41FC

#TheLastSanctum #indiedev #gamedev #indiegamedev #flight #cool #dragonartists #ue5 #unrealengine #dragon #dragonart #survival #survivalgame #dragongame #tls #Blender #BlenderArt #3dart #animation

Thank you so much! It's very nice seeing the map shape up :)

Here's a sneak peek of how the mesa area is looking! This is still extremely WIP and many aspects either haven't been touched yet or will change. Hope you enjoy!
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YouTube video by Lindwyrm Studios Manual Flapping Test (Dragon Game Development)

We're proud of our flight system progress so far!
youtu.be/vQtySfNK4sw

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Models & Map Finally figured out a way to fix twisted feet during turning animations in Blender. This had no impact on the animations in Unreal, but the problem made it difficult to preview how animations would actually look. Fixing it is very helpful for future animations and makes accurate foot-planting much easier in Unreal! Updated the T2 Dragon and T3 Fire Dragon turning animations. Improved the T2 Dragon and T3 Fire Dragon Trot and Bite animations. Created a test animation for a singular flap for T2-T3 dragons. More on this in the code section, but we thought our manual flap system might look better with a separate animation for singular powerful tap flaps! Created sound effects for singular tap flaps. Continued work on sculpting the mesas area, including hiding a couple small rock caves in the cliffsides! Coding Continued work on hooking up the final HUD to actually reflect values (ie. be functional). Implemented and tested flapping as a distinct physical mechanic. As you may remember, we wanted to have a manual flapping mechanic where you can tap to flap a single time, which gives you more precise control and improves immersion. You can tap to flap or hold down to sprint flap. There was significant back-and-forth on feel, which required a few iterations of code. Synced up with animations, with the caveat that making the animation "feel" match the physics will require continued testing. Softened flapping curve to help avoid problems with force impulse interacting with framerate (though significant testing with networking is still needed). Implemented control distinction between a single "tap-flap" and a longer sprint. Tap flaps give more control to the player, allowing for stronger movement at the cost of more stamina. Requires timing individual flaps to (approximately) match the movement of the wyrm for optimal motion. Includes interaction with turning and other high-agility movement. Implemented fall-braking, to give winged wyrms some control in a fall…

Biweekly Newsletter July 11/2025 (2 images, 1 video link)
Video: imgur.com/a/Q3t67fk

#TheLastSanctum #indiedev #gamedev #indiegamedev #flight #cool #dragonartists #ue5 #unrealengine #dragon #dragonart #survival #survivalgame #dragongame #tls #Blender #BlenderArt #3dart #animation

We really enjoy the colours!

This is what the moon phases look like in-game right now!

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Thank you so much!

Coding Finished core physics modularization rework: Total updates included ~7000 lines of code changed to rework control flow and data ownership, to modularize the logic as described in other newsletters -- basically all of this is "core code", and now the structure should be locked up through at least completing the playable demo. This update seems to fix the problems we hoped it would fix, and it's now much much easier to experiment with different physics variations. Finished updating the documentation to help with tracking dataflow over the course of a physics tick. Fixed the dozens of bugs resulting from this change, player movement code now appears to be working as before the refactor (plus some quality of life fixes). Small improvements to ground movement feel. Explored flight adjustments to improve the snappiness/control of player movement. We also did a chunk of work on our flapping system, but that still needs a lot more tweaking. We hope to be able to showcase it soon! Updated design diagrams to match changes in code organization. Models & Map Worked more on sculpting a mesa area in the map. Made rig adjustments to Iceclaw, especially to the tail, which makes it more controllable and allows for fluid movement. We also added footpad controls, which helps us move the feet in-engine. Updated Iceclaw's animations for improved quality and expression of its personality, including ground, climb and swim cycles and various actions (including sit, lay, and sleep). We're very close to finished revising Iceclaw! We'd like to show you a couple comparisons of the improved animations! Old vs new Swim Sprint, the new Underwater Sprint, and old Trot vs new Trot.

Biweekly Newsletter June 27/2025 (1 image, 1 video link)

Videos: imgur.com/a/jiBLs3g

#TheLastSanctum #indiedev #gamedev #indiegamedev #dragonartists #ue5 #unrealengine #dragon #dragonart #survival #survivalgame #dragongame #tls #drake #Blender #BlenderArt #3dart