This game is about planning and leading expeditions into unknown territories. Explore new worlds, cultures, and civilizations. Claim glory and wealth that will echo through the ages. But beware - every choice carries weight. The fate of your expeditions, the trust of your crew, and the legacy you leave behind will all be shaped by your decisions. In Fallen Compass, exploration, survival, and morality converge into an unforgettable journey where your path defines history.
I want to take you with me on the journey of developing Fallen Compass - An Explorer's Legacy. For this first devlog I want to rewind to the true beginning: Weeks 1–2 of development. No fancy assets, no polished UI – just an empty Unreal project slowly turning into a place you can walk around in, and a desk that finally has a job.
The Story behind the Story - Designing the Game
Every great journey begins with a first step. For Fallen Compass, that step wasn't into a battlefield or a sprawling overworld - it was into a quiet office.
It might seem unusual to begin with an office instead of combat or spectacle. But in Fallen Compass, every story begins and ends here. This is where you prepare, where you weigh risks, where you face the consequences of your choices. The office is not just a room - it's the soul of the game.
Building the Office
The very first milestone was creating a space that feels real. A desk, books, papers, maps, a few lamps casting warm light—simple. Rough shapes for now, but enough to give the sense of standing in a room where history will be written. Walking around, approaching the desk, feeling the scale of the space… it already begins to whisper the promise of adventure. The greatest challenge was creating an atmosphere that feels authentic rather than artificially constructed.
A Menu That Lives in the World
From the start, Fallen Compass is designed to blur the line between player and world. That's why the main menu isn't a flat screen. It's part of the office itself. When you launch the game, you're looking at the tools of exploration: the desk, the maps, the documents. Choosing "New Legacy" isn't just clicking a button - it's leaning forward, ready to begin your story, taking the step into the unknown.
I designed the menu to avoid breaking immersion, with seamless transitions between the main menu and the office, and between submenus at the desk. My goal was to preserve the feeling that the player is truly walking through and working in this office.
Giving the Desk a Purpose
By Week 2, the desk became more than scenery. The map table, the logbook, the letters - they're not just props, they're gateways. Interacting with them pulls you into different modes of play: planning routes, reading reports, accepting contracts, building a crew around you. The desk is your command center, the place where every expedition begins.
The First Expedition
Pressing "Start Expedition" may only lead to a prototype overworld for now, but it's a powerful moment. It's the first time the office connects to the wider world. You plan, you confirm, and suddenly you're out there. Supplies ticking down, routes stretching ahead, risks waiting in the distance. You and your expedition crew set out into a vast, newly unveiled world.
Behind the Curtain - The more Technical View on Things
While the office and map table are the emotional heart of Fallen Compass, there's a lot happening under the hood to make it all feel seamless. The game is built in Unreal Engine 5.7, with its backbone written in C++ for speed and clarity, while Blueprints handle the more experimental, visual side of development. This mix lets the systems stay solid while still giving room for quick iteration.
The very first step was laying down the foundations: a custom GameInstance to hold expedition data across sessions, a GameMode to define the rules of play, and a PlayerController to manage how you move and interact. With those in place, the office hub could come to life as a real level - a greyboxed room with placeholder walls and furniture, just enough to test scale and atmosphere.
Walking into that office meant creating a basic first-person pawn: WASD movement, mouse look, proper collision so you don't stroll through tables. Nothing fancy yet, but enough to feel like you're standing at a desk that matters.
From there, the focus shifted to immersion. The main menu isn't a separate screen. It's part of the world. On launch, you're looking at the desk through a cinematic camera, with options layered on top. Press "New Legacy" and the camera glides smoothly into first-person view, handing control over to you. It's a small detail, but it keeps the illusion intact: you're not leaving the world, you're stepping into it.
The desk itself quickly became more than decoration. Each object was wired as an interactable. Look at one, press the interact key, and the game shifts perspective: the camera leans in, the UI changes, and suddenly you're planning routes or reading reports. Underneath, a lightweight interaction system handles the raycasts and transitions, while the Expedition Manager quietly tracks supplies, money, and crew status across levels.
Finally, a Level Manager ties it all together, remembering where you came from and guiding transitions between office, overworld, and future combat maps. Fade-outs and fade-ins smooth the jumps, so moving between spaces feels intentional rather than jarring.
Why Start Here?
At first glance, it might seem unusual that the opening chapter of Fallen Compass doesn't showcase combat or sweeping cinematic events. But that's deliberate. This game is about journeys, and every journey begins somewhere quiet. At a desk, with a map, and with choices that ripple outward.
Weeks 1–2 were about making that promise real. The office isn't just an idea on paper anymore. It's a place you can walk through, a desk you can approach, a map you can lean over. The main menu isn't a separate screen. It's woven into the world, part of the same space where your story will unfold.
The office itself is already taking shape, with final meshes beginning to replace the greybox stage. It feels more like a real place now, even if the interface remains mostly placeholder. The foundation is solid, and the atmosphere is starting to shine through. Beneath it all, the skeleton of persistent expedition data is quietly keeping track of what you've done, ensuring that every choice will matter later.
It's not polished yet, but the shape of the game is visible - and that's the milestone worth celebrating.
What's Next – From Desk to Distance
The next step is to take those plans off the parchment and into the world. Soon, you'll guide a convoy across a living 3D map, tracing the very routes you just charted in the office. Supplies will tick down as you travel, forcing hard decisions: push forward into the unknown, or turn back before disaster strikes.
This will be the focus of Devlog #2: Transforming the expedition from an idea into something that moves, eats, and risks collapse.
If you'd like to follow along, keep an eye on the upcoming Steam page and website. I'll share smaller updates and screenshots on social channels, and once the first playable builds are ready, there will be opportunities to join in with feedback and testing.
For now, Devlog #1 marks the moment when Fallen Compass stopped being just a concept. It became a place you can step into. A room you can walk through, and a desk that finally matters.
See you in Devlog #2.