Vireya Studios

City of Strays – Development Blog Update

Current Phase: Early Gameplay Prototyping & World Setup

Posted by Vireya Studios

The team at Vireya Studios has been working intensely on the early gameplay foundations for City of Strays, and we’re excited to share our current development progress with the community.

Over the past few weeks, our focus has been on building the first playable walkthrough of Skylar’s journey — establishing her character, the emotional tone, and the atmosphere of the city she must survive in.

🎮 Early Gameplay Prototype Now Playable

We recently completed a functional prototype of the opening scene where Skylar first wakes up in a dark alley of the city. This build allowed us to test:

• Third-person movement
• Camera follow & perspective
• Lighting balance for a dark urban environment
• Environmental storytelling
• Skylar’s emotional narration during gameplay
• Early-level AI placeholders
• Basic interaction with world objects

This prototype marks the first successful step toward building the full opening chapter of the game.

🌑 Setting the Tone: Atmosphere & Worldbuilding

One of the key goals of this phase was to establish the emotional tone and visual language of the world. We experimented with:

• Wet asphalt reflections
• Neon-lit vending machines
• Flickering alley lights
• Environmental clutter like trash, graffiti, and broken structures
• Distant city ambience and club noise

This atmosphere is core to the identity of City of Strays. We want players to feel Skylar’s isolation, uncertainty, and vulnerability from the moment they enter the world.

🧍 Skylar’s First Steps — Character & Animation

We have implemented Skylar’s early locomotion system with:

• Walking
• Basic idle animations
• Camera framing
• Backpack and skateboard mesh placement
• Environmental reaction lines (debug for now)

Next steps include refining:

• Animation blending
• Facial visibility in low light
• Subtle idle breathing & micro-movements
• Better environmental rim lighting for readability

This is still an early prototype stage, but the core movement loop is functional and ready for iteration.

🧪 Debug & Technical Improvements Ongoing

Being an early development build, several debug visuals and placeholders are still present:

• Overlap triggers
• Line traces
• Lighting tests
• Recording UI overlays
• Temporary materials and meshes

All of these will be removed as we polish the sequence for public previews and trailers.

📌 What’s Next?

Our next milestone is refining the opening gameplay into a clean, presentable vertical slice.

Upcoming tasks include:

• Improved lighting & visibility
• Finalising Skylar’s intro dialogue
• Cleaner animations
• Better environmental storytelling props
• Introducing NPC silhouettes
• Early stealth prototype
• Interactive objects and sound cues

Once polished, we plan to share a public teaser of the opening scene.

❤️ Thank You for Following Our Journey

City of Strays is a passion project, and every step — no matter how early — brings us closer to creating something meaningful and impactful. Stay tuned for more updates, behind-the-scenes insights, screenshots, and devlogs.