Hello everyone — it’s been a while since we posted any info about HeavenX, so we thought we’d start talking about the progress we are making in a series of devlogs.

First of all — huge thanks to everyone who participated in Playtest #3 this past April.

HeavenX is a big game with even bigger ambitions. We’ve accepted that doing things right takes time, and we’re in it for the long haul.

Development Pillars

We have been organizing HeavenX's development around three pillars:

• Gameplay
• Story
• Juice/Supporting Systems

Story Systems

The last playtest focused on the card-based loadout and general gameplay feel. We have plenty of ideas to expand both, but we’ve paused major gameplay changes while we tackle something larger: story systems.

We've always wanted HeavenX to be story-rich. Over the last six months we finally gave ourselves the runway to build a dynamic, event-driven story system that talks to the rest of the game.

Think reactive moments that unfold over in-game days, across multiple “apps” in, and outside, of your desktop world.

Example:
An NPC pings you about a “donut application form.” You print the form (in-game), fill it out, fax it back. Three in-game days later there’s a knock at your office door and a donut sails through the window.

That playful, interconnected feeling is the goal we have been shooting for and we aim to share a vertical slice of the story stack in playtests next year. From dozens of character sheets in Obsidian, to innumerable rough drafts of emails and direct messages in Google Docs, to interactive Twine maps — the game’s narrative has finally found its home in our event-driven story system. Every piece of readable content is being distilled into its final, purest form.

A photograph of the in-game communication system we're cooking up (FPO Art):

Engineering Highlights (since Playtest #3)

Behind the scenes, these required significant infrastructure:

• In-game chat system (lightweight Slack/Teams-style client) for story delivery and dynamic events.
• Node-based authoring tools to script story content visually.
• Logic nodes + variable system to track conditions and world state.
• Editor workflows to build and test story content at scale.

All of this lays the foundation for the kind of narrative we want HeavenX to have. We’re finally close to seeing a working vertical slice that we think you’ll be excited to see.

An example of what a quest looks like in our bespoke node based quest system:

Gameplay & Systems Updates

• Movement
  Rewritten from scratch. Initially used a third-party library, but now replaced with a custom system that’s more flexible and momentum-based.
• 3D Office
  Work has begun on replacing the 2D desktop prototype with a full 3D version, including basic interactivity and realistic shaders.

Art Progress

• Story system UI and 3D office assets.
• UI assets for the in-game project management software.
• Work in progress for internal communications tools.
• 3D assets for the office environment: desktop computer system, filing cabinet, and more to come.
  
  First pass at getting the desktop environment interactable+projected onto a real 3D screen.

Playtest #3 Loadout Card Insights

Analyzed ~1,000 of the longest dives, leaderboard data, anonymous session data, and the game-card catalog.

Core Configuration (frequent picks)

• Standard Controls (basic movement, no downsides/upsides)
• Prismatic Processor (basic pistol weapon)
• Solenoid Core (passive mana regeneration)
• Shifter (basic dash ability)
• Saving Grace (extra hit before desync)

Sleeper Cards (low pick rate, high performance)

• Amplified Receptors (increased mana value multiplier)
• Reretriggerer (re-triggers multiple cards in loadout)
• Divine Emperor (adds suit points but cuts triggers)
• Hyperfix (explode when taking damage)

Data Insights

• Grind ≠ Rank — Dive count and leaderboard placement uncorrelated.
• Aggression pays — More kills strongly correlate with longer survival.

Design Takeaways

• Dial back core configurations or explore alternative handling.
• Keep builds interesting — soft caps/diminishing returns for overpowered combos.
• Improve design of loadout cards based on playtest data.

Playtest #3 Feedback Insights (~150 respondents)

• Pace & Fun: ~7.5/10 pace, ~7.3/10 fun. Movement consistently highlighted.
• Learning Curve: Onboarding around cards/mana needs work.
• Difficulty: Starts hard (~8.5/10), but eases (~6.7/10) as players adapt.
• Experimentation: ~7.4/10 — players love tinkering, but card search feels clunky.

What Testers Liked

• Speed and movement feel
• Deck-building & experimentation
• Surreal/retro aesthetic & music
• Short “one more try” runs

Pain Points

• Card clarity/UI: small text, unclear keywords, weak filtering.
• Mana system: hard to read in combat, unclear mechanics.
• HUD readability: health/mana/status get lost in chaos.
• Early overwhelm: pacing + one-hit lethality can feel unfair.

Closing

That’s it regarding the playtest. Other team members have been working diligently on their own.

<b class="_3cln317VYhwhE1fSeMCG48" <thanks="" for="" sticking="" with="" us.="" we’re="" more="" excited="" than="" ever="" about="" where="" heavenx="" is="" headed.<br="">Make sure you Wishlist the game on Steam </b>for updates straight from Zhaoxing Heavy Industries. Additionally, >b class="_3cln317VYhwhE1fSeMCG48">join our Discord server and social media pages using the link below for a direct line to our community engagement specialists:

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