For players - learn real mechanics, explore a twin world, and survive there.
For developers - create mechanics that feel true, extend their own projects, and unite ideas in synergy.
A world where a real street is easy to recognize. A believable survival rule is harder.
A world with a solid foundation - open source, data-driven workflows, modular frameworks, built with an epic engine and its community.
Let this thread grow with this world.
Why We Make ALIS: The Enemy Within
We accept the challenge - to create a world harsh and real down to the last detail, without killing the soul of the game.
We expose the abyss of war’s tragedy and, with clear-eyed honesty, the depth of human grief, loneliness, distance.
Our mission is to make Alis a tool for growth that helps you better understand yourself, those around you, and life itself.
May the project bring meaningful experiences and real connection.
Free open-source UE5 content automation: JSON to DataAssets to live editor updates
A free, open-source Unreal Engine 5 editor toolchain is available for developers working on data-heavy projects.
The core idea is simple: change game content as plain JSON, and the editor-side pipeline carries the update end to end — it detects the changed data, regenerates typed DataAssets, and propagates the new definition into actors already placed in the editor scene, without a C++ recompile or manual asset rebuilding.
This makes content text-based, version-controlled, diffable, reviewable, and safer for scripts, CI, and AI agents to propose.
The pipeline is split into four public plugins:
Plugins/Editor/ProjectDefinitionGenerator) — watches JSON-backed definitions, validates changes, and regenerates typed DataAssets from source data.Plugins/Editor/ProjectPlacementEditor) — creates configured actors from generated definitions, then reapplies or replaces placed actors when definitions change.Plugins/Editor/ProjectAssetSync) — keeps JSON references correct when assets are renamed or moved, and fixes redirectors.Plugins/Editor/ProjectEditorCore) — a shared contract layer: the stages communicate through its events instead of hard-wiring the pipeline stage to stage, so they stay loosely coupled and each one is easy to read, fork, or extend.Useful for Unreal automation, data-driven gameplay, CI content generation, and agent-assisted content authoring.
Want to test the public build, review the architecture, or contribute to ALIS? Start here: GitHub, fallintodusk/alis, Discussions.
Practical feedback is welcome: what should be clearer, more stable, more useful, or more convincing?
Source: GitHub, fallintodusk/alis
ALIS 1.0.0: first free playable Windows build — walk a reconstructed real city district
The first free playable build of ALIS is out for Windows.
ALIS is an early single-player prototype — not a finished game. It reconstructs a real city district you can walk through, with a metabolism simulation running underneath: vitals follow real medical timelines, and a dying state cannot simply be powered through.
In this build:
Not in yet: polished gameplay loops, tuned performance, final content. This is a prototype for early testers and curious developers, and it will misbehave in places — reports are welcome.
The build ships as a release on the project’s GitHub, under fallintodusk/alis, with signed checksums so anyone can verify exactly what they downloaded.
If you walk it: what broke, what confused you, and what made you want to keep going?
ALIS will be featured at PlayB3yond Indie Game Fest 2026
ALIS — World Reborn will be featured at PlayB3yond Indie Game Fest from September 21–27.
Explore a survival world built from real places, where streets, routes, terrain, metabolism, vitals, inventory and world interaction shape how you survive.
ALIS is an open-source Unreal Engine 5 project with a free Windows prototype available now.
#PlayB3yond2026 #indiedev #survivalgame
The ALIS Codex: Learn. Survive. Connect.
ALIS cuts the noise: the game turns experience into skill and brings it back to real life.
Connections. Our goal is to create connections between people and support their interaction in the real world.
Resources. You learn to use resources effectively: water, food (real caloric value), sleep, injuries; energy drains by activity.
Mechanics. Realistic mechanics with practical value - sense beyond the screen.
Knowledge. A variety of useful information reinforced through gameplay as skills.
Learn. Survive. Connect - we’re in your next decision.
Explore real cities in ALIS — play release 2.0.0
For players:
For developers:
Still an early prototype, so expect rough edges. Download, source and signed checksums:
A game that reaches the real world
We rebuild places from the grain of their ground. We recreate real-world locations, preserving their terrain and architecture.
Heightmaps drive our 3D geodesign to prototype relief with precision.
Satellite imagery and panoramic photos refine building shapes and layout.
The world comes together in the lines and forms you already know—absorbing the real and opening to you. Thus ALIS reveals itself as a new form of reality—detailed, trustworthy, alive.
Truth Has No Doubles
Trust Forged in Code: Our Promise Beyond the Horizon. In contingency, critical messages carry a cryptographic signature.
The public key verifies the authenticity of the signature. It’s published on open, verifiable mirrors - download it once and keep it offline.
Verification works offline and does not depend on our site or social accounts.
Keep the key—our word is yours to verify.
keys.openpgp.org 3B98 85F0 C2D8 D927 C27F AB58 F61A 5300 34CF B5E7
Will over Chaos
We are a small, tight-knit team, bound by a systemic approach and the will to build a game that brings real benefit - useful knowledge and skills.
Each of us carries a distinct path. Our knowledge and training span conflict studies, physics, computer science, architecture, economic geography, and data structuring.
We work to make a game that can be felt - and that carries meaning.
Mastering Entropy
One of our ongoing primary goals has been to create and maintain a library of general-purpose game assets for convenient reuse. An organized project structure makes complex development faster - and, in fact, possible at all.
The main folder for assets is Resources, which consists of: Material, Textures, Mesh, Elements, and Objects - so you can quickly focus on a specific entity. Each folder has its own level of abstraction, strengthening control over adding, modifying, and using assets. For example, Objects contains unique items (a specific car, a door, a self-contained prop), while the other categories can be applied more broadly to different things.
This classification simplifies navigation, helps you stay oriented in the project, and accelerates development by making it clear where each entity resides. Thanks to this approach, fewer mistakes occur - duplicates are avoided, and the right assets are used and quickly found.
Mastering Entropy: Frame - Essence - Grain
The Mesh, Material, and Texture folders are base resources. We separate them from Objects and Elements, which contain more complex game entities built on top of these bases.
Mesh (Cube, Plane, Pipe) contains only primitive geometries from which different objects can be created - for example, a Cube can become a wooden crate or a dumpster - while unique models are kept in Objects.
The Material folder stores universal shaders, Material Layers, and base materials that serve as the foundation for complex materials in Elements (world-space projection, no UVs) and atlas materials in Objects (specific to a particular item). It also includes material functions used for modular development.
Texture contains environment cubemaps and sets of repeating patterns (templates, motifs) - for example, tile, brick, fabric, wood - applicable to many materials and meshes, such as for tables, floors, or walls.
Assets in these folders are like building blocks for complex structures: they’re modular and each has its own purpose.
Mastering Entropy: Strata
Elements is the place for seamless, universal materials that are reused many times and applied to any static objects. They do not need the object’s UV unwrap - they use world-space coordinates.
Inside, we logically and efficiently divide these materials by origin:
Human Made - artificial (made by humans), grouped by type and then by subtype: Bitumen, Cement, Metal, Glass, Clay, Fabric, Paint, Synthetic, Wood, etc.
Nature - natural, by environment type and vegetation variety: Rock, Sand, Soil, Grass, Bark.
This classification reflects the real world, simplifies asset organization, and makes scaling and discoverability easier.
We use a multi-layer material structure that lets us combine different properties. Layers can drive both the object’s surface character and effects - dirt, dust, scratches, wetness, and more. We aim to create materials using a seamless technique that automatically tiles in world space from any viewpoint.
Mastering Entropy: Embodiments
Objects is a repository of grouped game entities with unique identity, placed in the game world.
As in Elements, the structure keeps a clear split into Human Made and Nature, each with its own internal hierarchy and subcategories.
An object folder contains static or skeletal meshes and, when necessary, unique materials and textures, blueprints, and other relevant assets required to fully describe the object.
The main issue with many unique objects is significant project size growth, degraded performance, and increased complexity in controlling and maintaining code and assets.
We aim to build a universal and scalable structure based on combining reusable abstractions of materials and meshes.
Rhythm and Improvisation
Patterns and noise are foundational tools for creating believable, varied, and efficient materials. They save significant resources because they are not baked into a unique texture, and they also let us build universal materials without a primary object-bound texture.
With them, a base material can be quickly modified by layering different patterns, wear, scratches, relief, and other effects without creating new textures. Via material parameters they are easy to tune - adjusting the intensity, scale, and character of patterns and noise - which simplifies making variations and adapting to different objects.
Patterns can be combined and layered in multiple passes. Their combinations and scaling create more complex visual effects - for example, metal wear with subtle rust and scratches. Noise is often used as masks for blending materials and layers (for example, dirt over paint), producing rich, detailed compositions with smooth transitions. Patterns and noise also help fine-tune roughness and normal maps, making reflections and lighting more realistic and less plasticky and flat.
In the future, we aim to implement procedural generation and combination of patterns and noise to save memory and improve project performance.
World Scale Matters
World Material works as a universal, flexible wrapper for static objects, where textures keep a constant scale in world space. No more stretched or tiny texture patterns when scaling a model - they fit properly both on a tiny screw and on a building roof. Any model rotation angle is handled as well.
All channels are synchronized with each other (color, height/relief, metalness, roughness), using a single coordinate system and scale.
One World Material - with every pixel used as efficiently as possible - instead of dozens of one-off solutions where a unique texture bloats memory, increases project size, and complicates development focus. We use simple yet flexible controls - toggles to add gloss or remove metalness, and intensity parameters that adjust the strength (how pronounced the relief will be) - allowing quick assembly of any variations, from plastic to rusty metal.
This approach speeds up the entire development process and opens the door to a multilayer material system, where you can add dust, dirt, and wear effects layer by layer.
Unreality Layers
Material Layers is a builder for creating complex materials from multiple layers that stack on top of one another.
Each layer adds color, texture, or an effect, and we easily control their combination - adjusting order and blending intensity. We configured the material so a layer can be applied to different objects, both with our seamless world material and with an atlas material. And if a layer is not used, we disable its computation, which saves resources and improves performance.
This lets you quickly create beautiful, realistic surfaces, adding details from our library like dirt, rust, and scratches without changing the base material each time. The approach saves time and resources, letting you adjust only what you need - simply and efficiently.
Magic of Lies
Material Layer Blend - a principle for combining material layers that creates a lightweight, quickly tunable system for blending surface effects - whether paint, dirt, rust, or scratches layered on top of one another.
Control comes down to simple, clear parameters that set the order and intensity of each layer and decide which layer will dominate in the blend.
Beyond texture blend patterns and channel selection, we added fine-grained control via inversion and per-pixel math operations. Reusing the same texture patterns also improves performance - reducing memory usage and simplifying streaming.
Layered materials also make it possible to apply external, dynamic weather and other physical effects to a surface.
Dusk Light
Lumen is a real-time system for dynamic lighting and reflections. It reacts to movement and time-of-day changes and works well with Nanite (a technology for highly detailed models). Lumen handles indirect and diffuse light, as well as highlights - direct light and shadows are computed by a separate real-time system.
We tune the quality of Lumen and shadows through quality levels and global scene settings to balance image quality and performance.
This approach delivers a realistic atmosphere without long light baking and extra files. For perfectly mirror-like surfaces and clear glass, we use dedicated reflection methods.
Lumen and Nanite are flagship Unreal Engine technologies for real-time lighting and ultra-detailed geometry.
Life Echoes
In the game, we capture the atmosphere of people’s lives and carefully weave realistic household items into the residents’ stories.
We show untouched, cozy comfort through family details, neat furniture, and appliances.
The mood of an apartment abandoned in haste is anxious and unfinished, with scattered belongings and furniture - as if life suddenly went on pause.
We depict an elderly couple’s apartment with a typical Soviet interior, using timeworn details: a rocking chair, carpets on the walls, simple curtains, and medical supplies.
We show the decline of everyday life through broken furniture, trash, and dirty belongings. This setting underscores neglect, hopelessness, and the hard lives of those who have hit bottom.
Players - after facing the intrigue and challenge - can explore these locations, soak up the atmosphere, and find useful resources.
