Working on the Content Update + Some Early Sketches & Dev Talk
Looks like this is the 400th post I've made!
The current version of the game is
v1.0.6, so if you haven't updated yet, please re-download it from the store page.
(
If you've modified image files or similar, be careful about overwriting your changes.)
For bug fixes, please refer to the release-day post.
About the Upcoming Content Update
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It's been about a month since the game launched.
I’ve finally managed to catch up on all the things I’d been neglecting during development, so now I'm back to work—doing some small fixes and starting preparations for the upcoming content update.
Since release, I’ve received a flood of questions and requests—not just on Ci-en (note: dev blog platform), but from other places as well. I really appreciate the enthusiasm, but I can't prioritize or promise to include specific suggestions. As I’ve mentioned before, I won’t be replying to individual messages, so I hope you’ll understand if I don’t respond or react directly.
That said, I’m going to keep the exact details of the new content under wraps for now.
What I
can say is that I’m currently working on:
• Some simple variations for player character images
• New regular enemies and mid-bosses
• A few small events in town
Dev Talk
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As a little something in place of a full progress report, I thought I’d share some sketches and behind-the-scenes bits from development.
This is the "Swamp Abomination Broodling", who also appears in the demo.
It was actually the very first stage boss I created.
In the rough sketch phase, it ended up looking so massive that it felt like a final boss, so I toned it down a bit to get to its current form.
Even so, it still turned out pretty huge—but maybe that’s a common thing in action games: early bosses that are big and intimidating, but not
too strong.
The design was based on the idea of leeches clustering together to form a giant creature. I also needed to clearly show its weak spot for gameplay reasons, so I added a human face to give it that “cursed child” (忌み子) vibe.
By the way, the things sticking out of its back were originally going to be victims impaled on spikes, but that idea was dropped due to game-over scene conflicts and general composition issues. The remnants of that idea are still visible, though.
＜ｳﾎﾞｧ (I think this is supposed to be a sound effect, maybe?)
I didn’t do this intentionally, but its face sort of reminds me of the one that appears after you beat the final boss in
Splatterhouse.
Because it’s such a large boss, the Swamp Abomination Broodling doesn’t move a whole lot, but with all the animations—including water splashes, tail attacks, and game over scenes—it ended up using
176 separate pixel art frames.
This isn’t exactly leech-like, but I really wanted to show the player getting hurled into a wall with a big, dramatic impact. I added this later on because I just
had to do it.
That’s about it! If these kinds of small dev anecdotes are interesting enough, I might be able to post weekly updates like this.
I’ll try doing a few and see how it goes. If it seems sustainable, I’ll keep it up.
Thanks for reading—see you next time!
