Star Iliad

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• Announcements·1 Aug 2026Official

  Dev Log #10: Fast Travel

  A rare trip has come up. An old friend is getting married, which has necessitated I travel to the other side of the world. So on that note, let's talk about "Fast Travel" in video games. One might be tempted to think it's an easy question:"How soon should we have it?"But actually, the design space for Fast Travel can be quite vast. Some games choose to not have it at all - then there's the question of the lore flavorings, how diegetic it will be, how many access points on the map, and so on.Today, I'll talk about some observations of Fast Travel in other games and tease a bit of what we're planning for Star Iliad.(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)Lore FlavoringsFirst, what's the "lore" behind Fast Travel? Will the player warp using teleporters, step into a magical mirror, or ride an epic steed?(In Star Iliad, Botan rides a steed named Gort. Gort's also your doctor)The more distinctive a game's setting, the greater the opportunity to make its fast travel memorable.Two Metroidvanias immediately come to mind: Biogun and Moonlight Pulse. Both take place inside the body of another creature, and both fully embrace their premise.In Moonlight Pulse, the player dives into the veins of a giant space turtle and swims alongside other blood cells. It's a cool bit of worldbuilding lore that reinforces just how tiny you are inside this colossal creature.Meanwhile, Biogun has your commanding officer turn chauffeur. The doctor commander hoists you up with an injection needle and then re-inserts you somewhere else in the dog's body. It's a really fun animation that gives you a cool glimpse of the world outside. (Poor dog has to endure two shots every time you fast travel)Star Iliad takes place inside a giant space whale, so we have the opportunity to do something really memorable. Rest assured, we will not disappoint!(An old scrapped idea. What if friendly Cyclop Miners ferried the player in their bagpack?) How "Diegetic" is it?When imagining ...
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• Announcements·2 Jun 2026Official

  Dev Log #09: Little Design Decisions

  When creating a game world, you have to tackle various design questions.We're familiar with the big front-facing design questions - things that require clear intent and are likely to be listed in the game design doc. They'd be questions about the game’s core genre and tone, the gameplay loop, the story, art style, and so on.But there are other design decisions to make - "little" ones that are almost invisible. They're not likely to be listed in a design doc. Maybe the designer doesn't even think about them consciously...Then every so often, an inciting incident occurs - a little exchange alerts you to the fact that something you assumed was agreed upon by everyone was, in fact, not. In those little exchanges, the little design questions announce their presence and demand an official, consciously recognized, decision.Today, I'll talk about some of these little design questions.(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)Little Design Question 1: Will there be blood?The inspiration for today's topic came from a real exchange. We were working on one of the bosses, a brutal one, that would try to crush the player and any intruders. So, a dev mate proposed that the stages should have drainage holes so the blood could drain away. Which I thought was really morbid.I proposed we simply didn't need to have drainage holes at all - no need to invite the imagery. In fact, do we even show blood? 🤔(Okay, there is blood splatter sometimes, but they're all non-red - and only for the "zombie-ish" monsters)Blood splatter, when it comes out, quickly evaporates. They don't fall to the floor and pool. In general, enemies don't leave behind a body, they evaporate in a puff of smoke.Little Design Question 2: Will we have bathrooms?On a similar note, have you ever thought about how some games feature bathrooms and some don't? Take Zelda Breath of the Wild. You could follow an NPC all day, watch them run around town, do their chores, return home and sleep. And...
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• Announcements·2 Apr 2026Official

  Dev Log #8: HP vs Hearts

  Star Iliad uses a "Heart" system to display player health - which is a marked change from Phoenotopia's “HP”. Today, I'll explore why that is. Did we consider other health systems? And is using Hearts simply a cosmetic decision or a major change that will shape the game design fundamentally?(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)(What if, like in classic Mario, Blythe shrunk whenever she got injured?)Misc Thoughts as a YouthMy opinions on health systems have changed a lot over the years.As a kid, Super Mario World and Zelda: Link to the Past were my baseline. They were among my first games, so I took their health systems for granted. I didn't think they were “cool.”The first time I thought a health system could be cool was when I saw the health bars in Megaman X. For the first time I had a direct window into the boss's health. The moment the boss appeared and his massive HP bar filled up, you knew you were in for a fight.You started with a small HP bar, while the boss's HP bar was huge. That meant he was dangerous. And that's cool. (As elementary school kids, I remember excitedly talking about Mega Man X with a friend. Lacking the canonical terms to talk about it, he called the HP bar “Blood.” He’d say, “Use the volt attack on the Octopus," then spread his arms wide, "it’ll knock out this much Blood.”)Later, around the time of Final Fantasy VIII, HP became my favorite system. There was nothing cooler than watching Squall land a flurry of hits and seeing numbers explode across the screen: (9999, 9999, 9999!)Phoenotopia uses HPHP held its crown as the coolest health system in my mind for many years hence. Thus, by the time we were making Phoenotopia, it was a matter of course that we'd use the HP system.The benefits of HP are numerous. For one, crystal clear readability. Damage numbers are a universally adopted standard - the player instantly understands how effective an attack is when that number pops up on screen. Phoenotopia's he...
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• Announcements·31 Jan 2026Official

  Dev Log #07: The META of Blog Posting

  Happy New Year! New years invite reflection. Today, I’ll reflect on dev logs themselves.More specifically, why do we write them? What are they for? And why do I have writer’s block?(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)A Quick HistoryI started my first blog post about 12 years ago. At the time, game dev was still foreign to me, so I lurked on game dev forums quite a bit. I saw mentions of starting a Tigsource dev log, so I started a tigsource. Then I saw mentions for Tumblr, so I started a Tumblr. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to write a dev blog. It just seemed like the “thing” game developers did. If game developers were jumping off cliffs, I probably would’ve done that too.Over time, I saw mentions of other platforms: Facebook, Blogger, WordPress. The “meta” of where you should post was always shifting. Long-form posts fell out of favor. Short, frequent updates on Twitter or Instagram came into favor. These days, the long-form dev log meta seems relegated to be Kickstarter – or failing that, Substack or YouTube dev videos.At the time, after having just moved from Tigsource to Tumblr, I was already tired. Can’t go chasing the latest platform all the time! So, I stuck with tumblr. Not because it was the best platform but because I was already there.(The first dev log post and fanart. Content-wise, blogs were only a few paragraphs. Much smaller than today’s blogs)The Types of ContentIf you browse dev logs, the kinds of content they contain run the full gamut. I’ve identified these as the most common types:1. Developmental Updates“We’ve finished the 5th dungeon, fixed a bug where the player could clip through walls, and enemy 73 has also been completed 🙌”This is the quintessential form of a dev blog update – it reports progress.Perhaps they’re a bit dry. And I question the effectiveness of this type of content. After release, it’s a different story. But before release, and lacking additional context, what useful information...
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• Announcements·2 Dec 2025Official

  DevLog #06 : Expeditions for Tech

  Spot the difference in this picture of two enemies at the moment of their demise. On the left, an enemy in Phoenotopia. On the right, an enemy in Star Iliad.Notice anything? The one on the right sports a “hit glow” FX.Note: Chinese Translation of this dev log is available! (Courtesy of Baojie)Phoenotopia surprisingly never had hit glow – something that is pretty much standard for most enemy hit FX in other games. Other tricks Phoenotopia would employ were to shake an enemy on impact (ok, that one is pretty standard), and to shrink an enemy before disappearing it in a puff of smoke.The common factor behind using those hit effects was that those techniques were free and easy – they didn’t require installing any additional assets or programming any extra shaders. And they looked “good enough.”During Phoenotopia’s development, technology was kept frozen. Once a solution was found and deemed “good enough“, we left it alone. We were more focused on the sheer size of the content. Keeping a feeler out for new technology felt more like distraction.And to our credit – we made a game. AND we dodged this Unity BUG that targeted the more modern Unity versions. (Keeping your technology frozen rocks!!)Still, I did feel a little insecure that our bag of tricks was feeling pretty dated. With Star Iliad, we would once again raise our sails for “New Technology”. For today’s blog post, I’ll chronicle a few of our technological expeditions and their results.The Expedition for Heat WavesI wanted a heat distortion effect to convey that a place is HOT. Nintendo had heat waves in Super Metroid’s Norfair 30 years ago on the SNES!I wanted a similar effect so I’ve researched a variety of solutions. There’s never a straight path with these things – you’ll find there are dozens of tutorials online – some better than others – a discerning eye is needed to find the hidden pros and cons to truly know which one best fits your project.In the end, we did achieve heat distortions, but with the caveat t...
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