LIVING HELL

About this game

Latest news

• Announcements·14 Sept 2026Official

  LIVING HELL will be part of The Triple-i Initiative Showcase on October 8th!

  We’ll have LIVING HELL news for you very soon! While I can’t share much yet, I can say that LIVING HELL will be part of The Triple-i Initiative Showcase happening on October 8th (9am PT / 6pm CEST)!The format of the showcase is really cool: it’s 45 minutes of back-to-back trailers from other indie studios like ours, with no hosts, ads or sponsors – just games!Here is a teaser trailer for the event: It’ll be streamed on YouTube , Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/iii_initiative), and right here on Steam.Can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on!All the best,Joe
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Robyn)

• Patch Notes·24 Aug 2026Official

  Living Hell Dev Update #4

  OverviewThe good news is that the core gameplay loop and mechanics are now pretty firmly cemented in place.There will obviously still be changes and iteration as development continues, but I’m very happy with where the game is now. The loop makes sense from a lore perspective, the mechanics feel intuitive, and it has the balance I wanted between co-op chaos and having enough room to breathe.A lot of that comes from the scenarios inside each building, which are essentially the main events you take part in while exploring the city. They give players plenty to communicate about and work through together, without every moment needing to be loud or frantic.The overall lore and story have also really fallen into place, which I’ll talk about more below.LoreThe original idea for LIVING HELL was always based around the collapse of the ozone layer.I knew from the beginning that I wanted the sun and extreme heat to be central to the world. That was eventually how I arrived at the name LIVING HELL, although there were a couple of other names before it, including Daybreak and Decay. LIVING HELL quickly felt like the best fit.A lot of the main ingredients have actually stayed the same since those early versions. The abandoned city, the heat, the mutations, the subway and the idea of going outside when conditions were safer were all there.The biggest problem was that I was trying to make everything too large and too open.Originally, each district had a much bigger outdoor area with several buildings available at once. You might arrive at a station and have six different places you could potentially explore.In theory, that sounded like freedom. In practice, players could easily get lost, there was never enough time to meaningfully explore everything, and a huge amount of work was needed to make all the empty space between those locations feel worthwhile. It became choice for the sake of choice.The current version still gives the impression that you are moving through a large city, ...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Robyn)

• Patch Notes·20 Jul 2026Official

  LIVING HELL Dev Update #3

  OverviewWhen working on a new map for DEVOUR, the same thing always happens. One step backwards, two steps forward. We think of some ideas and mechanics, get excited about them, start putting them together, and then later realise there’s probably a better way to approach it. That can happen anywhere from 5 to 100 times per map. Completely unscientific number, but honestly, it feels about right.That process is basically what dictates how long something takes and how painful it is to make. Sometimes the ideas land early and everything starts clicking into place. Other times it feels like pulling teeth, going over the same problems again and again until something finally works.The most difficult map we made for DEVOUR was probably The Manor. The original version had an entirely different gameplay loop involving processing wedding photographs in a red room. Then it changed into putting salt rings on the floor to capture spirits. Then it probably changed another half a dozen times before it became the map it is now.All of those ideas sounded good on paper. Even when talking about them with the team, there was always excitement around them in the moment. But what you imagine something will feel like and what it actually plays like can be completely different. As soon as you notice one flaw, it usually starts to unravel a whole bunch more. Before you know it, you’re neck deep in logical problems with the mechanics and there’s not much you can do except rethink the whole thing.If I’m honest, The Manor is probably my least favourite DEVOUR map. It was super ambitious with both the living and dead realm, and I do really like a lot of the visual stuff we did, but the gameplay just never ended up feeling as fun to me as some of the other maps. Maybe it was too serious? I’m still not totally sure.Anyway, the same thing has been happening with Living Hell, which is to be expected.The difference is that DEVOUR now has a proven core loop. Each map is still difficult, but we already...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Robyn)

• Patch Notes·23 Jun 2026Official

  Development Update #2

  Welcome to Development Update #2!Welcome to Development Update #2!Looking back over May, it feels like a bit of a blur because so much work has been done.The main focus this month ended up being a hard look at some of the core mechanics and making some fairly significant changes to the game. Those decisions are never easy when you’ve already invested months of work into something, but I’m through that process now and I genuinely think the game is much better because of it.Before I get into the meat of the changes, one small update going forward.Patreon supporters will continue to get early access to these development updates, but after a couple of weeks I’ll also make them publicly available so that people outside of Patreon can follow the development of LIVING HELL as well.As always, thank you for supporting the project.OverviewAs I’ve mentioned previously, I have a publisher for the game: Future Friends.One of the biggest advantages of having a publisher involved this early is that I can get people to playtest the game internally and give very honest feedback without worrying about anything leaking. They’re invested in helping the game succeed, so I get a lot of useful criticism from them and that’s incredibly valuable at this stage of development.From the beginning I’ve always told them that I want the most honest feedback possible. Praise is nice to hear, of course, but it doesn’t help much when you’re trying to improve a game. What’s useful is finding the things that aren’t working and figuring out why.One thing I’ve learned over the years, especially from working on DEVOUR, is that when somebody gives negative feedback it’s usually worth paying attention to. That doesn’t mean they’re always right about the solution, but they’re often right that there’s a problem somewhere. I believe everyone’s perspective is valid.It’s very easy as a developer to apply band-aids. If players get lost, you can add a map. If they don’t know what to do, you can throw a giant tutor...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Robyn)

• Announcements·12 Feb 2026Official

  Behind the scenes of LIVING HELL!

  Hi, hope you are having a good start to the year!Pleased to say I’m making great progress on LIVING HELL. It feels like the game is starting to come together, which is super exciting!! I know a lot of you want to see more, but there’s still some core features I need to lock in before we can show stuff to the public in detail. Thank you all for your patience 🙏 That being said, there are a few things I can show off. Here’s a look at the models of some playable characters, as well as the houses and buildings that make up Pelican City.Playable characters and monsters A few months ago we shared an extended trailer that ended with a sneak peek at the six playable characters. Each of them will have different passives, but we’ve also added small details to the models that give you hints about the world of LIVING HELL. In these designs, I’ve gone for a mix of old-school and modern horror. Each model has lip-sync animations, and you will see mutation effects from being exposed to the sun’s radiation.The real stars of LIVING HELL are, of course, the mutated creatures that you encounter in the game. I’m working with a super talented artist who helped me bring them to life. While a lot of the horror will come from how they move and behave, I’m already proud of how the models turned out. They’re pretty terrifying just spinning around…. The creatures were created by a Japanese artist called ShineiRoku, who is deservedly well known online for their incredible, unsettling work. I feel really lucky that we got to collaborate and would recommend checking out more of their stuff! A look at the world of LIVING HELLHere’s some new screenshots of the streets of Pelican City. It’s seen better days, as you might imagine. The killer sun changes the light and shadow dramatically as it moves through the sky. The buildings themselves were created in partnership by another super talented artist called Neostar Games. Bear in mind these are renders and don’t represent how it would look in moment-t...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Olima)