Starless Umbra

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• Announcements·4 Sept 2026Official

  The END of playtests?!

  Hey there! thank you for clicking and reading this update. We have lots of changes to share with you, so let's get to it!Important playtest updateThe playtest will end on or around Monday, Sept 7th!But fear not, because we're promoting the playtest to a demo...and the demo will launch Friday, Sept 11th!Why a demo? Anything new?There are two reasons we're releasing a demo so suddenly: First is philosophical, we're at a point where the state of the game is fairly indicative of what the final game will look like when it's done. of course, there are still some placeholder assets and missing systems, but it feels pretty close. your feedback is still incredibly valuable. The second reason is games without demos get reduced visibility during steam events. and there's an event around the corner we're participating in. we'll take as much visibility as we can get!The content will be the same. but it'll continue to get updates and improvements as development shifts to act 3 content.Also... the demo will be translated to PT-BR!New stuff/fixes/changesThat said, I've been tidying up things in preparation for the demo a bit! there are lots of little things since the last update.Controller input & glyph improvementsYes, confirm belongs on O. it says so on the buttons.Controller glyph settings are per-device now.The game should auto-detect most xbox, playstation, and nintendo controllers correctly with vendor-specific glyphs nowFor other generic controllers, you'll go thru a quick step to identify buttons, so in-game glyphs will be correct. you can also override the glyph set.I reworked analogue movement, to hopefully handle the slow diagonal movement speeds, caused by gamemaker's weird built-in deadzone.Collision ImprovementsCollisions got a bit of an overhaulFor example, full collisions are split into below the player ("holes") and above the player ("walls"). Skills like "leap", and line of sight, now honor the correct collision type. (you can jump across gaps, but not thru walls!...
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• Announcements·26 Jul 2026Official

  Ameowzing Progress This Summer

  Cover art by SaKoHello! Hope your summer has been good. Things have been hectic but I'm trying to make the most of it.Broadly, the past month and a half has focused on a healthy blend of writing, Act 2 revisions, battle system adjustments, and bugfixing/cleanup. We ran another successful playtest with plenty of great feedback.Revisions to Act 2The bulk of work the past month went into some behind-the-scenes changes and additions to Act 2 content.Added a new Clydan POV introRevised the mountains segment: split up the post-boss cutscenes a bit and added a new exploration segment to slow down the exposition dumpIncluded a new arkor “rescue” segmentBumped out a dungeon to Act 3, for the purposes of pacing.Into the wilderness. View mp4 here.I realize this means little since most of you haven’t played Act 2 (it’s not public) but the takeaway here is that despite Act 2 going thru some revisions last year, I realized it was still missing something. The two key problems identified in internal playtests were related to pacing and focus. Pacing here involved allowing the player get on with the main objective of rescuing Illari sooner (maintaining the momentum established by the back half of act two). Focus here revolves around keeping the plot elements focused on the larger narrative. By cutting or postponing scenes, I feel this addresses most of the issues.I’ve also drafted out more of Act 3-5, making sure I’m really happy with this before I start writing scenes. Realistically I should budget around 6 months max to get Act 3's scenes implemented to a mostly playable state, but we’ll see. As it stands, Act 2 (other than some enemy rebalancing) is there, story-wise.Playtest Round 3I sent out a wave of playtests. For everyone that provided feedback, thank you so much! There was some exceptionally good feedback this time around, relating to the game’s combat and usability that I’ve already addressed. I read and document every bug and suggestion sent my way.If you haven’t yet, ple...
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• Announcements·6 Jun 2026Official

  BitSummit PUNCH Recap

  Cover Art by まっさかさまHi there! Welcome to summer. As you might have known, we were selected for Bitsummit PUNCH last month in Kyoto, Japan. I wanted to share the experience with you and go over what's next.Lessons LearnedI made the decision to do a special convention-specific build variant (in steam, it's the bitsummit branch) which includes an attract mode, hardcodes a few shorter "scenarios", and introduces a few fun new bugs. I severely underestimated how long getting a build prepped would take. This was so close to the wire--I had to spend about two full days debugging (on the shinkansen no less!) last-minute issues prior to the event. I was also hotfixing things in between convention days. In hindsight I should have relaxed more.I knew this going into things, but for the goal of wishlists specifically, physical events aren't really worth the time and effort. But it's not all about wishlists. I was so fortunate to get an opportunity to network with other developers, finally meet teammates SaKo and Brandon, and of course watch others play SU (or joining in co-op!), sharing very raw in-the-moment feedback. Let me know if you would buy these sweet stickersPress And ReceptionBitSummit also coincided with Indie Quest--a curated selection of independent role-playing games in development. I'm still honored and floored that this project was included with some very heavy-hitting games.I got to chat with Lowell Bell, a writer for Nintendo Life, about plans to bring the game to switch as part of his BitSummit 2026 round-up. The breadth of games showcased at BitSummit was amazing.I also joined a live playthru with the folks at The MIX (timestamped) where I got to chat a bit about the game. Lastly, 羊めり wrote about her impressions while I shared some of the games influences and reflected on its deeper meaning.What's Next?In the short-term, I'm addressing some more feedback and bugs from the last round of playtesting. I'll share details on those in the next update! You can also ...
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• Announcements·21 Apr 2026Official

  Brick-by-brick, this localization work is...

  Cover art by FliphrrrWait where did March/April go? Somehow or another it's time for another update! Let's see... what's happened since last time?PlaytestingWe're opening up playtesting for another wave of feedback this Friday, April 24th. I hope you get a chance to play! Let us know what you think.Battle System ChangesThe battle system is going thru a bit of an identity crisis. Pardon the bugs if you've played recently. Normally I keep these things tucked away in experiments branches but I've slowly just kept things on the default branch so I can keep everything in one build. I touched on some ideas in the last update, but here's what's new:Reworked targeting system, less of a reliance on the cumbersome tab button to trigger thru targetsSP is a thing that's actually used in battles. It's a proper resource; skills will either generate it or consume it. Cooldowns are a lot more rare.Dodging & Guarding, I was so hesitant to add these as it contradicted the ethos of the original battle system design. But after adding them... I kinda like it. These also play well with the passive system.Enhancements to computer-controlled characters: archetypes like "tank" which will try to pull aggro off of squishier characters, "ranged", which keep distance, and so on to govern AI behavior. In general, AI will also back off when low health, avoiding crowding if possible.As part of this, quite a bit of equips and augments need a second look. Still working thru these.Localization & ToolingSome behind-the-scenes work went into the localization tool, mostly to make translating the game as painless as possible. There are options to change text on-the-fly with the tool I shared before, and incorporate those in-game without reloading, downloading translation files, and so on.I'm marching towards getting the demo localized. Speaking of which, if you're interested in helping translate the game reach out!Steam Page in JapaneseThe trailer, screenshots, and text have been translated to Japanese. ...
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• Announcements·20 Feb 2026Official

  Playtest outcomes

  Cover image by heycaaat, circa 2011 for SU2k3January came and went! Thanks for your patience as the monthly recap is a bit late. I finally have a process for exporting gifs (I think? are these gifs kinda slow to you?) so hopefully the next one will won't be as time-consuming.New TrailerYou might have seen it already, but it's worth a second watch, especially if you haven't watched with the volume on.PlaytestWe launched a playtest! The feedback has been so helpful. We'll let in another batch of folks soon, after the important changes from round 1 have been mostly addressed. More on that below.Game ChangesIn preparation for the playtest we swapped all of the game music. Check out the OST if you haven't heard yet. It's definitely worth a listen. Brandon pushed so hard to get this done in time for the playtest, and being able to work with him to create something so cohesive feels wonderful. Related to the OST swap, I also made the combat system dynamic, with intro and outro jingles blending seamlessly with the core battle bgm. There's actually some tempo metadata shenanigans going on which allows the outro to sync to the beat of the combat music. We also added some input improvements: auto-assigning xinput controllers so you don't have to go thru the entry menu, adding support for inline icons, used primarily for displaying buttons to press during tutorials/input menus.Playtest Outcomes and Next StepsMost of the more severe issues from the playtest have been resolved: audio issues from the last-minute blitz to get the OST in place, some issues with skipping cutscenes, a few collision issues, and others. Full details in the discord #updates channel if you're curious.Battle System ChangesFor some context, the creation of SU's battle system has always been difficult for me. I wanted something that respected players' time and felt fun, with elements of both turn-based (trading hits, resource management) and real-time (positioning, active play) combat. Most designers will te...
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