Akupara Games Monthly Dev Log - July 2025

July has been a hot month for Akupara news– which feels thematic because I’m broiling this summer. From launching on mobile to revealing a release date to tons of developers talking about what they have been working on, boy, there sure is a lot to talk about.

Here are the games I’m featuring in the July dev log!

GIGASWORD
Astrea
Montabi
Future Vibe Check
Airframe Ultra
Echo Weaver
Nanomon

GIGASWORD | Release Date October 2nd!

GIGASWORD was one of the three games we brought to the Secret Sauce Showcase and with that came a major announcement for followers of the title!

GIGASWORD is releasing on October 2nd!

GIGASWORD is an adventure metroidvania where you must balance the weight of the massive, eponymous Gigasword to fight bad guys and defeat evil. The Gigasword is not only great for slashing your enemies but also allows you to unlock doors, push down pressure plates, and solve complex metroidvania-esque puzzles. However, with the weight of carrying such a huge sword does come with the downside of your movement being impacted. Will you be able to conquer the rooms that lay ahead of you?

Wishlist GIGASWORD!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1885930/GIGASWORD/

I talked with Jack, the solo developer on GIGASWORD on how they are feeling with the launch inching closer and closer.

Hi Giga-Friends! I hope you’re all well! I’ll just cut right to the chase: GIGASWORD is launching on October 2nd 2025!!! You can check out a brand new trailer below!

While I’m here, I’d like to give a massive thank-you to everyone following this project. I started GIGASWORD six years ago. Sitting in the cafeteria of the college I was attending at the time. Since then, I’ve been through some of the biggest challenges in my life, as well as some of the most amazing experiences. The journey of this game’s development has been filled with struggle, excitement, personal growth, and memories that will stick with me forever. Now, after all this time, this story is finally coming to a close.

Thank you all so much for supporting me all this time. I can’t wait for you to all get to finally experience Ezra’s story in full!

Astrea | Mobile Launch

We released Astrea about 2 years ago on PC; Last year Nintendo Switch, Playstation, and Xbox got purified with Astrea as well. This year, we continue the streak by releasing Astrea to Google Play and iOS.

The six oracles have joined the universe of mobile phones to stop the spread of corruption. If you’re the kind of player who enjoys a challenge while you’re waiting at the DMV, Astrea is exactly the kind of game for you! Especially since the game is so different than when it launched– seriously, Little Leo has done an amazing job keeping it updated and fresh over the years!

Check out Astrea on Google Play and iOS!

Montabi | Closed Beta Playtesting

Montabi was the second game brought to the Secret Sauce Showcase, showing off a brand new trailer! Don’t fret if you missed it, here is the Montabi trailer that was in the Showcase!

Alongside the Secret Sauce Showcase, we are hosting a closed beta in the Montabi Discord! If you would like to follow the development of Montabi, then join the Discord where the developers give sneak peeks on what they have been working on. The developers have been taking notes from the closed beta and I had the pleasure to talk with Boy Dozan, one of the developers on Montabi, about some of the changes they have been busy with.

This July, we held a community playtest from July 18 to 25, where around 20–30 amazing community members helped us test changes and improvements made after the demo. Here’s the changelog for our latest playtest build:

What’s New in This Version:

New camera layout

Updated core loop and drafting system

Improved UX with double-click interactions

Faster animations and VFX

New equipment system

Evolution 3 is now available, with passive skills

Glimpses of Areas 2 and 3, with polished transitions

New room features:

Cafe: Refresh your deck by removing one card

Convenience Store: Now offers supplies and equipment

Vending Machine: Now grants equipment

Gotcharm (new room): Obtain Charms here

New boss: Mr. Alchevine

While this devlog/newsletter is being written, we’re still collecting feedback on the adjustments and additions we’ve made. We’ll continue to tweak things based on your input.

What’s Next:

We’ll be breaking down feedback from this small playtest and creating an action plan. In parallel, we’re working on improving several key aspects of Montabi:

1. Trainer Uniqueness

Each trainer will receive a unique starting Charm

We’re exploring a Rank Up system for trainers to make them more relevant and distinct

2. Taming Iteration

We noticed a meta where players focus on 1–2 Montabi early, then tame stronger Montabi later

To balance this, we’re testing a system where newly tamed Montabi return to level 1, but receive bonus EXP to help them catch up quickly

3. Content Pipeline

August and September will be focused on designing and implementing Montabi 21 – 23 (total montabi), completing the lineup for the full game

This phase will require a lot of iteration and testing, so we’ll be hosting more small community playtest sessions

If you’re interested in trying under-development content, join our Discord and stay tuned for upcoming playtest opportunities

Thank you for being a part of this journey.

We truly couldn’t do it without you!

Boy “Bochi” Dozan 🐾

Wishlist Montabi on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3141630/Montabi/

Future Vibe Check | Secret Sauce Showcase

Future Vibe Check was the third and final game we sent to Secret Sauce Showcase giving a look at mediation mode!

The community has been going absolutely wild with new songs put together in creative mode, which was a lot of what we wanted to show off. Anytime anyone posts a song clip in our Discord, it really hits me right.

Unwise, the developer of Future Vibe Check, always gives deep and engaging ways he blends music theory into game development.

Connecting Music Theory, Symbology, and Gameplay in Future Vibe Check

Hey DJs—Unwise here with a deep dive into the artistic choices behind Future Vibe Check’s core machines in the new update: the Beat Maker, Key Maker, and Scale Maker. The goal here was to tie factory mechanics to symbolic representations of music theory and human perception, designed to make you feel like you’re crafting music with intention. Today, we’ll explore how these machines reflect the real-world concepts of rhythm, pitch, and scales, while giving you a crash course on how humans hear sound and why these choices resonate. Let’s break it down.

The Beat Maker: The Heart of Rhythm

The Beat Maker is the starting core of Future Vibe Check’s automation system, visually designed as a beating heart. Why a heart? Rhythm is the foundation of music, just as the heartbeat is the foundation of life. In music theory, rhythm governs timing—when notes start, stop, and how they flow. The Beat Maker allows you to add “beats” to your music items with each additional beat changing the shape of the music item (2 beats = line, 3 beats = triangle, 4 beats = square). The amount of beats on your items then governs how “long” your music will last when played, mirroring how our heart keeps us alive with a steady pulse.

In gameplay, the Beat Maker’s heart-like animation isn’t just aesthetic—the animation and crafting time is tied to the music theory concept of tempo (measured in beats per minute, or BPM), where adding each additional beat takes 1 beat of time to complete. By visualizing beat creation as a beating heart, I hope to connect the mechanical act of music production in the game to the organic feeling of a beating heart in each of us.

The Key Maker: The Ear of Pitch

The Key Maker, designed to resemble an ear, is where pitch enters the mix. To appreciate this choice, let’s unpack what pitch is and how humans perceive it. In music theory, pitch refers to how “high” or “low” a sound feels, determined by the frequency of sound waves (measured in Hertz, Hz). Higher frequencies (e.g., 440 Hz for the note A4) sound higher, while lower frequencies (e.g., 220 Hz for A3) sound lower. When you hear a melody, your brain interprets these vibrations as distinct notes.

How We Hear Pitch

Sound waves enter the ear canal and vibrate the eardrum, which sends signals through tiny bones (the ossicles) to the cochlea—a spiral, fluid-filled structure. Inside the cochlea, thousands of hair cells detect specific frequencies, converting vibrations into electrical signals for the brain to interpret as pitch. This process is very precise: humans can distinguish pitches as close as 1–2 Hz apart in the mid-range (around 200–2000 Hz)! The Key Maker’s ear-like design reflects this, emphasizing that pitch is something we hear and feel through our ears.

In FVC, the Key Maker assigns pitch to your musical signals, determining the “home” note or key of your composition (e.g., C, A). As we discussed in our Chord Progressions post, the key sets the tonal center, and the Key Maker ensures your music aligns with it. By visualizing this as an ear, I hope to connect the technical act of selecting a key to the human experience of listening, making the process grounded in how we perceive music.

One of my favorite fun facts is that all human voice has a hint of a major chord within it!! Almost like that was designed……and that music is….everything???

The Scale Maker: Steps on a Musical Path

The Scale Maker, depicted as a foot, ties to the concept of musical scales—the sequences of notes that define a song’s harmonic palette. In music theory, a scale is a set of pitches arranged in ascending or descending order, often described as “steps” (e.g., whole steps or half steps in a major scale: C to D is a whole step, E to F is a half step). These steps create the framework for melodies and chords, guiding the music’s emotional tone (e.g., major scales feel bright, minor scales feel somber).

The foot imagery is deliberate: just as feet carry us step-by-step along a path, scales guide us through a musical journey. In Future Vibe Check, the Scale Maker lets you assign a scale to your music items, shaping the mood of your composition.

Tying It All Together: Art, Music, and Human Connection

My goal with these artistic choices is to make Future Vibe Check game sessions serve as ways to help players intuitively grasp music theory through play and spark curiosity for how music works and how our bodies connect to it. Whether you’re a music theory nerd or a newcomer, these symbols aim to make the act of crafting music feel personal, visceral, and alive.

What’s Next?

In our next dev log, we’ll explore how these machines interact with the procedural music system to generate melodies and how players can tweak them for maximum expressiveness. Until then, keep experimenting with your factories, share your vibes on the community save system, and let us know your thoughts on Discord!

Peace, love, unity and respect 🙂

— Unwise 🎧

Wishlist Future Vibe Check on Steam and join the Future Vibe Check Discord for more development sneak peeks!

Airframe Ultra | Closed Beta 3

Our third Airframe Ultra beta brought the house down. We had over 1,600 people shredding the new track Ocean Drive, fighting hand-to-hand in Warehouse, and surging through the updated Storm Drain over the weekend.

Jackrabbit, a mechanic by day and a racer at night, headlined our most recent trailer! And wouldn’t you know it– that’s me playing Jackrabbit! When we do footage capture for our trailers, all of us get together and I was selected to play Jackrabbit for all of her shots. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I had to make that jump onto the side rail!

I’m still gathering feedback and community creations for a post mortem dev log and I hope to get that soon. I do however want to highlight some of the art that has come in recently from the community in response to the beta!

Oscarriaq on Discord

Thingamagic_and_co on Discord

Fl.oof on Discord

Join the Airframe Ultra Discord and wishlist Airframe Ultra on Steam to keep an eye on when that goes out.

Echo Weaver | Introducing the Dive Valve

A few months ago, we announced that Echo Weaver has joined our library of games, and it will be the first title that we will have on Game Pass at launch!

Echo Weaver is a time loop metroidBRAINia where time is your currency and secrets are your only upgrades. You are the last Weaver, remnant of a ruined society trapped in a fatal time loop. Uncover their story – and your own – as you explore what remains. The first door closes in ten seconds, you have no time to stand around; Get going!

I had the opportunity to talk with Moonlight Kids, the developers of Echo Weaver, to talk about a new level asset in the game and how the player can interact with it!

We’re pretty far along in development on Echo Weaver, so most of your core systems, tools, and level-design widgets are done. But recently, we added a new one; the dive valve.

Dive Valve (Note: asset is FPO and environment is undecorated)

Most you probably know of “one-way platforms”, a staple in platformers. These are platforms that freely allow passage from below, but not freely from above (sometimes not at all, like in Echo Weaver). The dive valve is the inverse. It prohibits passage from below, but permits from above. To use it, the player must perform a dive from above to open the hatches.

Player Character performing a dive through a Dive Valve

This is a useful tool for gating in order to keep a player locked in a region until they understand a concept or accomplish some task. In Echo Weaver, we needed a way to teach dive, so we had to lock the player in a region, not with a lock and key, but with a dive valve. The player must learn how to dive in order to progress. We have a few of these in a row to really make sure the player understands the relationship between the dive valve and player movement.

We’ve actually been sitting on this idea for some time now, and the biggest reason we pulled the trigger was it was finally time to lock in some of the tutorials and by chance one of artists had a mockup of, funnily enough, a one-way platform that we thought would be a better fit for the dive valves. In this case, it’s clear that waiting paid off because we’re really happy with the mechanics and visuals of this widget.

If you are interested in Echo Weaver metroidBRAINia, then consider wishlisting on Steam and Xbox. Moonlight Kids have weekly developer streams in their Discord, and I would strongly recommend joining to get some behind the scenes in the development of Echo Weaver.

Nanomon Virtual Pet | Post Launch Roadmap

People are taking care of their newly hatched Nanomon and watching them grow up to somewhat responsible adults, taking them on adventures to different environments in the Nanoscape while keeping them well fed and hydrated. If you are reading this and haven’t given your Nanomon food or water, please go do that before continuing the rest of the dev log.

Earlier this month, we showcased a Post Launch Roadmap to show off future plans for Nanomon post launch. I haven’t gone into much detail about the roadmap so speculate away. Once each phase gets closer I’ll write a dev log to go into deeper details.

There are only a couple weeks left to grab the Buzzpaw plushie preorders! Our video editor Luis and his fluffy co-worker Xena got to check out the plushie and created a video!

Grab the Buzzpaw plushie before it is too late.
https://youtooz.com/products/buzzpaw-plush-9-inch

If you want to hear more news on these titles, then join our Akupara Discord, or follow us on Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram!