February 3, 2026 Joseph Shockley

Akupara Games Monthly Dev Log – January 2026

Happy January! I hope the new year has been treating you well. I’ve been playing with Blender and trying to learn that beast of a program. I want to get better at 3D stuff. Anywho, we start this year with a release date announcement for one of our titles along with a very informative wrap up of a playtest from last month, and some behind the scenes development we love to see!

 

Here are the games in this dev log!

  • Dead Pets
  • Future Vibe Check
  • Airframe Ultra
  • Kumitantei
  • Montabi
  • Echo Weaver

Dead Pets | February 6th Release Date

Dead Pets is releasing on February 6th!

 

Punk, combating what society says you should do, and fighting for the big break. 

 

We’re going to be featuring songs from Airframe Ultra, Wax Heads and Mutazione in this one! Come through and take a look at what a big crossover with some of your Akupara favorites plays like. Oh, and I guess don’t forget to pay rent… Life finds a way to be a real downer sometimes.

 

We are counting down to the biggest concert in gaming history.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1851720/Dead_Pets_Unleashed/ 

Future Vibe Check | Conveyor Belts Flow Like Water

Unwise has been hard at work on Future Vibe Check and this month they are focused on conveyor belts and how to move your notes across the environment.

 

Hey Vibers,

Unwise here! 🎧 I’ve been heads-down working on the next FVC playtest, but I wanted to take a break to show you some visual updates that make the game feel more alive.

First up: The Belts.

In most automation games, conveyor belts are just infrastructure. Utilitarian. Mechanical. Usually the real-world version: rubber loops dragging items from A to B.

But Future Vibe Check is also about music. In music, flow is everything. I wanted our belts to reflect that. Instead of a purely mechanical feel, I wanted them to feel organic and synced to the music you make.

To achieve this “water-like” motion without melting your GPU, we couldn’t just slap a texture on a cube. We built a custom procedural shader from scratch.

1) The Primer: What is a Shader, anyway?

If you aren’t a graphics programmer, “shader” might sound like magic. Simply put: a shader is a small program that runs on your graphics card (GPU) that tells pixels what color to be.

Vertex Shader: Transforms (and optionally deforms) the object’s mesh — the 3D points — before it’s drawn.
 Fragment Shader: Computes the final color for each pixel on that mesh.

In many games, the fragment shader mostly says: “sample this texture and paste it here.” In FVC, we do something different. We use math to generate the look in real time.

 

2) The Technical Showdown: Texture vs Procedural

Why go through the trouble of writing a custom shader? Here’s what the genre usually does:

Method A: Scrolling Textures (The Standard)

 

Most games use a static arrow texture and slide the UVs over time.

The problem: it’s inherently resolution-bound. Zoom in and it can pixelate or just feel “flat.” And changing the look means authoring new textures.

Method B: Physical Geometry

Some games model real conveyor mechanics: rollers, grooves, physical tracks.

The problem: Expensive. Rendering thousands of little geometry details eats performance we’d rather spend on simulation and music systems.

Method C: The FVC Procedural Shader

We generate the visuals using procedural UV math and trigonometric motion.

The win: We build the chevrons using procedural masks (UV math + smoothstep) instead of a texture. That means the design stays crisp across zoom levels (no texture blur), and we can tweak speed, density, thickness, glow, and layers instantly.

3) Deconstructing the “Vibe” Shader

Here’s how we stack the math to create that deep, cyberpunk river effect:

🌊 The Vertex Wave (Physical Flow)

Scrolling pixels wasn’t enough. We wanted the belt to feel like it had motion in its body. So, the vertex shader applies a sine-based displacement to the belt mesh.

This physically ripples the geometry up and down as it flows. It breaks up rigid factory lines and makes the entire belt network feel like it’s gently breathing.

✨ Holographic Depth (Layered Chevrons)

A flat river is boring. We wanted volume.

So instead of one chevron pass, we composite multiple chevron layers, each moving at a different speed and offset in time. It’s still one surface — but the layered motion tricks your brain into reading “depth.

Layer 1: bright + fast
Layer 2 & 3: dimmer + slower (feels “deeper”)

The result is this holographic tunnel-of-light vibe inside the belt, even though it’s just math.

📺 Scan Lines (The Retro-Future Touch)

To ground the aesthetic in that lo-fi / cyberpunk vibe, we added subtle procedural scanlines. It’s basically a high-frequency sine wave that scrolls over the UVs and gently modulates brightness.

That adds just enough texture and interference to make the belt feel less “perfect” and more like raw energy moving through a system.

🎹 Beat Reactivity (Belts That Groove)

Finally, we made the belts groove.

On each beat, we push a “last beat time” value into the belt material. The shader converts that into a decaying pulse, which widens the glowing rails and adds a subtle edge glow.

So the belts react on-beat. Your factory starts to feel musically locked-in.

The Result: Immersion Through Flow

When you look at your factory in Future Vibe Check, I want you to see the rhythm of your song visualized in real time.

We can’t wait for you to see (and hear) it in motion during the next playtest.

Peace, Love ✌️
 Unwise

Join the Future Vibe Check Discord to learn more about Future Vibe Check and meet Unwise!

Airframe Ultra | What We Learned About Beta 4

Last month, we ran the 4th closed beta and had a ton of fun watching others check out the new track: Estate. We have gone through the numbers and gone through the feedback, and now I can share what we learned.

Estate

First off let’s go with the new track in the Beta. It had players racing alongside a cliff wall before trespassing into a yard with a massive, decrepit mansion looming over the horizon. Racers head into the abandoned mansion and beat each other senseless in the tight corridors and hallways.

 

This track was full of experimental features, some of which players loved, and some that players didn’t love so much.

 

First off, our door puzzle was met with mixed feels. Our goal here was to add a new type of competitive-cooperative encounter to the game, but many players found themselves confused about how to move forward. Some folks felt the door had too much health, some found ways to bypass the door, and some found it more effective to farm other players during this encounter. We’re going to continue experimenting with this section to find something that the community loves, and we’re excited to see what you think of our changes!

 

The bush section was also a point of contention for a lot of players. We had a few reports that it was hard to follow and had too much visual clutter to tell what was an obstacle and what way the track was going when This is another area that we are taking a look into.

 

One thing that we found people did like about the Estate is the horses! I saw some people hanging out with the horses trying to interact with them.

 

Weapons

Weapons are arguably one of the most important things to nail down when developing a vehicular combat game. You could have the best tracks, best tricks, best vehicles, etc. but if the weapons don’t feel balanced or feel good to use then the game may lose interest and could be boring.

 

We had one weapon stand out as people’s favorite weapon. Out of all the weapons, 39.1% of people voted this weapon as their favorite. An overwhelming amount, can you guess which weapon it was? It is probably my favorite weapon as well. It’s the traffic sign. There just isn’t anything better than impaling someone with that thing after a big boost.

 

There was one weapon for the second beta in a row voted least favorite: The SMG. No surprise there, I’d probably say the same thing. It doesn’t have a high rate of damage and there isn’t a lot of feedback to show if you actually hit someone or not. Some felt like they weren’t doing any damage with the weapon and that it was very difficult to get kills. This will be one that we revisit in the future.

 

The SMG wasn’t the only weapon that you guys pointed out that didn’t have good feedback or good visuals when using them. I’ll name another one pointed out: The sledgehammer to many felt clunky at times to use as the timing wasn’t always clear.

 

We saw more weapon kills AND more weapon kills per minute in this beta. Estate is a map that has more direct player-to-player interaction, since there are fewer of the long breakways to create a gap between you and other players. Also, we think you guys are just getting more and more bloodthirsty every beta. 

Airframes

And now time for the vehicles themself. Throughout the beta, all airframes have about the same pick rate. The bluntnose has the highest pick rate at around 50%. This might seem like it is overpowered and needs a nerf but to us, this is a good number. The Bluntnose is an all-arounder that should satisfy most players.  

 

Both the Vector and Hopper sit at just under 20% with the Hopper at a slight edge. The least picked airframe is the poor cruiser sitting at about 11%. Here are the exact percentages if you would like to know.

 

  • Bluntnose: 51.4%
  • Hopper: 19.4%
  • Vector: 18.1%
  • Cruiser: 11.2%

What is New?

If you read this far, first off thank you and for your reward, I will share some new things already being worked on. 

 

I know this was highly requested and I’m super glad to share this screenshot with you. I’ll let the screenshot speak.

 

Now this is a very very early version of this setup and can change but this is for sure something we want to hone in on.

 

I also want to share another new option that we’re looking into. Screen Mode where you can swap from fullscreen to borderless to windowed! Josh is also cooking some changes for audio settings, blood toggling, screenshake toggling, and is exploring other options to improve accessibility.

Community Corner

I saw some amazing art pieces and videos coming out for the beta, and while I would love to share them all, I don’t think the cops are going to let me stand around in one place for too long (Yes, we got your feedback about them, too.)

 

Art

Klleh on Discord

 

Kocao on Discord

 

Notmacrowave on Discord

 

Not_a_bot60 on Discord

 

Clips/videos

What would Airframe Ultra be like with Team Fortress 2 sounds? Well Thingamagic answers that question with this video.

 

If you missed beta 4 but wanted to get a good look at Estate, then NotSoGoodGamer 2 shares a match in the new map!

 

Rule number 1 of fight club: Don’t talk about fight club. The police are listening

Rule number 2 of fight club: No Airframes. No Weapons. No place to hide.

 

There were even people trying to skateboard and do tricks with their airframes! Sniffles shows that off in this video!

 

How about a wonderfully put together 10 minute montage with Nautillo!

A Word from the Developer

I spoke with Josh on what they thought about the beta and what they are working on for Airframe Ultra!

Hello airframers! This is Josh, one of the engineers/designers on the project. Since the last beta, we’ve been focusing on the design and functionality of some of the game’s core systems. By that, I’m referring to things like settings, gameplay loop, and progression. These are all super high level things, so let’s break them down a little, one by one!

Settings
We’ve kept the settings pretty light for previous betas for two reasons: limited dev bandwidth, and to see what things the community would speak up about most. We’re pleased to say that since adding some more content to the game and getting it feeling decently polished, we’ve had some more bandwidth to tackle settings! Y’all have spoken up most about some things we’ve had on the roadmap for quite a while. The new settings menu features plenty of quality-of-life and accessibility features such as[/p]

  • fullscreen/borderless/windowed toggle

  • screenshake on/off slider

  • blood on/off toggle

  • more granular audio controls

  • rebinding!

If there are any other accessibility settings you would like us to include, don’t hesitate to let us know! The settings menu is still super early and we plan to make some changes to it, similar to the head’s up display, to get it consistent with the style of the rest of the game.

Gameplay Loop
We’ve made some intense changes to the core loop of the game! Rather than being booted to the main menu to find or create a new match after finishing a game, we decided to make a circuit system. After each match, players are returned to the warehouse to see which player won that match. Players are then able to vote on what the next map will be. After three matches, the circuit concludes, and the winners are given a podium finish and some other surprises we’ve been cooking up. When the circuit is over, players can start another circuit in the same lobby, or they can wrap up their play session! This system is still super early, so we’d love your input and thoughts on what you’d like to see from it.

Progression
We’re also working on a progression system! The design is nailed down pretty well, but we’re still fine tuning the scalars to make sure players are given reasonable rewards for both performance and participation. The TLDR is that completing circuits will net you some big XP gains, playing well will increase those gains, and playing with a higher star level (voluntary setbacks) will provide a multiplier to further increase your XP gains. That XP will let you level up and unlock some cosmetics! That said, let us know if there are any medals you’d like to earn in game to get big XP boosts, or if you could have any one cosmetic in game, what would that be? (Other than cat ears pls)

 

If you would like to keep tabs on any future event, like maybe another beta, then join the Airframe Ultra Discord!

Kumitantei | Gamesradar Interview

The Kumitantei creative director, Selina Kibara, did an exclusive interview with Gamesradar talking about developing Kumitantei and the origins in designing the game.

 

Starting off as a Danganronpa fan game to now an original murder mystery, Selina goes into deep details in the journey in creating Kumitantei. It’s a good read and I would strongly recommend taking a dive into the interview!

 

One more thing before moving on, but Kumitantei has just passed 11,000 wishlists! I just want to take the time to thank everyone who has supported the game. Whether you personally wishlisted it, showed a friend, or talked about it, thank you.

 

If you would like to join the Kumitantei community then join the Kumitantei Discord!

Montabi | Cheat Sheets

With the X-gang getting tougher, we’re going to need to step up our strategy and synergy. Use these guides to defeat your foes in the latest demo. Which Montabi do you always hope to tame first?  

In Montabi you will have many runs that end prematurely from mistakes or just not drawing the correct cards. However, all it takes is one good run using everything you learned and you’ll defeat anything in your path. Fight towards your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

 

https://youtu.be/ht42Ml8S56Q 

 

If you think you can defeat the X-Gang with the help of the cheat sheet, then try out your skills in the Montabi demo!

 

Mankibo is running a community playtest which includes tons of new changes and balances. Here is a word from Mankibo!

Hi Tamers and Montabi friends,

The community playtest has finally begun! We’re so excited (and a little nervous) to finally show more of Montabi and gather feedback directly from you.

Have you had a chance to try the playtest build yet? We’d love to hear what you think so far!

The playtest will be running until February 5th, so there’s still time to take part and share your thoughts. If you haven’t joined and would like to participate, you can do so by filling out this form.

January Community Playtest

For this playtest, we’ve unlocked all units (except one👀), including 22 Montabi evolution lines as allies and enemies, 3 trainers, 6 bosses, and 9 elites. Yes, we pretty much unleashed everything, so feel free to experiment and try wild builds.

As a small indie team, your general and balancing feedback will play a huge role in helping us improve the game. They truly means the world for us!

 

If you would like to read more on the changes, you can read the full dev log on Steam!

 

Join the Montabi community in the Montabi Discord to hone in your strategy and defeat the X-Gang

Echo Weaver | Behind the scenes posts

Moonlight Kids have been posting quite a few interesting posts of how Echo Weaver animations get made!

Join the Moonlight Kids Discord to keep up to date on these developments!

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