March has been a very busy month for us! From an art month with thousands of art pieces drawn for it to announcing a release date to a pair of playtests, there is a lot to talk about. A little bit for everyone.
Here are the games in this dev log!
- Kumitantei
- Darkside Detective: The Backside of the Moon
- Rain World
- Montabi
- Airframe Ultra
Kumitantei | Releasing April 23rd
We are down to just a couple of weeks until the release of Kumitantei. The developers have been very busy getting the finishing touches and making sure episode one is perfect. Characters get makeup, cats getting brushes, and sweeping away the bugs and cobwebs.
For April Fools Day, the developers also released The Kumitantei: Old-School Slaughter’s Opening Movie.
If you would like to join the conversation with the team and other classmates, then join the Kumitantei Discord!
Darkside Detective: The Backside of the Moon | New Demo
The detective duo is back and they are ready to solve the big cases in Twin Lake.. or in this case small… tiny in fact.
The demo covers the first half of the first case, “Honey, I Shrunk the Detectives,” which I’m sure you can guess– is about Dooley and McQueen getting shrunk to the size of mice in the Darkside Division offices. Talking rats! Magical artifacts! Particularly poor plumbing! This case has everything, so give it a try.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3990360/The_Darkside_Detective_Backside_of_the_Moon/
Join other detectives in the Spooky Doorway Discord as they solve the case.
Rain World | Art Month
Rain World Art Month started all the way back in 2020, before Akupara Games became the publisher of Rain World and before I joined Akupara Games. Every year since then, I have set up and organized Rain World Art Month– and this March is no exception! What started as something that got a couple hundred art pieces now gets thousands of them, posted by hundreds of artists– including those select few who take on the 31 day challenge. This year, we got to really unleash The Watcher on players, since it’s been one year since the launch of the DLC, and the work players did was magical. I couldn’t be happier with the results and I do want to thank everyone for supporting and participating in them.
Here was the prompt list for this year!
I made a virtual art museum to highlight some of the art here!
https://www.artsteps.com/view/69a0aff0832a3c8cc75bde14
If you would like to see more art that the community drew for the event, then join the Rain World Discord or search #RWArtMonth on Twitter or Bluesky.
Montabi | Open Beta Review
Montabi had an open playtest during the Steam Next Fest where people could play with a ton of new features.
- 22 Montabi evolution lines as allies and enemies
- 3 Trainers with starting Charms
- 9 Elites and 6 Bosses
- 3 Areas with 30 Events
- 170+ new Charms, Equipment, and Supplies
- 5 difficulty options: Casual, Rookie, Challenger, Expert, Veteran
I spoke with the developers about what they have been focusing on after the beta.
Hi Trainers,
Thank you for joining our first Open Beta last month and sharing your experience with us. We’re really really surprised that some of you managed to unlock all units in such a short time (a week!) and guessed what creatures inspired the bosses. Imagine what you’ll discover and experiment given all the content and time in the world… (we need to finish the game first though)
We’re always so excited to read your feedback and reports after each playtest. They’ve been incredibly helpful in shaping and improving Montabi. Thank you so much, really!
Also, did you guys spend last month playing Slay the Spire 2? We get it… We’ve been playing it too and having a great time.
What’s New?
After the Open Beta, we’ve been focusing on reviewing your feedback, QoL improvements, and some new content:
– New room: Stickards
– 10 levels of Ascension Mode
– Achievement
– QoL improvements
– Spicy health bar
– Tooltips improvement
– Fixed same Montabi naming
– Fixed Seed
– And more!
New Room: Stickards
In the latest demo, there are 5 rooms you can enter between battles:
– Cafe, where you can heal, level up, or remove a card
– Convenience Store, where you can buy things and sell equipment
– Vending Machine, where you can get a random equipment
– Gotcharm, where you can get a random charm
– Event, where you can encounter random events
Now we’re adding a new room: Stickards!
A specialty shop where you can enhance your deck by attaching Holo stickers to your cards or removing cards for a price. In return, you can only heal or level up at the Cafe.
Holo sticker is a permanent enhancement for your card. Each card can only have one Holo sticker. If you’ve seen or played Chef Trainer, you might noticed that he also attaches flavor stickers to cards in battles. Holo stickers work similarly, but it’s permanent and not limited to flavors.
What’s Next?
Almost everything is in the game, but it’s not over yet:
– Keep working hard on polishing, playtesting, and balancing!
– Accessibility features
Most importantly, look forward for more upcoming community playtests!
We’ll be sharing new updates and playtests announcements in the Montabi Discord, so join as soon as you can if you haven’t. Let’s chat and shape Montabi together!
Thank you for all your love and support for Montabi. See you next time!
Airframe Ultra | What We Learned From the Open Beta?
Alright, now time for the big, cruiser-sized part of the dev log. What we learned from the open beta.
During Steam Next Fest, we hosted an open beta for Airframe Ultra for the week, where racers could beat each other into a puddle along the different race tracks while testing the new circuit system. Everyone had a ton of fun and are already asking for a beta 6– which means I’m already losing track of what beta version we are on. I’m glad the community is keeping up with it.
Circuits
The new circuit system was the big change that we showcased in this beta. Circuits are 3 races where your points carry over and the person with the most points after all three races win. Now, there is a caveat to this, you must have won at least one race. So, you may be 50 points ahead of everyone but still lose the circuit because you didn’t win the race. The podium is for winners!
It seems overall that people did enjoy this change, however there were a few reports that people were leaving before the end of the circuit so near the end, there would only be a couple people left. There wasn’t much incentive for people to stick around if they were just so far behind in the third race. This is something on our minds and we do have a few ideas for incentives, so rest assured that the issue is well in hand.
I also noticed some people wanted to do single races or only had time to do one race and that this beta didn’t have an option to play only one track. We wanted to focus the feedback and playtesting on the circuit itself so that is why single races were removed from this beta. You won’t need to worry– single races and lobbies will return for launch.
Voting System
Also in this beta we introduced a new voting system that players can use to vote on one of two randomly different tracks.
The community loved to vote on which track they play although the biggest feedback I saw with this is that it would be nice to have a menu for people to vote from. If you are on the other side of the warehouse and voting starts there was no way you’ll make it to the voting pads to cast your vote. Great feedback!
The Hopper
Guys, I promise. I heard you. The hopper was so bad in this beta. This was actually the first thing in my notes to tell the team. You made sure I knew that and that I told the team. I banged that note like a drum, believe me
Host Controls + Moderation Tools
In the warehouse, we also added a room for host controls. So instead of waiting in the menus for the host to start, people can hang out in the warehouse while the host changes the settings in the control room.
While this had many positives we noticed that it did take 30 seconds to a minute for the host to walk up to the controls to start the vote each time. While this might be okay for setup and stuff as you do more and more races, that becomes more and more time just waiting for the host to start the vote. Overall, this was a sticking point for a lot of players who really dove into the beta and played many, many circuits and races. We have a few ideas for this like giving the host a menu they can use instead of traveling up to the control room each time or spawn the host in the control room instead of with the other players. I’m still discussing this with the team but believe me, we’ll have a solution for this soon.
Now, for moderation tools. There were people that were joining or creating lobbies with some unfriendly names to say the least. There is a filter in the game to prevent certain names and usernames however this is something we are reviewing to improve on.
Also this patch we introduced the golden gun for the host to kick people from the lobby. However, this was the only way to kick people out of the lobby and if the troublemaker hid behind someone then you may accidentally kick an innocent person. Or if they immediately ran or drove away then the host would need to chase them to kick them stalling and wasting more time in the group. There wasn’t a way to kick people during the race if they joined mid race. This is another point of contention for us to review.
Fun Stats
Alright and now time for the fun stats that we learned from the beta. Now, we don’t make choices and decisions based only on stats but these are just fun and interesting to look over.
Airframe
The Bluntnose continues to dominate the most played Airframe being played over 60% of the time. The Hopper and Vector both took a hit in this beta. We do expect and want the bluntnose to have a higher usage rate as it is the starting airframe but 60% might be a bit too high for the team’s liking. We are reviewing these numbers closely.
Melee Weapons
Now time for the melee. Can you guess the top 4 most grabbed melee weapons in the Beta?
1st Bat – 891,730 seconds held
2nd Pipe – 609,570 seconds
3rd Machete – 539,530 seconds
4th Crowbar – 518,810 seconds
Here is the time spent holding each of the Melee Weapon.
Range Weapons
Alright, who is ready for some guns? Again can you guess the top 4 most grabbed range weapons in the beta?
1st Blaster- 1,393,540 seconds
2nd Shotgun – 1,169,100 seconds
3rd SMG – 780,900 seconds
4th Rebar Gun – 765,660 seconds
Here is the time spent holding each of the ranged weapons.
Something we did notice is that Blasters carried 22% total kills and shotguns carried 27%. The rest don’t even reach 10% so there might be some fine tuning in the range weapons like possibly buffing SMG.
Special Weapons
One of my favorite weapons to use is a special weapon, the traffic sign. In fact, there are 5 weapons listed as special weapons: Laser Ranged, Sledgehammer, Chainsaw, Traffic Sign, and the Chain. Here are the special weapons in order of how much they were grabbed.
1st Chain – 905,310 seconds
2nd Traffic Sign – 672,200 seconds
3rd Sledgehammer – 663,150 seconds
4th Chainsaw – 470,000 seconds
5th Laser Ranged – 71,910 seconds
And last here is the final graph for time spent holding special weapons.
Community Corner
Alright. Time for my favorite part of the devlog. Let’s share some of the amazing things people from the community made.
Art
Kylorenty on Discord
Fl.oof on Discord
Astelis_ on Discord
Strangeodd on Discord
Maxdubstep on Discord
There was a ton of new art that I wish I could have shared here. For now though lets move onto videos.
Videos
Thingamagic_and_co on Discord is taking a deep dive into each of the tracks talking about what is good and what isn’t; breaking down every arena, bump, turn, etc. They started off with Storm Drain.
bitchdogbitch on Discord is trying to make it through the 2nd chasm race (or atleast get as far as possible) on foot without touching the ground. How far do you think you can make it?
Hanchalupi proved that the kicks are much stronger than walking.
Brkojquag on Discord, posted this amazing video montage about the open beta!
Klehrik shared some of the community shenanigans throughout the different betas. It makes me so happy to see the community enjoying things outside of racing and fighting.
Word from the Developer
Josh is back to give a behind the scenes look at what the developers are thinking.
Hello airframers, long time no devlog!
Beta 5
With Beta 5, we took a crack at a major gameplay overhaul with the circuit system. Our goals here are to keep gameplay sessions engaging, rewarding, and impactful. By engaging, I mean that players should have a variety of challenges in Airframe Ultra. If someone’s favorite bike is the best for their favorite map, we want to encourage them to explore the game outside of playing with that one bike on that one map in online lobbies. We feel that this levels the playing field for folks with different bikes and skill levels and helps make the game more fun overall, rather than just for that top 0.1% of players who likes driving circles around lobbies for breakfast. By rewarding, I mean that players should feel the benefits of sticking around for an entire circuit. Players who do play entire circuits will se greater and greater rewards toward some sweet, sweet cosmetics. And by impactful, I mean that games shouldn’t last forever. We’ve got plans to add match time limits so that a circuit won’t last so long that they get boring. More on that in future updates! :eyes:
Balance
We’re feeling good about how weapons and frames are balancing out, but we’re not quite done making some adjustments. The minigun and plasma pistol aren’t quite living up to their ridiculous former glory, and the SMG has fallen by the wayside in favor of the shotgun’s close range dominance. While the stats we have on weapon performance are a bit skewed downward due to the influx of new players, we’re keeping an eye on how many kills each weapon is getting per minute held in order to keep things fun and (somewhat) fair.
Looking Forward
We have a few fun additions on the horizon as well — we have an overhaul of the game’s menus on the way, and we’re exploring ways to help new players have an easier time getting up to speed. We’ve been pouring a ton of love into the game’s audio as well, so the airframes should sound and feel better than ever.
-Josh, Gameplay Programmer
If you would like to join the Airframe Ultra community, then join the Airframe Ultra Discord!
If you want to hear more news on these titles, then join our Akupara Discord, or follow us on Bluesky, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram!