We are finished with the shortest month of the year! Yep, May only has three letters in its name, so that’s what I’m going with. With a couple betas, PAX East, updates, and a new demo, we have a lot to talk about!
Here is what will be in this month’s Dev Log
- GIGASWORD
- Airframe Ultra
- Cryptmaster
- Future Vibe Check
- Montabi
- Astrea
- GRIME
GIGASWORD | Multiple Awards in PAX East
GIGASWORD was one of the two games we brought to PAX East! Jack, the developer of GIGASWORD, was at PAX East and they had an amazing time there. You know what, I’ll have him say how PAX East went.
Hey giga-friends!
Pax East has come and gone, and what an amazing four days it was! A couple of highlights:
– I met my friends from Akupara!!
– we had a CONSTANT LINE to play the demo???
– I dressed up as Ezra
– I got invited to showcase the game…at a rave?
– Saw a bunch of familiar faces
– Met some IRL Kickstarter backers!!
– And last but certainly not least: GIGASWORD won FIVE Best In Show awards.
I am so humbled by all the praise that GIGASWORD received this past weekend. I want to give a massive thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth to play the demo; it was so nice meeting all of you, and I’m so glad you enjoyed the game! I also want to thank my friends here at Akupara; they put together an amazing booth, and I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. Lastly, thanks to all my fans and supporters who have helped GIGASWORD get this far. This game wouldn’t be what it is today without all of you.
Well, it’s back to work for me! I can’t wait for you to all get to play the full version of GIGASWORD soon. Thanks again for sticking by me on this journey. I love you all very much!
We couldn’t be any prouder of Jack, his accomplishments, and the team had a wonderful time being with you in support of GIGASWORD!
If you missed GIGASWORD at PAX East, don’t fret, there is a demo available for you to try on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1885930/GIGASWORD/
May I also recommend joining the GIGASWORD Discord as well?
Airframe Ultra | Beta 2 Results + Pax East
We just finished with another round of closed beta and I’m excited to recap what we had learned!
First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in the closed beta and took the time to report bugs and gave feedback on the build. If you would like to follow the news of Airframe Ultra, then I suggest joining the Airframe Ultra Discord. You might just get a hint of something new coming later this summer.
What we learned?
This beta delivered on changes that players asked for in the January beta and uncovered some new pain points that we’ll be addressed in the future. In this recap, I’ll be covering all of it! The improvements, the detriments, and all the feedback from racers making friends and rivals along the way.
First, we added a few easy wins: the added settings for players to personalize their preferences was a great success. Players enjoyed the cops and even killed them in some cases. And the finishline win brought games to a more climactic end.
We definitely have some plans in place to change that third one: some exciting situations where players who dominated in the arenas struggled with closing out the game with a win.The Finishline Win means in order to win the game you need to reach the score to win and then, win a race. Good racers and good fighters should both have good access to winning the game and right now, it feels a bit tilted towards the former over the latter.
The beta introduced new maps that players could burn rubber on. Well, I guess, airframes don’t have tires to burn rubber but uhhh… you get the idea. From deep in the urbanized heart of Megacity West in Nightride to the man-made canyons of Quarry, there were a ton of fun games played. Players highlighted visibility on Nightride as an issue, which is something we’ll look to address in the future. And of course, there were still players who hung out on the warehouse map and chilled on the couch. That couch is about to be the most popular couch in gaming history.
We also introduced more movement tech for players when off their airframes. The community had a blast figuring them out and learning how to chain them together. In fact, I heard on the streets that a fight club popped up, only using these movements and no airframes. If you want to peek at this club here is a video from the community!
Also, I’ve also been tracking the community while they break the maps with shortcuts and ways to skip parts of the track. Fair warning! We may choose to close some of these shortcuts as bugs if we find them to be too disruptive to the competitive side of the game. This is a beta, after all, even if we do recognize the fun in finding cool ways to go out of bounds. If you want to view the movement tech and different skips the community has found, check out the community made Tech and Skips! Some amazing skips there.
Fan Art
We love seeing the fan art made by the community and I want to end our beta weekend recap to share some of them!
Ellihunden on Discord
Walleye_enlightenment on Discord
Seodoro on Discord
Ellihunden on Discord
Brkojquag on Discord
Acidhydra101 on Discord
PAX East
Airframe Ultra was the second title we brought to PAX East! The team had a wonderful time hanging out with James and Joar, the developers at Videocult working on Airframe Ultra!
It was exciting to see people walking from all over taking a shot at Airframe Ultra.
Even if you missed PAX East, you can still check out the Airframe Ultra demo on Steam!
Cryptmaster | Anniversary Update
Last year, on May 9th, we released Cryptmaster with the developers Paul Hart and Lee Williams and thankfully, fans like you have really connected with it– we have a 95% overwhelming positive rating on Steam! It is also beloved by tons of folks on Playstation and Xbox, which we launched on later last year!
And buried in all that praise and positivity was a very clear ask: Bring us more “Whatever!” What started as a cheeky little card minigame became a huge draw for folks to play the game. It would be crazy if we released an update that would expand on “Whatever,” wouldn’t it?
Well, the Anniversary Update expands on the in-universe card game adding more cards to strategize your deck around, more npcs to face off against, new locations to test out your skills on and a few more secrets for only the most astute players. If you want to read more about Whatever, I would recommend reading this “How to Play Whatever” guide to learn why players go crazy over it.
I have just a tiny bit more Cryptmaster news in the chamber but I fear we’re coming to the last of our updates for the ol’ bag o’ bones. Here’s to a great anniversary!
Future Vibe Check | Demo Now Available
If you were watching the Six One Indies showcase on May 22nd, you might have seen two goofballs (one of whom is my boss, hi Buddy!) present our musical automation game Future Vibe Check! Well, the good news is the game now has a demo available to check out on Steam!
I talked with Unwise, the developer of Future Vibe Check and the other goofball on that stream, on what he has been working on this month and took a deep dive on Procedural-music!
Hey friends—Unwise here with a peek into Future Vibe Check’s procedural-music engine. Last month, we explained why we junked conveyor-belt sequencing for node networks. Today, we’re zooming on our Dynamic Measure System—the bit of code that maintains timing across the player’s factory to ensure everything is synced to play at the right time. In one sentence: the Dynamic Measure System is the metronome that everything in FVC marches to—music, machines, and VFX.
- What’s a “Dynamic Measure” anyway?
Most games treat music like a playlist: fire a clip, wait, fire the next. In FVC every bar of music is generated in real-time from tiny sixteenth-note steps. A Dynamic Measure is the conductor that:
- Maintains the global clock of the music system
- Counts sixteenth note steps to support musical progression changes
- Broadcasts events so factories and logistics stay in sync
- Adapts its own length if you speed-up or slow-down the tempo mid-gameplay.
Put simply: it’s the glue between design-time music theory and run-time chaos.
2 Time signature → measure → sixteenth steps – the building blocks
Musical term Definition How FVC uses it Time signature how many beats fit in one bar and what length a beat is. 4/4 (the pop standard) = “four quarter-note beats per bar.” Stored in a TimeSignature class where we manage how many ‘steps per measure’ are in the time signatures we support. All timing maths starts here. Measure / bar A single “box” of music drawn on staff paper—four beats long in 4/4. Our Dynamic Measure treats one bar as a unit of gameplay time. Most musical changes happen at bar boundaries. Sixteenth step A bar chopped into 16 equal slices (think “rapid metronome clicks”). In 4/4 time, 4 sixteenth notes in 1 beat and 16 in one measure. The smallest pulse we schedule. 1 sixteenth = 0.25 beats in 4/4. All factory events snap to these slices. The duration of it is based on the tempo or how many beats per minute.
3 Sixteenth-Step Timer / OnStepInMeasurePlayed – The Game’s Metronome
Every frame we:
- Subtract deltaTime from SixteenthStepTimer. Unity can’t guarantee sub-ms timing, so we re-add the lost microseconds into the next step. This keeps long play-sessions phase-locked—crucial when there are many instruments and half your factory machines triggering off the same clock.
- When the timer hits zero, we fire the current sixteenth step and immediately re-arm the timer to BeatLength / 4 (a sixteenth note).
- If we miss by a hair (because frame-rate isn’t sample-accurate) we carry that drift forward so long-sessions never de-sync.
Result: Because everyone listens to the same event, animations, craft timings, and logistic movement are connected to the musical timing. Also, whether you’re locked at 240 FPS or dipping to 50 FPS, the timing is maintained.
4 Measure Bar Boundaries
When SixteenthStepsTaken == StepsPerMeasure we’ve reached the bar-line:
- GenerateNewProgression() rolls fresh chord progressions based on more user modifiable variables so the soundtrack evolves. We will take a deep dive on how progressions are made in a future post.
- ResetMeasure() zeros all counters while keeping that new progression in mind.
Why only on the bar line? Musically, key or chord shifts feel natural at the start of a phrase.
Key Parts What it does Gameplay impact ❶ Measure boundary Generates a fresh chord progression and zeroes the counters. Let the soundtrack evolve based on global settings you can manage on different measure boundaries. Your factories produce music that is temporally appropriate. ❷ Sixteenth Step playback Fires events & visual callbacks every sixteenth step. Drives movement, craft timings, and determines time of playback that is synced to the global timer.
5. Putting it all together – the timing chain
Time signature (e.g., 4/4) ➜ defines Beats Per Bar/Measure
↓
Measure = one bar (4 beats)
↓
Measure split into 16 sixteenth steps
↓
BeatLength (tempo) / 4 = real-time seconds per sixteenth step timer
↓
Dynamic Measure counts steps → fires OnStepInMeasurePlayed
↓
At step 16 or when we reach total steps in measure: GenerateNewProgression + ResetMeasure
- What’s next?
Next month we’ll expose more of how the generator determines what to play based on generated chord progressions. Until then, keep the vibes checked ✌️
— Unwise
Check out the Future Vibe Check demo on Steam and if you enjoy it, consider giving us a wishlist! If you would like to follow the developer and learn tidbits about the game, then join the Future Vibe Check Discord!
Montabi | Open Playtest During Creature-Collector Festival
Earlier this month, Montabi had an open playtest in celebration of the Creature-Collector Festival! There were over 600 different playtest signups and we couldn’t be happier with the results! It’s wild to think that the X Gang is powerful enough to steal that many Montabi, but hey– they’re a menace! (My in-universe jokes will land better if you played the playtest, I’m so sorry.)
Montabi is a creature-collector roguelite deckbuilder where you tame creatures and gather a team of Montabi to battle other tamers. Positioning is key! Move your Montabi in a 3×3 grid to deal the most damage while avoiding the attacks of the enemy. Train your Montabi to grow stronger and learn new skills that you can add to your deck!
If you want to follow Montabi, then check out Montabi on Steam and join the Montabi Discord!
Astrea | Physicals Available for Pre-Orders
We’ve partnered with Super Rare Games to bring new Astrea merch!
These include Astrea cards, stickers, manual, and Nintendo Switch cartridge! The art on the case is brand new and absolutely stunning! If you enjoy hearing the click of opening the game case when pulling out the Nintendo Switch cartridge, then consider picking this one up.
Only 3,000 copies are being made so get it before the corruption takes over!
https://superraregames.com/collections/astrea-six-sided-oracles
GRIME | Soundtrack Vinyls
A few months ago, we partnered with Materia Collective to bring the dark and gloomy GRIME vinyl!
From the instrumentals in minor that slowly come to life in the GRIME main theme to the fast-paced action of the strings in The Final Performance, if you enjoyed the haunting environments in GRIME, then this vinyl is an easy pick up.
Check out the amazing tracks by Alex Roe here!
If you want to hear more news on these titles, then join our Akupara Discord, or follow us on Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, or Instagram!