Akupara Games Monthly Dev Log - June 2025

Halfway through the year already! Man, this year is going by so fast already. I hope that you have been surviving the hot, hot summer. This month was filled with updates, demos, and even a game release! From the cozy relaxing game of Nanomon to the high adrenaline racing of Airframe Ultra, there’s a lot to talk about.

Here are the games that are in this dev log!

Nanomon
Mutazione
Cryptmaster
Montabi
Sorry We’re Closed
Airframe Ultra
Future Vibe Check
GIGASWORD

Nanomon Virtual Pet | Out Now

We partnered with Oscar Brittain for the third time to successfully launch Nanomon Virtual Pet! We have worked with Oscar on his two other titles of Desert Child and Kardboard Kings before launching Nanomon! Oscar is really creative with his ideas and he puts his heart into each game he creates. It is really inspiring. I’ll be excited to see what he comes up with next.

Take your Nanomon out for a relaxing walk, feed them with various food items, train them in different minigames, and watch them grow up and evolve under your care! Your choices to raise them will change how they evolve! From flying cats to sentient watermelons to pixelated dragons, every Nanomon has a unique appeal. Give them a new home while you work, play games, and more.

Check out Nanomon on Steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1498060/Nanomon_Virtual_Pet/

Slugcat Pet

Did you know there is a way to have the slugcat appear in Nanomon? You can take care of your own desktop slugcat! We launched a puzzle alongside the launch of Nanomon for the community to figure out how to find this Easter Egg to get their own slugcat. I’ll give you a hint if you want to solve it yourself. It is related to this image and post. Have fun solving!

🌳🙈🌊🍉🙈🍖⚡💩🍕🎱🏓🍇🍇🐢🏓🍖⚡🍇🐢🏓🍖🌳🌳🍇🍆🌊⚡⚡🌊🍓🍓🍖🍓🌊⚡🌊🍓🍀🍕🙈🐢🌛🍖🎱🌳🏓🐢🍇🍖💩🏓🐢🎵💊🏓🎱🏓🐢🏓 pic.twitter.com/WjoUIEKDdz

— Rain World: The Watcher 🌙 (@RainWorldGame) June 16, 2025

Buzzpaw Plushie

We partnered up with Youtooz to design and develop Buzzpaw plushie!

So round and huggable, can’t you just imagine snuggling up close to this little guy? I would be careful hugging the actual Buzzpaw… we’ve lost some marketing people trying to take some adorable pictures.

Luis, our video editor, took a bunch of pictures with the plushie and had his partner in crime Xena the cat. Here is a preview of the plushie and adorable cat. Mark your calendars for July 10th or Buzzpaw will meow for food with a full dish at 2 in the morning.

Mutazione | iOS and Andriod Launch

Earlier this month we launched Mutazione on iOS and Android!

This is actually my first year trying to do some gardening in real life. I’ve been trying to grow jalapenos, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers! If only someone had told me sooner that going outside could be relaxing and rewarding– if only I’d played this very video game sooner!

Can you believe that Mutazione was released almost 6 years ago on Steam? We can now take Kai’s adventure on the go as she explores that strange community while taking care of her ailing grandfather.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mutazione/id6642644622

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.diegutefabrik.mutazione.android

Also, on Steam we are one review away to hit 1,000 reviews with a 95% overwhelming positive rating! What a huge milestone to hit and I want to thank those who checked out Mutazione. Without you, we would of never reached this.

Cryptmaster | New Content Update

One thing we learned from players who played Cryptmaster is that they absolutely loved playing the in universe card game, “whatever.” If you would like to hear more about “Whatever” and why players love the game so much then, I would recommend checking out this dev log going deeper in the rules.

Well, we listened and Paul plus Lee, the developers of Cryptmaster, have been working with the Cryptmaster to keep their souls and have updated the game to include new NPCs, new areas, an expansion to Whatever, and more!

If you enjoyed Cryptmaster when you played or have been curious about diving into the crypts for the first time, now is a great time to jump in! Check out Cryptmaster on Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1885110/Cryptmaster/

Montabi | Demo is live

Another game with adorable creatures, Montabi, released a demo this month on Steam!

The demo has a 97% positive rating which we couldn’t be any more proud of!

Check out the demo here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3750130/Montabi_Demo/

During the Southeast Asian Game Showcase, Buddy took a deep dive on what happens in the world of Montabi and how to play.

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 advantageous positions 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!

I spoke with The Mankibo Team, the developers of Montabi about the release of their demo and their plans.

Hi Trainers,

Mankibo here, developer of Montabi!

This month marks a huge and nerve-wracking milestone for us: we released our very first public demo!

We want to sincerely thank everyone who supported the launch, tried the game, gave feedback, and wishlisted Montabi. While the game is still far from perfect, we’re incredibly happy with the response so far.

Thanks to your support, the demo played by 1.6k user and received 33 Steam reviews with a 96% positive rating, and we truly appreciate every one of them.

You also helped us uncover bugs, which led to two quick updates: v0.1.1 and v0.1.2, both aimed at improving the demo experience.

We received 38 responses through the feedback form, with an average fun rating of 8/10.

Of course, we also received constructive criticism and we’re thankful for that too. It helps us grow, and we’ve already started listing improvements based on your input.

One thing we’re especially grateful for is the overwhelming support in Discord—from bug reports to gameplay discussions, or even just hanging out and playing. Every bit of it means a lot to our small team.

Now, we’re shifting our focus from the one-stage demo to developing the full game, which will include three stages. As we scale, we’ve identified a few design challenges:

Montabi skill sets may not provide enough variety across a full run

The game’s pacing becomes much longer than expected with three areas

Trainer value diminishes in longer runs, since Trainers don’t evolve

Some Evolution 3 forms lack the impact and excitement they should bring

We’re currently addressing these issues and refining our systems to deliver the best version of Montabi possible.

As always, your feedback, whether through the feedback form or a Steam review will be incredibly valuable in shaping what comes next.

Thank you again for playing and supporting Montabi. See you in the next devlog!

—The Mankibo Team

They also wrote a dev log talking about what they are learning from the community feedback after playing the demo.

Sorry We’re Closed | New Merch!

Sorry We’re Closed? No, sorry we’re open with all this new merch! Alright, I’ll be honest I cringed a bit writing that… Anywho… from pins to OST vinyls, and console physicals there are numerous new merch that anyone will enjoy.

Pins

We’ve partnered with Sanshee to develop and design new Sorry We’re Closed pins. Never before have the Duchess, Robyn, and Michelle looked soooo cute! And Chibi?

Check out the pins here

https://sanshee.com/collections/sorry-were-closed

OST Vinyls

If you are a fan of the music in Sorry We’re Closed, then might I recommend the vinyls from Black Screen Records? These sleek vinyls includes 2 discs with 4 sides of the OST of Sorry We’re Closed and are great for anyone’s gaming collection. Disc 2 B side is all unreleased and alternate tracks.

https://blackscreenrecords.com/products/sorry-were-closed?variant=51326190158090

Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 Physicals

It gives me great joy every time we are able to release game physicals.

Packed inside will be 3 devilish goodies – a holographic sticker sheet, a download card of the OST, and a design booklet!

https://store.serenityforge.com/products/sorry-we-re-closed-premium-edition

I remember as a kid the sounds of opening up a game case and placing that disc or cartridge into the game console. Of course, half the time when opening the game case it was a completely different game and there was a search through all the game cases for the disc or cartridge to find the right game but I still remember the sound!

It’s a great joy to bring this merch into reality from the other world.

Airframe Ultra | The MIX Showcase

Early in the month of June, Airframe Ultra shredded the showcase in The MIX. They couldn’t keep up.

Airframe Ultra brings death defying lawless tracks where outlaws race for survival on their hoverbikes. Use weapons to get rid of the competition and force them to eat your dust.

Check out the Airframe Ultra Demo here!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2522120/Airframe_Ultra/

Future Vibe Check | Chord Progressions

Unwise, the developer of Future Vibe Check, is toiling through the code and has been making changes from the feedback and bug reports received from the public demo. He wrote some of the changes in the Alpha Demo Post-Mortem talking about the stats and some of the things he learned! It is a great read.

There is a demo available to check out on Steam and if you want to give feedback or see small updates from Unwise, then I would recommend joining the Future Vibe Check Discord!

I talked with Unwise about Chord Progressions in Future Vibe Check.

Hey DJs,

Last month we cracked open the Dynamic Measure System—the global metronome that keeps every automation mechanic and music you produce aligned. Today we’re answering the first step of, “Okay, the clock is ticking… but what does the procedural music system decide to play?”

The first part of that answer is chord progressions. They’re what give the vibe we create a harmonic backbone.

1 Harmony 101 – Tonic, Sub-D, Dominant

Imagine a song that stays on one chord forever—you’d chill for ten seconds, then beg for change. Chord progressions are that change; they create tension (dominant), release (tonic), and the “in-between” lift (sub-dominant). Almost all modern music relies on chord progressions to drive a song forward. Music theory boils down into three functional “zones” of chords.

Zone	Chords	Feeling
Tonic	I,iii, vi	Home base / resolution
Sub-dominant	ii, IV	Tension builder
Dominant	V,vii°	Pulls you back to tonic (home)

A chord = a set of pitches stacked together (e.g., C-E-G). The specific set of pitches to be used are driven by the key/mode/scale of the music (we will go into what is a “pitch” and key/scale/mode in a later dev log). As a basic understanding, the Key sets the ‘home’ note, scale chooses the legal notes, and mode picks which scale degree feels like home (Ionian, Dorian, etc.)

What’s with the Roman numerals?
In music theory we name chords by their position inside the scale, not by absolute pitch.

C-major scale = C D E F G A B

We use numerals so the pattern I–V–vi–IV makes sense in any key (play it in C, G, F-sharp—doesn’t matter). FVC stores the degree (the number) and converts it to actual pitches only after it knows the current key/scale/mode.

A classic pop loop C → G → Am → F is literally Tonic → Dominant → Tonic (relative) → Sub-dominant—motion that feels inevitable.

Great songs juggle these zones to create motion in a piece of music. FVC’s generator uses the same underlying music theory but allows for more player control and modification in real-time.

2 Under the Hood – The Progression Machine

Below is a slice of the actual generator (simplified for sanity):

// For each slot in a 4-chord progression…

for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)

{ // 1) Pick which zone we’re drawing from switch (i) {

        case 0: currentPool = Roll(Data.TonicInfluence) ? Tonic : SubD; break;

        case 1: currentPool = Roll(Data.SubdominantInfluence) ? SubD : Tonic; break;

        case 2: currentPool = Roll(Data.SubdominantInfluence) ? SubD : Dominant; break;

        case 3: currentPool = Roll(Data.DominantInfluence) ? Dominant :

                              Roll(Data.SubdominantInfluence) ? SubD : Tonic; break}

    // 2) Probability to apply a tritone substitution for jazzy colour

    int triTone = (currentPool == Dominant && Roll(Data.TritoneSubInfluence)) ? -1 : 1;

    // 3) Pick a step from the pool, honouring key-change safety checks

    progression[i] = triTone * PickSafeStep(currentPool, mode, scale, keyChange);}

Design take-aways:

Weighted randomness: All those Data.*Influence numbers are tweakable in real-time. And, since we use scale degrees, the generator just rolls [1, 5, 6, 4]; looks at our key/scale to say, “We’re in A-minor Dorian,” where then we can easily map those numbers onto the A-minor Dorian scale and voilà—correct chords without rewriting any progression logic. Crank Dominant Influence and your loop gets spicier; lower it for chill lo-fi vibes.

Key-change aware: PickSafeStep avoids steps that clash when a key change is scheduled, so the musical turn feels intentional instead of broken.

Tritone substitutions: Occasionally flipping V chord ► bII chord injects that classic jazz surprise without derailing the groove.

3 From Code to Gameplay

Every Dynamic Measure boundary we call GenerateNewProgression() to generate a new array of chords to build around as a progression. This progression is then used to drive other musical behavior in the composition and has its own length (connected to the time signature), repeat cycle, and rate of progression (how long does it take to get the first chord to the 2nd chord of the progression). We allow the player to determine these values like the speed of how long a progression will last. Fun fact – this ties into the day/night cycle of the game when you rebuild the progression shrine. Night marks the end of a chord progression while daytime marks the beginning of one

Nodes React, Players Hear

Expressiveness:

UI elements expose Tonic / Sub-D / Dominant influence, Key Change Odds, Progression Rate, Max Repeats, and probability to repeat when a progression ends.

This allows Expert players to handpick progressions for predictable songwriting while newcomers can modify probabilities to see what progression types feel ‘right’ to them. Tweaking a few percentages nudges the soundtrack from EDM to jazz-fusion without rewriting a single note.

Music Coherence: When a signal lands on a Node, it queries CurrentChordProgression[ProgressionStep] to decide pitch values to emit. We will go through this logic in an upcoming blog post. This allows everything you play to tie back to the harmonic core of the chord progression.

4 Next Up

Next dev log we dive into melody—how FVC’s generators riff over these progressions and how you can bend them to your will with in-game tooling.

Until then, keep those vibes in check and—if you haven’t already—

[Wishlist Future Vibe Check on Steam] and hop into the Discord for behind-the-scenes chats!

Peace, love, and perfect cadences – Unwise 🎧

GIGASWORD | Demo Speedrun Competition

Metroidvanias have a long history of speedrunners trying to beat the game as fast as they can. In the Akupara Discord, I hosted a Speedrun Competition for the Demo of GIGASWORD! We had two speedrunners jostling for the fastest time. Currently .techhead. on Discord has the fastest time at 16:18.35. The speedrunners are predicting that a time of 16:0X could be the fastest time for the demo. Here is their run if you want to see it!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2500332521

enderjora is hot on their heels with a time of 16:21

I talked with Jack about what they have been working on this month on GIGASWORD.

Hey Giga-Friends! I hope you’ve all been well!

This month has been an exciting one for GIGASWORD for two major reasons; the first of which being that the Steam demo has been updated with tons of new content!

Here’s what’s new:

Outskirts area and Forgotten Waterway area have been completely restructured

multiple background elements have been updated

collectible scrolls are now in the game, and you can find one in the demo

a bunny you can pet and feed carrots to!

Sloan fight has been improved

tons of bug fixes

and more!

Alongside these changes, we’re also currently hosting an official GIGASWORD Speedrunning Challenge! How fast can you complete the demo? Think you can take the world record (and win some prizes in the process??)

Here’s how it works:

Play the new demo on Steam: http://bit.ly/GIGASWORD

Submit your time in the Akupara Discord: https://discord.gg/akuparagames

And that’s it!

If you haven’t played the GIGASWORD demo yet, now is the perfect time! I hope you guys enjoy all the new changes, and if you do, please do us a ginormous favor and wishlist the game on Steam!

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