August 2026 Dev Log: Eri 2026 (Patreon)

Earlier this year, we showed off the 2026 version of Eri. A lot has changed since we opened our Patreon in 2019 and began working with Spine. We put those years of lessons into her latest rig and this is our most elaborate Spine rig so far. It is also built for efficient reuse. Through shared rigging and careful duplication, it supports more than 20 long-gun variants and six pistols. Full submachine-gun gameplay support will come later.

It is no secret that Eri’s personality has evolved. In 2017, I imagined her as a super-cool operator. Over the years, she became a silly little gremlin who can still send plenty of lead downrange. We also added more to her history, including her Finnish roots and service with Finland’s Utti Jaeger Regiment. There is also the question of how someone with that background ended up at ATF and eventually Uragon Corp.

Her new rig needed to reflect that sense of humor. For years, we have liked the idea that Eri is an easily influenced movie buff who leaves the theater with a new personality every time. We wanted to build decks around that idea. The first is inspired by Hong Kong action cinema from the 1980s and 1990s.

The core card is called Hard Boiled. It puts Eri into Dual Pistol Stance, where she draws both pistols and gains a new set of animations. Hard Boiled is the card that establishes the stance. Wild Magdump normally empties Eri’s equipped weapon across two or three enemies. With Dual Pistol Stance already active, it uses her dual-pistol animation sequence. This gives the deck a stance-based engine: play Hard Boiled, then turn later Wild Magdump plays into flashy pistol bursts.

Hard Boiled Squad adds a team follow-up. Eri launches her own Magdump, then allies with eligible shotgun cards fire at the same target.

Two years ago, this would have required a lot of manual programming. LogicFlow now lets us build much of it from reusable graphs attached directly to cards. We can connect game events to delegated actions and reuse the same pieces elsewhere. Part of the demo’s delay came from building the right tools for LogicFlow. I wish someone had told us earlier that making a game often means spending a considerable amount of time building the tools needed to make the game.

We also spent much of this month migrating older GameBehaviors into LogicFlow. It is slow and unglamorous work. The payoff should be more time for cards, characters, and encounters later, with less custom backend code for every new idea.

Hard Boiled Squad proved deceptively difficult. It uncovered work that we would have faced later anyway. One card has to create actions for several characters while preserving the correct card context and projectile grouping for every attack. The presentation also has its own sequence. Eri’s lead-in happens first; her Magdump and the allied shotgun attacks follow. Some shotgun cards then produce multi-projectile bursts, putting dozens of projectiles and effects on screen within a very short window.

This became a useful stress test for LogicFlow and the battle pipeline. It exposed edge cases in delegated action ownership and projectile grouping that we are still tightening up. It also gave us a clear performance case for improving how the game handles large numbers of projectiles and effects.

Going back to reuse, we have also implemented the female Uragon Corp grunt. She shares the male grunt’s stat line and general gameplay role, while using different starting weapons and animations. The rest of her behavior remains aligned with the existing grunt.

At this point, a new game proceeds through roster selection and into combat across procedurally assembled MiniTokyo levels.

The goal for the demo is to add a generated tower inspired by Dredd (2012) and The Raid. You will send your squad upward through increasingly difficult floors, expanding your roster and loadout along the way. At the top waits the final boss, at least for the demo.

Thank you for supporting us so far. We look forward to your continued support for URAGONER!