Dev Update - 10/30/2026 (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

I hope you're all doing well!

It's time for another development update, and thankfully this one starts with some much better news than the last one. 😂

The Steam Demo is Finally Out!

After all the back and forth, waiting, fixing things, submitting builds, and me slowly losing my sanity...

The Steam demo is finally live!

I'm really happy to finally have that out of the way.

The demo includes the complete reworks of Chapters I, II, and III, alongside some additional improvements and content that made their way into the final build.

It's also been really nice seeing new players discover the game through Steam and finally having a proper public version of the reworked beginning available.

More importantly for development, though...

I can stop thinking about the damn demo now. xD

Which means all of my attention can go back toward Chapter IV.

Chapter IV — First Scene Complete!

Last time, I mentioned that I was around halfway through the opening scene of the Chapter IV rework.

Well...

That scene is now completely finished!

And I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Without getting into spoilers, the opening of Chapter IV obviously has quite a bit to deal with after the way Chapter III ends, and I really didn't want to rush through that.

The original version moved past certain things pretty quickly, whereas this time I've given the situation, characters, and aftermath much more room to breathe. I didn't want to repeat the same mistake as last time and just give the players one massive exposition dump.

There are a lot more renders, considerably more dialogue, new interactions, and some moments that simply didn't exist in the original version at all.

It's also been really fun finally getting to properly reintroduce some characters who haven't had their chance to shine yet in the reworked chapters.

I think those of you who remember the original Chapter IV will immediately notice just how different things are this time around.

The basic DNA might still be there...

But the execution is becoming something completely different.

Moving Onto the Next Sequence

With the opening finished, I'm now moving directly into the next part of the chapter.

A lot of the preparation work I talked about in the previous update is already done, so I'm at the point now where I can spend considerably more time actually writing and producing renders.

And that's usually where development starts moving pretty quickly for me.

There are several scenes coming up that I'm particularly excited to rebuild, especially because this is where some of the new choices and route variations will begin having a much larger impact.

Some familiar events are returning.

Some are being heavily changed.

And there are also completely new scenes mixed in between them.

So even if you've played the original Chapter IV before, I wouldn't go into this one assuming you know exactly what's going to happen. ;)

What's Next?

For now, it's pretty simple:

Keep moving forward with Chapter IV.

The Steam demo took up more of my attention than I would've liked over the past few weeks, so it's nice to have that behind me and be able to focus on development again.

I also recently went to the doctor, and—to nobody's surprise—he once again told me I need to slow down. That's a tough position to be in, because I'm really enjoying working on this rework, and finishing the opening has made me even more excited about what's coming next. But I know I need to pace myself.

It's also difficult knowing that support tends to drop quite a bit between updates. Still, I'm going to do my best to find a pace that lets me keep making progress without burning myself out.

Anyway, there's still a lot to do, but we're moving.

And now that Steam has finally stopped fighting me... hopefully we can keep it that way. xD

Thank you all again for the support, feedback, and patience.

More soon!

Much love,~AbyssGames ❤️