First and foremost, we’d like to thank everyone who played the prologue and left feedback, we incredibly appreciate it. Chapter One has attracted over 20k players in just 4 days, and for a small team like ours that’s a big success. Thanks again for giving us a chance - we hope we lived up to your expectations!
Sounds like something grand, but most of you should be aware that there are only two of them in the prologue, including the miniboss (let's not count his second appearance). So, I guess it would be more appropriate to say one and a half?.. Anyway, let's start with the main and most interesting one.
Takatsugu
“A cursed warrior, a hero of his time, my eternal warden” - in fact, that's a pretty exhaustive description of him lorewise. If you somehow managed to find and read the caption beneath Ragged Cape (the item that grants Air Dash) in the Character Menu, you should even know a bit of his backstory. I don't think many people read long lore descriptions though, so I'll just quote it here for you (no need to thank me):
Once upon a time, before the Land of the Emerald Peaks even had the Firebird Temple, a legendary warrior stood guard over it: every swing of his sword shook the earth, and beasts of prey fell at the mere sight of him. But one day the warrior vanished without a trace, leaving behind only origami paper and a ragged cape. Traveling monks claim that he was kidnapped by the Gods themselves, and is now doomed to guard something important in Kohakujō forever. Yet this is just one of the monks' tales.
Okay, that’s cool and all, but what’s up with origami? Well, he was originally conceived as an avid origami lover, but sadly nothing in the current version of the game indicates that. In earlier builds, when you had to fight him in the Ancient Prison, he even had a special animation of making a paper crane, and the arena itself was supposed to be covered with small sheets of paper. I could certainly tell you more, but bosses, just like women, should be a bit of a mystery.
Proof that I'm not making things up just to make the update more interesting, okay
As for his visual design, we almost immediately found the right look, only experimenting with the details later on. He is basically a collective image of a ronin who has been completely imbued with Chaos over the years (which is why his skin has a weird color), but has retained his sanity and perfect moves thanks to the curse.
As you can see, Takatsugu would still be Takatsugu, just with a different hat
Takatsugu was designed as the main (and for a long time the only) boss in the demo, so we wanted to make him tough enough for a satisfying challenge, but at the same time easy enough for literally the first proper boss fight in the game. Did we succeed? “That is a good question that I do not have an answer to”.
Turtle Miniboss
Honestly, there's not much to tell about this one. I mean, it doesn’t even have a name (nor does it have an explicit gender, which is why I use "it"). All we know about this creature is that it's from the same world as the merchant frog Lulu, that it's affected by Chaos, and that it's lost its mind to the point where it uses its back shell as a shield. It's also small in number, but not unique (think of the second miniboss), and strong enough to help guard important places in Kohakujō.
The visual evolution of our buddy who may well have ended up being a wolf
We added it to the game relatively recently to a) add some action to the arena after moving the main boss to another location and b) demonstrate the difference between staff and fist combat. With fists, you need to dodge more, roll behind its back, etc., while with the staff, you can just face it head-on thanks to the stagger mechanic.
It goes without saying that there’ll be many more distinct and challenging bosses in the full game, so be sure to wishlist Akatori if you haven’t done it yet.
Thanks a ton for your time and support, see you soon! 🧡
A HUGE thank you to all our playtest participants! Your feedback, both through the form and on the Discord server, has been incredibly valuable and has helped us improve the demo significantly.
Now, we'd like to invite you once more to delve into the incredible world of Akatori by exploring the lore behind Kohakujō!
🔮Kohakujō - Homeland of the Gods, Nexus World, Main Hub
Let's kick off our overview with (not so) fun fact #1: if you follow us on social media or occasionally engage with the game outside of Steam updates, you've probably noticed that this world is most often referred to as Void. That's because no one on the team bothers to memorize such a tricky word as Kohakujō, and everyone still uses its working title (even the writer, shame on them). But here's the funniest part: no one in the in-game universe calls it that either. Except for the inhabitants of the Land of the Emerald Peaks, one of whom you get to play as. So yeah, the more you know.
What essentially is Kohakujō? To avoid excessive lore dumping, let’s keep it relatively brief: Kohakujō is the very first ‘container’ world, the homeland of an ancient civilization of Gods, and the energetic core of the game universe, as well as the deposit of amber resin, a highly efficient energy resource (time for fun fact #2: its name literally means ‘amber citadel’ or ‘amber castle’ in Japanese. Or at least it should). Kohakujō organically provides all other worlds with basic energy, allowing them to sustain their livelihoods.
One of the very early concept arts. Yup, Akatori could be set in Silent Hill
Monks are convinced that the amber resin is the tears of Akatori the Firebird that gave birth to the universe. They also believe that one of the Bird's tears sprouted the Primordial Tree from which the Gods and then humans were first born. When Kohakujō became a bit crowded, the Gods began to create separate worlds for people and other races one by one (this is why the side realms have different ages and are at different stages of development), but after a while, the destructive behavior of mortals spawned Chaos, from which the Bird hid the Gods, and which plagues Kohakujō to this day. Phew, sorry, that was as brief as possible. So, did things really play out that way? Well, that's for you to find out in the full game.
That’s how Kohakujō looks today. What will it look like tomorrow? We’ll see, I guess
Since Kohakujō plays an important role in the story and is a border world that connects the entire multiverse of Akatori, we wanted to add more flavor to it with unique mechanics. In the current state of the game, the more time you spend in Kohakujō, the harder it gets to actually stay there: there’s a timer, aka the Chaos Meter, causing levels to change and hidden passages or hazards to appear. To reset the meter, you have to either save the game by resting at the altars or hit one of the special bells scattered across the world. But more challenges also mean more rewards, so it’s always a matter of whether a risk is worth taking at a given time.
The corruption mechanic is intentionally not explicit: the world around changes and makes the player going through the same level twice think 'wait, was it always like this here?'.
The real-life reference of the current Kohakujō design, presumably somewhere in California
In the future we plan to expand the mechanics further, not only in terms of environment but also enemies, and add a special boss that will chase the player when Chaos levels are high. We ultimately aim for more risk/reward situations, where high Chaos opens up new zones and shortcuts, but makes traveling through Kohakujō noticeably more difficult. Plus, we're considering introducing items that affect Chaos mechanics. For example, making the world corrupt faster if you want to artificially increase the difficulty.
Of course, in addition to the lore background and mechanics, we will also continue to work on the visual design of this world, where players will likely spend most of their time: improving existing art, adding clearer zoning, catchy landmarks, and so on. However, in such matters it's always better to show than to tell, so stay tuned for more updates.
Please remember to wishlist both Akatori and Chapter One if you’re looking forward to the game, this will help us immensely with upcoming releases.
🎮Demo launches on April 19 🎮 Sign up for a public playtest🎮
We are delighted to share the news that the game's first public demo, Akatori: Сhapter One is set to launch on April 19th!
Keeping that in mind, we're excited to announce a public playtest of the demo from April 5th till April 9th!
To take part in the playtest, simply sign up on Steam by clicking this button of the game's demo page:
All you need to know about staff
Since the announcement is big, we wanted to tell you about something equally important and interesting. So in today’s update, we will shed light on what actually makes Akatori special - the staff.
The game concept originally stemmed from a desire to experiment with staff mechanics. The main inspiration came from Switch Axe and Charge Blade from the Monster Hunter series: both weapons have distinct combat styles that can be switched on the fly. In Akatori, we wanted to go even further by making the staff a weapon, a tool for platforming, and a key to solving puzzles at the same time. The Metroidvania genre was added later but fit naturally with the existing core mechanics.
Our Monster Hunter weapon inspirations (sorry for the awful collage, but it's always better to have a picture than not, right?)
Since then, the staff has undergone lots of iterations. For instance, at one point, it was the player's "HP," i.e. the first hit on the player would knock the staff out of their hands, and if the player didn't manage to retrieve it, the next hit would be fatal. The retrieval process was then manual; the staff couldn't just be recalled back across the entire map.
The oldest iteration we could find, dated back to the age of dinosaurs (actually 2018)
Looking back, not much has actually changed since the initial concept: now we aim to center the entire game around the staff, where it plays a crucial role in combat, platforming, and puzzles.
In combat, we can switch between styles, where fists are quick close-range attacks, and the staff is slower but can stun enemies and has a greater distance. Plus, staff can be thrown as a long-range attack. Throwing or recalling staff cancels any long animations and allows you to chain together combos that would be impossible without this mechanic.
The staff and fists share a common basic moveset (a series of three strikes, jump, roll, etc.), but everything we get later on will differentiate them more and more.
The very basic fist and staff combos
In platforming, the staff can be stuck into surfaces (including hazards like spikes) to bounce off it, thrown in the air for a mini-double jump, or used to cancel the limit on the number of hits in the air.
Again, the very basic platforming (never make writers record your gameplay)
In puzzles, we can use staff to reach interactive objects that are inaccessible without it, or use the stuck staff to hold down a pressure plate or button.
Guess what? Yeah, the very basic puzzle, you already know how it goes
We aim to cater to both regular players and those who like to "break" games. Akatori has a high skill ceiling, with many high-level mechanics that are interesting to discover. Ideally, we aim for players to initially beat the game "normally," but by the end realize how much their understanding of the mechanics has improved and to replay everything with a new perspective. However, if you're just playing for chill and fun, let this paragraph not intimidate you: in fact, all these words are just about giving room for experimentation and a bunch of mechanics to discover.
Akatori: Chapter One will feature all the basic staff mechanics, but we plan to further develop them and add separate upgrades for the staff in the full game: typically in modern Metroidvanias, you tailor your playstyle using talismans, but Akatori will have separate swappable upgrades for both Mako and the staff. For example, we want to add different behavior for the staff when thrown or recalled: it could damage enemies on its way back or create an explosion where it was stuck. We also plan to introduce staff-based magical attacks, currently dubbed Theurgy, but we'd better discuss all of this in more detail some other time :)
Thank you very much for your attention, and be sure to wishlist both Akatori and Chapter One if this got you excited!
We're excited to share some great news with you all. Our first Akatori demo is on the horizon! We proudly present Akatori: Chapter One, and it will be available for free on Steam. This demo boasts two full-scale locations, the beginning of the game's storyline, a range of upgrades, and a thrilling boss fight.
The release date isn't decided yet but we'll keep you posted. Until then, Be sure to wishlist the game!
That's the latest scoop for today! Don't forget to register for the playtest and stay tuned for more updates; there are more exciting announcements just around the corner 🐦
We're bubbling with excitement to share some fantastic news with you 👀:
Teaser Unveiling
Behold our very first teaser, showcasing the fresh visuals and mechanics of our game:
Kickstarter Campaign
Get ready because our Kickstarter campaign is set to launch very soon, with an official announcement scheduled for next month 💸
Exclusive Demo Playtest. Sign up until Sept. 8!
We extend a special invitation for you to participate in an exclusive closed playtest of the Akatori demo 🎮 To join, simply sign up through this form until Sept. 8. Once the playtest begins, we'd invite you to the private Discord channel. And after the playtest concludes, we'll keep you in the loop about our upcoming Kickstarter campaign ⚡️
Unveiling New Game Art
We're absolutely delighted to reveal the stunning new artwork for our game, and we're hoping you'll fall in love with it just as much as we have 🤍
Fresh Screenshots
Not only has our game's Steam page been updated with new artwork and teasers, but it also boasts an array of captivating screenshots. Here's a sneak peek at a few of them:
That's the latest scoop for today! Don't forget to register for the playtest and stay tuned for more updates; there are more exciting announcements just around the corner 🐦
We are thrilled to share that we had the opportunity to take part in the prestigious Guerrilla Collective showcase this year, where we presented our new devblog and provided the most recent updates on our development progress!
Big announcements are coming this summer! Follow the updates 🐦
Hello everyone! In today's post we'd like to make a short into the first in-game location:
The Forest of the Monks
A bright and warm world, the homeland of the main character. This is where the temple complex is located – a place where she grew up and undergoes training. The purpose of the temple is to study other worlds, as well as the world that connects them all. Depending on their abilities and inclinations, students are divided into professions: librarians, scientists, researchers, and temple servants. Students who are identified as explorers must undergo a special ritual, and leave their home world after that. Each new explorer goes on an adventure, collecting relics and information about their own and other worlds, but, sooner or later, they return to the complex to replenish the library of knowledge with their discoveries.
More devblogs about the development and world of Akatori are coming!
We want to thank each one of you for participating in the demo test last May, your feedback helped us so, so much! After the test, long discussions and examination of your feedback, we decided to make some significant changes to the project: increase the game’s scale, rework the game art, and high-level game design. We believe that we did a decent job and you, our community, will like it!
Here are a few re-designed first looks of the first in-game location – Forest. The location isn’t finished yet, it’s very-very WIP but we wanted to show you the new art direction as soon as possible.
Within a few weeks, we’ll start posting more frequent development updates, so stay tuned! Around this time, we’ll also replace the store page’s assets, so don’t be surprised when it happens! Please, leave your thoughts on the updated look!
New demo
We’re working on a new demo, and we’ll also open sign-ups for the closed test on Discord! Join it now in order not to miss any updates.
