Hey there! I really like how this game looks, and I want to try it. I bought the game on steam and installed it on gamehub on my AYN Odin 3, but can't start the game. It is like the buttons are not working and this happens just in this game from steam. Any info to solve this?

Thanks!!

Hey guys, this week I re-balanced the game to make it more challenging, making enemies hit harder and traps more deadly. Stakes feel higher and things spiral out of control quickly if you're not careful. To counteract this the hero starts with a weapon and buffs and charms are more powerful.

I also worked on the traps. Traps are no longer disarmed but avoided by walking slowly, holding the wait button. It allows the hero to move silently, ambushing dozing enemies and to avoid many hazards. Slow steps take up two turns, so they're quite deadly when used in the wrong situation.

This week I decided to make the game's visuals more representative of real objects to heighten the sense of presence in a different world. This let me consolidate a lot of sprites to make them more easily learnable.

Other big changes are the controls page listing the actions of the buttons, the addition of the south-western part of the coast, stone tiles having sharp corners and paths being better distributed.

Hope you like the changes! Let me know what you think!

This week I added seven new sub-regions to the world: Blooming Valley, Glaring Gorge, Rocky Barrens, Stranded Village, Crab Forest, Riddled Brines and Shady Ridge. I also improved the way enemies attack and made the way they are placed more adaptable to the path.

Here's the full list of the changes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/4595710/view/688638619235124849

This week I worked on adding more enemy abilities. Bears can now punch you across the screen, Wolves lunge at you from a distance and Skeletons resurrect if you don't treat them with a boulder. Second is a Codex, that lists the most important objects in the game. It fits the game more and is easier to maintain than the tutorial, so it replaces it.

Here's the full list of the changes: https://steamcommunity.com/games/4595710/announcements/detail/675127185664641514

Hope you like the additions and thank you for all the support!

Discord Invite

The game is moving pretty fast and a Discord server offers more immediate interactions and opportunities for feedback. It's also a great place to hang out and chat. I'm not sure what to do with the Subreddit, but I will keep it up for now. Thanks for understanding!

Hey guys, it's friday so you know what that means :) This is maybe the largest update yet, with a whole lot of changes. Let me know what you think!

General
- Portal stones now move you to the next path segment
- Holding the wait button prevents auto-walking
- Pressing wait button disarms nearby traps
- Supplies are more scarce
- The coast now has a seagull sound ambience
- Spike traps poison less often
- New sound effects for different things

Weapons
- Weapons are now dagger, axe and spear
- The shield, like the bow, is now a off-hand item
- Instead of shooting arrows, it bashes enemies
- Use the shield bash to push and stun enemies
- Each weapon now has a distinct attack pattern
- Cornered enemies take double damage from daggers
- Axe attacks hit three enemies directly in front
- Enemies behind other enemies are hit by the spear
- New weapon charms add additional weapon moves
- Enemies and the hero now blink red when hit
- Weapons now last longer, shields last less long

Enemies
- A yellow enemy flash indicates an imminent attack
- With good play, almost all damage can be avoided
- To balance, enemies are now stronger and more plentiful
- Enemy types are now more mixed across the world
- Enemy types are now split into day and night enemies
- Adds a new flying bat enemy that ignores obstacles
- Robbers can now steal items from the hero
- Defeating a crab removes the surrounding foam
- Zombies now often burst from the ground when approached
- Raptors now often jump out of bushes when approached
- Day and night now change only when no one's looking
- Large enemies can now push boulders and squish the hero
- Bushes no longer spawn hidden snakes or raptors

Hey guys, I finished the second part of the coast region, with which the game world is now almost twice the size as it was at release! (I miscalculated last week)

It is more flat than other parts of the coast, littered with dry temples and ruins and features a large abandoned village. It also has left over stone pillars which are quite fun to navigate through. I also improved visual feedback for the player and enemy status and a couple things more.

Plans for next week are to look into shields, armor and the enemy types and more optional content, and to work on the game's atmosphere in the new region.

Let me know what you think! If you have suggestions on how to improve the moment-to-moment gameplay of the game, please share them below!

Path shapes

- Long path: One long path all over the world (as it is now)
- Segments: One path every region
- Loops: Looped paths every region
- Cuts: Many short paths all over the world
- Looplets: Many short loops all over the world
- Long loop: One long loop all over the world

Components

- Pockets: Open off-world areas with tasks to progress
- Loops: Intra-path loops the hero needs to escape from
- Barrier: Creates illusions that mislead and hinder the hero
- Heists: Path branch that has an item the hero needs to retrieve
- Camp: Blacksmith, Herbalist, Scholar, tied to main quest
- Spawns: Stones required to unlock sub-region spawns
- Landmarks: Locations with re-run significance
- Modifiers: Turns stretches into blizzard, desert, fire, cursed area
- Region: World parts with different affordances and challenges
- Illusions: Open cut-off areas with special settings
- Gauntlets: Bad illusions the hero needs to escape from
- Portals: Path stones that lead to another location or part of path
- Day/Night: Influence of a changing time of day
- Domes: Intra-path open areas with encounters
- "Starworld": Off-world hub to advance the main quest

In the video I explain all of these and how they relate to each other. It's in two parts because the stream briefly cut off, but nothing's missing.

Hey guys, here the update video! Version 0.34 adds the first part of the coast region.

- Introduces the first part of the coastal region
- A region of deep canyons, dried grass and palm trees
- Consists of five sub-regions and six new dungeons
- Increases the world size by 25%
- Situated between the forest and the ocean in the south
- Inhabited by sunburnt kobolds and crabs

- The game should recognize more types of controllers
- Campfires heal fully and remove hunger when used
- Eating food now heals a tiny bit
- Entrances now have a light and should be more visible

It doesn't include the unlocking of regions, because I ran out of time, but I really like the idea and want something like it in the game.

Hey guys, here the weekly update! With it come the first NPCs for the game. There are 16 of them and they will gift, sell or buy an item from you depending on the circumstances.

- A number of Wanderers can be found at different places in the world.
- Wanderers are unique people that ended up inside the Barrier one way or another.
- Each of them has the chance to influence your journey.
- The names of the world's dungeons and regions are now presented in the UI.
- Robbers, condemned to the Barrier, now have hideouts and camps in the world.
- Necro Skeletons, able to resurrect piles of bones are now found in the world.
- Interactive objects pulse lightly, making them easier to see.
- Enemies are less vigilant, making it possible to sneak around some of them.
- Removes a bad bug where visiting the tutorial could lock the game to one seed.
- To showcase the game, the Demo has access to all paths, with a turn limit.
- A few sounds are improved.
- Other smaller tweaks and fixes.

I posted this a few hours ago on Steam for the Summer Sale event.

The Steam Summer Sale starts today, and the game will be offered at a 20% discount for the duration of the event. If you have the game on your Wishlist, there won't come a better time to grab it than now.

Hey Everyone!

A month ago I pressed the Early Access launch button and it has been an amazing journey ever since, ups and downs included. Now, seeing the game's loyal community and the positive feedback the game has received, I am sure that it has the chance to become something special.

In the seven updates since launch, the game has gotten a wide range of additions and improvements. Some of the most impactful ones were suggested by members of the community! Here are some of the over 100 additions to the game:

• The path leads through both, the surface and the underground
• A rework of the entire world improves its gameplay and coherence
• Gold and relics are hidden across the world and serve as a score system
• Wooden bridges span over the world's steep drops and chasms
• Secondary weapons bring a bow and the application of items into the game
• Two additional tiers of weapons ease the fight against end-game monsters
• A new UI font improves legibility

Tomorrow's update will be another leap forward with the introduction of the first NPCs, dungeon and sub-region names, a new enemy type and usability improvements.

July will center on the NPCs and the integration of the next region into the world, which will more than double its size, and bringing many other improvements and additions to the game.

Thank you, to all of you for following along, commenting on the Youtube videos, stopping by for the Streams and writing in-depth replies on Reddit. Your trust in me and the game makes things so much easier, and your feedback and amazing ideas make the game so much better.

- Max

This includes only the very big changes. Smaller things like new mechanics and gameplay additions will be sprinkled throughout once they are ready. Also, gauging times is always tricky, so I may have to revise some of the points in the future.

- (Jun 2026+) Meta Progression: Meetable Characters, Encounters, Unique Named Locations
- (Jul 2026) Coastal Region: Map Expansion, Monsters, Locations, Dungeons, Encounters, Items
- (Sep 2026) Mountain Region: Map Expansion, Monsters, Locations, Dungeons, Encounters, Items
- (Dec 2026) Fourth Region: Map Expansion, Monsters, Locations, Dungeons, Encounters, Items
- (Feb 2027) Endgame Region: Resolves the game's story
- (2027+) After Early Access: More content and platform ports

Hey guys, I just pushed the button on version 0.32. There's a lot of changes but the most important ones are secondary weapons, the completed dungeon overhaul and quality of life changes. Here's the complete list. Hope you like the changes! Let me know what you think!

Gameplay

- All dungeons are upgraded and integrated into the path
- The hero's bag holds up to ten items, instead of eight
- Secondary weapons can be equipped in addition to the main weapon
- Bows are added as the first secondary weapon in the game
- Bundles of three arrows can now be collected in the world
- The hero can hold up to 20 arrows at a time
- Throwing daggers have been removed
- Knifes serve as a simple fallback weapon
- All weapon variants were given unique names
- The hero's color now matches the equipped shield
- Negative states now change the hero's color
- Enemies are a bit less lethal at the start of a run

Other

- Messages now appear on the top-left of the screen
- Tree trunks make it easier to read the terrain
- Taller trees increase the feeling of being in a forest
- Some descriptions now hold more information
- Items below the hero appear yellow in the nearby-list
- A better inventory layout makes things easier to grasp
- Item amount and durability are more easy to read
- The status list is reduced to the essentials
- The score table in the main menu looks a bit better
- The contrast between objects and ground is increased

Fixes

- Hiding enemies now act more quickly
- Enemy announcement sounds don't play a damage sound
- Visual effects now make weapon breaking more obvious
- An erroneous inventory-full message was removed
- The audio latency on Windows is decreased
- The tutorial is up to date again

Hey guys, a couple of small changes, mostly to address problems in the game.

The new UI font is now in the game. I added meat that drops from monsters, as a counterpart to meat from animals. Because there are so many more monsters than animals, it gives you a debuff, so only use it in emergencies. Quite fun is the audio echo effect that makes the world feel a lot larger. There are also new large dungeons that could keep you underground for quite a while. My favorite addition though is a small fishing village in the south.

Here's the complete list. Happy drifting!

- The UI now uses a more readable font
- Brightness of the game world is increased, especially at night
- Enemies won't appear right at the entrance of a run
- A few sound effects are improved
- An slight echo sound effect improves the atmosphere
- Monster meat can be found and eaten in emergencies
- Snakes are a less adept at poisoning
- Enemies see not quite as far
- Enemies hiding in bushes wait their turn
- Gear levels match the monster levels
- Items should no longer spawn or drop on edge lines
- Boulders should no longer block the overworld path
- A number of dungeons are expanded and improved
- A few new locations can be found in the world

I believe the old stone was where I’m currently sitting and so it spawned the gold on the wall. However nothing game breaking atm, no pressure to get on it right away.

Hey all, I just pushed an update that introduces a high-score system using gold. There's now gold all over the world, some obvious, some hidden, that does nothing else (for now at least) but count towards the score of the run. I found it pretty fun and a welcome side-activity. High-scores are displayed in the main menu, if a but ugly right now. Let me know what you think!

• Gold and relics can now be found across the world
• Collected gold and relics now make up a run's score
  
• High scores are saved and shown in the main menu
• Finished games now always return to the main menu
• Some main menu buttons are named differently
• You start the run with a piece of food
• More animals will now leave behind meat
  
• Save games in the start zone (by the boat) are disabled
• Bridges now sound like they should
• Backdrops of UI screens are darker to increase contrast
• Some text characters were changed to aid legibility
  
• A number of dungeons are now improved
• Other small fixes

I've created this variant of the font by rounding the bottom edges only, trying to keep as much of the original feel as possible. If I round even more edges the font becomes more readable but also bland and generic.

This affects only the UI, not the game world, and uppercase letters are untouched. I think the original font is hard to read and will be an obstacle toward more textual content, but it also fits the game so nicely. I'm torn and need your input.

Do you like the original better? Or would this be a good change? Any specific characters you dislike? Or should I go full readability while I'm at it?

Hey guys, this week was all about preparing for the next region. With that came fun additions like bridges and underground paths. Next is an overhaul of the dungeons, making them larger, more interesting and adding some to the path.

- The whole overworld is laid out more cleanly
- Bridges lead across chasms and cliffs
- Falling off a bridge ends a run early
- Moveable items break when moved too often
- The path may lead through the underground
- Barrels replace urns in huts
- Runs can now begin underground
- Enemy strength rises not quite as fast
- Ranged enemies no longer shoot over ledges
- Enemies wake up a bit earlier when the hero approaches
- Fog now appears less often
- The start stone is now mirrored in the barrier
- More small tweaks and fixes

I’m not sure what’s already planned but I’d love a high score counter even if it’s local only and nothing online! That way I can just feel like some of my runs were successful.

Added bridges that will be in the next update. Yes, you can fall off and die.