Hi, everyone. Welcome to another developer's diary.

This week, both of my paternal grandparents passed away just two weeks after my mother's passing.
It has always been said that life is a bitch, and one day we all die. (Well, at least Jo Sawashiro says that at the very beginning of Yakuza 7.) I see wisdom in this word.

So, just like the week my mother passed. This week's diary will be about my grandparents and things I will add to the game to honor their memory. Then, the rest of the things that happened in the game. (There are many other content updates. But, comparably, they become less important.)

My grandfather's story is a life of struggle against an unfair life. Men are not created equal. Some were born into noble families, while others were born into peasant families. Yet, sometimes being born into a noble family can be very unfortunate. My grandfather was born into a family of a landlord in the 1930s. He got the best education among his peers. He was taught to inherit a kingdom. That is, until the communists took over the nation. My ancestor's house got turned into a government building, and he became homeless. He was not even allowed to stay anywhere near it because he was declared a class enemy. Thus, the noble young master got turned into a homeless person overnight. Many in that era could not handle such a dramatic change in life. Many became mad or committed suicide. But he endured. He lived in his previous peasants' houses or distant relatives' houses here and there, with no place to call his home. Yet, he remains the best student. He even got the recommendation to attend the naval officer school. But, of course, he got denied for political reasons once again. During the Cultural Revolution, he lost his education entirely, and he had to live in bullpens. Because descendants of old landlords were treated as non-human in that era, he was among the most discriminated against because of his noble bloodline. Yet, he simply didn't give up. He became a nurse by reading books and passing some exams. Well, let's just say male nurses are always in good demand at all times. Some may not respect such a job. But people's discriminations loosen when they are in their weakest moment. If they can get a helping hand when they are terribly sick, they may no longer care if the nurse is black, is a Jew, is worshiping a different religion, or IS A SO-CALLED CLASS ENEMY. When the Cultural Revolution was over, he was finally allowed to get a piece of land and build his own home in the village. Most people still kept a distance from him. So he built the entire three houses that he could later call his home, almost all by himself. He was also a skilled carpenter. He also took the opportunity to further his medical studies and ultimately became a doctor. He treated many patients in his career. Some even claimed he saved their lives. He didn't even care if people could pay him or not. Because of his very unique life experience, he does not care much about money and lives a very simple life without many possessions. The most valuable items were his books and his medicine. He didn't stop there. He went on to become a teacher at Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences in the hope of sharing his knowledge to save more people.

To me, he loved me deeply. I could get almost everything from him when I was a kid, such as candies and toys, on one condition, that I be the best in my class. Not third place, not the second place, but the best. I guess that's something quite common among traditional Asian parents. We are god-damn A-sia, not B, not C, A only! He also educated my father this way. The catch here is that "the best" at what does not matter. It can be Chinese, math, English, any courses in school, or anything else. Even being the developer of the longest-living RPG in China, as I am right now, also qualifies. Thus, I became quite creative in making up something I am best at for him back then. I thought I outsmarted him. But, it might be his plan all along. No matter what I do in my life. He wanted me to be the best in this entire world at something. No matter what this "something" is. That was his point.

Yet, no good deeds went unpunished. It was such a lovable gentleman, who never gave up, who saved many lives, who was unable to overcome his trauma from the past in the end. Not sure when, his mind slowly slipped into madness. Sometimes, he calls my father at midnight, claiming someone is trying to rob him and drag him out of his house. Sometimes, he tells us he saw dark, shadowy figures lurking outside his window, plotting against him. Sometimes, he would shout at monsters only he could see in an empty corner of the house. His mental stress turned into a heart problem. And that killed him.

My grandmother was not very educated due to historical reasons. After all, in that era, women were not required to be educated. Their primary duties were to support their husbands and kids. Thus, higher education was considered irrelevant. Even so, she performed her duties almost flawlessly. She supported his husband literally for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. She raised three kids even in difficult situations. Even though her marriage was arranged by her parents, which was common back then, she loved my grandfather deeply. She stayed with him even in his madness. Time and time again, it was she who kept calming him down, much like putting a scared child back to sleep after a nightmare. She also had various illnesses, yet never complained, still tried to keep the house clean and tidy for my grandfather.

And then, they got admitted to the same hospital one day. The hospital had a good intention to put their beds close to each other. Yet, that's the start of a heartbroken ending. My grandmother was supposed to be able to recover and leave the hospital that day fully. Then, she witnessed the most horrible thing in her life. The man she loved so deeply for more than 70 years quietly passed away right near her on Tuesday. There is no way to cover this up so as not to let her know. All of a sudden, all hell broke loose, and her world crumbled. All of a sudden, she became in critical condition. Yesterday, at my grandfather's funeral, she passed away in the hospital. Tomorrow will be her funeral. Alas, they are once more together again.

Men are not created equal, and life is simply not fair.
My family is having three funerals this month.
My father, even though being a successful lawyer, lost his beloved wife and his parents in such a short period of time, is in sorrow.
My uncle struggled his entire life trying to achieve something while falling over and over again, and now he has to face more sorrow in his life.
My uncle's son is blessed with ignorance, possessing an intelligence equal to that of a child who cannot comprehend sorrow.
And me, I have more family duties to take care of from now on. There are hard decisions to make, terrible things to commit, and even some morally questionable actions that have to be taken. But that's all for the greater good. I am the Chancellor, Stewart, Spy Master, and the heir of this dynasty. Power has been consolidated to me, so is the burden of the crown. Ruler class 101, being a ruler means every fault is your fault. There is no time for sorrow as I still have this diary to write.

In memory of my grandparents, I have taken action to preserve their memories.
I have photos of what they leave behind.

This is my grandfather's favorite chair. Because of his healthy condition, he had to spend a lot of time on it.

After my grandfather got COVID-19, the sequela made him need to rely on those oxygen tanks to breathe.

He still loves reading. In his final moment, he was reading a book about fishing. He loves fishing as it helps him to clear his mind while not taxing his fragile body much, unlike other kinds of sports. My father and I sometimes did some silly things, such as dumping fish near his fishing spots just so he could catch a lot of fish and be happy. Now, that becomes just another memory.

I guess you may have just figured out why I put a fishing club in the game.
Let me tell you another secret in the game.
In real life, my grandparents had an apartment at No.181 River Road. So, I just appended the map to make that apartment appear in the game.
You can also find that book about fishing on a desk.

Yes, it's overpowered and can give you a lot of fishing experience.

More content about them will come in future updates. I will be working on their digital avatar creation to bring them back to that apartment. By my power as a game developer, I am creating another divergence point in the game's timeline. In the game, all my family members who passed away this month are still alive.
Maybe I am just like Donna Beneviento in Resident Evil 8.
Maybe I am just like the Painter in Expedition 33.
Maybe I am just another monster.

Now, let's go through the other less important content of this week.
Well, there are actually a lot of them. I am just not in the mood to go into all the details.

We got some new character appearances you can use for your main character or customized teammates.


Someone, after watching a trailer of the next DLC, told me girls wearing a bar and long pants are sexy. So, you can have it now.


Someone wants to play a blonde female agent in a tight suit, and go on to kill a guy named Bill. Well, you can have it, too.

Nowadays, even Mortal Kombat with all those gore and fatalities cannot allow people to have sexy girls. We shall stay with our tradition, that is how games used to be. We must fight against the evil that has recently forced even Steam to censor many games due to "payment company requirements." We must preserve the beauty of games, or we are condemning our sons and daughters to a dark future where they can only see ugly DEI monsters.

Also, for story purposes, we got another male character's appearance. It's just slightly modified from the Nise Federation heavy soldier.

The story in Dana also requires a new type of enemy known as the Router, a communication unit among those supernatural machines.


You can find them in random locations with machine-themed enemies by traveling with the Wonderland Travel Agency.

Now, talking about Wonderland Travel Agency, I'm pretty sure some of you have been tired of the randomness. Sometimes, you just want a location with the right environment and right enemies to farm certain loot.

So, you can now do it, customize everything, even though the traveling cost is much higher than random locations. Some common sense still applies. For example, you cannot choose the shade entities until the main story has progressed to the point where they appear.

There is also something for our Chinese Wuxia fans. The Beggar Gang just received updates. They now have a weapon merchant to sell some quite unique items.

Their famous Dog-Beating Staff that appears in various novels is now in the game.
It can cause additional damage to dogs, of course. But, in a supernatural world like ours, it's not hard to imagine people use it to fight werewolves. :P

Something for more modernized gang members. You can now modify your pistol to have dirty water magazines. It can turn your pistol into a water pistol that shoots questionable, foul-smelling liquid (you can gather a lot of that totally free from places like a toilet, or you can just buy it from the Beggar Gang's weapon merchant).
Some behind-the-scenes story: The Beggar Gang's weapon merchant's name comes from one of my high school classmates. Just like many other NPCs in Liu, they have names of people from my past. After all, this is a game about memory.

That's it for this week.
Tomorrow is my grandmother's funeral, so there may not be a daily update.
Actually, it's becoming quite challenging to push out a daily update right now. Thus, before all the dust is settled, the game may skip a few daily updates next week. We will see how it goes. Meanwhile, my grandfather's hairstyle is quite hard to recreate. Thus, I may spend some time in Blender. The current priority is to revive my grandparents and their memories in the game. Therefore, other content will be delayed for a short time.

The game will keep going forward. For as long as it stands, all will be remembered.


This week's full update log:
20250712
English
##########Content################
[Character Customization]Added 2 new playable female appearances.
简体中文
##########Content################
【角色自定义】增加了2个新的女性角色外观。

20250713
English
##########Content################
[Dana Shelter]Added dialogs for Count Ragnvald.
[Character Customization]Added 1 new playable male appearance.
简体中文
##########Content################
【达那避难所】为拉格瓦尔德伯爵加入了台词。
【角色自定义】增加了1个新的男性角色外观。

20250714
English
##########Content################
[Firearm]New pistol module: Pistol Dirty Water Mag.
[Weapon]New Weapon: Dog-Beating Staff
[Beggar Gang's Camp]Added a new weapon merchant. (He sells Pistoal Dirty Water Mags and Dog-Beating Staffs)
[Wiki]Updated the gun modification page.
##########System################
[Weapon Module]Weapon modules can now change weapons and remove state effects.
[Weapon Module]The additional state effects from Weapon modules are now compatible with weapon buffs.
简体中文
##########Content################
【枪械】新手枪部件：手枪脏水弹夹。
【武器】新武器：打狗棒
【丐帮营地】增加了一个武器商人。（他会贩卖手枪脏水弹夹和打狗棒）
【维基】更新了枪械改造页面。
##########System################
【武器部件】武器部件现在可以改变武器的消除状态列表
【武器部件】武器部件提供的额外状态现在和武器本身的buff提供的额外状态兼容。

20250715
English
##########Content################
[Dana Shelter]Added more dialogs for Count Ragnvald.
[Dana Shelter]Added a new NPC in this area
[Credit]Added my grandfather to the "in memory of" section.
[The Siege of Dana]Story slightly progressed.
[Wiki]Updated the wiki page of The Siege of Dana.
[Asset]Added art assets for a new type of machine enemy.
简体中文
##########Content################
【达那避难所】为拉格瓦尔德伯爵加入了更多的台词。
【达那避难所】在该区域加入了一个新的NPC
【制作名单】将祖父加入到了【纪念逝者】部分。
【达那围城战】剧情略微推进。
【维基】更新了【达那围城战】页面。
【美术资源】为一种新的机械敌人加入了美术资源。

20250716
English
##########Content################
[Enemy]New Enemy: [The Router]
[Loot]Added an item drop list for [The Router]
[Wonderland Travel Agency] [The Router] may now spawn in a machine-entity-themed location.
[Guide to Monster Hunting]Added the entry for [The Router]
[Wonderland Travel Agency]You can now customize your random destination. (Common sense still applies. For example, you can only select the Shade entity theme after the story has progressed to a certain point.)
简体中文
##########Content################
【敌人】新敌人：【路由器】
【掉落物】为【路由器】加入了掉落列表
【奇幻之地旅行社】【路由器】现在可能出现在机械生物主题的区域。
【怪物狩猎指南】加入了【路由器】的条目。
【奇幻之地旅行社】你现在可以定制旅行的随机目标地点。（一些常识性限制仍然存在，比如你必须将剧情进行到一定程度后才可以选择暗影实体。）

20250718
English
##########Content################
[Credit]Added my grandmother to the "In Memory of" section.
[No. 181 River Road]Expanded the first floor to the right. Added two more rooms.
[Book]New Life Skill Book:《 A Book About Fishing》
简体中文
##########Content################
【制作名单】将祖母加入到了【纪念逝者】名单。
【清河路181号】地图向右侧扩张。加入了两间新的房间。
【书籍】新生活技能书：《一本关于钓鱼的书》

Added support for the V/H/S mode.

Fixed some Ui bugs.
Fixed a bug allowing players to finish the game with only one golden ticket.

Hello everyone,

For the past month I was working on units update. After getting most of it done, I decided to scrap it as it wasn't a good fit for the game as a whole.

Although I had to get rid of most of it, some parts like region animations are still useful. So this update tries to make the wars look a bit more dynamic.

I also lowered casualties per battle.








Next update I will be focusing on diplomacy. Countries no longer will be at war from the start. I am not 100% sure what else will be included in that update as I like to prototype and try out different things.


Thanks for your continued support!

🩸 NECRO SIEGE: Early Access Days Away 🩸

Prepare to Descend into Madness

The gates are opening.

Necro Siege is launching into Early Access soon, and the blood-soaked battle for survival is about to begin. You’ve waited. You’ve watched. Now it’s almost time to grab your weapons, light your last cigarette, and fight like hell.

In this action-horror FPS, you’ll face relentless waves of the undead, demonic horrors, and ancient gods that should never have been awakened. Survive the siege—or be devoured by it.

Early Access is your invitation to shape the chaos. We're building this game with you—expect frequent updates, new maps, fresh horrors, and surprises from beyond the veil.

The siege begins soon. Will you endure it?
👉 Wishlist now. Prepare to fight.

2025-07-14.0
- Added optional night time to the game. It can be turned on via world options.
- Added new options to world options: day length. This is only visual, and is separate from the in-game day duration (which is always 6 minutes).
- Unified game's day length and visible day length to match one another. Before they did not.
- Various effects now provide night-time light sources, even if only temporarily (explosions, fireworks, grog, etc)
- Fixed the town UI's player inventory becoming invisible after swapping ships with inventory open.
- Ships won't share sight at night.
- Sight distance is halved at night.
- Added the ability to ask in town gossip for "story" to see if anyone in the world needs to speak with the player.
- If reflections are turned off, they will now still render the skybox to fix water reflections at night.
- Wind particles will no longer be affected by the wind past a certain distance from the player, saving a bit of performance.
- Added more anti-aliasing options, including temporal AA.
- If holding shift while building a tower, only allow the largest possible tower to be built.

First of all — thank you so much for all the amazing feedback you’ve been sharing with us.
Every improvement in this update exists because of you. Your reports, suggestions, and support are helping us shape Sizzle & Stack into the best game it can be.

We’ve been cooking up fixes, tweaking systems, and adding quality-of-life improvements based directly on your input. Let’s take a look at what’s changed:

• Sous-chef now automatically selects and starts cooking a new order.
  
• Sous-chef can now automatically purchase ingredients from Market cards.
  
• Each day now starts in a "Paused" state, giving you time to prepare.
  
• Reputation Points (Stars) are now awarded after each completed order, instead of at the end of the day.
  
• Customers are less likely to order unknown recipes.
  
• Sous-chef and Waiter card salaries have been reduced.
  
• Sub-ingredient card prices have been adjusted and lowered.
  
• Increased the drop rate of the Flour card.
  
• Deep Fryer now unlocks at 2.0 Reputation instead of 2.5.

• Certain ingredient pack prices have been reduced.
  
• Some items in Market cards are now cheaper.
  
• The Taco recipe has been added to the Mexican Pack.

• A Report button has been added to the main menu.
  
• Satisfaction icon color has been changed to reduce confusion with the Money icon.
  
• Fail screen has been enlarged and made more informative.
  
• Sous-chef’s speech bubble now gives a clearer message when an ingredient is missing.
  
• The search bar is now more powerful — you can search by partial keywords.

• Added support for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.
  
• Sizzle Medal now includes a shiny new animation when earned.
  
• Sizzy’s Grandma has been added to the Gift UI.
  
• Several minor visual polish and bug fixes included.

• Multiple bugs related to Sous-chef and Waiter behavior have been fixed.
  
• Fixed an issue where upgraded tools weren’t functioning properly.
  
• Resolved a bug where the Waiter stopped serving after a few rounds.
  
• Addressed several save-related issues.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cozy Mode was disabled after restarting the game.
  
• Missing and incorrect texts have been added or corrected.

If you encounter any bugs or oddities, please let us know!
This patch is all about improving playability and stability — your feedback is what helps us get there 💌

Bon appétit,
-Sizzle & Stack Team

Here is where the Tale took the team last week...

• Chi

  • Implement custom roll behaviour

  • Cleanup logic in various scripts

  • Combat: fix sporadic jumping of targeting indicator

  • Desolation: Fixes to Feed The Beasts puzzle - drop food on capture

• Can

  • Labyrinth: Continue on environmental sound design

  • Fixes to sound related issues in Darkness and Fear levels

• Rockley

  • Surreality: Light and occlusion baking

  • Surreality: Fix visual and collider related bugs

  • Labyrinth: Start setting up light probes & bake

• Keith

  • Compile list of animations that need tweaking / polishing

  • Start on this list

• Diego

  • Desolation: Implement ally fast travel mechnic

  • Implement level selector for development

  • Fixes to scene/subscene loading system

• Sara:

  • Continue creating content for socials

  • Influencer & press outreach and coordination

  • Planning for various in-person events

• Slavko:

  • Adjustments to SWAG graphics

  • Polishing various promo video shots

• Ivo

  • Continue staging and recording promo shots

• Ugurcan:

  • Continue video editing on promo shots

• Perica:

  • Side of the World: Wrap up initial set of QE fixes

Hello everyone! It's me, Miyoshi Shizuka.

I’ve implemented a gaze system for the characters.I have uploaded the video. so please check it out.

When you approach a companion, they will turn their face and eyes toward the player character.

Also, when the player detects items or events, they will look in that direction as well.

It's kind of like Pikmin—super cute, isn’t it?

It’s been a while since my last post.

Over the past month, I’ve been struggling with implementing the save/load and configuration systems in preparation for the demo release.

Thankfully, those features are now working properly, so I’m planning to post a summary video soon.

Servus Scavengers!

A little later than planned, but we're here with a very special SAND Development Update.

It's hard to condense this all down into text format, so instead we invite you all to watch our first official devlog detailing everything we've been working on these last few months, share some major changes to the game and detail exactly when you can next expect to find yourself barreling through the sands of Sophie aboard your tramplers!

Finally, with the extra months we've had to polish, expand and improve SAND, we have decided that the launch of SAND later this year will no longer be an Early Access release and instead will launch straight into 1.0!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1431300/Sand/

Come and join us on our social media pages to keep yourself up to date with all the news and updates for SAND or join the discussion over on Discord now!

Discord - Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

- Hologryph & tinyBuild Games

Hi!

So I have been working on a lot of bosses ect, but now I took a pause and reworked the resource system. Which should make a lot more sense now, instead of the skulls you now use stone and wood to buy buildings. And these together with a new gold drops, drops randomly from enemies in the world.


It is not super balanced yet, but let me know what you think and if there is something you want in the game.

Next up I will look into adding the classes to the game. :)


Ps this is testable in the live demo!

I recorded the changes here if you are curious https://youtu.be/aoXvlEZ6O94

That is all!
I hope you have a great summer vacation!

/Per