Summer 2026 Updates

It’s been an unusual quarter as we didn’t get as much “new stuff” completed due to the major demo update. It was a big step for us to redo a few major aspects of it (like the tutorial), so we needed to polish it in a way that gives both first-time and returning players a good experience. We want to thank Tony for going all in during July and getting an incredible amount of work done!

Game Con

In July, we were invited to Game Con again where we got to meet you guys as well as new players and get real-time feedback on the demo. We are steadily working on making those adjustments. To everyone who visited our booth, thank you! (and to our friend who found the issue with the final gate not going down, we are happy to report we resolved the issue!)

We actually have made a special build of the demo for conventions specifically that allows players to quickly jump to other parts of the game. In the past, convention-goers would have no choice but to traverse the initial tutorial and go through the game linearly. Also, this build contains convention-exclusive parts of the game. So if you’re curious to see the bonuses, come check us out at future conventions! (Cleveland Gaming Classic, GDEX, TORG, Fandemonium, and Def Com).

Tutorial Updates

Now that the major update of the demo is live (and has been for a while, so please check it out!), we were able to observe players more carefully at Game Con and find issues that needed ironed out.

Intuitive Gameplay

Some players felt like they were getting lost in the tutorial. To remedy this, we added a few more landmarks to help the tutorial become more intuitive. The path is subtle and will help guide us to the next point.

Another thing that was somewhat unintuitive was when Asteric was supposed to pick up more weapons. Many players thought that they only had to pick up the sword and would ignore the other weapons. Now, we’re forced to pick up the weapons and Minhaga tells us, “You still have room in your inventory.” Because of how important weapon merging is in the game, we needed to make it clear right off the bat.

Many players also walked right past the part of the tutorial where we practice with bows, so we added bushes that curve toward the cave.

On the bridge, there was a switch that players were also missing. Now in the bow cave, there is a switch to shoot and Minhaga will also mention that we missed something if we happen to keep going.

The Tutorial’s Gate

Another thing we updated was the gate in the tutorial, which we think matched the theme of the area better.

Music

We added entirely new tracks to the tutorial area! We want to thank Eugene for working hard on composing the soundtrack. The tutorial now has three tracks: one for night, one for day, and one for enemies.

Tutorial Song – Night

Tutorial Song – Day

Tutorial Song – Enemy

Updated Castle Town Sequence

We took another look at the Castle Town sequence within the demo. In the old demo, a lot of players reported having a hard time finding their way out of Jasper aka Castle Town. Introducing Minhaga into the sequence is one way we’ve updated this, as he will point us toward where to go. We’ve also added specific locations to guide us to waypoints.

As part of the update, this sequence includes Minhaga in the auto-merge tutorial instead of Cecil (the Wizard) in Forest Town, as Minhaga plays a much bigger role in the full game as its antagonist.

Forest Town

In the original demo, there was a bridge to Forest Town that we ended up removing. Now, we’ve re-included it in the new demo because we felt that players needed a bit more padding before being set free into the forest. So, welcome back, bridge!

Blocked Areas

Lastly, we’ve placed Minhaga around blocked-off areas until we gain the correct progression items. So instead of wondering where we can and cannot go, Minhaga will point us in the right direction.

Polishes for the New Demo

Another major part of this update was making the artistic aspects of the game feel finished and complete. Special thanks to Michael from GDEX 2025 for the feedback that led to these changes. Check them out below:

We’ve added “worn” details and more texture to buildings, forts, roofs, and paths. We want a world that feels “lived in” as if it has existed far before the start of the game. Our sound engine has also been ironed out to make sure music fades more seamlessly between areas.

Color palettes have been also been updated in the swamp biome for both forts and buildings. With all of this being a major update, we hope you can see how much improvement has been made between the original demo and now.

Other Notable Updates

• All of Asteric’s updated animations are complete, along with his Shield Bash. We’re very pleased with how polished Asteric feels now. He’s come a long way!
• We noticed the calculations were off when Asteric would jump off cliffs at specific locations based on where he was initially standing. To fix this, the calculation is now based on the center of the tile, so his position is re-adjusted when he begins a jump.

• A big improvement has been made to the Forest Maze as well. When players died in the Forest Maze in the past, it was possible to be respawned right in front of a deadly tree that would keep eating them and effectively softlock them. To prevent this, we’ll now be respawned where we first entered to give us a fighting chance.
• Our first lore item, the Forest Key, has now been added to the demo. Kennedy has been hard at work developing lore items and story beats, so stay tuned for more details!

  

• Our targeting system used to prioritize enemy targets even when players tried focusing on non-enemy items. An example of this is if we were trying to shoot an agile switch but a Glob was within range, the Glob would take priority. We can now assign different priority levels to targets that should be prioritized first.
• Only a few sprites were properly showing Asteric wearing the bomb gloves, so we’ve updated all animations to make sure they’re displayed correctly.

  

  

• Our AStar algorithm received some more protection against asynchronous crashes as well. We discovered that there was a small chance for the code to crash while running the algorithm, so we added Mutexes to make sure these processes are handled safely. Thanks again to Hyreon for the help on this!
• Auto-merging weapons received a small but very important improvement. If multiple weapons were eligible for an auto merge, the game would equip the weapon from the first merge instead of choosing the highest-ranking weapon available. Now, the highest-ranking weapon will be auto-equipped to make the system more intuitive. For example, if we’re holding an E sword that merges into a D sword, but we already have a D+ sword available, the game will now equip the D+ sword instead.

  

• Finally, we made significant progress on our ResourcePool refactoring. This is a large technical project Dan has been focused on for most of August (including while on vacation) and improves how the game handles and reuses resources behind the scenes. It’s been a major undertaking but will help improve performance as The Violets of Amicus world becomes more complex.
  Resource Pool

Last Thoughts

While we dedicated more of this quarter to polishing the demo, we’ve not forgotten about the future of The Violets of Amicus. We’ve already started working on new areas, including deserts, canyons, and other regions that we can’t wait to reveal.

Convention season is coming up, so there will be plenty of opportunities to come play the convention-exclusive build of the game and chat with us about Violet. It never ceases to amaze us when we get to watch someone play Violet for the first time. So if you see our booth at an event, please come say hello!

Thanks again to everyone who has played the demo, sent us feedback, or is following along with our progress while we develop the game. We have lots more coming in the future, so stay tuned!