Hello everyone! I wanted to get a Dev Log up this week since I won’t be posting anything next week. Despite my original plan to release the next build (0.0.4) this month, I completely forgot that I won’t actually be here at the end of the month. I apologize to anyone who was expecting a major update, but I have plans to make it up to you.

The next big numbered release will be in April, and instead of 0.0.4, I’ll be skipping straight to 0.0.5. Since I’ve been numbering builds based on dungeon additions, you might be able to guess what this means: I plan to include both of the next dungeons—the fourth dungeon, known as the “Hotel,” and the fifth and final dungeon, the “Slaughterhouse.” This will bring the game very close to its Beta version.

For those who aren’t aware, the Alpha version is the work-in-progress phase, whereas the Beta version will be fully playable but may still have missing features and assets. Once we hit Beta, development will primarily focus on smaller additions, bug fixes, and polish.

Now, let’s talk about the two upcoming dungeons and the new enemy featured at the top of this post.

The Hotel

The fourth dungeon is a Love Hotel, complete with neon signs, heart-shaped beds, and a more contemporary feel compared to the others. The pacing here shifts away from running and hiding, instead emphasizing combat.

I’ve started calling the last two dungeons the “Action Dungeons” since they introduce faster, stronger enemies that will challenge everything you’ve learned up to this point.

One of these enemies is The Twisted, the one seen at the top of this post. Originally, I intended for them to be another melee-focused enemy, but after seeing feedback about the game’s gunplay, I decided to make them more unique. The Twisted can use every gun the player can.

That overpowered double-barrel shotgun? now it can be used against you.
That supposedly weak SMG? Try being on the receiving end.

They have some damage dampening (since getting deleted in five seconds isn’t fun), but dodging melee enemies while taking cover from The Twisted’s gunfire has proven to be a compelling challenge that definitely makes the game feel more action oriented. They will first appear in the Hotel to introduce their mechanics before going full throttle in the next dungeon.

Their one plus-side is that once you purify them, you can take their weapon and they do have a noticeable charge-up before they start shooting.

The Slaughterhouse

The Slaughterhouse is a dungeon that I’ve pretty much known what I wanted to do with from the beginning of development. It was always planned as the final dungeon in the game and as I've been juggling both it and the Hotel, this dungeon ended up being completed first, with the exception of its Stalker.

This dungeon solidifies the more combat-centric approach with wide-open spaces and miniature arenas instead of the various corridors seen in earlier dungeons. Hiding spots still exist, but they're mainly for avoiding the Stalker, rather than regular enemies.

By this point in the game, you should be powerful enough to handle most threats, but getting swarmed is still a real danger. To potentially make up for anyone who is behind, this dungeon will also offer more rewards for completing runs in.

The Banshee, an enemy I introduced in a previous post, will also make its debut here. Like the Twisted, the Banshees have a ranged attack though they can also use a melee combo up close. Overall, I’ve had a lot of fun testing this dungeon so far.

What’s Next?

With the Slaughterhouse mostly done, my next step is to go back to the Hotel (Dungeon 4) and bring it up to standard. Right now, it feels too empty, so I’ll be populating it with props and refining the lighting.

Beyond that, I’ll be working on stronger variants for recurring enemies like the Witness, giving them new visuals and increased difficulty. That will likely happen after the Hotel is mostly finished. Boss fights also still need to be done, so they’re on the list as well. As you can guess, at least two boss fights will need to be introduced in the next version so that progressing through the dungeons is possible.

As I mentioned earlier, I won't be here next week. My birthday is also coming up, so I'll be taking a short break and resuming work in April. I'll keep you all posted as always!

That's all for now! See you all again in a couple of weeks.

Hello everyone! At the end of February, I released version 0.0.3 of Sin Spire, and so far, I’ve received a lot of feedback. First off, I want to apologize for a frustrating bug that sends players back to the title screen when dying in a boss fight. That wasn’t intentional, and I’m currently putting together a new version that fixes this issue along with a few others.

I originally planned to release the update today, but instead, I wanted to take a moment to discuss a few things in this dev log. I’m debating whether to release the patch in the next few days or hold off until next week to include more fixes. Either way, since this update will arrive before the next major version, I’m adding a few experimental features I’d like to talk about.

Difficulties

Something of an ongoing discussion for Sin Spire is its difficulty. As the developer, I don’t find the game that hard, but feedback ranges from “too easy” to “rage-inducingly impossible.” While I think both extremes might be a bit of a stretch, I do take these critiques seriously. Some difficulty spikes come from bugs that end a run unfairly or mechanics that aren’t well-explained, but beyond that, the game is simply designed to be challenging.

That said, I understand not everyone wants the same level of difficulty, so I’ve decided to introduce difficulty options in the next update:

These settings may need adjustments, and I expect some players will still find Hard too easy or Easy too hard at first. You’ll be able to change difficulty in the settings menu whenever you’re in the Starting Hall.

The game will track if you have changed difficulty mid-run so that you cannot cheese unlockables or achievements in the final game.

Save Slots & Autosaving

Another requested feature is save slots. Originally, Sin Spire only had a single save file, but after a bug forced some players to restart their runs after not unlocking the new dungeon, I decided to add multiple slots. The first save slot remains the primary one for Boss Rush mode and other extra content.

Additionally, I’ve introduced autosaving as a safeguard against crashes. Some players have reported fatal errors (which I haven’t been able to replicate or fix yet), so this should help prevent lost progress for the time being.

Autosaving triggers whenever you use a portal – so each time you enter or exit a dungeon, your progress will be saved automatically.

Now, before you get too excited – this isn’t a cheat menu. The Debug Menu is meant to help visualize things like quest progress. This relates to the bug where some players couldn’t enter the next dungeon. While I’ve implemented a workaround, the root issue with the main quest not progressing is still lurking somewhere. This menu should help pinpoint what’s going wrong.

I’ve also added a reset button that teleports you back to the starting point of a level in case you fall through the floor. In the future, I might expand the Debug Menu’s functionality, but for now, it’s mainly there for you guys to use, since I can access all of this in the editor.

That wraps up what’s coming in the next update, alongside various bug fixes. Outside of that, I’ve been working on the next dungeon and finishing up the script. Speaking of which – I’ve actually finished the script! (Well, at least the first draft.) This is a big milestone, as I’ve now sent Savina’s full script to her VA and started casting for Ophelia.

With the script mostly locked in, writing-wise I’m shifting focus to notes that can be found throughout the dungeons. Alongside that, my priority will be gameplay – until I receive the voice lines, at which point I can begin animating more scenes.

In the short term, I’ll continue fixing bugs and working on the next dungeon.

Anyway, this has been quite a wordy dev log. I haven’t even mentioned the Slacker at the top of the post. I put that picture together quickly for this update – if you’re not familiar, the Slacker is the Stalker of the third dungeon. For everyone who isn’t a Supporter and hasn’t played the latest build, I’ve included a short list of key additions that were introduced in 0.0.3.

That’s all for now. Until next time, take care!

Hello everyone! It’s been a while. As some of you may know, I got sick a few weeks ago and have only recently started recovering. Unfortunately, this was a major setback, as I wasn’t able to work while I was ill. But I’m happy to say that I’m well enough to get back to development, and there’s plenty to update you on.

Gameplay Adjustments

First off, I’ve made some balance changes based on feedback. After seeing how many players considered the shotgun to be “the only good weapon” or “overpowered,” I decided to nerf it slightly while boosting the damage of the other guns. This should make more weapons viable without completely gutting the shotgun’s usefulness. I’ll continue tweaking these numbers as needed.

Another change is that enemies no longer collide with each other. This might seem minor, but it solves an issue where enemies would get stuck on doors—not because of bad pathing, but because they were blocking each other. With this change, navigation should be a bit smoother.

The Old House

Now onto the more exciting content: the newest dungeon, currently called The Old House. This dungeon is styled after a traditional Japanese house, featuring paper doors and wooden walls. I wanted to repurpose the sliding door functionality I originally made for the now-cut school area, and this setting fit perfectly.

In terms of layout, The Old House is a mix of the first two dungeons—combining claustrophobic spaces with open areas, but with an added hazard: floor traps. If you’re not paying attention, you might fall to your death. This, combined with new enemy types, makes for a more intense experience.

New Enemies

With a new dungeon comes new threats. These threats have been designed to make use of the trapped environment.

The Duchess Boss Fight

I’ve also started work on the Duchess boss fight for the second dungeon. This fight has been tricky to design, and I’m still tweaking it.

Initially, I wanted The Duchess to be a non-combative boss who only summoned minions to fight for her. However, in practice, this made the fight feel underwhelming. Right now, she follows this pattern:

Mechanically, this all works, but gameplay-wise, it’s a lot of running and chasing, which reminds me a bit too much of Micolash from Bloodborne—and that’s not exactly a great thing. Those who've played the game will know what I mean. If I have time before the next update, I’d like to make this fight more engaging.

What’s Next?

While I can't say that I'm back on track, I’m confident that the next update will be ready by the end of the month. Since I've been doing hotfixes and patches after the release of every update, I imagine the same will happen after 0.0.3.

The next few things I need to do before I can safely bank a build are the following:

An additional stretch goal is to implement more of Savina's lines as a lot of her dialogue was recorded not too long ago. I haven't been able to work more on the script since I was sick but now that I'm mostly better, at least enough to work, I plan on getting back to that soon.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

Hello everyone! Today’s post might feel a bit reflective as my day has had a rocky start and, truthfully, this week has been a bit of a challenge. Burnout has been creeping up on me – perhaps because the Christmas season didn’t really offer the kind of break I needed. Still, I wanted to follow through on my commitment to weekly updates, at least for now, so I figured I’d discuss some of my current overall goals.

Game Completion

As I’ve mentioned before, my goal is to finish and release Sin Spire in the early half of this year. Initially, the timeline was much shorter, but the scope of the game has grown beyond what I originally planned. I underestimated how much time it would take due to this expanded scope, but I’ll do everything I can to meet the current goal. The next few months are going to be busy for sure. For the rest of this month, I’ll be focusing on the following:

Next month, I plan to speed through the next two dungeons and aim to complete them both within the month (if not, I’ll be sure to mention it).

My current focus is to get the game into beta as soon as possible. This means additional art, enemies, and sex animations will take a back seat until the game is completable. Once dungeon 5 is finished and the campaign is playable up until the End Game, I’ll circle back to these things.

What’s Left of the Campaign?

There are three dungeons left to fully complete. Two of them have usable art assets whilst one of them still needs to be redesigned. Then after that there’s still the End Game section which will conclude the game’s story.

The story itself is almost complete. The script needs one final draft and then I can begin casting for Ophelia’s voice (the last character that needs one). The Raven’s voice lines are fully recorded and Savina’s are about halfway done.

As I mentioned in the last Dev Log, you will be seeing a lot more placeholders in both Dev Log images and builds. There will also be fewer new enemies and sex animations, which I know may disappoint some of you who’ve been looking forward to more variety. However, rest assured these elements will get their time.

For now, the focus is on getting all the basics in place so that, no matter what, I can get to an MVP (minimum viable product) sometime in March.

Development Logs

I also want to briefly address Dev Logs. I believe they’re important for keeping you all in the loop and ensuring I don’t go silent. However, writing them every week takes time and energy that could be spent on development, resting, or practicing (something I’ve been neglecting).

I’m considering two approaches moving forward:

I’ll post a poll during the week to gather your feedback, but feel free to share your thoughts and comment here as well!

Practice Art

On a related note, if you’re interested, I could share some of my practice art. As a 3D artist primarily, I’ve been somewhat neglectful of my art practice lately. Normally, I’d do character sculpts here and there, but I feel like I’m getting a bit rusty. Practice art wouldn’t be related to Sin Spire in tone or style, but it might still be fun for some of you to see. Let me know if it’s something you’d enjoy – it’d be a new experience for me.

Next Up

Next week, I’ll be revealing the Stalker for the Trap Dungeon. She’s a fun character with some of my favorite voice lines. Despite the hiccups this week, I’m really looking forward to sharing more about her with you all.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading this long, wordy post. Your support, as always, means a lot to me and keeps me motivated even during times of burnout.

See you all next time!

Hello everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week. This week, I revisited a previously showcased enemy, worked on animations for Savina and started development on the third dungeon, now called the Trap Dungeon.

Savina’s Animations

I kicked off the week by animating Savina’s reactions to player actions. For instance, if the player attacks her, she now expresses her frustration by yelling and stomping her foot. I also added several new animations to enhance her dialogue – simple nods and head shakes as well as gestures.

While I’d love for dialogue to be more fluid, similar to the animation test I posted a while back, it simply isn’t feasible. Instead, my goal for regular dialogue is to have enough animations to add additional flavor to the interactions without creating an unsustainable workload. Fully animated sequences with dialogue will happen but only at key moments, of which I want to save my energy for.

The Banshee

Some of you will remember an enemy I showcased a few dev logs ago; the Banshee. After finishing the animation updates to Savina, I revisited the enemy to finish her implementation. While I had already completed her design, I had yet to work on her AI and animations.

The Banshee is a fast, powerful enemy designed to be a challenge late-game. She has a large health pool and uses a mix of ranged and close-combat attacks. At a distance, she throws projectiles and then quickly closes the gap. Her up-close attacks are designed to keep up with player movement so players will need to parry her to reliably incapacitate her. Even then, she recovers quickly.

I want encounters with the Banshee to feel both fun and challenging, but we’ll see what happens once players get to experience the fight for themselves.

The Trap Dungeon

Lastly, I started work on the Trap Dungeon. As the name suggests, this dungeon’s main gimmick is its abundance of traps. The Stalker here also incorporates traps into her mechanics, changing the general approach to the dungeon’s design. Unlike previous dungeons, which use the roaming timer system, the intention for this dungeon’s Stalker is to only start actively stalking once the player triggers a specific type of trap (you’ll figure out which one fairly quick).

While I did have a visual design in mind for the dungeon, various factors have led to heavy revisions. This was a bit of a blocker for me as I was very fond of the original idea. Regardless, I can’t really procrastinate the whole dungeon for much longer so I’ve decided to, for the first time, greybox the entire dungeon instead of creating art assets first.

For the first two dungeons ( and potentially the last two), I designed the general art assets first, before creating tiles for procedural generation. While this approach has worked, it also forces me to focus heavily on visuals early on, which can be a distraction. Moving forward, I’ll use greyboxing to prioritize mechanics and leave the art for later. If I don’t finish everything this month, you might see some greyboxed assets in the next release, similar to other placeholders already in the game.

After this, I’m considering stepping away from adding any new gimmicks or layouts for each dungeon. It’s been surprisingly stressful from a time-management perspective. The dungeon after the Trap Dungeon will be similar to the first two, and the final dungeon will likely combine elements from all the previous ones. I also don’t plan to spend too much time on visual design for future dungeons, as I want to focus more on new enemies, animations, and so on.

Next Up

My next goals are to continue work on the Trap Dungeon and begin implementing the second main boss fight. Most of the assets and dialogue for this boss are ready, so I’ll be focusing on animations and logic.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

Hello everyone! Welcome to 2025! This marks the first full year I’ll be working as “Krasue,” having started this journey midway through 2024. While this is a dev log, there’s not a ton to share yet. After taking a couple of days off for New Year’s, I got back to work on the 3rd, so progress has been a bit limited so far. No visual aids this time.

I’ve managed to work on two things the past couple of days. Their importance isn’t very high but they’re still nice to have. The first thing I did was revisit the opening cutscene, focusing on redoing animations and polishing the environments. I haven’t shown off the cutscene as of yet but 0.0.3 should feature its rough debut. It currently runs a little over two minutes and is designed purely as a mood-setter – there’s no dialogue. Pacing it has been a challenge, and I’ll admit that cinematography is not my strongest skill. That said, I think it’s coming together.

I’ve also worked on cutting together and implementing Savina’s voice lines. Xeraphina, her voice actress, provided me with some miscellaneous lines, which I’ve been editing and assigning in-game logic to. For example, like the Raven, Savina will now react if the player attacks her. She will also comment on the player climbing around on various objects in the starting hall.

I also intend to work on some animations for her pretty soon. Currently, Savina has a simple idle animation, but I want to make her feel more dynamic by adding some subtle motions and more dialogue specific animations. While I haven’t started animating her voice lines specifically, that’s on the to-do list. Unfortunately, due to the lack of any good lip-syncing plugins (I’ve tried a couple) all the lip-syncing will have to be done by hand so that will take some time.

For the rest of this month, I plan to finish off what I’ve started with Savina’s lines and animations and then immediately dive into working on dungeon three. The third dungeon’s gimmick has been rolling around in my head for a while now. However, the timeline is tight, so it might not be as polished as I’d like once the 0.0.3 build drops.

The dungeon itself needs to be visually redesigned from scratch, which does give me a chance to incorporate some lessons learned from the second (manor) dungeon. Many players have mentioned that they appreciate the wider spaces in the manor compared to the claustrophobic catacombs. While the cramped design was intentional, I hear the feedback and plan to balance the approach to future dungeons.

So, for 0.0.3 I’ll need to work on:

Alongside that, I also need to keep writing the story and communicating with my voice cast. So, like I said, quite a lot to do.

Anyway, that’s all for now. This has been mostly a brief check-in after the Christmas/New Year’s break. Next week, I’m not sure how much I’ll have accomplished as I’m still easing in to the year, but, as always, I’ll keep you all updated. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all next time!