Devlog - December 2025

Well, here we are. This is the twelfth devlog I’ve posted, and the final one that I’ll be making this year. Initially the main reason for these was to produce a bit of transparency around the development of Artificial Nexus and how far along it was, but post-release, these have turned into a bit more of a general update on what I’ve been up to each month, development-wise. There’s a little bit that I have to say about the future of these devlogs, but we’ll save that for the end, as a sort of dessert, after I’ve provided the updates for what’s gone on during November.

Anyway, last month I mentioned that the plan was for work to commence on our next commercial project. That work has properly begun, and not to imply that things will keep going at this pace, but it’s actually going much faster than initially anticipated - the idea was to try and get a prototype of the game done by the end of December, but as of the 28th of November, it’s actually been finished.

What’s a prototype in this context, you ask, and why haven’t you heard anything about us finishing anything? Simply put, it’s an internal version made to test out a few things, confirm that the initial concept has legs, and get the creative juices flowing. Asset-wise, a lot of it consists of hastily-drawn scribbles and placeholder music, so it’s really not ready for public consumption. Over time, this will be refined into what will eventually become the public demo of our next commercial game, but for now it’s still mostly a work-in-progress, in spite of what I just said about it being finished. Sorry, but it’s much better this way, I promise!

A lot of the things we’re including in the game will be really exciting to work on - in particular I’ve pretty much managed to make a flow chart (like in 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, or Virtue’s Last Reward) work, which will help keep the pace of the game moving and allow players to jump between branches as they’re unlocked. It’s a feature that I always find really cool, and if I’m able to keep this working as smoothly as it has so far, I’d like to add something similar into The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen down the line.

Since we’ve tested out some gameplay mechanics and confirmed that we can make pretty much everything in the initial plan work, the next steps from here will be tightening the script up, fixing discovered bugs, and then getting assets worked on. Oh, and we can’t forget UI updates. There are always so damn many UI elements that need to be changed. Speaking of, if you didn’t see the post from a few weeks ago, here’s what our save/load screen is currently looking like.

Not bad so far, is it?

In other news, we’re part of the Choose Wisely Festival! It’s a new Steam festival that aims to highlight narrative games where the choices you make throughout the game have a real impact on the plot. Naturally, the game that is being included in it is The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen, since making the wrong choices in it will lead to, y’know, death.

We’re beyond honoured to be included in it, and are really grateful for the opportunity. Multiple streamers will be playing the game during the festival, so if you haven’t played the game and don’t know whether it’s for you, please check some of them out so that you can see what it’s like! (And hey, if you feel that it looks interesting, then the festival is the perfect opportunity to pick the game up! It’s gotten a pretty big update recently, ya know?)

Speaking of, The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen received two updates in November to fix some minor bugs, and is now at version 1.1.2. Neither of these updates were particularly big - one was to fix up a typo, and another was to fix up a visual issue during one death scene - but nevertheless, they should be sorted. If you’ve found any bugs or issues while playing the game, please let us know so that we can fix them up as soon as possible.

As you can see, it’s been a fairly busy month for us - I think this might be one of the longest posts I’ve written out. Now, regarding the future of these devlogs - it’s simultaneously exciting and anticlimactic. By that I mean…that they will continue to show up each month, same as always. As mentioned above, the initial plan was to simply post them for transparency around Artificial Nexus, but as the year’s gone on, it’s been quite nice to reflect a bit on the past month and what we’ve achieved, where we currently are, and where we’re moving towards.

I could say more at this point, but I think that I’ve rambled enough and dragged out a simple point more than necessary, so I’ll end it here and spare everyone some tedium. As always, if you have any feedback, comments, or just want to say hello, our Discord is open, and we’ve got a contact page for your pressing concerns and pedantic nitpicks. Otherwise, see you in 2026!