Akatori: Сhapter One News

[h3]Greetings,

First and foremost, we’d like to thank everyone who played the prologue and left feedback, we incredibly appreciate it. Chapter One has attracted over 20k players in just 4 days, and for a small team like ours that’s a big success. Thanks again for giving us a chance - we hope we lived up to your expectations!

Don't forget to wishlist the main game![/h3]



Sounds like something grand, but most of you should be aware that there are only two of them in the prologue, including the miniboss (let's not count his second appearance). So, I guess it would be more appropriate to say one and a half?.. Anyway, let's start with the main and most interesting one.

[h2]Takatsugu[/h2]

“A cursed warrior, a hero of his time, my eternal warden” - in fact, that's a pretty exhaustive description of him lorewise. If you somehow managed to find and read the caption beneath Ragged Cape (the item that grants Air Dash) in the Character Menu, you should even know a bit of his backstory. I don't think many people read long lore descriptions though, so I'll just quote it here for you (no need to thank me):

Once upon a time, before the Land of the Emerald Peaks even had the Firebird Temple, a legendary warrior stood guard over it: every swing of his sword shook the earth, and beasts of prey fell at the mere sight of him. But one day the warrior vanished without a trace, leaving behind only origami paper and a ragged cape. Traveling monks claim that he was kidnapped by the Gods themselves, and is now doomed to guard something important in Kohakujō forever. Yet this is just one of the monks' tales.

Okay, that’s cool and all, but what’s up with origami? Well, he was originally conceived as an avid origami lover, but sadly nothing in the current version of the game indicates that. In earlier builds, when you had to fight him in the Ancient Prison, he even had a special animation of making a paper crane, and the arena itself was supposed to be covered with small sheets of paper. I could certainly tell you more, but bosses, just like women, should be a bit of a mystery.

Proof that I'm not making things up just to make the update more interesting, okay

As for his visual design, we almost immediately found the right look, only experimenting with the details later on. He is basically a collective image of a ronin who has been completely imbued with Chaos over the years (which is why his skin has a weird color), but has retained his sanity and perfect moves thanks to the curse.


As you can see, Takatsugu would still be Takatsugu, just with a different hat

Takatsugu was designed as the main (and for a long time the only) boss in the demo, so we wanted to make him tough enough for a satisfying challenge, but at the same time easy enough for literally the first proper boss fight in the game. Did we succeed? “That is a good question that I do not have an answer to”.

[h2]Turtle Miniboss[/h2]

Honestly, there's not much to tell about this one. I mean, it doesn’t even have a name (nor does it have an explicit gender, which is why I use "it"). All we know about this creature is that it's from the same world as the merchant frog Lulu, that it's affected by Chaos, and that it's lost its mind to the point where it uses its back shell as a shield. It's also small in number, but not unique (think of the second miniboss), and strong enough to help guard important places in Kohakujō.

The visual evolution of our buddy who may well have ended up being a wolf

We added it to the game relatively recently to a) add some action to the arena after moving the main boss to another location and b) demonstrate the difference between staff and fist combat. With fists, you need to dodge more, roll behind its back, etc., while with the staff, you can just face it head-on thanks to the stagger mechanic.


It goes without saying that there’ll be many more distinct and challenging bosses in the full game, so be sure to wishlist Akatori if you haven’t done it yet.

Thanks a ton for your time and support, see you soon! 🧡

Wishlist Akatori on Steam!

[h3]Join our community:

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Greetings!

Exciting news! Akatori: Chapter One is finally available!

We hope you enjoy playing. If you do, please consider wishlisting the full game!

[h3]Join our community:

👾 Join our Discord if you wanna chat with devs
🤑 Subscribe to our mailing list [/h3]

[h3]Greetings,

A HUGE thank you to all our playtest participants! Your feedback, both through the form and on the Discord server, has been incredibly valuable and has helped us improve the demo significantly.[/h3]



[h3]Now, we'd like to invite you once more to delve into the incredible world of Akatori by exploring the lore behind Kohakujō!
[/h3]

[h2]🔮Kohakujō - Homeland of the Gods, Nexus World, Main Hub[/h2]

Let's kick off our overview with (not so) fun fact #1: if you follow us on social media or occasionally engage with the game outside of Steam updates, you've probably noticed that this world is most often referred to as Void. That's because no one on the team bothers to memorize such a tricky word as Kohakujō, and everyone still uses its working title (even the writer, shame on them). But here's the funniest part: no one in the in-game universe calls it that either. Except for the inhabitants of the Land of the Emerald Peaks, one of whom you get to play as. So yeah, the more you know.

What essentially is Kohakujō? To avoid excessive lore dumping, let’s keep it relatively brief: Kohakujō is the very first ‘container’ world, the homeland of an ancient civilization of Gods, and the energetic core of the game universe, as well as the deposit of amber resin, a highly efficient energy resource (time for fun fact #2: its name literally means ‘amber citadel’ or ‘amber castle’ in Japanese. Or at least it should). Kohakujō organically provides all other worlds with basic energy, allowing them to sustain their livelihoods.

One of the very early concept arts. Yup, Akatori could be set in Silent Hill

Monks are convinced that the amber resin is the tears of Akatori the Firebird that gave birth to the universe. They also believe that one of the Bird's tears sprouted the Primordial Tree from which the Gods and then humans were first born. When Kohakujō became a bit crowded, the Gods began to create separate worlds for people and other races one by one (this is why the side realms have different ages and are at different stages of development), but after a while, the destructive behavior of mortals spawned Chaos, from which the Bird hid the Gods, and which plagues Kohakujō to this day. Phew, sorry, that was as brief as possible. So, did things really play out that way? Well, that's for you to find out in the full game.

That’s how Kohakujō looks today. What will it look like tomorrow? We’ll see, I guess

Since Kohakujō plays an important role in the story and is a border world that connects the entire multiverse of Akatori, we wanted to add more flavor to it with unique mechanics. In the current state of the game, the more time you spend in Kohakujō, the harder it gets to actually stay there: there’s a timer, aka the Chaos Meter, causing levels to change and hidden passages or hazards to appear. To reset the meter, you have to either save the game by resting at the altars or hit one of the special bells scattered across the world. But more challenges also mean more rewards, so it’s always a matter of whether a risk is worth taking at a given time.

The corruption mechanic is intentionally not explicit: the world around changes and makes the player going through the same level twice think 'wait, was it always like this here?'.

The real-life reference of the current Kohakujō design, presumably somewhere in California

In the future we plan to expand the mechanics further, not only in terms of environment but also enemies, and add a special boss that will chase the player when Chaos levels are high. We ultimately aim for more risk/reward situations, where high Chaos opens up new zones and shortcuts, but makes traveling through Kohakujō noticeably more difficult. Plus, we're considering introducing items that affect Chaos mechanics. For example, making the world corrupt faster if you want to artificially increase the difficulty.

Of course, in addition to the lore background and mechanics, we will also continue to work on the visual design of this world, where players will likely spend most of their time: improving existing art, adding clearer zoning, catchy landmarks, and so on. However, in such matters it's always better to show than to tell, so stay tuned for more updates.

Please remember to wishlist both Akatori and Chapter One if you’re looking forward to the game, this will help us immensely with upcoming releases.

Cheers!


[h3]Join our community:

👾 Join our Discord if you wanna chat with devs
🤑 Subscribe to our mailing list [/h3]

[h3]🎮 A huge thank you for joining the playtest—your participation is invaluable! We're in urgent need of your feedback. Kindly share your thoughts extensively, report any bugs you encounter, and if possible, provide video footage of these issues.

🎮 Everyone offering valuable feedback will be acknowledged in the game's credits upon release!

🎮 To engage with our community, join our Discord and share your insights on the game there!

🎮 To take part in the playtest, simply sign up on Steam by clicking this button on the game's page:[/h3]



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👾 Join our Discord if you wanna chat with devs
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[h3]Keeping that in mind, we're excited to announce a public playtest of the demo from April 5th till April 9th!

To take part in the playtest, simply sign up on Steam by clicking this button of the game's page:[/h3]





Since the announcement is big, we wanted to tell you about something equally important and interesting. So in today’s update, we will shed light on what actually makes Akatori special - the staff.

The game concept originally stemmed from a desire to experiment with staff mechanics. The main inspiration came from Switch Axe and Charge Blade from the Monster Hunter series: both weapons have distinct combat styles that can be switched on the fly. In Akatori, we wanted to go even further by making the staff a weapon, a tool for platforming, and a key to solving puzzles at the same time. The Metroidvania genre was added later but fit naturally with the existing core mechanics.

Our Monster Hunter weapon inspirations (sorry for the awful collage, but it's always better to have a picture than not, right?)

Since then, the staff has undergone lots of iterations. For instance, at one point, it was the player's "HP," i.e. the first hit on the player would knock the staff out of their hands, and if the player didn't manage to retrieve it, the next hit would be fatal. The retrieval process was then manual; the staff couldn't just be recalled back across the entire map.

The oldest iteration we could find, dated back to the age of dinosaurs (actually 2018)

Looking back, not much has actually changed since the initial concept: now we aim to center the entire game around the staff, where it plays a crucial role in combat, platforming, and puzzles.

In combat, we can switch between styles, where fists are quick close-range attacks, and the staff is slower but can stun enemies and has a greater distance. Plus, staff can be thrown as a long-range attack.
Throwing or recalling staff cancels any long animations and allows you to chain together combos that would be impossible without this mechanic.

The staff and fists share a common basic moveset (a series of three strikes, jump, roll, etc.), but everything we get later on will differentiate them more and more.

The very basic fist and staff combos

In platforming, the staff can be stuck into surfaces (including hazards like spikes) to bounce off it, thrown in the air for a mini-double jump, or used to cancel the limit on the number of hits in the air.

Again, the very basic platforming (never make writers record your gameplay)

In puzzles, we can use staff to reach interactive objects that are inaccessible without it, or use the stuck staff to hold down a pressure plate or button.

Guess what? Yeah, the very basic puzzle, you already know how it goes

We aim to cater to both regular players and those who like to "break" games. Akatori has a high skill ceiling, with many high-level mechanics that are interesting to discover. Ideally, we aim for players to initially beat the game "normally," but by the end realize how much their understanding of the mechanics has improved and to replay everything with a new perspective. However, if you're just playing for chill and fun, let this paragraph not intimidate you: in fact, all these words are just about giving room for experimentation and a bunch of mechanics to discover.

Akatori: Chapter One will feature all the basic staff mechanics, but we plan to further develop them and add separate upgrades for the staff in the full game: typically in modern Metroidvanias, you tailor your playstyle using talismans, but Akatori will have separate swappable upgrades for both Mako and the staff. For example, we want to add different behavior for the staff when thrown or recalled: it could damage enemies on its way back or create an explosion where it was stuck. We also plan to introduce staff-based magical attacks, currently dubbed Theurgy, but we'd better discuss all of this in more detail some other time :)

Thank you very much for your attention, and be sure to wishlist both Akatori and Chapter One if this got you excited!


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