First Dev diary for Cauldron!

A Little History:
I began developing Cauldron in 2021 as a hobby project, and now four years later, here we are! What started as a couple strung-together minigames has evolved into the upgrade-fest that is Cauldron! I could pretend that I had a master plan laid out for this game from the start, and that every new unlockable gameplay feature was part of some grand design, but the reality of this game’s development was a lot more chaotic, with a lot of trial and error, testing, and bugs (and an incredible amount of helpful feedback from the community!).

The progress of the world and environment art.

Developing Development:
As Cauldron evolved, so did my vision of the game’s final form, and with that, a realization that I’d never be able to do everything on my own. This past year, I formed SleepyDad Games, and have brought on a dedicated musician (Andy Brown) and pixel artist (Jared Zankowski) to work on the game.

How combat has changed over time.

Happening Now:
If you’ve been following the game, you probably noticed a lot of changes recently! Since the start of the new year, we’ve been updating a lot of the game’s artwork, including Jared’s incredible hand-drawn map and updated character portraits. I’ve also added a whole bunch of post-processing effects to bring the game to life (though I’m currently battling with the slowdown they cause on some graphics cards!).

Early and current dialogues!

SleepyDad has also entered a partnership with Caketown Interactive, whose expertise in marketing and publishing games has already been an incredible help (they’re the ones who suggested I start these dev diaries!).



What’s Left Before Full Release:
Short answer: a whole lot!
More than anything, Cauldron can use a bit of polish, and I’m pushing hard to make sure the game looks and plays its best before release in May. There’s still more map to draw, more character sprites to update, and more features to add (full mouse support almost here!). We’re also looking into localization, and as of now, we’re at least planning to add Simplified Chinese translations to the game.

The next few months will be busy, and I’ll do my best to keep these posts coming for those of you who want to follow the game’s development.

As always, feel free to reach out with any comments, questions, or feedback, either here on Steam or over in the Cauldron Discord.



Thanks again!
Pete