Hail, future Cosmonauts! We're Inkstone Atelier, an independent game studio based in Chengdu, China.
Back in 2023, we released our first game, Looper Tactics. It's a game that left us with mixed feelings; it failed to recoup its costs, but we were delighted to see the positive reception it got. It's that support from our players—which has always been the most important thing to us—that has kept us making games.
Not long after, while working on our second game, we caught a lucky break. Looper Tactics caught the attention of Lilith Games, and they offered to support us. With renewed confidence and more resources than ever before, we knuckled down and dedicated all of 2024 to working on our new title: Cubic Cosmos.
After over a year of hard work,
Cubic Cosmos will debut its first demo as part of Eastern Game Fest. We're pretty nervous, but also extremely excited to see what you think of it.
We wanted to write a devlog to share our development journey and our design philosophy. If you have anything to say about the gameplay, setting, or anything else we share, we'd love to discuss it with you! You can leave your thoughts in the comments or join our
official Discord.
[h3]What Kind of Game Do We Want to Make?[/h3]
Cubic Cosmos is a strategic roguelike deckbuilder. In a crowded genre, we know that innovation is what'll make or break this game. Most deckbuilders on the market right now are modeled after Hearthstone or Slay the Spire—we want to break out of that framework.
In the early stages of the project, we focused on what new ideas we could bring to the table. We settled on what we're calling "falling card combat". Kind of like Tetris, but with slavering monsters coming at you instead of tetrominoes. We wanted a game that was easy to jump into, but also had enough depth and progression elements to reward players who synergized and strategized.
Our previous game mostly centered on buffing your minion cards as much as possible and slugging it out with your enemy. With Cubic Cosmos, we've added tons of new effects and mechanics, unlocking a huge variety of new playstyles and making every run unique.
[h3]Old Tricks, New Art[/h3]
There's an old adage here in China, one that most indie game devs will probably agree with: Poverty breeds innovation. Even with our limited resources, we've always tried to improve our visuals in clever ways.
During a visit to the Sichuan Museum, we were struck by their collection of Han dynasty "portrait bricks". It got us thinking: Why do cards need to be "flat"? With that in mind, we tried using traditional art techniques to give our 2D card art more depth and dimensionality. These 2D models are placed on separate "background plates". When a card attacks, its 2D model separates from its background plate and pops out, then rams into its target with a satisfying impact.
The few folks who have tested the game thus far have said they really liked the feeling of blowing up enemies, which counts as a success in our books. It's a bit of ingenuity to get around limited resources, but we're happy with the results... unless one of you wants to give us 100 million dollars, in which case we'll do 3D models for every card (kidding but also not really kidding).
[h3]Development Progress[/h3]
During the development of our last game, mostly due to our lack of experience, we frequently encountered fundamental architectural problems. We lost a lot of valuable time changing and fixing things we already thought were settled.
Here's another colorful Chinese adage for you: Every pit you fall into is a lesson learned (it sounds snappier in Chinese, honest). We're happy to inform you that development is going a lot smoother this time around. With our improved devtools and processes, we've saved a lot of time that we can spend on design and debugging.
As for the visual side of things, our artists have been hard at work. We've already got a whole gallery's worth of card art, running the gamut from cool to beautiful to adorable. We can't wait for you to see it all!
[h3]Demo Coming Soon[/h3]
We're hard at work putting the finishing touches on the first demo for Cubic Cosmos. If all goes to plan, you'll be able to play the demo next week.
If you're interested in our game, don't forget to add Cubic Cosmos to your Wishlist, and please feel free to leave any feedback and suggestions you have once you've played the demo. Thanks for your support, and we'll see you soon!
