First off, a huge thank you to everyone who has played the Katanaut demo, shared feedback, and helped shape the game. Over the past month, I’ve been working nonstop to patch bugs, improve accessibility, tweak visuals, and slowly introduce more content. If you haven’t tried the demo yet, now’s a great time to check it out!

Now for the big news – Katanaut is officially part of Steam Next Fest, starting February 24! Leading up to the event, I’ll be rolling out new content for the demo, so even if you’ve already played, there will be fresh updates to dive into.

Press Coverage & Content Creators

I never expected the amount of coverage the demo has received, and it’s been incredible seeing so many people enjoying the game. Here are a few places Katanaut has been featured:

📰 IGN: Official Demo Trailer
📰 PCGamesN: Katanaut Demo Out Now[www.pcgamesn.com]
📰 4Gamer.net: Japanese Coverage[www.4gamer.net]


IGN also hosted the trailer on their YouTube channel:
▶️ IGN YouTube – Katanaut Trailer


Beyond that, I’m incredibly grateful to all the content creators who have showcased Katanaut. It's been an absolute trip seeing people play the game, which I've been obsessing over as a hermit for the past few years. If you want to see a pretty cool example of a showcase, checkout:
🎮 Splattercatgaming: Katanaut First Impressions

More Updates Coming Soon

With Steam Next Fest right around the corner, I’ll be dropping even more content into the demo over the next week. Whether you’re playing for the first time or jumping back in, I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think.

Thank you all for the amazing support! See you at Next Fest!

Katanaut demo just came out and to celebrate, I wanted to kick off a small speedrun competition!

Over the next two weeks the person with the fastest speed run in the demos Any% category (AKA beating the game by any means necessary BESIDES cheating) will win a cash prize, and their choice of either an in-game statue of themself/their avatar with an inscription of their choice(has to be SFW), or immortalize themselves as a core NPC in the game! Whichever you choose, we'll work closely with pixel artists to turn you, or a unique representation of you into a character!

Quick facts:
- Speedrun example video linked here!
- The competition goes from now, until February 2nd, ending at exactly 8pm PST!
- A save file is provided in the discord, which has everything unlocked in the demo.
- To submit your results send over an unedited video of your FULL gameplay footage to here[www.speedrun.com]. Streaming your runs is also welcome!
- Speedrun times will be in milliseconds! Please make sure to add them!
- Your game timer will always start the moment you descend the elevator from your home base. Your game timer will STOP if you pause the game(esc).
- Your game timer will end the moment you touch the holograph machine on the last level! Your final time of the run is the one that is shown on the hologram machine!
- A full run is defined by starting in the "home base" of the game, to killing the last boss and touching the machine mentioned in the previous point. Once you touch that machine, you will see a "total time" represented there, which is the total time of your run. If you want to see your top 6 times in game, you can activate your personal scoreboard by interacting with the machine shown here.
- Cheating/Hacking is described as modifying the client or code in any way to gain an advantage -- this is not permitted during the competition. Glitching or abusing compounding buffs is fine, however scripting or mousewheel inputs are prohibited!

If you have any questions related to the competition, or feel like collaborating with your fellow newbies to find the optimal strategies, check out our official discord[discord.gg].