Hi, and thanks for checking out Capesong! A lot of work has already gone into building the skeleton for this game, but there’s still a long long way to go, so I really appreciate you being here early.

I wanted to use this first post to give a quick snapshot of where development is at and to write down what I’ve built so far.

As of today, the foundation is in place. The core game loop is functional: hero generation, combat, shard healing, and squad promotion/retirement all work. The enemy logic is serviceable (though there’s still a lot to do there). It’s rough around the edges, but the PvE skeleton is playable and allows for a very basic preview of what I hope the game will eventually become. Most of my effort so far has been on getting the backend solid enough that I can start layering content and polish on top, while adding depth to the powers, synergies, and combat.

Sprites and Character Creation:

I’ve been using Aseprite to build layered sprites, with base bodies, outfits, and hairstyles as separate bits that stack and animate together. I’ve also built a system that is supposed to ensure that heroes from different parts of the world are generated within accurate skintone/hair color ranges, and that their default stances and battle tendencies are a reflection of their inherent personalities (which are scored according to five sliders). This is, I hope, what will eventually let every hero look and feel distinct. I’m trying to give players a chance to create OCs with unique looks and personalities, while staying within the boundaries of the game’s lore.

Powers (Art and Math):

300+ powers have been designed and roughly balanced so far. 10 elements and 7 traits, with about 15-25 powers each. Each family of powers is meant to have a basic ‘hook’ for how it interacts with the game’s HP and momentum systems, while avoiding soft-locking different archetypes out of certain crucial battle mechanics.

As with the sprites, I’ve put in a lot of effort to design the power icons pixel-by-pixel. About 50 are done so far… which is probably about 1/8th of what will eventually be needed. The design and function of the standard powers within each element/trait family are basically complete, but the synergistic cross-element powers are only just getting started. This is the heart of the game, and is honestly the thing that is going to take the most amount of time and effort to perfect before I can even begin to think about trying to estimate a release date.

What’s Next:

Still a lot of sprite and UI work to do before I can turn my attention to making these systems into an actual game. Combat legibility is my major focus as I do that (trying to make it so the game actually teaches you how to play through the experience itself rather than relying on text explanations). I also want to get the auto-battle system feeling good so that buildcrafting feels rewarding even when you’re not piloting every turn manually. This is going to require a lot of passes of tweaking the combat logic to make sure moves are properly scored by personality influence and weighted according to what might happen many turns down the road.

All this needs to be handled first to perfect the single-hero PvE experience. Only once that’s done, will I be able to turn to what is meant to be the main point of the game: async squad PvP, where your five chosen heroes read and react to each others’ powers and personalities in order to do battle against squads created by other players.

Sound design and music are very dear to me (game audio was my entry point into gamedev in the first place), so the soundtrack and SFX are a parallel track that I plan to devote a lot of attention to in the coming months.

And, of course, there’s a whole story and lore that the game needs to be built around, which is the real heart and inspiration for this whole thing in the first place.

I’ll be posting updates here as development continues. If any of this sounds like your kind of game, please wishlist to stay in the loop!