- LOTLW Devblog #40: Aura gear - 5 July 2025
Hey all,Game development is slowly continuing. The news this time is that the release date will remain undetermined for another month. But the game is becoming more playable by the day!The featured change in this post is "Aura gear": shortcuts to quickly access the game's features. Here are the new options available to the players:Press (key) to consume the highest healing value consumable from the inventoryPress (key) + (key) to consume the highest aura replenishing consumable from the inventoryPress (key) to swap the current weapon with another from the inventoryPress (key) to cast a set primary spell from the spell ability listPress (key) + (key) to cast a set secondary spell from the spell ability listThis completely revolutionises combat as it is now possible to heal, cast spells, and swap weapons effortlessly.These tools are highly versatile and can be applied in various ways.The…
- LOTLW Devblog #39: Quality of life - 6 June 2025
Hey all!~ For over a month now, I have been very busy doing internal testing and fixing the game's most glaring issues! In this entry, I'll share favourite of the changes I made to the game.Glaring issue #1: Game's too hard!The game's original difficulty mode is balanced around my, a developer's, personal tastes.That means for many people, it will be a tough experience, to put it lightly.And so I set out to remedy this by introducing 'Origins' or a fancy way to describe difficulty modes. There are three 'Origins': Void's Chosen:Intended for people who want an undemanding experience, with interest mainly in the storyVoid's Chosen perks will ensure a smoother progress through tougher quest challenges+50% damage, accuracy, health, and aura!+3600 guldens upon completion of the first quest.10 > 15 talent pointsVastly reduced item insurance cost Start with three healing ointments.Start with h…
- LOTLW Devblog #38: A quick update - 28 April 2025
Hey all, It's been a tough few months, but I'm happy to say I've managed to get through it! The final quest in Light of the Locked World's story campaign quest series is finished! It's been a main hurdle preventing the game from being released. I'd love to say that "LOTLW Launches Globally Month/Day 2025" - but first, I need to discuss the future of Light of the Locked World with the game's publisher. Meanwhile, I'm running tests with my friends and we got a ton of ideas of how to continuously improve the game! Hope to be back with more good news soon! EDIT: Here's a few screenshots!
- LOTLW Devblog #37: Towards the finale - 4 January 2025
Hey all, I’m now a couple of months more in developing the game’s endgame area. It’s taking longer than average area because I’m throwing all my ‘creative budget’ at this one: This is *The Finale* after all. That means the endgame area is receiving an entirely new tileset, with almost nothing being copied from other tilesets, fancy animations, dozens and dozens of assets, new mechanics, and new sources of XP... I am happy to report however, that the progress done since the last update has been immense, and the exteriors of the endgame are nearly finished, I’m currently working on implementing new gameplay features. Spoiler warning: From here, the post will contain some details about the game's finale. So, the endgame area may look like a city, but it’s more like a “dungeon” with 8 different ways to traverse through it and get to the endpoint of the story. Reaching a very high or even ma…
- Demo update: Version 0.7.0 - And development update - 7 November 2024
Hey all, I've just pushed a small demo update. It has a new small tutorial to help people start the game properly, new music, and main menu artwork. Maybe more, I honestly don't remember =P Development update for the full version SPOILER WARNING: Endgame and story spoilers. It's been a couple of months since the last development update, so I want to briefly summarize what I'm working on. Since LOTLW Devblog #36: The Stronghold, I have fully implemented the 9th story quest: Ordinary Ways. This quest introduced a new area: Contingency Point No. 1, new consumable items, a "secret boss" with a very unique reward item, and a new ability. After all of this, I began working on the endgame area of the game: The fallen city of Korrev. It started on September 17th, when I designed the main area of the Korrev: After that, I had to choose colors and themes for the city tileset. I've settled on the…
- New promotional artwork! - 14 August 2024
Hi all, We're proud to unveil the new Light of the Locked World promotional artwork! The artist for this piece is Mango Lizard, who has been making artwork for my games since 2016. Check out his ArtStation profile here >> In other news The development of the 9th main story quest has begun, I am currently working on a new area: Contingency Point No. 1! Hope to have more news soon, until then!
- Demo update! Version 0.6.7: Balance changes and new audio - 3 August 2024
Hey all, I have released a small update to the demo today! Change list: Weapon rebalance: Changed weapon stats and doubled their damage to make combat more engaging. New audio: Ambient SFX, crafting SFX, achievement SFX, door SFX, ... Better faction rewards: Locul faction items now give more health. Minor faction reputation changes: Bigger penalty for kills, Chaos faction reputation. And there's probably more I've forgotten! It's been a long while since the last demo update... Since the Steam changes, the players can now review demos, so please do that! Also, a recently updated full version of the game is currently available on my Discord server. It has a whole new quest, a new overworld area, new weapons, new abilities, endgame rarity changes, and more! Have fun and until next time!
- LOTLW Devblog #36: The Stronghold - 15 July 2024
Hi all, The development is progressing, and 8 of 10 main story quests have been implemented. Since the last post, I've been working on a key location for the latest story quest: Order Stronghold. It is sort of a 'bonus level' full of loot, lore, adventurer marks, and a new crafting station - a worthy reward after the challenge that is getting there and an entire seven-quest chain before it. The main entrance After battling the demons of Spellscarred Desert, the player will find themselves at the steel gate of Order Tempest. The key that opens it was given to them by a princess from the previous story quest. The main building Unfortunately, you need another key - to pass the second steel gate and enter the stronghold's main building. Central sentry Central sentry is the only enemy in Order Stronghold and is its most lethal guardian. The player can defeat it to gain a key to unlock the se…
- LOTLW Devblog #35: Spellscarred Desert - 11 March 2024
Hey all! Haven't posted an update in a while because I was struggling to keep productivity up and I'm going through a pretty turbulent period of my life. I'm recovering from depression that made it quite difficult to do anything so making updates was a low-priority thing for a while. Despite all that, I'm pretty proud of the progress I made in 2024, it may be some of my best work. Let's get into it! The initial idea It all started with me deciding to work on the 8th story quest - Shadows That Remain. This quest is supposed to take place in a stronghold somewhere in the lands ravaged by the King's Spell, So I thought it would be cool to create a new overworld area and have the player explore it to find the stronghold. The overworld area LOTLW already had two large overworld areas - as I call them. They have been bothering me ever since I have implemented them. Every overworld area has th…
- The development resumes! - 9 December 2023
Hi all, As Magic of Spring - my other game - is going on hold, I am slowly returning to the rhythm of working on Light of the Locked World. It's been two very long years and I'm excited to be back to this project! For the next few months, I will be making three final quests in the game's story campaign - this will include new items, new enemy types, one new large area, a final boss, and so much more! After the story campaign, the largest of the remaining tasks will be the Classes 2.0 update. I am planning to give every class a talent/perk/skill tree and fill them with interesting nodes. The development blog should also resume shortly, so keep an eye on that for weekly development updates. See you soon!
- Happy new year! - 3 January 2023
Hey all, Happy new year! It is sort of a custom at this point to write something about my plans for the upcoming year. So, this year I am planning to be finally done with the adventure that was the development of Magic of Spring. That means I am finally coming back to Light of the Locked World! My head is full of ideas for the game - I am planning to simplify the structure of the game's story campaign and squeeze several planned quests into one to finish the game faster. I also want to implement the Arena: A place for the players to duel. This will come with an entirely new way to play LOTLW: Arena Mode, in which players have to duel in the Arena every X minutes in order to keep gaining experience. LOTLW's splitscreen RPG PVP is rather a unique feature and I want to showcase it more with this mode. So the Arena Mode will be the first thing I will work on after I return, after that, I wi…
- Small Moons: Beyond the Gate and other games - 21 November 2022
Hey all, Just wanted to share links to games I am currently working on right now. Beyond the Gate I recently added this game to Steam: I plan to release it early next year. It's a small game I made years ago - I decided to update it and release it on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2152950/Beyond_the_Gate/ The graphics of Light of the Locked World are partially inspired by this game ^_^ It is an RPG (ARPG?) with loot and other procedurally generated content. Magic of Spring Magic of Autumn's sequel - a card game and RPG hybrid with a conjuring mechanic: Turn everything in the game's environment into playable cards. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1786910/Magic_of_Spring/ Currently, in the late stages of development, we are about to start preparing for release. This is good news for everyone waiting for Light of the Locked World - after Magic of Spring is done, I'm back to L…
- Magic of Spring: Demo is now available! - 21 February 2022
Hello everyone! As mentioned earlier, I am working on a new game, Magic of Spring. I'm happy to say that the development is going well and that a demo version is available now! The demo can be downloaded from the Magic of Spring Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1786910/Magic_of_Spring/ I am hoping to be finished with Magic of Spring in the coming months and come back to working on Light of the Locked World in the summer. Until then!
- Magic of Spring: A new game by Small Moons - 20 October 2021
Hi all, As I've mentioned earlier, the LOTLW development is paused at the moment. The reason for that is that I'm working on a different game. Normally I wouldn't start a new game while the previous one isn't finished, but I made an exception for that game because it's a "now or never" situation. Anyway, that game is Magic of Spring! It is what I've been calling a card adventure game - there is a story, a world to explore, deckbuilding, and a lot of card fights. I've been working on Magic of Spring with extremely skilled Minho Kim and Bert Cole. Bert Cole composed the music for Sector Six and Light of the Locked World, so you know he's good =] Minho Kim is the artist of Devespresso Games, the team that created the great-looking Coma games, Vambrace: Cold Soul, Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood. The demo for Magic of Spring should be ready to play next month. Hope this sounds interesting…
- Demo update! Chinese and Japanese languages added, Tokyo Game Show 2021 - 1 October 2021
Hey all, The big news is that Light of the Locked World has a publisher now - WhisperGames! Thanks to WhisperGames, Light of the Locked World's demo has been translated to Simplified Chinese and Japanese. WhisperGames have also brought the game to the Tokyo Game Show 2021! We hope that all of this will help the game reach more people than ever and we welcome the new fans. Have fun!
- Small Moons, Zuurix's game studio + LOTLW development update - 6 July 2021
Hi all! A small update for those wondering what's going on: Small Moons is a studio created by me, Zuurix a.k.a. Aivaras Klimas. I've created it in case I'll want to expand in the future and because saying that these games are made by me isn't entirely correct. Two of my biggest games are made with the awesome Bert Cole of Bit By Bit Sound. Please follow Small Moons creator's page to be updated about new game releases: Link >> Also, I have some bad news for those waiting for Light of the Locked World: The development of this game has been paused by at least 6 months. I will have more news about that in the future, and these will be some pretty big and exciting news, but I have to be quiet for now. Until next time!
- We are at MGN! - 28 May 2021
We are going to join the MGN Indie Game carnival online on May 31, 2021, at 5:00 (PST)! Steam event link: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/mgn Event Stream: https://live.acfun.cn/live/934542 MGN is an online conference focus on indie games, hosted by @Steamparty and collaborated between STEAM and ACFUN, we are aiming to bring more exciting games to Chinese players. Event process (PST): May 31, 4:30 – Warm-up phase May 31, 5:00 – Online conference May 31. 7:00 – Demo showcase Despite being streamed, all videos will be pre-recorded and edited to ensure the best performance. Don’t worry if you missed the show! We will upload all content on ACFUN and Youtube Channel (nmb.ad/ytb) after the event ends.
- Demo update! Version 0.6.0: Small changes - 14 May 2021
Hey all, I've just updated a demo with a bunch of minor changes. For those who might have saves made in the previous demo version: Please start a new save. The old one will probably immediately crash because of engine changes in the new version. Have fun and see you all in July when LOTLW might have a big beta test =]
- LOTLW Devblog #34: Adventurer class - 18 April 2021
In this entry: Making Adventurer class. April 6 Before I start working on the new class, I still have a few unfinished things I have to take care of. Today I have been making final improvements to the town of Siw. The biggest change is that I've improved the contrast of Siw's tileset: April 7 I've been fixing glitches and minor issues today. Also done a few balance changes: - Reduced character starter health. - Reduced Mage equipment health bonuses. - Reduced "No Smoke Without Fire" quest class level requirement to 12 from 20. The health was reduced to speed up the combat. This will probably require further tweaking. April 8 I did some testing and bug fixing today. April 9 Preparations are over, time to work on Adventurer class! It's an exploration and questing class that unlocks areas and unique activities. Today I have implemented Adventurer leveling and area discovery system: Visitin…
- LOTLW Devblog #33: Western settlements - 4 April 2021
In this entry: Spore demons, making western settlements: Siw, Western Trilith. March 18 Started working on spores today: Made sprites for idle and attack animations. Spores originate from worker demons - occasionally they become aggressive and no longer suitable for their intended purpose. They are common near industrial centers that "employ" large numbers of worker demons. Thousand Towers in Rannah's Domain is such a center. Spores are encountered in Rannah's Domain events and they can spawn in swarms of up to six demons. March 19 Spores have been implemented! They are quite unique enemies: They only use the "Strike" ability to attack, but they have enough curse chance to often apply the "Sever" curse that deals damage over time. Spores also have a very fast attack speed, so they can drain health quickly, even though they might not look like a big threat at a first glance. March 20 Spe…
