- v1.3.0 update - 23 October 2025
Hey everyone! Thanks to Felix, we're pushing another update for Lyca that improves things significantly under the hood: - Performance overhaul: The terrain system has been reworked into a tile-based system that drastically improves performance, especially on lower-end PCs - Controller support overhaul: The controller functionality has been completely reworked to make it much smoother and intuitive to play! - Other smaller fixes and tweaks This update brings the Steam (Windows) version up to date with the Switch version. Speaking of which,Lyca is now available on Nintendo Switch (and Switch 2)! If you're wanting to relax, run through a meadow as a dog (or cat) and listen to chill lo-fi music, you can now do it on the go! (or in your bed or couch or wherever you play your Switch). It's been a dream of mine to have my game on the Switch, so I'm really grateful to be able to achieve that to…
- Major Update: CATS! - 15 September 2025
Hi everyone! It's been a while since the last update, and I'm really excited to share that Lyca has surpassed over 30,000 players in its lifetime! It's been amazing to see how far this tiny game has come, and to celebrate, we're doing a few things: - A new update (v 1.2.0) is live now with 4 new cat skins! The last one is Donuts, my own beloved cat who unfortunately crossed the rainbow bridge earlier this year... I really wanted to add him to the game :) The update also includes a number of fixes, including a potential fix for a crash that a small number of players were experiencing when launching the game (related to loading the save file). If you were experiencing this issue, please download the update and let me know if it's working now (in the comments of this announcement)! - The game is currently 40% off and we've partnered with Steam for a Daily Deal, which is live now! If you've…
- Lyca - 4 Months later - 7 August 2025
Hey everyone! It's been a while, I wanted to make a check-in post to celebrate the success of the game and show my appreciation to you all for it! Lyca released exactly 4 months ago on April 7, and I made the game alone in about 4 months (mostly part-time). I never expected the game to resonate so much with people, but over 28,000 people have bought the game as of today, which is far beyond my expectations! I'm really humbled by all of the support and feedback I've gotten, and will definitely use it to make more (and better) games! :) I plan on having a dev-log and a port-mortem on my newsletter/blog about Lyca soon as well, so if you'd be interested in reading about how I made the game and the journey through launch and post-launch, you can sign up to the newsletter at syphono4\com. In order to celebrate the many milestones of Lyca since release, we're doing a bunch of things!: Startin…
- Major Update: Performance and Skins - 21 May 2025
Hey everyone! Thank you for your patience, I'm excited to say that a major update for the game is live now! This update includes: 1. A substantial optimization patch: I was pretty much at my wits end trying to make fixes for weeks with no results, when I turned to Felix Borchert AKA BinaryCounter (the programmer of Backpack Hero) for help. With his wizard-like skills, he has reworked the grass shader in the game from scratch to look and run much better than before! He has also made a bunch of other changes and fixes that improve the performance. All of your feedback has been invaluable in making the game better! 2. Low-FPS mode has been removed: This is due to the new grass shader, as it no longer works the same way. The button still exists in the settings menu but won't do anything if enabled. 3. 5 new skins have been added to the game! These are all special doggos that I've wanted to…
- 1 Month of Lyca - 7 May 2025
Hey everyone, It's been 1 month since Lyca released on Steam! In this last month, the game has surpassed all my expectations and I'm really humbled by the response. Thank you everyone for playing the game and for giving me really valuable feedback. I'm really grateful that something I made is being played and enjoyed by so many people! I'm still hard at work on the next update, which will improve the performance further as well as include the locked skins in the game! Please stay tuned for the update :) Thanks again and talk to you all soon, - Shaun (dev)
- Performance hotfix #2 + Cloud saves - 9 April 2025
Hey everyone! Thanks again for your patience with the patches. I've just pushed the second performance patch, which should improve the performance further. This update contains: 1. Performance improvements: - Grass shader has been optimized further - Grass shader has been modified to draw fewer blades of grass to improve FPS - Low-FPS mode is improved: draws even fewer blades of grass, and some other effects are disabled 2. Bug fixes: - Controller fix: If last saved control scheme was Controller, and player starts game with no controller connected, it will default to WASD+Mouse controls - y-position of camera follower is clamped on upgrade screen while using WASD controls 3. Balance changes: - snow damage has been nerfed - unlocking the first snow upgrade costs more resources to unlock (so players will unlock snow at a later stage in the game when they already have better upgrades to su…
- Performance hotfix #1 - 8 April 2025
Hi everyone, Thanks for your patience with the patches, and for all the feedback so far. I'm still working hard to figure out the performance issues and will be improving them over the coming days. For now, I've just pushed an update that does the following: - The player (and birds) movement is now framerate independent, so Lyca won't slow down too much even if the FPS drops. - Low FPS mode is updated a bit: the flowers and seed bomb plants are now static, particles and screenshake are disabled. This should hopefully improve performance a little bit. - Small balancing changes with 2 upgrades - Tiny bug fix related to screenshake with a couple of buttons - Added a button to main menu for performance feedback form, if you're encountering issues with performance, please use the form to provide more information so that I can try and improve the performance quickly! https://forms.gle/4jGcL5c…
- Performance feedback form - 8 April 2025
Hey everyone! Thanks a lot for trying out Lyca, I hope you're having a relaxing time with the game! I'm aware that a number of people are encountering performance-related issues while playing the game, and I'm working hard to trying to fix them ASAP. To that end, it would be really helpful if you could fill out this form with details about the performance of the game: https://forms.gle/4jGcL5cV8E1HGZXv7 The info from the form will make it much easier and quicker for me to hone down on the problem and fix it! If there's something specific you want to bring to my attention, please feel free to write it in the comments of this post. In the meantime, there's a couple of things you can try to make it a little better: - Enable Low-FPS mode in the settings, this will disable the grass shader (which is the most performance-heavy aspect of the game). - If you're starting to get performance issue…
- Lyca is OUT NOW! - 7 April 2025
Hi everyone, I'm really thrilled (and nervous) to share that I have just released Lyca, and it's now available to buy and play! It’s a solo project that I’ve poured all my passion into, and what I believe is my best game so far! I've also bundled with games like Nodebuster, Digseum, Ropuka’s Idle Island, and more, which are some of my favorite games in the genre! Grab them along with Lyca if you haven’t tried them, they’re totally worth playing. Quick update: We have added Thai translation as well to the final build of the game! Thanks for all your support and feedback in the past few months, I couldn’t have finished the game without it! I’ll be here working to fix any issues that come up over the next few days. See you all soon! - Shaun
- Lyca releases April 7! - 31 March 2025
Hey everyone! Excited to announce that Lyca will release in 1 week on April 7! The game will be priced at US $4.99 or equivalent, although it will vary slightly depending on your region and currency. There will also be a 20% launch discount, so make sure to grab it at launch! There will be a few really cool bundles at launch as well, with some of my favorite incremental games that inspired me to make Lyca! So if you haven't tried them, pick them up as part of the bundles! Another good news: There will be Polish translation in the game at launch! Will keep you all updated with news about the game, leading up to release. See you all soon, and can't wait to get the game in your hands! - Shaun (dev)
- Final Demo Update! - 5 March 2025
Hi everyone! This will be the last demo update. The next update will be related to the release date and price of the full game! In this update: - There's a performance overhaul, mainly related to flower and flower drops. The performance should now be significantly improved. - The progress bar should now be fixed for everyone and run smoothly no matter the FPS. - The threshold for Low-FPS mode has been lowered to 53 fps, since sometimes toggling full-screen can cause a momentary decrease of the game to 54 fps, triggering Low-FPS mode previously. - Other small tweaks, improvements and bug fixes. Please let me know how the performance is now (in the comments of this post) and if you're encountering any bugs/crashes/issues with the build! I'm super excited to get the full game in your hands ASAP, and for you to see the stuff that was not part of the demo. In the meantime, you always have th…
- Small fix: Languages - 4 March 2025
Hi everyone, In the last update with save functionality, it wasn't possible to change the language without resetting the game. It was also defaulting to English whenever the game was launched. This has been fixed in this update: The game will start on the language select screen every time you launch the demo. This won't be the case for the full release, but this was a quick temporary fix I implemented for the demo! The next 2 updates (Progress bar fix, Performance patch #2) are coming soon! - Shaun
- Save Functionality - 3 March 2025
Hey everyone, The demo now has save functionality! The game will autosave at different points in the demo (with every upgrade, every run, every change in settings, etc.). In case you want to restart from the beginning with default settings, I've set a hotkey (INSERT) that you can press to reset the demo. There are also some small tweaks and fixes to the demo. Please let me know in the comments of this post whether the save functionality is working properly for you, or if there are any issues! Lyca was part of the Next Fest and did really well! Thanks to everyone who tried out the demo and wishlisted the game, please look forward to the full game coming really soon! Here are some numbers from Next Fest: 12,000 people have added the demo to their library, and 8,800 have played! The average playtime is still holding strong at 1 hour 20 mins! We've also now crossed 7,100 wishlists! There wi…
- Quick Fix: Low FPS Mode - 24 February 2025
Hey everyone! I've just pushed a small update that addresses the following: - Low-FPS mode now triggers at 55 fps instead of 40 - Quick bug fixes related to performance and Low-FPS There will be another update soon that addresses a bug related to the Progress Bar when there are FPS drops, and Save Functionality will be implemented! Another thing, Steam Next Fest is live now and Lyca is participating! Please take a bit of time to play the demo as it will give the game some algorithm juice!! :) Some little news about the demo: 7000 people have added to library and 5000 people have played the demo! The average time is now 1 hour 24 mins!! I'm so humbled and grateful that people have found the demo my little game fun enough to play for that much time :) Let's pump those numbers up! ːsteamthisː
- Demo Performance Patch - 19 February 2025
Hi everyone, I've made a ton of performance-related tweaks to improve the FPS for the demo! Hopefully, this would solve slowdowns for most people, please reach out let me know how the performance is now. I've also detached the progress bar from the fps of the game, so even if there are slowdowns, the progress bar shouldn't stall. Another fail-safe solution I've implemented is that there is now a Low-FPS mode (in the settings menu). If your FPS drops too low, this will activate and make the grass entities static, which will instantly boost the FPS. It doesn't look quite as good, but the game will be blazing fast! However, if you prefer to turn this option off, you can always disable it in the settings. Coming up: - Save functionality for the demo will be implemented in another update next week! - The demo will be part of Steam Next Fest, so please look forward to that! See you all soon!…
- Demo Out Now! - 2 February 2025
Hey everyone, Shaun here, the dev of Lyca! If you've been following the game, you probably know that the demo is out now! Please try it out and provide any feedback for the full release! I've also pushed a quick patch that addresses the following: - The tutorial is updated to make it more clear about prestige unlocks - The default control option is changed to WASD (keyboard) + mouse instead of "Clicker mode" - Some small bug fixes Other points of improvement are: - Better performance optimization in later parts of the demo - Save functionality These 2 things will unfortunately take a bit of time to implement but I'll try my best to put those features in! Since the demo released 2 days ago, ~2500 people have added it to their library, ~1350 people have played it with an average playtime of 55 mins! I'm really humbled by the response, and I hope more people play it and enjoy it! A couple…
