- August Development Update - 3 August 2026
August Development UpdateIt's been a while since the last update in March, and that's partially because other updates have been going to the Rebel Core Playtest page! For those who have already joined the playtest, you've likely noticed the news and update posts that have been showing up on the Rebel Core Playtest page in your Steam Library, and those updates do not automatically cross over to the game's main Steam store page here. Those news posts are primarily about the progress, updates, and changes being made as development continues on the game, and you can see them all by joining the playtest!Like this video on the updated Intro Level boss! - Can you beat it?How to Join The Playtest You can join the playtest right from the game's Steam page by clicking the "Request Access" button near the top of the page.When you join the playtest, you'll be granted immediate access to the game, a…
- March Development Update - 19 March 2026
March Development UpdateDevelopment has been busy since the last update, though much of it focused on systems building and cleaning up some performance and operational construction so there hasn't been much on the visual side to post until now.A lot of the last month was focused on building out the Intro Level's boss fight and creating the systems required to make it work, as well as cleaning up and improving the flow of the Intro Level from Playtest feedback (if you haven't yet, be sure to sign up for the playtest from the game's store page and share your thoughts and experiences in the playtest forums on Steam!).While that took up the majority of my focus, I was also able to sit down with a few experiential / polish items I've been wanting to get in for ages. Blocked shots now ricochet properly off of shields (which the intro level now teaches before the boss fight), the upgrade termi…
- Public Playtest Signups and Game Intro Level - 15 January 2026
Public Playtesting!You may have seen it already, a happy little banner that has appeared on the Rebel Core Steam page:Yes indeed, that means request-based playtest signups are now active for the game! As we continue to push forward to a 2-level demo release (Intro Level and Wastelands), I am now opening up playtesting to public request, which I will check regularly and approve in batches up until we hit a good measure of feedback activity.Feedback, Thoughts, and CommentsSpeaking of feedback, just about the biggest, best, and most important thing that folks could do for us with this expanded playtesting is share their thoughts, reactions, suggestions, bugs, and general feedback from their experience as you play this early build of the game. While there is still a lot that is in-progress even within some of the core gameplay elements, we need all of the feedback we can get while we work o…
- December 2025 Update - 2 December 2025
Wastelands Level Art Updates!Where has the time gone this year?? Grant, Michael, and I have been cranking away on Rebel Core and seem to have lost track of time.Since my last post, I've now got an end-to-end first pass on environment art done for the Wastelands Level - to see it in action check out the video below! In addition to that, there have been some refinements to the main menu, music (now with separate intro and looping segment setup!), fixes to jump timing ("coyote time" is fixed and back in, allowing for some buffer time between running off of a ledge and still being able to jump), fixes to dash and dash-jump issues, improvements to energy pickups, and all manner of additional step-by-step progress.But Wait, There's More!In addition to that, I've started working on the Intro Level - the level you play when you first start a new game (before getting to / unlocking the level sel…
- Rebel Core: September Development Update - 23 September 2025
Boy does the time fly when you're having fun working like crazy to make progress on a game in your part-time hours. Michael, Grant, and myself have been quiet, but hard at work pushing forward on a playable demo for Rebel Core: Awakens and it seemed like high time I made an update about it.Pictures being worth a thousand words and all that, I thought the best lead-in would be a big ol video taking you all from main menu to level select, into the demo level (Wastelands - still very WIP!), and then into some smaller, more art-heavy test levels.We've got all sorts of fun new stuff in this build, including basic enemy spawning systems, level selection and level loading with video intros, a basic pause menu, life pickups (health and extra lives!), a level checkpoint system, and a nearly complete-length test level (no boss fight in there yet though).There's still a lot of work to go on enemy…
- The Core Robotics: Seeker Boss Talk - 6 August 2025
The Core Robotics: SeekerCarrying on from the last news post where I talked a bit about our push for a pre-release, pre-alpha demo, I had called out the Wastelands as the location that has been chosen to be the full length level for the demo. As such, it felt like a good time to talk in a bit more detail about the boss of that level, along with a refresher on the Core Robotics in general.The Core RoboticsThe Core Robotics were briefly mentioned in our 2nd news post alongside this graphic laying them all out atop their respective levels: As said in that post, the Core Robotics are the pinnacle of the robotic Council's creations, with each one set to rule over a specific domain - some conquered, some adapted, and some built from the ground up by the Robotics themselves, and as such, they represent the bosses of each level in the game.The SeekerThe Seeker's domain is the Wastelands. A barr…
- Playable Demo: Roadmap and Planning - 29 July 2025
Planning A Demo...Pre-Alpha?The year is 20XX (2025) and game development is a bit different these days than in decades past. If you had told me when I first entered the industry 18 years ago that I'd ever be planning out a demo for a game that is just barely crawling out of the prototype phase of development, I'd have thought I was being pranked. But a lot has changed in the last couple of years. The bar for for raising development funds is higher than ever. The insistence on complete secrecy and market validation coming from Publishers well into development has now become an insistence on maximized visibility and market validation provided by the developer before a publisher will even consider joining and providing development funds. While that role reversal has had some pretty devastating effects on the indie and AA scene, there's no arguing out of the fact that it's our current reali…
- Machinewaves #2 And More! - 17 July 2025
Ambient Machinewaves 02: The GridAmbient Machinewaves #2 brings a new song clip and takes us to the rainy outskirts of The Grid, a massive electrical complex that has become wildly unstable after years of overtaxed use by the Machines. Masters and Their DomainsCreated by the mysterious Council, the Core Robotics are the pinnacle of robotic intelligence and capability, given full sapient thought and autonomous free-will* (some strings attached). Most were adapted from human-made designs during the machine uprising, though a few were made entirely by The Council. Assigned to critical operations and serving as masters of the domains they have been entrusted with, each one must be defeated by the Rebel in order to gain access to The Council's domain within The Citadel. I look forward going into more detail on each of the Core Robotics, as well as the levels they call home in future posts!Ou…
- Ambient Machinewaves: 01 - 9 July 2025
AtomDan here with our first news post for Rebel Core: Awakens!To get things started I wanted to show the first "Ambient Machinewaves" video clip I made as an ambient musicscape that gives a taste of the look and feel of our style for the game.As a life long musician and songwriter, it has been an absolute blast to compose for a game that is able to put a highly musical soundtrack front and center during gameplay.I've always loved classic 8 and 16-bit game OSTs and getting to mash those influences up with Carpenter-inspired synthwave and good ol fashioned heavy metal makes me excited for every minute I get to squirrel away working on music for this.That said, there are a few amazing musicians I'd like to collaborate with on a finished soundtrack for the game, but for now I'm allowing myself to revel in the indulgence of working on it myself 🤘
