- Lake of Darkness: Cide Story enters public playtesting! - 11 July 2026
Play the beta now on Itch.io: https://steezey-swag.itch.io/lake-of-darkness-cide-story-playtest-demoThe full release should be coming late fall of this year as a free download on steam. I hope you enjoy and please if you have any feedback about your gameplay experience, good or bad, please let me know via the discord and Itch.io comments.The earlier mentioned 1.6 update is in the works, don't worry. Coming with new scenes, quality of life improvements, and fixes to the bugs with regards to achievements. So sorry it's taken me so long, keep an eye out for that over the next few weeks.
- 1.54 hotfix - 24 May 2026
Hotfix 1.54A bug was introduced yesterday in patch 1.53 that softlocked players at the start of the game into dying on the first night. This was a holdover from testing the "early bird" ending. This should now be fixed. If you are still having issues with the "awake" achievement I'm so sorry about that, it seemed to be working in engine so I'll be looking into solutions over the following weeks. Likely has something to do with how steam stores it's achievements.Besides fixing bugs and writing errors I plan on there being one final content patch closer to the release of cide story with scenes that hint at plot points from the new game. Look forward to that and again, please let me know of any bugs you find via the discord server or the steam community tab and I'll address them as soon as possible. Thanks again for playing Lake of Darkness.
- Update 1.53 - 23 May 2026
Patch 1.53Update 1.53 is designed primarily to address bugs surrounding the achievement "Awake" but also to address small inconsistencies in writing, while continuing to polish existing endings and scenes. Some of the dialogue is from very early in development when I didn't have all details of the story quite yet narrowed down. During testing and while writing scenes for cide story I've notices some minor plot holes and moments that are worded strangely, I'll continue to be on the lookout for stuff like this in future updates but I tried to tackle a number of them here. As for the "Awake" trophy, if you already have all other achievements "Awake" will now be unlocked when you start a new playthrough.Content:Minor dialogue editsNew spritesUpdated old spritesNew hidden scaresBugfixes:Awake achievement now functionalTrophy sprite no longer persists between roomsThanks so much for all of th…
- 1.51 bug hotfix - 29 April 2026
In this hotfix I was trying to address the script error introduced in patch 1.5 with regards to the "True ending" and clean up some dialogue. Thankfully the bug only occurred at the very end blocking the "Thank you for playing" message however now you wont have to go into the game files to avoid this crash.Content:New garbage searching sound effectNew hidden dialogueMinor changes to existing dialogueBugfixes:Script error during true endingSome grammatical errors and typosI hope you enjoy the polish update and I have no news I'm willing to share regarding the development of Lake of Darkness Cide Story out of fear of spoilers just know that it's going well and public testing should start in late June or Mid July, I'll keep you all updated as it progresses.
- 1.5 Update and Future Projects - 3 April 2026
Update 1.5 and what comes after...First of all, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has played, both players who've been around since the demos on ITCH.IO and those who are just trying the game today. I've seen so much passion from this small community it really makes this development journey feel rewarding, I've been inspired by that passion and I'd like this to be rewarding for you all too, so at the end of this announcement I'll be giving you all a sneak peak at my next game.For the 1.5 update I wanted to focus on polishing the dialogue, images, achievements, and remove some repetitions in the script. With this update I hope to leave it polished enough to move onto other projects while addressing some concerns from the community. For those of you creating guides: this is the last time I plan on ever changing achievements or routes to endings, any update beyond this will be bugf…
- 1.4 Content Patch - 26 January 2026
1.4 Content PatchDespite your best efforts to understand it, the town is everchanging.For the first update of 2026 I bring you the 1.4 content update which promises to further flesh out characters and stories, but also polish the day to day experience in your mysterious hometown. This update comes with new puzzles, areas, secrets, scares, and surreal moments. I also wanted to thank you all again for all the reviews, artwork, and support I've seen in this small community. You all have made Lake of Darkness an incredibly rewarding experience to make, I hope you enjoy the new patch. Content:New section of your house is now explorableNew hidden areaNew mechanics and puzzlesNew secret dialogueNew hidden scares2 new items4 new endingsNew Steam achievementWork intro scene with dad now triggerable only once per day.Can no longer name character "???"Can no longer name character a number of slurs…
- 1.22b - 5 November 2025
updated to latest edition of renpy minor dialogue edits
- HUGE update 1.22 - 5 November 2025
Halloween Patch 1.22 (major)After too long of a wait, Lake of Darkness is finally going to look more like the game I imagined when starting this project. This patch contains all the content that was supposed to release in earlier patches and more. Consider this a sort of "full release". I don't have any major updates planned after this outside of following the community and minor fixes or changes as the inspiration hits. Lake of Darkness has always been a passion project of mine first and foremost however I still want it to be a polished, unique, and engaging experience. I feel as if I have somewhat failed in that regard up until now and for that I do apologize. That being said I hope you find that this new version makes up for some of the delays and bugs you all have been dealing with during your playtime. What happened?In the first two months after release I was very active in the dis…
- Missing: Patch 1.2 - 3 November 2025
So patch 1.2 didn't work (obviously)This past month I've taken a significant break from programming on lake of darkness to celebrate my birthday, pick up more shifts at work, and dip my toes into work on a new game (news about this at some point). When I returned to the project to begin working on the Halloween update, immediately I noticed that people were still experiencing old bugs I was sure I patched and none of the new content seemed to appear. I had a friend test it on their computer to come to the realization that the patches 1.2 and 1.21 were only available to me, the developer.A failure in testing? Definitely. Consider it part of the risk of being a one person team I suppose. However on the bright side this Halloween patch is going to be much larger than anticipated as it will include all of the content intended to release patch 1.2.Due to this bug and a few others there has b…
- Bug hotfix 1.21 - 26 September 2025
This hotfix is supposed to resolve a major bug players are having with steam achievements not functioning as intended. Hopefully this small bugfix will address that issue so you guys can keep track of your endings via the achievement system.BugfixesSteam Achievement hotfixNow running on Renpy 8.4.1Can no longer name your character "Mom" or "Dad"Compilation error after reading dad's note (Shoutout to FaB for finding this bug)
- Major update: version 1.2 - 24 September 2025
After months of coding, drawing, and testing, the third public steam version (1.2) is finally out.I can't wait to see what you all think of this patch and all the new content. Reading all of your glowing reviews and comments has renewed my passion for this project. This should be the 2nd last update outside of smaller bug patches. I have a minor Halloween patch planned for next month, but you're here to read the changelog for this patch, so let's get into it.Content:15 new unlockable Steam achievements New explorable area: the apartmentsA new ending2 Secret nightmare sequencesNew secrets and scaresNew sprites for items and work minigameBugfixes:Compilation error during dream sequenceDisappearing/oversized inventory spritesDisappearing background spritesMom sprite not appearing at nightDialogue editsRestored non functional variables
- Lake of Darkness version 1.1 - 5 August 2025
Lake of Darkness patch 1.1Content:2 new endingsnew randomized dream sequencenew song in soundtrack (osttree)expanded existing passive mechanicsmore varied dialoguemore randomized eventsBugfixes:missing sprites in corner storecertain hidden dialogue trees previously not appearing are now functionalNo longer able to call into work past the time work is availablecompilation error due to working twice in same day (no idea how this was missed during testing)compilation error due to incorrect time in certain scenesmultiple compilation errors due to erroneous variablesThank you so much to everyone for the amazing feedback and support since release. In this first major update I was hoping to focus more on polishing and fixing the existing content rather than adding new scenes. Don't worry however more updates will come regularly so keep an eye out for future announcements and releases. I'm look…
