- Demo Version Updated - 5 September 2026
An update for the Demo version of Ecrazeus Castle has been released. Changes include:The build of the demo has been boosted from a pre-release version to the latest build that the current game has.No new content has been added for the demo, but in essence, here's the differences from the previous versions:The game's optimization is more reflective of the current version (for better or worse).Arena walls warp you back to the arena.Some weapons accessible in the demo have been nerfed or buffed.The Menu UI has been updated to look a bit more polished compared to pre-release.Some rooms have slight differences.
- Soundtrack Release, Personal Thanks, and the future! - 3 September 2026
Heya!It's been just more than a week since the launch of the game.And good news: the game's profitable! ːsteamthumbsupː Now, it's not selling gangbusters, but it's paid off all the contractor costs (music, announcer and localization), and there's a decent enough profit margin from it, even with purchasing power conversion. Thankfully, I don't have to live off of this, since I've got a IRL job.The game's (almost) reached... 2000 copies sold! It's off by 50 copies, but it'll get there. :)Soundtrack Release!Speaking of contractors, the music composer for the game, Arno Cyreus, has released the soundtrack for the game.You can check it out on their Bandcamp: https://arnocyreus.bandcamp.com/album/ecrazeus-castle-ostAlternatively, you can listen to the soundtrack over on Youtube: If you wish to support the artist, consider purchasing their album from their Bandcamp.He was a pleasure to work wi…
- v216 Patch - 3 September 2026
Small update. Fixed a bug with one of the two Expert course final bosses from being locked on with pistols. Adjusted the level geometry a bit in the second room of Expert course to have the player facing the teleporter after warping through the optional room.
- v215 Update - 2 September 2026
Small update. Performance alteration (I don't dare call it a performance boost anymore because it feels like Placebo at this point...) to attack hitboxes (both allies and foes). This seems to be a bit better than after the Bakin 2.6 update, which seems to have added some major lag to each hit. Timer should immediately freeze upon touching a door now. Enemies will now vanish immediately upon touching a door, preventing a weird bug where enemies harass the player in the Expert Course.
- v214 Update - 31 August 2026
RPG Developer Bakin 2.6.0.1 update, apparently fixes a bug with map preload crashes. Update is big because it had to redo the meshes / normals due to an unrelated bug fix.
- v213 Update - 30 August 2026
An emergency update. Fixed enemy attacks not landing at all due to the previous update's attempt at optimization. Apologies for the trouble, but v212 scores will need to be wiped from the online leaderboards, especially those arena scores.
- v212 Update - 30 August 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle update has been released. Changes include: Fixed an issue with performance regarding hitboxes for both player and foes. This should put the hitboxes back into line with how they were prior to the engine update. It might be slightly better than before, but it's hard to tell (especially with the Test Play / Export Build performance discrepancies). As always, if a critical issue occurs, let me know on the Bug Report thread on the discussions, and revert to an older build using the "Game Versions & Betas" steam option.
- v211 Update - Performance Boost? - 29 August 2026
An update for Ecrazeus Castle is now live. Changes include:Idle performance increase during gameplay.The cause of this lag was due to the old Ecrazeus (gamejam) attack calculation event sheets still running in the background at all times.The event of "retrieving stats" does not properly report it's usage to the engine's event processing timing, and there's a bug where it apparently runs more times than it should in a parallel sheet.Performance while stomping a foe should be lessened.Similarly to above, the "retrieving stats" event was called upon every bounce and when collecting stomp power-ups. The stats are now only retrieved when a stomp power-up is collected now.Unfortunately, this does not fix the lag spikes from various situations in the game. I'm looking into those.As always, if something breaks, report in the Bug Report thread and revert to a previous version of the game using t…
- v210 Update - 29 August 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle update has been released. Changes include:Boss Rush Minigame(Changes to an existing mode locked behind a secret, Wizampire Dreams. This is not added content.)Online leaderboards implemented.These rank based on clear time. As a result, you can only submit your time if you've beaten all bosses.Normal Boss Rush and EX Boss Rush have separate rankings.Leaderboards can also be viewed from the main menu interface.Now spawns several attack power-ups between rounds.Currency added between rounds increases after every round.Adjusted the shop inventory of weapons: some weapons aren't available anymore, while others have been added to the mode.Reduced starting health for all bosses. While this is barely noticeable in the normal game, this game mode is more sensitive to the starting HP of the bosses.Fixed a bug where the NPC that shows up to allow you passage into the EX Boss Rush…
- v203 Update - 28 August 2026
A small update for Ecrazeus Castle has been released.Warning: The patch is over 1GB, but technically the overall install size of the game should be (very) slightly smaller. Changes include:The game was exported with the fresh off the pan RPG Developer Bakin 2.6 Engine Update. This entails the following:First time game load times should be shortened (not by a lot in testing), as shaders are apparently pre-compiled during export.Apparently, the crash that occurs when switching rooms has been fixed in this build.Possibly some very minor performance bumps, but it's likely placebo.The Bee enemy has been given a weakness to stomp damage.Minor adjustments on some cutscenes and death animation rotations for the Beginner and Advanced course EX bosses.Added some platforms in the lava of the 2nd room of the dark side dungeon in the Expert course.High-Score leaderboards should now show your current…
- v202 Update - 27 August 2026
A small update has been applied. Improved the registration of stomps on foes. From quick personal testing it shouldn't fail as often as it has previously, but it's (unfortunately) still possible it'll fail, especially on giant sized enemies. Stomps might also (rarely) register twice in some rare instances, but that's in your favor. Added a very tiny bit of delay to the Bee enemy's attack/recovery on Beginner course. I'm patching this ASAP right before work, so if there are any critical bugs, let me know ASAP and revert the game to a previous version using "Game Versions".
- v201 Update - 26 August 2026
A small set of bug fixes. Reset your Steam client if the update isn't detected. The game version is now v201. Attempt at a fix regarding stomping foes to be more consistent. Fixed a bug which prevented outfit N°7 of Secret Character 1 from being selectable. Also applied a visual fix to said outfit. Fixed a bug where a string variable box didn't change to the name of a secret character inside the description field. Special thanks to ":D?" for reporting the bugs.Patching this last minute at 1:00 in the morning. If there are any critical issues that show up, report on the community tab and revert to an older build using the "Game Versions" setting.
- Ecrazeus Castle is OUT NOW! - 24 August 2026
Heya!After (just barely) a year of development time, Ecrazeus Castle, my first commercial game release, is now officially available on Steam! Hopefully it'll be worth the short wait, as it was delayed a bit from it's internally planned release of June.By purchasing the full game, you'll experience:3 courses filled with unique levels, their unique dungeon, unique bosses, and slight gameplay mechanic tweaks between each one.Beginner: Short duration, single level dungeonAdvanced: Shops after a set amount of levels cleared during grinding, dungeon has randomized roomsExpert: Fixed amount of stages, Time limit becomes a deadline. Two different fixed dungeons based on player character.2 cute playable characters, Hime-Alice and Faune, each with small differences.A quest mode that lets you play through all three courses in a row, a harder mode overall.38 achievements / secrets that unlock addit…
- Releases August 24th, 2026! - 1 August 2026
Heya!I'm pleased to announce that Ecrazeus Castle is releasing on August 24th, 2026! A new trailer was made for the occasion!This ties in with an updated demo.Among the notable updates to the demo in particular:Pistol-type weapons were added (only Pistol drops in the demo, but if you equip two at once...)Dodge move addedDefault button config on controllers re-arranged (has alternate bindings assigned to the original left/right weapon attacks)Russian and Japanese language support.Some performance boosts (hopefully)Score, weapon re-balancingCrash fixesA lot more I'm forgetting about... it's a lot of behind the scenes fixes.It's a bit crazy right now, since now I'm going to go a bit more heavy on the marketing. Stayed up till 3AM trying to send Press Releases, but I gotta keep going.Full Game Features:Arcade-like Inspiration: It's not a rogue-like! You can complete the game on your first r…
- The good news, the bad(?) news, and the ugly news. - 2 June 2026
Heya!It's been a few months since the Next Fest demo went live. Apologies for the lack of any real updates (even on X outside of a few text-only tweets) or WiP screenshots, I've been working hard on the game to really record or take screenshots. The good newsAfter a lot of grinding, the game is mostly complete, content wise!All the planned content has been implemented.This... doesn't mean that it's ready to launch, because there's still a few things that need to be done:Testing Advanced, Expert and Quest mode in full.Balancing (enemies, weapons, etc)Stage tweaking and making them better lookingTesting the Steam Achievements API and fallback system.Updating existing localizations (French, Spanish) and get both the Japanese and Russian localization started.Adding the content for the secret developer commentary feature.The bad(?) newsI've signed onto a new job IRL. This is actually good ne…
- Demo Build 112 (performance) released (last one I promise)! - 4 March 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle Demo update has been released. Changes include:Migrated most entity spawns of various kinds to a C# function instead of relying on the default RPG Developer Bakin "Generate Event" event.This should help mitigate some of the performance spikes (not all) when dealing with enemies among other things.Removed some unused bones from both player characters.Might help? But honestly not sure.Fixed more missing button prompt icons.Fixed an issue where the boss camera was jittery.Other minor changes.Unfortunately, I feel like I'm hitting the limit of what I'm able to mitigate in terms of performance on my own, at least until the engine, RPG Developer Bakin, updates and improves their optimization.And, you know, the slopes...No more updates for the demo until the release of the game (to sync the changes up with the full game's build). I have to get back to working on the rest of…
- Demo Build 111 (performance) released... - 2 March 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle Demo patch has been released. Changes include:Removed a function to track HP that consumed 10% of the CPU at all times.The performance is starting to get better.On the bright side, Steam Deck and Linux users might want to check out a potential workaround to getting the game running, thanks to LordVysh for the trick:https://steamcommunity.com/app/4106270/discussions/0/760682600544121066/I personally tried it on Steam Deck before this patch, but I only got a horrible 20FPS in most scenarios, except for some parts of the game, like the boss cutscene and the elevator cutscene. But at the very least, this will help me test the game out on lower spec hardware.
- Demo Build 10 + Post Next Fest - 2 March 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle Demo update has been released. Changes include:Rooms in the sky now have some pre-spawned enemies, due to player feedback.The exact positions are based on your starting position in the room.Not all enemies are spawned for both performance and retaining the spirit of the game reasons.The lighting in the Tower stage has been adjusted to be nicer to look at.Fixed a bug with the button icons when near the shop keeper.Added a small text reminder under the submit feedback button (in English only).This will most likely be the last demo update for the time being, outside of the Japanese translation that's currently being worked on.Trials and TribulationsFirst of all, thank you to all the visitors on Steam for trying out the demo! Even if the initial versions had a lot of issues, your feedback has helped me patch out quite a few issues in the game, that I wouldn't be able to g…
- Demo Build 109 (minor performance updates) released! - 1 March 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle demo update has been released. Changes include:Optimized the background effect on the title screen. It should be slightly less intensive than before on the CPU.Optimized and changed the method that picked up items and weapons are displayed on the UI.A weapon type icon will now be shown, instead of the vague sword icon for all weapons.Optimized the door marker icon by removing the text distance.It is a regression, but it does save on CPU processing.Fixed an issue where the button key binds weren't properly showing up on the swap weapons / swap items interface.Changed the collision shape of the desert trees and the potted plants in the marble room.Additional behind the scenes changes I might have forgotten.Fixed an issue with the store fronts of the game and the demo being bugged. Thanks to Cris_Kaiju for pointing it out.If there any issues from this patch, please let m…
- Demo Build 108 (performance update) released! - 28 February 2026
An Ecrazeus Castle Demo has been released. I apologize for all the patches during Next Fest, but this one hopefully helps out. Changes include:Altered the weapon icon display system, which should actually cement the performance gains from the previous patch (10-15% less CPU usage)The performance gains from the portrait were immediately negated the instant the weapon icons were loaded in using the same method.These have been replaced by a font image system, which doesn't have any noticeable overhead cost.Fixed an issue where the exit door did not have an icon show.Attempted to reduce the lag induced by repeat use of the fire spear. (It didn't work out)The game font for text has been separated from the button prompt font to better support future languages and symbols.There's a small chance there might be some broken symbols. Please let me know if you encounter them.The icons look differen…
