Inkshade news & patch notes

Hi All,

Firstly I need to extend a huge thank you to everyone. The Inkshade launch is going exceedingly well, and I’m truly touched by all the kind things people have been saying. I’m also ecstatic that so many people are enjoying the game. The whole point was to make something that brings even a little bit of delight to others, and Inkshade seems to be doing that with great success.

I especially want to thank the people who have helped get the word out by sharing Inkshade online, mentioning it to your favorite creators, or even just telling your friends about the game. I’m just some random person making stuff, and so I have neither a publisher nor a giant corporate budget for things like promotional campaigns. The fact that the game is reaching so far on its own is really, really awesome.

And even more awesome still is the growing fanbase–I appreciate how patient and chill everyone is, and I am genuinely excited to continue making games for all of you.

Anyway, the main reason for this post is to talk about a new update that I think a lot of people will appreciate, so here’s the scoop on that:

The Lantern Update

v1.1.010

Perhaps the most requested feature across every channel has been the ability to use the lantern at-will. With a few exceptions, this update lets you use the lantern whenever you want!

At-Will Lantern

Long story short, I have gone through the entire game, the entire lighting system, and the existing lantern system, and revamped everything to work with a togglable lantern. This included a lot of reprogramming of certain things, and also fixing up a lot of stuff hiding in crevasses that were never meant to be illuminated (I was hiding a lot of shame in those shadows).

Things will also work as they did before if you want to keep playing with the old lantern. All the automatic lantern triggers are still in place, so the manual lantern isn’t required. Well, except for some new spooky events, that is…

Note: if your keyboard only has one control key, you may have to go set the lantern toggle keybinding in the settings.

New Events

I’ve added a couple new events, sequences, and game master interactions related to this new lantern system. Also a couple little hidden details depending on how these events intersect with existing cinematic sequences. You should encounter them in a normal playthrough, and most of them will trigger on existing saves too.

Brightness Bump

You’ll now find a “Contrast” slider in the graphical settings, right below “Gamma”. A lot of players tend to crank up the gamma, which has the tragic effect of making everything desaturated, so the contrast can be used to counteract that.

However, since it’s a little annoying to fiddle around with graphics sliders for long periods of time, I’ve also added a “Brightness Bump” button right below these sliders. This button will automatically adjust the exposure, gamma, and contrast settings to values that will give you a relatively balanced, but ultimately brighter experience. (Please note that you may still need to tweak the settings to get the best experience on your monitor.)

Other News

Inkshade OST

I almost forgot to mention that the Inkshade OST is now fully uploaded to the Official YouTube Channel! You can find the complete playlist here. I am not exactly a crack composer, but a surprising number of people have asked about getting their hands on the OST, so here it is if anyone wants to give the tracks a listen. It may also come to Steam as a downloadable soundtrack one day, but exactly when is to be determined.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

As always, thanks for playing.

–Vezelle

- Fixed line-of-sight blockers and walkability for certain combat tiles.

- Adjusted the AI of certain boss units to aggro properly when attacked from long-range.

- Adjusted the range of certain puzzle activation zones.

- Fixed a bug with the chaching and restoring of variables for One Run to Rule Them All.

- Other minor tweaks, adjustments, and fixes.

Hi All,

Wow, what do I even say today? A few years ago I started futzing about with game dev again just as a creative outlet, and now I have a complete game up on Steam. Oops.

I suppose I should mention that if you find any bugs, please report them either in the Steam Community forum or in the #bug-reports channel of the official Discord. This is a one-man operation, so it might take me a little while to sort out any issues that are particularly tricky, but I will do my best!

Oh, I’d also like to sincerely thank the Discord community for being so chill and supportive. Y’all are a huge reason why I want Inkshade to be as good as it can be, and simply by existing and hanging out, you gave me more energy during development than you can possibly know (the instances of directly gassing me up also helped haha).

Anyway, have a launch trailer!

And lastly, if you play the game, I hope you have fun. I’ve had so many awesome experiences with all sorts of games over the years, and while Inkshade started as a little personal project, the reason why it’s up on Steam today is because I want to try and create cool experiences for other people.

Welcome to the flip side!

–Vezelle

Hi All,

A few things to update on today!

First is that Inkshade was accepted into the Tiny Teams festival! This one is run by the Yogscast people and dedicated towards games made by small teams. There will be a bunch of creators showcasing all sorts of indie games this week if you want to check out some cool indie titles.

~~~

For game-related news I want to announce that the post-game mode that I’ve been working on will be available on release! It’s called Journey of the Vagabond, and it unlocks after you’ve beaten the game. Simply continue your save and carry on for a bit from where it leaves you off, and the game master will explain the rest. I don’t want to spoil how it works exactly, but in a nutshell you can turn the regular game into a true roguelike using the ominous skull totem pictured below. And by “roguelike” I mean that there isn’t any meta progression in Journey of the Vagabond, so you have to rely on strategy, planning, understanding of the game, and a bit of luck to complete a run in one go. And of course the really insane hardcore players will be able to combine this mode with most of the existing challenge modes for extra fun.

On a different note, I also want to formally thank everyone who left even the smallest morsel of feedback for the game. Either on the Discord, in the Steam Community, in random YouTube comments, or anywhere else.

I gave everything consideration, and tried to add/tweak as much as I could without delaying the game too much. Not every suggestion made it into the release version of Inkshade, and some things would require too much of a ground-up rebuild to implement, but I want you to know that these things will still have an impact. Specifically a lot of the feedback will influence how I design future titles. I’ve learned quite a lot about all sorts of things that people like/don’t like, and have a suite of mechanical desires that will be front-of-mind if I make another game in a similar genre. (As well as a few key changes to certain design decisions that are going to influence pretty much every future game I make).

But really, as far as Inkshade goes, it’s at least ten times as good as it would have been without player feedback. Thanks again, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the full game when it releases on the 14th.

~~~

The last thing I want to mention today is… The game is coming out in 7 days! A lot of you probably caught the release date announcements already, but I just wanted to take a little moment to hype it up again. Being excited about video game releases is one of my favorite things, and I remain delighted to be making something that at least a few people are excited for.

Oh, also there will be an extra-fun trailer dropping on the Official YouTube Channel on launch day if you aren’t already subscribed, as well as some more musical uploads ♪ ♫♩

See you on the flip side,

Vezelle

Hi All!

I have a brief but big announcement today: Inkshade officially has a release date!

The game is coming out next month, and I put together a new trailer to hype up the moment. You can find the exact release date at the end of the video :)

More things to come soon on YouTube and the other socials.

Be seeing you,

–Vezelle

🕹️ NEXT FEST DEMO

• Double Pain Mode: enemies deal double damage to player pieces!
• Unleashed Mode: more enemies and elite enemies will spawn!
• Berserk Mode: all enemies are permanently aggroed! (This one really amps up the required tactics)
• Copycat Mode: your upgrades also apply to enemies!
• One Run to Rule Them All: entirely different run rules. You start with no upgrades and a small amount of scrip, and you have to carefully upgrade as you go. Grinding can’t save you here, Captain.

🍿 NEW TRAILER

🏅 KEY GIVEAWAY CONTEST

🪔 LASTLY…

It’s Festival Season

Steam Next Fest!

Game Progress

• First is that the Steam page has graduated to “Coming Soon”. The exact release date is still TBD, but I have a target in my sights.
• The key art has been completely redone! The main piece is in the Steam capsule art, and I feel like the end result is beyond awesome :)
• The TRAILER has been updated and uploaded to YouTube—go give it a watch and all that good stuff and maybe we can convince the YouTube algorithm to help get the word out! I will also be dropping other trailers and fun things on the Studio Vezelle YouTube channel in the future if you aren’t subscribed but want to stay in the loop.
• There’s a sign-up form for closed demo testing over on the Discord server. If you’re interested in early playtesting, that’s where you’ll find out more.
• Inkshade has been selected to be in the SUGOI Showcase 2025! (This is the same group that did The Game Awards for Games Who Can't Afford the Game Awards). The event is digital, and it’s happening on March 27th. Tune in on the SUGOI Showcase 2025 Youtube channel and give Inkshade some love if you can.
• Guess what else is happening on the 27th? The Inkshade Demo is going PUBLIC. I hope you’re ready for a blanket of vibes. If you know anyone who might be interested in checking out the demo, shoot the Steam page their way. Anyone who has wishlisted should automatically get an email from Steam when the demo goes live.