Hello! It’s time for another development progress update!
Like last time, this update is written by both Megalo (Director + Main Artist) and mook (Project Manager + Systems Programmer). This is mirrored from our recent Kickstarter update.
For anyone who hasn’t already, you can read our previous development progress update from July 2025 here.
MOOK'S SYSTEMS CORNER
👽 mook:
Hello, everyone! I hope all who celebrate have had a happy HoloDay season :)
The new metagame/timeline system I talked about in the previous development update has made enough progress for me to consider it essentially complete! It’s the sort of system I can always add on to, so it’s hard to ever consider it "done," but it’s at the point where it can now support all of MINDWAVE’s gameplay content moving forward.
As a reminder, the metagame system contains a video editor-esque timeline with multiple tracks we can dynamically place events on, and self-contained scenes that we can quickly swap between. It behaves sort of like our own engine-within-an-engine.
Here’s an updated look at the timeline system in action:
I’ve done the work to port Starlight (Story + Endless) and Tutorial to the metagame system, and it’s proven itself capable enough to handle any design challenges posed by future Minds :)
While I do compare it to a video editing interface, the timeline system doesn’t actually have any kind of "visual UI" so to speak. We aren’t dragging and dropping events onto the tracks. It’s all driven by code!
In the above video you can see new events getting dynamically placed ahead of the current point in time, like that one Wallace and Gromit bit.
The dynamic nature of the metagame system is the secret sauce that will help the game feel no different from before! (or, in some cases, slightly better).
This system is much more flexible than the rigid gameplay flow present in the demo, and provides us with much more creative freedom whenever we want to mix things up.
LOBBY PROGRESS + STORY PROGRESS
🌙 Megalo:
More lobby/floor concept designs have been made! Generally we’ve ironed out most of what we want out of each floor’s atmosphere and feel. We just need to fill in visual gaps, and move onto creating the assets and implementing them. Not everything is fully conceptualized yet but we’re close to having a full idea of what every lobby/floor in the game is gonna look and feel like. I’ve also designed more potential lobby NPCs! And I of course have been working with our writers Starmy and Mizu to oversee their writing process and brainstorm more major story ideas and directions to take.
As mentioned in the previous update, we were rethinking our approach to the story and dialogue within the lobby segments to strengthen the focus. Without giving too many specifics, this approach has been going really well! Throughout the year, Starmy and Mizu have continued to map out the game’s narrative, major events, and characters, all under our new adjusted direction. They’ve been also writing a bunch of dialogue drafts for a lot of different characters to talk to throughout the game to get a feel for how everything will flow as a whole experience.
Everything’s still a process, though. I and the writers are still figuring out how to properly tie everything together and deliver the ideas we want. There's still much more work to be done and gaps to fill in the story as a whole. We have great ideas for major story beats, a great overall map of the narrative, and great dialogue so far that reflects what we want. However, a lot of those ideas don’t mean much if we don’t execute them properly. There's still more to figure out, and ideas to actually put into action.
That being said, progress on the larger scale has been great, and so far the execution they’ve shown is great. They’ve been doing awesome.
While we have the atmosphere of the lobbies down, the creation and implementation of the final versions rely on the completion of our secret lobby idea that we mentioned in the last update. Right now the writers have been working off of a placeholder background screen for lobby-related work, but soon we should be able to actually get rid of the placeholder and start fully realizing the lobbies past Floor 1 with our cool new experiment.
👽 mook:
The metagame system (or more specifically, our custom scene system) has been heavily involved in the "lobby experiment," and it’s currently my main focus. I am hard at work!
It’s still too early to show much for this, but things are falling into place. I’ve been working back and forth with our "secret experimentation buddy" on the lobby experiment, and it’s been going great. It’s still in a somewhat early state, but the rate of progress has been very quick!
The programming I’ve done for the lobbies has also helped a lot in enabling us to do more throughout the game, and I’m excited to see it all finished!
It sucks that I have to be so vague about this, but hopefully it won’t need to be kept a secret for too much longer…
NEW TEAM MEMBERS
🌙 Megalo:
Since the last update, we’ve also recruited two new core team members! With MINDWAVE, sometimes we’ll have guest artists or musicians to help make something specific or contribute their style. But these two are long-term members here to stay!
ETUDEFORGHOSTS - SECONDARY ARTIST
🌙 Megalo:
Etude has been a longtime friend of mine, and his artstyle had a huge impact on mine in 2019-2020.
MINDWAVE is a very art-heavy game, and having at least one other 2D artist felt like it would be beneficial.
I felt like he’d be a great fit since my style is partially rooted in his, and he's able to hit certain stylistic spots that I'm not able to. He’s our secondary artist that's able to tackle other art tasks while I'm working on something, bring new visual ideas to the table, and generally help polish art and animation.
I came to him a couple times in 2024 asking for pointers and help with the cutscenes that were in the demo. So it’s partially thanks to his input that they were able to come out so nicely! He also did most of the Kickstarter milestone images during the campaign, and has been helping design lobby NPCs with me this year!
fun fact, i traced over an old 2019 pippi drawing of his for the SPIN microgame, since when i would think about MINDWAVE years ago id always imagine that drawing as a microgame
NYRU - 3D ARTIST
🌙 Megalo:
Nyru is another longtime friend of mine who specializes in visually striking 3D artwork! He’s been addicted to Blender for 3 years now and has dabbled in different styles! Some may know him from his series of 3D EarthBound animations. I always wanted a fair number of 3D minigames and elements in MINDWAVE, but knew it would be a challenge since I don't really do 3D often.
For MINDWAVE’s demo, I did the 3D cube in Starlight’s boss minigame, and the dungeon in the 3D Tutorial minigame. With the dungeon I ended up having to ask for Nyru’s help, and he did the statues and fixed how terrible the topology was in my dungeon model. Earlier on in development in 2023 he also did Starlight’s 3D elevator, and he knocked it out of the park. And after a certain point we were just like dude we should just bring him on!
He loves MINDWAVE and I love his work, so he’s now on as our 3D artist! This should help make the game’s style pop with more variety when we feel like 3D can fit. Nyru also takes some of the minigame production weight off of myself, since minigame assets or entire minigames themselves can just be 3D!
To be clear, 3D visuals won’t be taking over the majority of MINDWAVE. There's still plenty of 2D art/animation and there will continue to be way more as the game continues development. We just wanted to add a bit more 3D to boost the visual variety, which is important to MINDWAVE. The 2D art is still very important to me and I don’t want it overshadowed.
Both Etude and Nyru have been doing an awesome job so far, so go make sure to check both of them out!
https://x.com/EtudeF0rGh0sts
https://x.com/nyrusine
MIND 2 PROGRESS
🌙 Megalo:
As a reminder, we’re tackling each Mind (collections of minigames, MINDWAVE battles against opponents in the game’s story) as a series of “Alpha” states where we leave them partially complete (song mostly complete, core structure in place, a handful of minigames, score animation sketches, unfinished animation/polish).
Once every Mind has a completed Alpha state, we’ll return to them all and fill in all those unfinished blanks. This is so that we can have a clearer picture of the game’s complete experience instead of somewhat blindly making our way to the end. It’s like sketching out a painting before you actually start coloring and shading.
🌙 Megalo:
Anyways, in the last update we mentioned almost being done with Mind 2’s Alpha! Some new developments have taken place and ended up pushing back the completion of Mind 2’s Alpha by a bit.
In late July, we thought we were closing in on finishing the main song for Mind 2, but over time we realized that wasn’t the case. I wanted to make sure that the song felt right for the character, and that the structure and tone fit the vision I had. At the time it was the best direction we had, but as it kept being made, there were more adjustments that I felt were needed.
With that experience in mind, I can confidently say Mind 2's song is now 90% complete. I really love the song, I'm satisfied with the state of its structure and tone, and it works perfectly as the song we’re using for the Mind’s Alpha. All we need left for the song to be taken to 100% completion is an adjustment in percussion in one part of the song, an adjustment on the lead in a section toward the end, and one final pass.
👽 mook:
Also, Mind 2’s Brain Fog mechanic has ended up taking a different (and better) direction than our initial plan for it. It’s more creative and gives us more opportunities to mess around, but it’s a rework that I still need to program and finalize. The mechanic is really exciting to me, but I’m still hard at work on various foundational systems (mentioned earlier), so I haven’t gotten to it just yet.
🌙 Megalo:
Because of those things, some extra work is still needed for finalizing Mind 2’s Alpha and its overall structure. So as of right now, Mind 2’s Alpha still hasn't been fully completed yet, but the end of it seems to genuinely be on the horizon this time.
MIND 3 PROGRESS
🌙 Megalo:
While Mind 2’s Alpha has been held back a bit, it’s really just dependent on some programming and design work from mook, and musical adjustments from Dorkus that are small enough to come back to later.
So, for the most part, the team has shifted focus over to starting Mind 3’s Alpha.
Mind 3 has been undergoing a lot of conceptualization and fleshing out for the tone and feel of the character. For every Mind in the game, I have a specific tone, pace, and style in mind going in. But the Alpha stage is where the finer details in the direction start mattering.
I’ve been mapping that out with the team over the past few months, and defining the core concepts and style more. We’ve hit a good place with fleshing out Mind 3 and the role it serves in the game. We’re currently in the midst of making a couple of minigames and score animations, and brainstorming the Brain Fog mechanic. Like with all visuals in an Alpha state, it's a mix of finished and placeholder stuff, but the vision is still strong.
🌙 Megalo:
Also, the song for Mind 3 is currently being drafted! I had a sound in mind, but there wasn't really a song that existed with that exact sound I wanted for Mind 3, so it was hard to find an exact point of reference. I was worried that the lack of a stricter direction for the song would've held back progress.
That being said, in a short time, Dorkus has made multiple short demos for Mind 3’s song, and it’s looking really good right now! The direction we wanna take with the song is becoming more clear and we’re having him flesh out one of the demos into a full song right now.
Mind 3 has also been a weird one to create for me personally since it requires me to think in ways that are a bit outside of my creative skillset. I need the skills to think outside of the box in a few places.
So, I’ve been practicing and researching certain art related stuff to open up my head more with the way I approach art. With this I'll be able to execute certain aspects of Mind 3 easier. This research and practice will also help me more easily direct Etude and Nyru in what exactly we need to strike with this Mind visually and tonally.
🌙 Megalo:
That being said though, the overall progress and direction for Mind 3 has been good. It’s been really awesome seeing a blurry idea from years ago become real, watching it take form in ways I didn’t initially expect it to.
Sorry to be so vague. It’s hard to elaborate without saying too much. I want everyone who plays this game for the first time to not fully know what to expect going in.
SOMETHING COOL
🌙 Megalo:
It’s hard to show work in progress stuff from this game, because I really value the idea of experiencing everything in the game alongside Pandora for the first time. I believe it'll help really immerse the player in the experience, and it just feels right. I don’t wanna give too clear of an idea of what everything in the game will be like.
However!!! Here’s a little thing we did that we can just fully show!
Wow! An actually good game over screen for the story mode! Featuring a new song paired with it: GAME OVER.
Made by our first guest composer, the extremely talented req!
https://x.com/reqwsp
https://soundcloud.com/reqagain
GAME OVER on YouTube
GAME OVER on Soundcloud
🌙 Megalo: I’ve been following req’s music for a couple years and love his stuff, his style is really sick! I thought he could throw something really cool together for the game over screen. So I asked him if he'd like to make a guest composition, and he was down to do it. I gave him an outline of the sound and mood I wanted, and he made GAME OVER! The song was awesome and fit really well with my idea for MINDWAVE’s story mode game over screen, so me and mook started implementing it!
🌙 Megalo:
I had a specific vision for the game over screen going in, so I drew the general idea and made a mockup in Dieback.
After req came back with the song, me and mook started to chip away at the implementation of the art assets and music in between bigger work on the game. With the game over song, some new visual ideas came into mind to make it all cooler. Stuff like the distortion on the censor beep and the fade to black halfway through.
We had a lot of fun trying to nail the vision I had in my head! It was a lot of back and forth experimentation from both me and mook, and the finished result is pretty awesome! I’ve stared at it just for fun many times. You could probably guess from the video, but it’s also gonna have different things circling around Pandora’s head depending on which Mind in the game you just lost to. It’s gonna be awesome.
PERHAPS there's bias here MAYBE, but it may be one of my favorite game over screens ever.
For comparison, here’s the old one from the demo.
This was always meant to be a placeholder, some players probably picked up on that.
Thank you again to req for the amazing guest song, go check out his Twitter and SoundCloud! Also you can listen to GAME OVER on YouTube and Soundcloud!
Also We're Gonna Be At MAGFest (no booth tho)
🌙 Megalo:
MAGFest 2026, our favorite convention! Unfortunately, we won't have a booth for MINDWAVE this time. Maybe next time? We’ll have to see…
HOWEVER most of us on the team will be going to MAGFest 2026 anyway to just hang out! So if you're going to MAGFest, let us know so we can say hi! look i drew what we're all gonna look like:
👽 mook:
I had little nametags made for the whole team this past year, so if you see someone wearing one of these, that’s us!
MAGFest badges DID sell out though, so uh….. Sorry if you weren’t already planning on going :P
This Too
🌙 Megalo:
Also, we won the GameMaker Awards’ Most Anticipated game! Thank you guys a ton for nominating and voting for us! We all appreciate the love and enthusiasm a lot, and huge thanks to GameMaker as well!
🌙 Megalo:
That’ll be it for this update. Once again, thank you to anyone who's played or even talked about the game. We’re really excited about where the project is going, every day the vision grows stronger and the game gets more exciting. We’re eager to make it right and release something really special!
