Hello, this is Jun, the creator of YAKG and also...well, we’ll get to that!
It has now been one whole year since the release of "Yet Another Killing Game", and what a year it has been! This was my first time leading a game project where we'd sell it for actual money, and while the development period was more or less what I'm familiar with, I didn't think there's an entire new world that comes after release! I experienced new things like being showered with praise from strangers, playing catch-up to marketing efforts, feeling euphoria from fan art of the characters, struggling to get bigshot people to look at the game, learning business and accounting concepts, speaking about my journey to younger devs, the list goes on and on and on...
I can safely say that I learned way more than my decades of public education from just the past two years alone. Getting laid off from my comfy desk job and going indie meant that I had to start paying much more--maybe even too much--attention to the state of the industry and gamer culture. And as much as I could go into details about my thoughts on industry layoffs, generative AI, inflation, and more, I'll cut to the chase and say that I've had my heart ripped to shreds many times, but got up every single time because I had to be strong for not my own sake, but for my team and YAKG's fans who have chosen to bet on a novice indie dev like me.
And on that note, with all of the knowledge and reputation this past year has bestowed upon me, I have now established Soulseer Studios, a new team of both YAKG and non-YAKG devs with whom I will develop my next game title, currently planned for release in 2027! There are still a LOT of things to sort out, which is why some of YAKG's online presence may get some slow, fragmented updates over the next few weeks, but we hope to be able to unify our brand and make more formal announcements very soon! In the meantime, if my ramblings here alone are enough to interest you, you can sign up for our mailing list on our official website (will add the link in the comments) 🙏
To you who are reading this, you are obviously a fan of "Yet Another Killing Game", so please consider this my personal thanks to you. Regardless of how you came to learn about YAKG, thank you for giving it a chance, and if the characters gave you any form of joy, nothing would make me happier as a writer that draws from personal experience and imbued what is effectively my heart into them 🥰 I hope I can continue to count on your support as we bring both YAKG (and our next game) to more and more people!
Best wishes for 2026,
Jun Kakeru
P.S. The cover image's artwork of Cecilia was provided by @nashirasauce (Twitter/X, Bluesky, VGen). Also, if you liked YAKG, please check out "Bus Stop at World's End" on itch.io because that's a free game made by the leadership of YAKG earlier this month~