Hello, wordsmiths.
This week in Utterance, the cards learned how to stare back.
We spent the week making the game feel more alive, more readable, and considerably less comfortable. The battle screen now reacts to what you are doing, each card family is developing its own identity, our letter art has found a new direction, and several major systems are being pulled apart and rebuilt around better decisions.
As always, everything shown here is work in progress. Some experiments will make it into the next build. Others will be dragged quietly into the cave and never spoken of again.
The UI is watching you
The eyes around the battle interface are no longer content to sit still. They now blink, shift, and follow a card while you hold it. Newly acquired cards also receive a small visual effect, helping important changes to your deck stand out without interrupting the fight.
We also tested movement on the surrounding tentacles and a full-screen ripple effect. Both made the screen busier than we wanted, so we pulled them back. The eyes should be the star, and the interface still needs to make every letter, number, and threat easy to read. We are continuing to tune a subtler shader and fog pass that adds atmosphere without smothering the game's color.
Not every prototype survives, but every prototype tells us something.
Five card families, one clear language
Normal, Forged, Ailment, Phantom, and Plague cards now have distinct visual treatments. The goal is to let you understand the state of your hand at a glance, before you stop to read the fine print.
That distinction is not just decorative. These cards behave differently and should feel different. In the current design, Forged cards use a colder silver treatment to signal that they cannot be sacrificed, while the more dangerous card families look increasingly unnatural. The new frames are already being brought into the game, though the lettering shown in the current build is temporary.
New rewards that bend the rules
We have also designed a new group of card rewards that do more than add Power. Each one changes how a word can be assembled, scored, or reused.
- Five-Tongues: A vowel Wild that can become any vowel. While it is in play, the card changes to show a vowel that completes a valid word. If more than one vowel works, it cycles through the available options.
- Dead Man's Rewrite: Begins with a fixed letter and includes a slot for another card. Place a new letter over the printed one to create a second valid word, then score both versions. For example, place B over the D in DOG to turn it into BOG. Both words score, but only one creature Weakness can trigger.
- Doppelganger: Copies the letter immediately before it while keeping its own Power value. B, O, Doppelganger, and K become BOOK.
- Ouroboros: Lets its printed letter serve as both the first and last letter of the same word. A single Ouroboros T with R, E, and A can create TREAT. The T counts twice for spelling and Weaknesses, but the card's Power is added only once.
- The Silent Sister: Has Power but no letter. It can be placed anywhere without changing the word the game validates. Add it to CAT and the word remains CAT, but it scores the extra Power and advances the ladder as a four-card play.
- Trailblazer: Starts with a fixed letter. After its first use, it returns to your hand once as the final letter of the word you just played. Use a Trailblazer A in CART and it returns as T, ready to begin a word such as TIDE. After its second use, it discards normally.
- Crossroads Letter: Uses its printed letter as the shared intersection between two valid words. A Crossroads T can connect CAT and TOP using five physical cards instead of six, and the connected pair is treated as one extended play.
- Vanishing Ink: Scores the complete word, then removes itself. If the remaining letters also form a valid word, that word scores too. A Vanishing S can turn STONE into TONE, while a Vanishing E can turn PLANE into PLAN.
These cards are still being balanced, but they already create the kind of turns we want from Utterance: the best play is not always the longest word. Sometimes it is the word hiding inside another word.
We found our alphabet
We explored several possible styles for the letters themselves, from thick tentacles to sharper occult shapes. After a team vote, one direction came out on top: a flatter, lower-detail design with a strong bull-skull silhouette and a touch of Weird West horror.
Readability won the argument. The letters still need character, but players must be able to scan a hand quickly while a creature is waiting to tear through the next Seal. The winning style keeps the horror, strengthens the Western identity, and avoids turning every word into a knot of tentacles. Production on the full alphabet has begun.
Sacrifice and Sanity are back on the operating table
The largest design discussion this week centered on the relationship between Sacrifice, Sanity, and the rewards that follow.
We are testing a version where sacrificing cards pushes a temporary Sanity track during combat. Higher levels create more pressure inside the fight, while the track resets after the battle. We are also wiring the Sacrifice choice so the reward you select can move directly into your hand, bringing the cost and the payoff into the same tactical moment.
Several details are still being tuned, including whether the original card is permanently lost and exactly how the reward pool should work. Eldritch Words are also being reconsidered as powerful boss rewards instead of another system players must constantly maintain. Nothing in this section is final yet, but the target is clear: Sacrifice should create a tense decision now, not an obligation whose consequences are difficult to read several fights later.
Creeds are becoming part of the build
The old Creed system and the separate deck-strengthening system are being combined. Rather than asking players to manage two disconnected layers of progression, we want a Creed choice to say something about both your run and the deck you are building.
The presentation is changing with it. New artwork is being developed around the idea of cosmic judgment, with benevolent and malevolent forces framing the player's choice. The first composition has moved from sketch approval into line art, with special attention being paid to keeping the game's Western identity visible beneath all that cosmic horror.
New things are learning how to scream
The Yeth Hound went through silhouette studies and a second round of front-view sketches this week. We have selected the third front-view direction and are moving ahead with it. The Leng Spider is also done and ready for coloring.
On the audio side, creature attacks have a new voice. We experimented with reversing and reshaping vocal sounds to make them feel less like an ordinary monster roar and more like something speaking from the wrong side of reality. A new attack sound has already been implemented, and the dissolving effect has its own audio in place as well.
There is also an early conversation happening around a possible Nyarlathotep-inspired Act Three boss variant. That one is still firmly in the concept stage, but we like the idea of bringing one of cosmic horror's most infamous shape-shifters into the Weird West.
Building the image of Utterance
Outside the game itself, new promotional art is being prepared for full rendering. The selected composition puts the confrontation front and center: a word-slinger holding their cards, voice becoming a weapon, with the infected town and its creatures closing in around them. The latest pass gives the duel more room to breathe while adding a waiting vulture and a few carefully placed tentacles to the skyline.
It should communicate the entire pitch in a single image. Cards in hand. Monster in front of you. Speak carefully.
What we are testing now
- The new Sacrifice and temporary Sanity relationship
- Direct-to-hand rewards after a Sacrifice choice
- The new reward card effects and the strange word combinations they create
- Card readability across all five card families
- The new letter alphabet inside a real combat hand
- Atmospheric shaders and fog
- Creature attack audio, screen effects, and final Seal artwork
This was a week of eyes, voices, cards, and crossroads. The pieces are beginning to feel less like separate systems and more like one hostile little world that reacts to every word you build.
What we are working on next
Our next major system project is a more interactive map. This work has not started yet, but the goal is to replace the current map with layered scenes where defeating a creature reveals three paths through the world. Those routes would carry a run from the infected Western surface, into the cave network, and finally through the Eldritch realm toward a boss arena. We will share the first real look once production begins.
Thank you for following the development of Utterance. If you want to help us shape what comes next, join the Discord, tell us what you think, and wishlist the game on Steam.