Hello, wordsmiths.
Last week, the cards learned to stare back. This week, one of them started making copies of itself, a desert cat became considerably less pettable, and we began figuring out what it should feel like to walk into our next terrible decision.
Welcome to Dev Log #4. This is a look inside development, not a patch announcement: the art, effects, and systems below are at different stages, and we will call out what is still a prototype.
Please do not pet the Cactus Cat
Cactus Cat: this week's refined design and line-art pass. Work in progress.
The Cactus Cat moved through silhouette options, front-view sketches, and a more defined line drawing this week. We refined its front legs, kept the thorny crown framing its face, and spent an entirely reasonable amount of time deciding how unsettling a cat's eyes should be.
The answer was tiny, pinprick pupils. Naturally.
Those small changes give it a much stranger expression without losing the feline shape underneath all those spines and extra eyes. This is still creature artwork in development, not a finished combat encounter, but its personality is getting harder to ignore.
The Yeth Hound has found its teeth
The Yeth Hound's line art, finished this week, alongside its earlier design explorations.
The Cactus Cat is not the only creature making progress. We also finished the Yeth Hound's line art this week. Its snarling canine silhouette is surrounded by eyes, hooked shapes, and towering, mouth-like forms that make it much harder to mistake for an ordinary frontier dog. This is an art milestone; the finished encounter still has its own development ahead.
One card. Two letters. Something is wrong.
Early Doppelganger visual-effect prototype, captured in the internal build. Not the final effect.
Last time, we introduced the new reward-card designs. This week, we started exploring how those effects should actually look when they trigger. Doppelganger is the first preview: a card that copies its neighbour should feel like something is being duplicated, not just like a number changed.
The next direction we want to explore is much nastier: an infected, black, goo-like connection between the cards. We are discussing a tether that stretches and breaks when you pull them apart, then reconnects when they are placed together again. That is the next experiment, not something the clip above already contains.
The same thinking is guiding the other cards. Trailblazer could return with a smoky, fiery boomerang motion. Crossroads has an early train-themed animation concept, leaning into the Western half of our Weird West. Dead Man's Rewrite is a chance to make repeated triggers feel like a satisfying chain reaction.
These are visual directions we are trying, not a promise that every idea will survive. The challenge is to make a clever play feel spectacular without making you wait for the spectacle to finish.
From a few strange letters to a whole alphabet
The new full letter set, prepared for the next stage of integration.
The lettering direction we picked in Dev Log #3 now has a complete alphabet. The new set keeps the bone-like shapes and Western character, with enough individual detail to feel at home in Utterance without turning a hand of cards into a reading test.
We also prepared the colour-letter assets and a Unity package with their spacing set up. That is another step toward replacing the temporary lettering. The next important test is how clearly these letters read at actual card size, while you are building words and watching an enemy.
Tea time, terrible manners, and something worse
The Lady's encounter interface in development. Her creature artwork is still a work in progress.
The Lady's encounter is taking shape on screen. Her dedicated interface brings the table setting and etiquette checklist into the fight, so the rules of this very unpleasant tea party have a place of their own. We want the challenge to come from deciding how to play by her rules, with the information close at hand. Even if the host is significantly less reasonable than the table setting suggests.
Further down the road, the Nyarlathotep idea we mentioned last week now has its first sketch explorations for a possible Act Three boss variant. We are still finding our version of that shape, with a more mystic direction under discussion. It is concept work for now, not a finished boss reveal.
A blessing, a burden, and a very strange judgement
New line art for the Creed selection screen. The full illustration and revised selection system are still in development.
Our new Creed backdrop gives the choice between benefits and burdens a heaven-and-hell-like setting of floating architecture, watchful creatures, and a rather questionable welcome. The cats are the Cats of Ulthar, and Nyarlathotep was added during the sketch revisions. The wider artist brief also explored Kthanid, Yad-Thaddag, and Nodens as inspirations for the more benevolent side.
The selection process is changing too. You choose one positive Creed first, then one equally weighted negative Creed to balance it. A +1 benefit calls for a -1 burden, while a more powerful +3 benefit comes with a -3 drawback. This week we settled on locking in that positive choice before choosing its drawback. You commit to a benefit, then decide which burden you can live with, keeping the opening decision focused and moving the run along.
The current design list gives a sense of the different play styles we are aiming for:
- Gallows Twins (+1): Once per round, a word containing two ordinary cards with the same printed letter grants 5 Armor. A repeated letter becomes a reason to build your word differently.
- Crossroads Script (+2): Once per round, start a word with the final letter of your previous word that round to draw 2 cards. It asks you to think about the next word while finishing the current one.
- Empty Chamber (+3): Once per round, use every playable letter left in your hand in a word to draw 3 cards. There is a reward for finding a use for that awkward last letter.
- Dud Round (-1): Your first word each encounter deals 3 less damage.
- Cold Iron Law (-3): Forged cards deal 25% less damage, making that burden a much bigger decision for a deck built around them.
These are examples from the design being developed and balanced, not a claim that the revised list or selection flow is already in the public build.
A clearer look at Utterance
The animated BREAK THE ENEMY heading from the updated Steam About section.
Our Steam page received a new About section this week, with animated headings like the one above and fresh gameplay clips showing the different parts of a run. The new presentation gives the lettering and creatures room to show their personality before you even enter the game. We have also been building out the press kit and reviewing the next painted pass of our promotional artwork. The confrontation from last week's sketch is beginning to take shape in colour, with lighting and detail still being worked on.
On the systems side, we are continuing toward the Sacrifice and Sanity redesign discussed in Dev Log #3: a combat-local Sanity cost, a reset after the fight, and curated Eldritch rewards from bosses and minibosses. That is the development direction, not a claim that every part is already in the public test build.
The road ahead is becoming an actual road
The finished desert environment artwork for the new map. Travel and route selection are still being prototyped.
Last week, the new map was in our "what comes next" pile. This week, we finished the updated desert environment artwork and continued experimenting with travel transitions.
Working with nukechicken, we opened up the landscape, pushed the distant cliffs back, and chose the lower of two horizon options because it felt more first person. We want the view to feel like standing on the road with a decision in front of you. The left, right, and forward paths can be switched independently, and the scenery is separated into layers so each stretch can change around the route you take.
The goal is to make route selection feel like standing at a fork in a corrupted frontier. Our current design gives each path at least one clue: the enemy ahead, a location modifier, a possible reward, or a building. You would make a choice with some useful information, while still leaving room for an unpleasant surprise.
We are exploring layered scenery and slow parallax for the journey between encounters, with extra space at the sides of the art to support turns. The speed lines in an early motion pass did not fit the feeling of walking, so we tried a version without them. Carson also suggested a slight head bob to help sell that movement. The finished desert art brings in Utterance's heavy ink outlines and gritty texture, with thicker foreground lines and finer marks as the landscape recedes.
The road gets a say in the fight
The new location modifiers give us another way to make those route choices matter. We have drafted positive and negative effects to weigh alongside the enemy and possible reward ahead. Some examples from the current design:
- An enemy could start with one fewer Seal, or one extra Seal to break.
- You could start with 5 Block, or find that the enemy has that protection instead.
- Your opening hand could gain or lose a card, changing your options for the first word.
- Ordinary letters could gain or lose 1 Base Value, making the same hand play differently in a different location.
- A favourable location could leave the enemy stunned for one turn; an unfavourable one could let it take the first turn.
- The enemy could begin with 5 Poison, or you could be the one starting poisoned.
The wider design also explores changes to vowels, Forged cards, Eldritch words, and Stamp effects. Some would shape the encounter, while others would change cards in your deck. These mechanics are still being worked through. The aim is to make a route feel like a decision about the deck you have, with each road offering something more to consider than the next monster.
There is still plenty to build before this becomes a playable replacement for the current map. For now, we are testing the perspective, the movement, and how to turn three paths into three interesting decisions.
That is this week's descent: stranger cards, sharper creatures, and the first steps into a new frontier. Thank you for following along and helping us shape Utterance.
Would you pet the Cactus Cat? We cannot recommend it, but we would like to hear your reasoning.
Wishlist Utterance on Steam
Join the Utterance Discord
Visit the Utterance website