Devlog #9 - That's not an knife

This is a smaller update, but a very important one.

Over the past week, we’ve been focusing almost entirely on onboarding. This continues the work we started in the recent hotfix, where we introduced the user manual and the first round of pop-up ads to help new players understand the game faster.

We’ve been preparing for a big showcase tomorrow, where a lot of new players will try DarkBazaar. So it was extremely important for us to iron out these early-game issues before that.

And now… we finally feel like we’re in a good place.

Improving the early experience

One of the biggest pain points we’ve seen (both from feedback and watching players live) is that some core mechanics weren’t always clear. So this update adds a few more improvements.

We’ve added:

• More pop-up ads to highlight upgrades and make players more aware of their options Steam post image

• A small tutorial that appears the first time you open a crate, explaining:

  • Respins

  • Single-slot respins

  • Keep vs. sell

This was another area where many new players struggled, so we hope this makes the early game much smoother.

For now, we consider the main onboarding phase complete. Of course, we’ll keep improving it, but this was a big milestone.

New weapons

We’ve also added a few new weapons in this update:

• Thompson SMG (classic mob version with the drum magazine) Steam post image

• Thompson SMG (military version)

  

• Crowbar Steam post image

• Bowie knife Steam post image

There are a couple of fun references hidden in these. Let us know if you can guess them 👀

Under the hood: Upgrade system refactor

Most of our time this week actually went into something you won’t immediately see.

We’ve completely refactored how the upgrade system works.

What this means in simple terms: We’ve built internal tools that let us create new upgrades directly in the editor without writing code.

This might not sound exciting, but it’s a huge deal for development. It means we can now:

• Create new upgrades much faster

• Test and iterate quickly

• Add more variety and synergies

• Expand the content of the game at a much higher pace

So you can finally look forward to new upgrades in the coming updates!

Bug fixes

We also fixed several bugs reported by the community, including:

• The issue where the diamond UI would randomly disappear

• A few smaller bugs and stability issues

As always, thank you for reporting these. It helps more than you know.

Showcase tomorrow

We’re part of the Best Indie Games Spring Showcase tomorrow 3rd March, 8AM Pacific. Below are links to the YouTube stream and Steam page, so please check it out and support the game if you can.

• See the showcase on YouTube here

• See the Steam showcase here

What’s next

Next week, we’ll be reworking contracts. This includes things many of you have asked for, such as:

• Filtering contracts

• Rerolling

• Picking more contracts

• More control and agency

We’ll also start adding more upgrades now that the new system is in place.

Thank you

As always:

• Thank you so much for playing!

• Keep breaking the game

• Keep sharing feedback

And if you want to support Dark Bazaar in a huge way:

• Wishlist the game on Steam

• Leave a rating on Itch

It only takes a few seconds, but it massively helps the visibility of the game and allows us to keep improving it.

See you in the Bazaar.