Dreadwinter - February 2026 Devlog

Steam post image Whose home do you think this is?

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to this month's development update! This month focused on improvements and changes to gameplay mechanics, as well as adding more content to the game.

It's been a bit of a blur lately, with updates being made all over the place, so I'll try to keep it coherent ːsteamhappyː

Little D-Mons

First up, I've introduced Little D-Mons to the cafe. They're small mechanical demons that can carry out tasks for you! They first made their appearance in the coffee farm, which you won't have had access to yet, and I've added the ability to place Server-Mons and Barista-Mons to help you serve customers.

Server-Mon, as the name suggests, will serve drinks to customers, but you have to make the drinks first. Once you've made a drink, hand it to a Server-Mon, and they will deliver it to whoever ordered the drink.

Barista-Mon is a little more advanced, as it can also brew the drinks, as well as serving them. Bear in mind that it can only make basic drinks with ordinary coffee beans, so you won't be getting any bonuses for high quality coffee, or price increases from certain coffee beans.

They will be available to purchase slightly later on in the game, once your business starts to grow, and if you find that you're getting too many customers to handle alone, these will be a lifesaver!

Changes to Mixing & Coffee Beans

One of the mechanics in the game is the ability to mix coffee beans together to produce a unique blend of coffee, but something I realised is that the way it currently works is both confusing and expensive (in-game).

You could buy different coffee beans with certain taste modifiers, and combine them to create a unique taste profile, but there were a lot of difficulties with how it works, so I decided to rework certain parts.

First, I've swapped the order that the skills unlock, so that you get access to the cauldron first, before mixing coffee beans. It makes more sense to just make a certain drink that fits the flavour profile the customer wants, rather than having to mix beans (which becomes redundant once the cauldron is unlocked anyway).

The 'Custom Coffee' skill, which used to enable customers to request different flavours, now enables you to add more than one bean to the grinder (previously this was always possible), and coffee beans are now more focused on price modifiers. Some beans add a flat amount to the sale price, some will multiply it, and the effects stack as you combine them. These can eventually lead to the price of a coffee getting quite crazy, which is always fun!

Improved Tutorials

The changes I've made might be a bit hard to understand, which may be due to the mechanics not being that well explained in-game (and a bit complicated).

I've taken the time to revamp and add more tutorials, so that there's less walls of text! There's also more visual indicators to guide you along when you start out! Less frustration = more fun, after all!

Main Story

The main story has finally begun development! It's not that I've only started thinking about it, but it's now making its way into the game. The first quest gives you a few goals to achieve, such as earning a certain amount of money, bonding with regular customers, or clearing the first dungeon.

The story will branch off depending on which objective you choose to complete, with there being 3 different routes it can take. There isn't a need to complete the story, but the aim is for it to progress naturally as you play anyway.

Escaping From Combat

Escaping from combat no longer counts as a defeat! This was considered quite punishing before, so you can now exit battle without being sent to the clinic. There are now rewards for winning a battle, though, so you may want to consider whether the time saved is worth it!

Closing Notes

That's it for this devlog! The demo should be updated in the next week or so, I just need to make sure that there's no obvious bugs or conflicts I've missed. It will mostly be quality of life and gameplay changes, as most of the new content is for the full release, but you might get to see some new things! ːsteamhappyː

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next update!

-Alex