February Developer Letter

It feels like just yesterday that 2026 began, yet already one-sixth of the year has passed. Are you all keeping up with the goals you set for the new year? As for us, we’re continuing development without major issues and staying on track with our milestones.

We’re well aware that the biggest issue with the current Early Access version is the lack of content, and we’re focusing all our efforts on addressing that. If nothing unexpected happens, we expect to present the 0.8.0 update by the end of March. Imseokdae will soon be making its way to you!

Terrain Visual Overhaul

Some players shared the following feedback after playing Frostrain 2:

“In the previous game, entering a new terrain felt like a ‘wow’ moment. I miss that feeling in this one.”

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why that difference in experience occurred. While there may be stylistic differences, we believe many other aspects have improved. Still, when players feel something is missing, there’s always a reason.

After much consideration, we suspect that unlike the previous title—which used vibrant, high-saturation colors—the current game’s backgrounds repeat with lower-saturation, similar tones, which may reduce that sense of impact. We’re planning to make adjustments to address this. Please note that what you see below is not final; it’s a draft intended to gather your feedback.

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The top image shows the version before the changes, and the bottom image shows the version after applying the adjustments.

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Which version do you prefer? Or what else do you think could be improved? Please leave your comments, email us at nemonan.inc@gmail.com, or share your feedback on our Discord server.

New Decisions

Some of you have asked, “If content is lacking, couldn’t you at least add a new Conductor?”

We truly feel the same way. However, creating a single Conductor requires developing new Decisions, events, and relics alongside them, which takes more time than it might seem. Of course, we could create a separate Conductor with only different traits, but reusing Decisions would inevitably reduce the fun. Instead, we’re preparing a variety of new elements so that the wait will be worthwhile and offer you fresh ways to experiment and enjoy the game.

So, shall we take a look at some of the new Decisions in the works?

These Decisions revolve around utilizing Backlash. In Choi Soon-ja’s scenario, there was already a route—specifically the slum exclusion path—that made partial use of Backlash. Now, we’ve expanded on that idea. Backlash is extremely difficult to manage, but judging from these Decisions, it seems possible to grow infinitely. In particular, Overperformance Productivity multiplies the final production value, allowing you to greatly increase Happiness.

The catch is that Backlash scales exponentially, meaning the downsides can quickly outweigh the benefits.

However, with “Domination,” that no longer has to be a problem. Make your Decisions and reign over all your passengers!

This is an area we’re still carefully considering. We want to provide a way for players to engage in a kind of built-in “hard mode,” but due to the game’s structure, integrating it naturally has been challenging. As a result, we’ve dedicated part of the Decision system to allow confident players to make the game more difficult in exchange for greater rewards(The artifact “Distress” grants additional shop unlock currency equal to its value upon winning the game).

What do you think about this approach? We’d love to hear your thoughts and determine whether there’s a better direction—or whether this feature is unnecessary altogether.

New Artifact

We can’t show you everything just yet, but this one should be safe to reveal!

This artifact has a rather unique mechanic. Although it’s a Silver-tier artifact, it’s more powerful than others of the same tier. However, it comes with a timer, so you can’t use it for long. If you want to preserve that timer permanently… you’ll have to enter a blizzard! Wait, go into a blizzard? No sane Conductor would willingly step into such brutal cold!

But there is a way to enter without losing your sanity… and that is…………..

Ah, it seems we’ve run out of time for today! We’ll share the rest when the opportunity comes next time.

Closing

That’s all for today. We’d love to show you the world map and many other things, but it’s not quite time yet—which is truly a shame. By the time we return with another developer letter in March, much of the update should be well underway.

We’ll continue working diligently so we can come back to you with more concrete details then.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Nemonan