[Dev Diary] Taking a Look Ahead and Where We Started.

It's been an amazing week since launch! As we take in feedback, reviews, and talk to the community about future changes, we also wanted to take some time to look at where we are headed and the humble beginnings of Here Comes The Swarm.

A Look at the Future.

We have a few exciting things in the pipeline, but we won’t spoil all the surprises! First, there's a new Deity coming: Yangwhu, who is economy and utility-focused. Essences are going to tie directly into Yangwhu's kit, making economy-focused builds really strong.

Second, we want players to be able to save and load their Deity loadouts so you can quickly try out new builds without having to redo your previous one.

Play with all three Deities, Karkadann, Tiamann, or Yangwhu, soon!

One of the updates we are most excited about is the addition of a new unit (sorry, we can't spoil it just yet!). It's going to open up a lot of variety in how you approach each run.

But it's not just the unit itself. Alongside it, we're introducing new Essence types that feed directly into the build crafting part of the game, the Arcanum. Those extra options work as a huge multiplier on all the builds you can create. That ties right back into the loadout saving and loading system, so you'll be able to experiment, save your favorite setups, and swap between them.

The depth this adds to the build crafting loop is massive and should result in many more fun runs to find out which playstyle fits you best and to see how long you can survive in the endless mode!

That said, before the update above was even a spreadsheet, we started a universe away. Literally...

The Game: Remnants... Reaper's Moon... Here Comes The Swarm.

Here Comes The Swarm started as Remnants. That game was about the last surviving colony, the last remnants of civilization. From there, the project became Reaper's Moon, where the concept had you reaping different planets, and your job title, your rank, was called a Reaper.

Both names stuck around for a while before we landed on Here Comes The Swarm.

Reapers Moon title screen. See any similarities?

The Identity Change.

The name was not the only change, about three years in, we made a big pivot. The original sci-fi theme was everywhere. The Arcanum was sci-fi themed, the main menu and the level select screen, it all carried the Reaper's Moon identity.

But the reality was that the dark Lovecraftian art style was too demanding for a single artist on a four-person team.

Some of the original screens from Reapers Moon.

On top of that, we needed gameplay to be readable at a glance, and we weren't confident we could achieve that with a dark palette and very limited art development time.

We switched to a light desert biome with high-contrast unit colors, red for enemies and blue for friendly units. If you look at some of our early screenshots (where we already made the switch to a desert terrain, which already increases the visibility so much), you can actually see the problem: the Swarm is pushing against a wall, but it doesn't look threatening at all because everything blends into the dark tones.

The switch to a bright, contrasting art style with a bright sun as directional light fixed so many of our problems while making the gameplay