Developer Update 3

Hi friends, thanks for taking the time to check out this dev blog and for your continued interest in Kaido Genkai!

The biggest news first: Kaido Genkai now has a Patreon, AND I’ve officially applied to be part of Steam Next Fest in June 2026. Which means, the upcoming demo is confirmed!

The public demo release will be June 2, with early access for paid Patreon supporters starting May 12 - which is 3 weeks early.

If you’d like to join Patreon, it directly supports the game and you have my huge thanks. Patreons will also get their names in the thank you credits for the demo (if you join before its released). I haven’t set the cut-off date for this, but please don’t join too close to launch if this is something you’re interested in.

Consider signing up! https://patreon.com/KaidoGenkai

The demo is a huge milestone for the project, and honestly, a pretty nerve-wracking one too. Getting the game into people’s hands is something I’ve been building towards since I started this project in January of 2024.. Which is almost two and a half years ago.

At this point, most (if not all) of the demo progression is now fully implemented. You can move through events, complete objectives, and see the story unfold the way they’re intended to. Well, sort of. It’s all place-holder text, so my next foray is to get a ton of writing done. I’ve got the coffee brewing.

UI Updates (and a Bit More Japanese Flavor)

The UI has gone through a number of updates, especially in the menus. I’ve started incorporating Japanese text elements throughout the interface - just as a layer of flavor to sell the atmosphere a bit better. It helps to reinforce the tone of the game and gives it a bit more personality.

There are still UI elements I want to revisit though, but it is time-dependent. The flip phone (Keitai) UI in particular, is something I may redesign. It works, but some feedback I’ve gotten is that the interface could be streamlined a bit.

Also talking about UI stuff, I have also implemented save slots. Players can create and manage multiple save files, which was important to me so that your little siblings can play the game without messing up your data. I was (am?) a little brother, so this was something that I wanted to implement from the very beginning.

Photo Mode

One of my favorite additions is Photo Mode. Kaido Genkai is a game where the vibe matters a lot, and the graphics are something I’m proud of (though not perfect), plus Hacao’s car models are really something special. Photo Mode is a way to let players engage with that more directly. You can pull up your camera from your 90’s flip phone to move, pan, roll, and set the field-of-view.

It’s one of those features that isn’t strictly necessary for gameplay, but adds a ton to how the game feels. I got some flack from Twitter for working on this before addressing better engine sounds, but hopefully it’s worth it.

Physics & NPC Improvements

A huge amount of work has gone into vehicle physics and NPC behavior as well. If you’ve ever experienced Unreal Engine’s Chaos Vehicle system, you’ll know it can be… chaos? Cars tend to get weird velocity spikes on impacts (especially sustained collisions) and will pop up into the air pretty wildly.

Cars now handle these impacts much more cleanly, and NPC vehicles behave in a more believable way. Nothing is ever perfect, but the difference compared to earlier builds is massive. An additional change is also that NPCs follow splines a lot better now too. Previously they were kind of drunk and cut corners too much - resulting in most traffic lights getting slammed into.

This has been cleaned up significantly. It’s hard to show off in screenshots and videos, but you certainly can feel it in the gameplay.

Reputation System Update

One of the more important changes came out of the initial round of internal testing. I found it important not because it was a big change, but because it was a small change with a big impact.

In Kaido Genkai, you have Reputation Points (REP); which essentially is your reputation status. If your REP is high, you can select more dialogue branches and say new things to folks.

A point of confusion came when a player said out loud “I’m not spending my Reputation Points to say that!”. The reason I was confused was that you do not spend points to use the dialogue branches, they just simply become selectable. Why was this an assumption the player had?

Well, because I called them Reputation Points. While this system was soooo incredibly obvious to me, it clearly wasn’t communicated well to players. The fix? Just call them Reputation Levels instead. Problem solved and I'm so glad to have caught this in advance.

This was a good reminder that even limited feedback can lead to really important insights.

Visual Direction: Sky, Clouds, and World Detail

I’ve been reworking the sky colors and clouds to lean more into the anime-inspired look. A big influence here has been Auto Modellista, obviously, and this update has come from eyeballing screenshots of the sky and horizon in that game. To complete the look, the shading on the ground and water has also been slightly tweaked to feel warmer and more summer-y.

One of my goals for Kaido Genkai is for it to not look or feel too much like a typical Unreal Engine game.

On top of those world updates, I’ve added more environmental props: things like bamboo fences, milk crates, and of course, vending machines. Not only do they make the world feel more alive, but they also give you more things to “accidentally” hit.

Audio: Engines, Load, and Turbo Sounds

The engine sound system now reacts to load, meaning the car sounds different depending on throttle, instead of just pitching up and down based on RPM. It adds a lot more depth to how the cars feel moment-to-moment, though this is really a base-line for how the audio should be and isn’t something impressive. I do have turbo sounds in too, though, so a tuned car is going to ‘chuuuuuu’ in a very pleasing way.

I will get better overall engine sounds before the demo release though, mark my words. Its going to be a high priority after the writing stage is complete.

A New Car: “Dancer”

We’ve also added a new car to the game called the Dancer. As this is one of our favourite cars, we’ve also gone an extra step and HoleeCrab has designed a few custom liveries for it.

You’ll see it in the demo, but you won’t be able to drive it. For the demo, I’m limiting things to two playable vehicles. I would love to put more in, but the demo is supposed to be just a little taste of the game. A sip of Kaido Genkai. I want to leave you thirsty for the full version.

Secrets

There’s also a decent amount of content not shown anywhere yet, or maybe just posted once.

Small details, stupid references, and moments I’d rather players discover on their own. It’s hard not to share everything during development, but I think holding some things back will make the demo more fun.

Looking Ahead

The next six weeks are going to be intense as I crunch to get this thing polished for both the Patreon early release, Public Release, and Steam Next Fest. Bug fixing, finishing writing, creating a launch plan (and getting the game build approved by Steam) plus just generally making sure everything holds together without exploding. It’s my first ever launch of any kind, so I am learning a lot and who knows what I’ll screw up. Thank you for your patience in advance.

On top of this, if there’s time (and that’s a big if), I’d also like to create a new trailer, new press materials / a press kit, and refresh a good chunk of the website, as well as do some media outreach to Youtubers, etc.

But realistically, the priority is the demo itself. I gotta remember that and not get sidetracked.

Final Thoughts

I’m feeling good about where things are at, but also pretty nervous. But nervousness is just excitement, right? For now, it’s a lot of late nights after my day job, a lot of iteration, excitement, and coffee.

Thank you for following along and supporting the project, it genuinely means a lot, and I look forward to seeing what people think of the Kaido Genkai demo.

-"Karoshi" / Karoshi Electric Company