First full gameplay reveal, and update on development

Hi everyone! I thought it was about time I showed some signs of life again! As you've probably noticed, I've been hiding away in my cave quite a bit since Omno. The attention and success were honestly overwhelming, and I needed some space to find myself again. During this period, I've been working a lot on Kibu, but admittedly, sometimes lost myself along the way. For a long time, I focused heavily on crafting and building mechanics, diving deep into inventory systems and item databases. Towards the end of last year, I even had a version ready that I would have loved to share as a demo. However, during testing, I realized that while collecting items and managing survival aspects can be rewarding, it shifted attention away from what I truly wanted Kibu to be—a beautiful, immersive experience. Instead of enjoying the magical exploration and interactions with spirits, players (myself included!) were often stuck managing hunger, tiredness, and chasing item progression. This quickly turned the adventure into a grind, which was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Honestly, after all this, I was feeling a bit exhausted from chasing those big ambitions and noticed I had lost sight of what truly matters. Kibu's real charm, I've come to understand, is the joy of exploring the world itself, rather than progression through crafting.

With all this in my head, over Christmas and the start of this year I took a step back and refocused on what I genuinely love about game development: crafting landscapes and perfecting movement mechanics. So, as an experiment, I removed the survival and crafting systems and refocused entirely on exploration and atmosphere. This felt much more natural and freeing to me. I was finding joy again in hiding little secrets and pouring love into the details, without being bogged down by spreadsheets and databases. I feel incredibly guilty for not sharing more updates earlier, but I hesitated to bring my uncertainties into the community—not because I don't trust you, but because your feedback means so much to me, and I needed clarity first. I can't thank you enough for still being here. Your ongoing support truly means the world to me!

A survival game comes with a ton of features—inventory systems, cooking, item management—and countless world rules like respawn times, all of which need careful balancing and fine-tuning to create a satisfying survival loop. I could have kept those mechanics as part of the now more exploratory, adventure-focused gameplay—but that would essentially be trying to deliver two different games in one. As a solo dev, that would mean sacrificing quality for the sake of more features. And that’s not the path I want to take. I want to fully commit to what I believe (and what playtests confirmed) makes Kibu a strong experience—even if it’s a shorter one.

If you made it this far - thank you, from the bottom of my heart! Without further ado, here it is - the first full gameplay trailer for Kibu, coming later this year!