Hey Kinoko fans!

It’s often remarked that January feels like the longest month, and it definitely has felt like it this year. Was New Year really only a month ago? Still, if we’re a full month now into 2026, then that makes it time for another monthly update on all things Star Heretic and Cult of Galaxy! I’ll preface this, and say that I actually forgot about it until about ten minutes ago. It’s 9.50pm on a Saturday night as I write this, and I’m currently watching the Royal Rumble, so I’ll be keeping things brisk. With that in mind, let’s get started!

The big-ticket item on this month’s agenda has once again been starsprite abilities. As I’ve no doubt said in previous blog posts, Kinoko’s starsprites are at the heart of Star Heretic. If we get only one thing right about Star Heretic, it absolutely must be the starsprites! I’ve been making them a priority for a while now, alongside the rest of the game’s combat, with their castable abilities being a particular focus for me for some time now.

Over the past few months, I’ve implemented things like enemy starlight drops (starlight being the fuel-like resource used by Kinoko to summon and command starsprites) and ability cooldowns, and we decided on a hard limit of four abilities per starsprite type for a total of 36 abilities. One thing I always struggled with is how in the world any player would wrap their head around an arsenal of 36 different abilities. This month I came up with the solution! Each starsprite type now has access to one projectile, one area of effect, one utility, and one ultimate ability, the ultimate ability being their most costly, signature move. Each of these will be assigned the same input, so pressing B will always cast a projectile. It’s simple, and hopefully easy to remember!

So, the main thing I’ve been up to this month is designing some of those abilities, and implementing a handful of them. As of now, I’ve designed eleven out of the 36 abilities, and I’ve developed six of them. My main focus has been the yellow, blue and red starsprites, which are exploration, defence, and offence-themed respectively, since these are the ones that will be available to summon in our next demo – but I’ve also been thinking a lot about the magic and illusion-focused purple starsprites, which are my personal favourites, so I’ve begun implementing one of their abilities too. I haven’t begun to think about the balancing aspects yet, like starlight costs and cooldowns, but I personally do find myself naturally wanting to use abilities from multiple different starsprite types whenever I test combat, and that’s exactly what I’m going for with our players.

As I teased in that last screenshot, Chel meanwhile has been very busy indeed with the game’s visuals! We did have another go earlier this month at hiring an environment artist, but even with money on the table it’s been difficult to find an artist who’s a suitable fit for our game. With us having once again had no luck in recruiting, Chel’s still doing the environment art herself for the time being. As much as she’d rather not be doing it, I for one believe she’s setting a high bar for whoever eventually has the task of replacing her. Here’s a sneak preview of some of the fine work she’s been doing for Fungaia.

Since Chel’s currently working on Kinoko’s animations again (with a little backup from another highly-talented artist on enemy animations – more on that another day!), specifically Kinoko’s combat animations, I’ve spent the past couple of days enjoying a brief sabbatical in order to work on Kinoko’s inventory. The inventory is one of the apps on Kinoko’s N.E.X. tablet, and the tablet overall has been one of the things that hasn’t really changed at all since our last demo. That’s why I’ve decided to pretty much rebuild the inventory from scratch, and let it set the standard for all the other N.E.X. apps going forward. It’s a lot better and more maintainable already, and this will lead nicely into me being able to develop the ability for the player to actually use some of their consumable items. First up on my list are the starsprite treats, which can be rarely found around the world and fed to starsprites in exchange for a little extra friendship. Hopefully, I’ll have some of that implemented next week!

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say for another month. Come back again next month for another monthly update, as we plough on slowly but surely towards our next demo release in the summer. Until then, take care!