2026-05-06
New title screen, seven chapters, social login
A walk through the new title screen — all seven chapters of Song of Larithea previewed up front, an active selection effect on the chapter posters, and ending with a one-tap social login.
Private alpha · iOS
Song of Larithea
A cozy anime team-RPG with spell crafting.
Friendship, trust, revenge, and finding your way back from the darkness.
In March 2026 I took a sabbatical from work to focus on the project of my dreams — a cozy anime RPG I've been designing in my head for years.
Some stories want to be told. The ones we don't tell have to be repeated.
They wait.
Gameplay
2026-04-28
Main menu
The main menu — sparkles instead of full animation, for now. Hand-animating the menu is on the wishlist; sparkles are the version I'm willing to commit to today.
2026-04-28
Spell crafting tutorial
The crafting tutorial in action — picking sigils to forge a new spell. You don't unlock spells in Larithea, you build them.
2026-04-25
Library of elements and hero menu
A walk-through of the elements library and the hero popup — Spells, Materials, and Aspects in three separate panels, because magic in Larithea is a system, not a button. The clip shows one of the starting spells a hero has from the beginning of the game.
2026-04-25
Main screen polish: dialogue icon and character emotions
A walk-through of the updated main game screen — new background, the new dialogue character icon, and character portraits that finally express what they feel in scene. Everything's still images for now — animation is on the wishlist.
News
Story map: pinch zoom, hidden quest paths, no more overlapping nodes
Story map gets three player-visible improvements. Pinch zoom (0.5×–1.5×) on mobile, scroll-wheel zoom on web. Quest scenes stay hidden until you've taken the quest, so the map doesn't telegraph what's around the corner. And scene nodes no longer overlap each other when names wrap onto two lines.
Read moreSnake Medallion quest redesigned — 7-scene desert run with Old Quarter walk
The Snake Medallion quest is rebuilt from a 5-scene stub into a 7-scene chain branching off the broken-bridge area. Five new battle scenes through the desert and old-digsite, a new walking scene at the Old Quarter ruins with a boulder-pickup, and a Snake Order tease.
Read moreName the Dead — first full side quest lands (11 scenes, 15 fights)
First full side quest in the demo arc lands. Name the Dead is an 11-scene chain branching off Ormron Street: pick it up from the Traveller merchant, fight through 15 encounters, and turn it in at the halrock aftermath. The merchant unlocks earlier in the chapter so the quest is available right after your first desert fight.
Read moreBase rest becomes a real cutscene — video panels with baked-in music
The base-rest activity stops being placeholder color panels. It now plays as a two-panel cutscene with real art, video, and a cozy folk soundtrack baked into the MP4s. Location music pauses while it plays so the cutscene's audio carries the moment, and resumes when you dismiss.
Read moreOpening cutscene as video, guest tutorial, popup queue (3.5.0)
3.5.0 ships. The opening cutscene moves from static panels to 13 MP4 panel videos with its own soundtrack and a corner skip control. A guest tutorial flow lets new players try the game without signing in. Popups now run through a unified queue — one modal at a time, priority-ordered. Sigil-unlock popups always show the celebratory card.
Read moreWalking scenes consolidated; broken-bridge content lands
Walking scenes across hub, story, and battle now run on the same shared presentation, with trigger enforcement so collisions can't be skipped. The broken-bridge story scene picks up its written content. Party selector and battle popup got web-clipping fixes and the rewards block is now centered.
Read moreVS screen rework, party selector with fight previews, heal effects on the playout
Big polish day across fight setup and playback. VS screen drops crowded horizontal rows for vertical hero and enemy bars with paging. Party selector adds per-fight enemy and reward previews. Heal spells now pulse on the affected cell with a floating stat bar. And KO'd heroes still in decay come back when the fight is won.
Read moreFight playout gets a camera — side slide, actor zoom, cast framing
Fight playback picks up camera moves. The view now slides sideways to follow whichever side is acting, zooms on the current actor as they move, and pulls in close on the caster at the moment a spell resolves — so the playout reads as a sequence of shots instead of a fixed render.
Read moreFight SFX wave, second battle track, hero column refactor (3.4.2)
3.4.2 wires 17 sound cues into fight playback — turn ticks, spell casts, damage, heal, KO, win/lose. A second fight composition lands with cycling playlist support, the fight hero column gets extracted into its own component, and Maya's first Heal sigil moves earlier in Chapter 1.
Read moreMaya animated on the fight field, heal as its own card, 5-hero stacks (3.4.0)
3.4.0 ships Maya's animated sprite sheets on the fight field driven by a state machine (idle, selected, attack, hit, KO), heal becomes a stand-alone effect-only card with cost equal to magnitude, and the fight stack now supports up to five heroes or enemies per side.
Read moreTitle screen previews all seven chapters; social login working
The title screen now previews all seven chapters of Song of Larithea up front, so the full shape of the run is visible from the start. Social login is fully functional — one tap and you're in, no email-password flow.
Read moreBackground music, 16:9 design, opening cutscene (3.2.0)
3.2.0 lands background music with per-screen track selection and live volume sliders, plus a five-page opening cutscene on a fresh run. The design aspect ratio drops to 16:9 so popups stop squashing on tall phones.
Read moreiOS sprite-slide fix, faster Maya walk (3.1.1)
A small bugfix release. Maya was sliding on iOS when she switched between walking and standing still — that's fixed. Her walk cycle was also a touch too slow for the speed she was actually moving, so the legs are catching up to the feet now.
Read moreAnimated NPCs and Maya's first walk cycle
Walking-scene NPCs can play animations now — auri is the first, with three idle poses and a welcome wave. Maya picks up her own side walk and idle animations, so she's actually walking through hubs instead of sliding around.
Read more3.0.0: tap-to-deselect, scene preloads, restyled popup headers
3.0.0 lands selection-and-screen polish. Tapping a selected hero, enemy, or spell now deselects it. Scene images preload during transitions, popup headers got a restyle, and two bugs are out — the daily-rewards tap target and an activity-cutscene crash on web.
Read moreLetterboxed viewports, multi-identity sign-in, rest at the teahouse
Web letterboxes to 16:9 and every platform locks to 19.5:9 so the layout stays put no matter the device shape. Players who started on Google can now link an Apple identity to the same account, with conflict resolution if the second identity is already in use.
Read moreHero panel system rolls out across map, party, and fight (2.1.3)
2.1.3 ships a unified HeroPanel component family — same skewed slot, same selected treatment, same stat layout — across the world-map hero strip, the base-menu top bar, the party selector with multi-select, and the fight-field rest popup. Base popups now share the Aspects starfield backdrop, and scene parallax got a math refactor so the mid layer tracks world coordinates exactly.
Read moreEffect sigils land — Maya's Heal is first (2.2.0)
2.2.0 adds the engine plumbing for effect sigils: a status-effect list on every fight character, a four-slot turn dispatcher (onCast / heroEnd / enemyEnd / turnEnd), and atomic field blocks. Maya's Heal ships as the first effect — casting it opens a hero picker, and the unlock pops a story dialogue instead of a generic title card.
Read moreSmarter enemy AI: flexible action order, no more passive campers
Hero and enemy actions inside a turn can now be ordered freely instead of locked into per-actor move-then-cast pairs. Chapter 1 melee packs bias toward coordinated moves-first attacks, and out-of-range Passive enemies flip aggressive instead of camping.
Read moreReal sign-in: Google, Apple, account deletion
2.0.0 brings real sign-in. The title screen's PLAY button now opens a sign-in flow with Continue with Google or Continue with Apple, plus a Terms & Privacy link. Sessions persist across launches, so you don't sign in every time. Account deletion is in too, with a clean revoke of the Apple/Google grant. Behind the scenes, the API gained backpressure protection so a fresh launch under load stays calm.
Read moreTitle screen rewrite, walking-scene parallax, global DEBUG menu
2.1.0 ships a new poster-backed title screen with sparkles at character hand locations, the walking-battle scene gains tiled parallax and image-backed enemy triggers, and all the dev-only entry points collapse behind a single global red DEBUG button.
Read moreCrafting tutorial: Tara walks through Steel + Strike
A guided crafting tutorial walks the player through their first spell, ending in a card-reveal beat. New dialogue execution kind handles steps that need the player to read before tapping, and three bugs that surfaced while building it got fixed.
Read moreVS popup runs over the walking scene
The pre-fight VS popup used to live on its own dark screen. Walking up to an enemy now keeps the walking scene mounted and renders the popup as an overlay — much less of a hard cut.
Read moreTier-based spell crafting and Ch1 economy rebalance
Spell crafting is now tier-based against a much smaller material catalog, and Chapter 1 scene rewards are derived directly from each fight's enemies — so what you get from a battle reflects who you actually fought.
Read moreTighter buttons, compact alchemy, hero stops beside NPCs
ComicButton shrinks ~25%, the bottom menu narrows, alchemy gets a compact layout with owned counts on every card, and the hero now stops next to friend/enemy triggers instead of overlapping them.
Read moreStory map: hero strip, scene info popups, cutscene dialogue match
Story map gets a hero strip overlay, repositioned location nodes, and tap-to-preview popups on closed scenes. Cutscene dialogue now uses the same text box and speaker badge as in-game dialogue.
Read moreHub art refresh and VS screen polish
Repainted back and mid layers across five hubs, and tightened the VS popup with selectable enemies and a cleaner comic hero card.
Read moreSchool rename, hero-first base, Aspects starfield
Order and Chaos are now Metal and Dark, Sheichi moved into the Fate slot, base panels follow the selected hero instead of asking you to pick a school, and the Aspects screen got a starfield background with pinch/button zoom.
Read morePost-playtest fixes: fight UI and onboarding
A full day of fixes in direct response to the Sandbox playtest. Cast and Cancel buttons, atomic move-plus-cast, a louder sparkle burst, a proper end to the guided intro, and a comic bubble over NPCs instead of the sparkle nobody saw.
Read moreUnified fight vocabulary and TestFlight prep
Every shipped enemy now has its own fight art under a single shared vocabulary — idle, attack, hit, ko — so the same word means the same pose across banners and field sprites. The iOS build is wired up for the first TestFlight alpha.
Read morePer-character fight art and manual planning order
Eight characters now have their own fight art across field sprites, banner playout, dialogue portraits, and spell cards — everyone else still falls back to Lamia while the look settles. Planning order is fully manual now, and the story-map battle popup shows enemies per fight.
Read moreCutscenes are in — new opening screen
The cutscene engine is live and the game opens with a proper comic-panel intro instead of a stub. Ormron Street also got a post-tutorial tweak so only Olija starts active.
Read morePlanning UI polish and fight sprite variants
The plan screen got a proper pass — per-hero selection memory, sparkle feedback, and energy cost outcomes. Heroes and enemies now have sprite variants for planning and playback.
Read moreComic-style fight playout
Fight playback has been redesigned as a comic-panel sequence with stat bars, energy recovery, and auto-skip — replacing the old step-through with something that actually feels like watching a battle unfold.
Read moreFirst look at the tutorial
A first look at the Larithea tutorial before this week's playtest. See how the guided intro walks new players through the game.
Read moreUnified map, journal system, and emotion portraits
The story map now includes base locations as nodes alongside scenes. A journal system tracks player progress, heroes have full emotion portrait sets, and the viewport scales beyond 16:9.
Read moreDesign system migration complete
Every legacy UI component has been replaced by the new comic design system. The story map, settings, VS screen, daily rewards, and hero cards all run on shared primitives now.
Read moreBuilding the comic design system
New comic-styled components for spell cards, barks, hero popups, and crafting — plus entry animations and a burst bubble effect. The visual language of the game is getting a proper system behind it.
Read moreArena fights reworked and notification system
Arena fights now use the new spell system end to end. A notification layer has been added so the game can surface events without interrupting flow.
Read moreAspects UI, new spell art, and dialogue timing
The Aspects menu is fully playable, spells have new card art and a reworked look, and dialogues now animate in and out instead of popping.
Read moreLibrary rework and story scene changes
Reworking the Library to show aspects — making it easier to see when sigils unlock and when stats grow. Some of those UI findings are pushing changes to story screens too.
Read moreUI audit: shared buttons and clearer calls to action
Every button and label was reviewed and routed through shared components so primary actions read as CTAs and secondary controls no longer compete for attention—directly addressing confusion we saw in user testing.
Read moreBiome fight fields and a new art pass on story backgrounds
Tactical fights now read biome-specific backdrop art on the fight field. Hub and story exploration use a fully refreshed background style—kept separate from battle flow and from the grid itself.
Read moreBarks and steadier state updates
Short bark lines now appear when you poke at the world and story beats, and the build applies player-state changes more reliably across combat, hub, and tutorial.
Read moreSmoother early combat
A progression-blocking bug in the second fight is fixed — combat would stall completely and leave you stuck. Several other combat edge cases from testing builds are resolved too.
Read moreSpells, constellations, and backgrounds
Your spell list opens in a clearer default state, constellation presentation is updated, and class-themed backgrounds refresh several hub and menu screens.
Read moreTutorial polish, materials, and loading
The guided intro skips steps you don't need; new and updated materials show up in the UI, the menu and inventory art got a pass, and scene images load with less hitching.
Read moreThe Party
Latest Diary
Eighteen years on the page, one minute on screen
Finished the one-minute opening cinematic for Larithea — the cold open that will play right after the tutorial. The characters first appeared in a novel I published in Ukraine in 2008. This week I got to watch them move.
Read more4 doughnuts and a playtest
Took the game to Sandbox gym on Wednesday with one nice piece of promo and four doughnuts. Walked out with a list of assumptions to throw out.
Read moreControl Freak, Gears of War, and Kling enemies
Finished Cliff Bleszinski's Control Freak this week — the story behind Gears of War and Unreal. Also: experimenting with Kling animations for some of the Larithea enemies, just for fun.
Read moreFight playout iteration
The fight playout got rebuilt as comic-panel sequences. Two games shaped how it feels — Enchanted Arms for the tactics, Dragalia Lost for the charm. Also: why animations have to wait.
Read moreBlood, Sweat, and Pixels — and why I make games
Just finished Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier. Two chapters stood out — The Witcher 3 and Stardew Valley. Also wrapped up the design system migration and moving into playtesting.
Read moreThe story
A team of young mages, sent out into the world. Each of them has their own road ahead. Others have walked it before. Few found their way back.
What makes it worth playing
Spell crafting
Gather materials and craft the spells your party actually needs. Your loadout is something you build — not a fixed list — so experimentation and specialization both pay off.
Team combat
Lead a small party through turn-based encounters. Plan your moves, place your spells, watch the fight unfold.
Six schools of magic
Each school has its own feel. Elemental affinities and combos let your team work the way you want it to.
A story worth following
Episodic chapters with a cast of complex characters, real stakes, and choices that land.
Play anywhere
Touch-first controls and pacing built for sessions that fit your day — wherever you are.