Happy autumn! Whether you’re staying warm and cozy inside or jumping around in the fallen leaves and petals adorning the ground, it’s undeniable; the blazing heat is out, and the cold winds are here. And along with it… it’s the second edition of the Hajimeli newsletter!
Just like last time, I’m your host, Cheryl, the lead of Hajimeli, and I’ve got a great degree of news to deliver this ti-
-huh? Sorry? Can you repeat that???
Wait, what’s this about Misdec-
Okay, okay! I get it! Slow down!
Okay, okay! I get it! Slow down!
So. This is the big thing. The demo for our RPG about robots, rebirth, and repetition is finally in your hands. You can download it for free, and experience the 2.5-ish-hour first chapter of the game.
Honestly, it’s a miracle this is coming out on time… I saved myself a lot by not leaving a majority of the work until the last week, because I’ve been totally busy with something else (see the “Related Projects” part later on…), but we made it. It’s here. You can play it.
Honestly, I don’t have too much to say… I think the game will speak for itself when you play it. It’s very different from vivid/stasis… so I hope people’s expectations are reasonable. But that’s almost definitely just creator anxiety from making my second game after My Big One That Got All The Attention.
But I’m far from the only one working on this game; so I asked the game’s character artist, Softy (who also draws the newsletter art!), to give a few comments. Here’s what they said:
HIII!! It's Softy !! (could you tell already lmao)
Honestly since the date got announced to the public, I started counting down the days until the release, like. im so hyped. And i HOPE YOU ARE TOO!!! AND IF YOURE NOT, GET HYPED BECAUSE ITS AVAILABLE SOOOOOOOON, OR NOOOOOW, WHENEVER THE NEWSLETTER IS OUT!!!!
Full transparency I loved working on this so far, I never really get to do pixel art so its a good stretch outwards for my art!!! And designing characters and critters I hope people will like a lot, I definitely see a lot of love for Sylvie so it means im doing something right haha!!
Seeing the positivity with everything so far puts a big smile on my face, keep bringing it !! im so curious to see how everyone feels about the demo after (or during) their playthrough!! MAKE IT SO I CAN SEE IT IM SOOOO CURIOUS!!!
HELLA BIG SHOUTOUTS TO EVERYONE ON THE TEAM!!! CHERYL, UNI, RYO AND MRCOOL!!! YALL ARE SO AWESOME!!! Cheryl sends me some funny ass dialogue snippets and its like holy shit thats awesome, everyones in a world of surprise. All of you have worked so fucking hard i love yall fr <3
OH and the newsletter art, do you like it? i think its cool. i spent like 20 days on it in and out so like whatever, team kanshaoi!!!!!!! these bitches gay good for them!
okithink i ran out of things to say but YEAH ENJOY YOUR DAY, HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR THOSE WHO CELEBRATE, BOO!!!!! i love u guys !! :3
Thank you, Softy!
I’d say “why are you still reading this?!?! Go play the video game!!!” but actually there’s still more cool news in this, so please finish reading it before you go play the video game…
(why did I title this part like it’s a video essay???)
Plans and releases for vivid/stasis have been… turbulent ever since the end of Early Access. Final Rush Party plans changed, we announced a whole community event that still hasn’t happened… it’s been a lot to manage, and I’ve already addressed some of this in a previous Hajimeli Bluesky post, but I feel like I’ve been dropping the ball in some ways with the post-release content for this game.
That doesn’t mean I’m not still committed to making it happen, though.
The two major things we promised that are up in the air right now are Chapter Alpha, a side story chapter focusing on a whole bunch of things that are huge spoilers and therefore I can’t say here, and Echoed Ascensia, a team-based community event where four character duos compete to earn the most points.
The unsatisfying answer for “when are these coming out?” is: I don’t know. To be honest, these are unlikely to happen until a bit into 2026. I know this is likely disappointing; but currently, development priorities are Misdecayed and polymorphite.
That being said, there’s other stuff in the pipeline for vivid/stasis that’s much lower-stakes! Like our collaboration with Soma Union, which is coming out on November 15th!
This collaboration adds two remixes of background songs from Torch60’s free indie RPG, Soma Union. They will be unlockable through a Soundscan map when the update releases!
Wow, our first ever collaboration event with a collab original song.
And here’s our second.
We’re collaborating with fellow SKY HOUR WORKS-published rhythm game, NEODITRONIX, which is also launching in a week and some change! This collaboration will release in January of next year, and feature three songs coming to each game, including an all-new original song, “for.loop”, by log() and A-Saph, which will come to both games!
That’s about it for vivid/stasis updates for now. Don’t forget about our upcoming Beatblock collaboration and Final Rush Party, too!
We’re cooking.
We can’t really say too much more.
…
…but I’m going to anyway.
polymorphite is the sequel to vivid/stasis, but it’s also a standalone game. You won’t need to play vivid/stasis to play polymorphite, though it’ll definitely help.
So what is polymorphite about? Well, it’s a multi-perspective adventure game about a strange series of events that begin to unfold across Tokyo, told through three different perspectives.
The first perspective is Aoi Shinonome and her amnesiac roommate, Kanshi. One day, Aoi Shinonome, a young data analyst, discovers a strange girl washed up on the shore of a river running through the neighbourhood. Soon, she learns that the girl can only remember her name, Kanshi, and nothing else.
The two begin to live together as they try to piece together Kanshi’s identity, but one day, a thunderstorm hits the city, signaling the start of a mystery that tangles itself around their pasts… and their futures.
The second perspective is Ritsuka Karashima, an ex-police-detective-turned-private-eye. A strange murder case comes across her requests, leading her to begin investigating. Soon, however, she realizes that the truth is much more twisted and confusing than she could have imagined…
Ritsuka investigates the Serenade Serial Murder case alongside a few of her confidants. Her perspective involves collecting evidence and testimony and putting the case together.
Finally, the third perspective puts us in the eyes of Noctern, a “memory intelligence” born of thousands of DNA samples by the mysterious CONSCIOUS IRIS. With access to a lot of Tokyo’s network infrastructure, she’s also equipped with “Digital Escapism”; a simulation capable of unrooting the truth through solving escape-room-like puzzles.
Through these three perspectives, you’ll uncover the strange truths linking all three perspectives, and how it all relates to the mysterious “Polymorph Project”...
Oh, right. It’s also a rhythm game. But I’m not going to tell you anything about that juuuust yet.
Good question! The catchall answer is “being worked on, but lower priority”, but here’s some extra detail.
HEARTLODGED: a lot of the team is currently working on Misdecayed. I (Cheryl) am still concepting some story elements for it in my spare time, though.
polymetria: currently on hold. It’s unlikely this will be released any time soon.
spherene: being worked on! A lot of work going on right now is at the engine level, so it’s primarily Taro working on it at the moment. But it’s coming along.
That’s pretty much everything we have to announce for Hajimeli. But members of Hajimeli have also been up to other things, so like last time, let’s shout out some other related projects!
This is what I’ve mainly been working on for the last few months. It’s finally coming out November 6th.
Fun fact! I tallied up my work; I’ve done full chartsets for about 25 songs in this game! That’s around a quarter of all of the charts in the game at launch! That’s too much!!!
By the way, did you see? The deluxe edition, titled UNBEATABLE BREAKOUT EDITION, just got announced!!! There’s crazy stuff in here!!!
I’m very excited about this game. I’ve seen some crazy stuff working on it that I can’t wait for all of you to see.
I already shouted them out when announcing the collaboration earlier in the newsletter, but you really should go check out NEODITRONIX when it comes out! It’s a cool rhythm game that uses the mouse. Use it to practice for when we release our own rhythm game that uses the mouse.
Beatblock finally came out recently! It’s also published by SKY HOUR WORKS! (I think half of the SHW catalogue is rhythm games at this point…)
We’re collaborating with them, too! “BEATROCK (get it?)” is coming to vivid/stasis on the first day of Final Rush Party at the end of December.
These aren’t necessarily games made by Hajimeli alumni, but I thought it’d be cool to start shouting out games I’ve been playing lately in these newsletters. If you like our stuff, you might like some of these… but I also might throw in some curveballs!
If you didn’t know, I love Ace Attorney a lot. And despite being hesitant initially to check out of the Devil due to its episodic releases not being done yet, I checked it out anyway, and in a way, I regret it, because the prologue and first Episode were so good that I just want more immediately. It’s not at all what I was expecting but it’s really damn good! Go into it expecting “cyberpunk Ace Attorney”, come out the other end having those expectations met and also subverted. It’s great. And Episode 2 is supposedly coming out this year!
I’m really not that good at first-person shooters. ULTRAKILL’s second Prime level was already too much for me to be able to get a good rank… and similarly, VOID/BREAKER is pretty hard for me! But I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve played of it so far. It manages to make ranged gun combat feel like an action game in a really cool way I haven’t seen, and it’s all coated with that futuristic aesthetic sauce people have been going crazy about for the new Marathon.
Puzzle platformers are either very hit or very miss for me, and Bat to the Heavens was a hit! I expected this to be a 5-8 hour short little affair but I finished the game clocking in around 20 hours, and raised that up to 50-ish going for absolute perfect completion, which should tell you how much I enjoyed it.
The world in particular was really fun to explore, and there're so many secrets in the game that, well, like I said, it doubled my playtime going for all of them.