Happy summer from Hajimeli! It’s been a while since our last full newsletter since we haven’t had as much news to share in a summary like this, but we’ve got some cool information to announce about our upcoming projects polymorphite and Misdecayed today, so let’s get straight into it!
polymorphite is our next large-scale rhythm game project following vivid/stasis. Set in Tokyo, the game blends precise rhythm-dodging action with a storyline weaved together through three different protagonist perspectives, all relating to a grand conspiracy threatening to unravel the world.
polymorphite has had quite the turbulent development history. It started as a mobile game in 2023, was over-scoped dramatically, down-scaled in 2024, before being restarted as a PC game in 2025 with our original mobile game project now being polymetria, a spinoff title still quite a ways out from release. However, despite this rocky road, the game is closer than ever to being ready for you to try! So, when can you try it?
Soon! The best answer I can give is “soon”. I promise.
Though, if you’d like a more specific range, we’re targeting the last week of August or the first weeks of September. This isn’t a formal plan, however, and may be subject to change.
Some features, like Aspect development, aren’t planned to be included in the demo since they likely won’t be ready on time. However, if they’re coming along well, they may be included.
The songs featured in the demo are:
Each demo song is super unique and bangs in its own way. I can’t wait for you all to get your hands on this game…!
Obviously, though, polymorphite isn’t just a demo. We’ve cemented plans for releasing the full game, and although of course plans can change, this is what we’re aiming for.
The game will release its Early Access version (v0) in late January 2027. This version of the game will feature around 25 songs as well as the complete first story chapter of the game, and the Aspect development mechanics.
There may be minor content updates during Early Access, but for the most part, the next major update is set to be version 1.0, which will leave Early Access and include the second Story Chapter and any mechanics and features not introduced in version 0. This release is targeting late Q2 of 2027.
This means that, unlike with vivid/stasis, the story of polymorphite will be rolled out following the end of Early Access rather than during it.
Unfortunately, we cannot announce anything regarding pricing for the game at this time, however I can personally say the game isn’t going to be any more expensive than most indie games on Steam. Please stay tuned for more information on that.
Good question! The answer is “Cheryl and her team work their ass off on it and pray it’s in a good state by August”. But for you, the players, the answer is… wishlist the game! The game’s Steam store page is live right now, meaning you can wishlist polymorphite. To incentivize people to wishlist the game, we’re doing a campaign where depending on the amount of people who have wishlisted the game, we’ll reveal new information about the game to the fans!
Obviously, the game is sitting at 0 wishlists right now. So, at 500 wishlists, we’ll share a preview of some of the new original songs that will be playable in the demo! The next milestone will be at 1000 wishlists, and you’ll be told what it is when you reach the 500 milestone. So get wishlistin’!
That’s about everything we have to reveal for polymorphite at this time. For more information on the game you can visit the Steam page or its subpage on the official Hajimeli website. I’m so excited for this game; I hope all of you are, too!
Since releasing our initial version of the Misdecayed Demo last October (which was the focus of our last full newsletter), progress on Misdecayed has been going steadily but slowly.
As announced some months ago, currently all work on the game is in relation to moving the game content from our previous engine, RPG Maker VX Ace, to RPG Maker MV. RMVXA is quite old by this point and is starting to show its age in some areas that I believe would be to the game’s detriment, hence the decision to move to RMMV, which was released in 2015 (as opposed to 2012 for VXA).
As it turns out, moving up an entire generation of RPG Maker is quite a time-consuming task, especially given that Misdecayed has a lot of little quirks and code edits to the core engine RPG Maker gives you that need to be carried over. However, work is going quite well on this and the game is very close to stable on the new engine.
However, I’ve also been taking the extra development time to enhance and rework some gameplay elements of the game. Some things, like the way Energy Points worked in the original VX Ace demo, are much more finicky to work out in MV, so the EP system had to be reworked completely to resemble much more of a standard “Limit Break” system. EP is shared between the party now, and is used for much less magical, coordination abilities between your party members.
Additionally, every character’s skill loadout has been redesigned from the ground up. Despite the game not having a “Class” or “Job” system where you change the role of each character, I’ve designed the new loadouts around each character having two or three “subclasses” which each have their own set of skills that pool together to create the character’s overarching skillset. For example, Molly, the protagonist, now has three “roles” in the party, those being “Frostbearer” (ice-element based physical and magical damage), “Warrior” (basic physical damage and stat enhancements), and “Healer” (basic healing), making her primarily an all-around type of character in battle, whereas Ashie’s skills draw more heavily from Defender or Tank mechanics in other games. I’ve been studying class and job loadouts in other games like Golden Sun and even MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV for these new loadouts, and it should hopefully create a more diverse skill roster to use in battle.
The thing with this, though, is that it basically requires rebalancing the whole game, which is why the new version of the demo is taking so long to release. I didn’t want to just put the 1.0 version of the demo out on Steam when we were already planning on overhauling the game in RPG Maker MV, so the Steam version of the demo will launch with Demo 2.0, which will also be released on the itch.io page at the same time. And this will happen on…
June 27th, 2026!
That’s right! Demo 2.0 for Misdecayed will be released 18 days from this newsletter’s release on the 9th. Even if you’ve already played the 1.0 version of the demo, I strongly encourage you to try the 2.0 version. A lot of things have been changed, touched up, and improved upon to create a much better-flowing game experience, and one that’s much more indicative of the full release.
When it’s ready.
Like in our last newsletter, I want to also highlight some games I’ve been playing and enjoying lately that you might enjoy too if you’re a fan of my work!
Rabbit and Steel is the “co-op raiding roguelike”, which is exactly what it sounds like. Made by the same developer as Maiden & Spell, this game takes all of the DNA of MMORPG raids and squishes it into a nice and easily-playable roguelike package. I didn’t know anything about raiding before trying this game out, and it’s still very parseable for me. (Until you get to the Lunar difficulty…)
2026 is the year I finally got into Trails. Being one of the longest-running continuous RPG franchises (as in, every entry is a sequel to the previous one and must be played in order), the concept of getting into Trails always seemed too daunting. But last year, Nihon Falcom and GungHo released a full remake of the first game, Trails in the Sky FC, released in 2004, now reimagined in their modern engine and artstyle. It felt like the right time to finally get into the Trails series, and I’m so glad I did; despite being largely a prologue to later games, Sky 1st was an incredible experience that ended so strongly that I immediately bought the original 2006 version of the second entry in the series.
If you can handle medium to long RPGs (Sky 1st took me 40 hours to finish), please give this a go! They’re also releasing a full remake of the second chapter this September, so in general, it’s just a good time to try the series out. Play through Sky 1st! You’ll know by the end if the series is for you or not.
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Last Legendaria XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A World Welcomed and the award-winning Hellswarden expansion and also the award-winning Stormwound expansion and also the award-winning Shiftbringers expansion up to level 80 for free with no restrictions on playtime!
…ah, oops. That’s the wrong game.
That just about wraps up our news for today! Our other projects, namely HEARTLODGED and spherene, are still in active development, but are lower priority at the moment, so we don’t have any new information to share at this time. However, please be assured that those games are also on the way, and when we have more information to show you, we will!
Happy summer, and happy pride month too! Thank you for reading. See you for Misdecayed Demo 2.0 on the 27th and polymorphite Gameplay Demo in a few months!