After years of late nights, endless tutorials, and a shared obsession, our team finally hit a major milestone: we released the demo for The Chronicles of Overlord on Steam! This turn-based tactical RPG with puzzle elements, crafted in our signature pixel-art style, is the culmination of our journey from a post-hackathon idea to a real game. Seeing it live on Steam feels surreal.
The demo, featuring a polished tutorial, the first combat level, and a taste of our quirky story, dropped earlier this year. The response blew us away—over 1,000 players have already dove into our fantasy world, battling as the Overlord to stop the Devastator. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with players praising the strategic depth, retro visuals, and absurd humor. But it’s not just praise; the community’s input has been gold. We’ve learned what players love (like the puzzle-driven combat), what feels clunky (some UI quirks), and what they’re craving (more story beats and customization). This feedback is shaping every update we make.
I’ve personally poured thousands of hours into the pixel art, ensuring every sprite and animation pops, while the team has tackled code, balance, and sound to bring the demo to life. It’s been a grind, but hearing players enjoy our world makes it all worth it.
We’re not slowing down. Right now, we’re hard at work on updates—tweaking the interface, adding new levels like the Treasure Vault, and polishing based on playtest insights. We’re on the final stretch, aiming for the full release of The Chronicles of Overlord on Steam in Q3 2026. The journey’s been wild, but we’re more fired up than ever to share the complete adventure with the world.
After a local hackathon, a few of us—friends in our 30s, with no prior game dev experience—gathered to chase a spark. The hackathon’s energy, the thrill of creating something from scratch, left us hooked. We wanted to build a game, not just as a one-off experiment, but as something real, something ours.
The idea came fast: a quirky, story-driven puzzle game inspired by our love for retro adventures and absurd humor. We were obsessed because it felt personal—a chance to blend our random skills, from coding to storytelling, into something players could feel. It wasn’t about fame or money; we were driven by the sheer joy of creating a world from nothing, a place where our weird ideas could live.
We dove in, learning as we went. YouTube tutorials, Unity documentation, and late-night Discord calls became our life. We started small—basic mechanics, rough pixel art, placeholder sounds. Every tiny step, like getting a character to move or a puzzle to work, fueled our fire. We weren’t pros, but we were all in, hooked on the dream of seeing our game come to life.
