Dev Log #5 was the artist open call, so it's been two months since I wrote anything about the game itself. This is a catch-up on what's changed since then.
Nothing here is a new system, really. It's mostly going back over things that already worked and making them feel less rough.
Movement
Until a couple of weeks ago the character moved one cell per keypress. You press a key, it tweens across a tile, and you can't do anything until it lands. That's how Bomberman does it and it worked fine for a while, but it meant committing to a corner about a third of a second before you got there. It felt sticky.
The character moves continuously now. Bombs still snap to cells, everything else is free.
The movement itself was the small part. Most of the work was in the things that had quietly assumed you were standing on exactly one tile. Arrows and fireballs used to check their cell against yours, which meant a freely-moving player could cross a corridor in the gap between two of the arrow's own cell transitions and get passed straight through. They both check your actual hitbox every frame now.
Bombs needed the same. You drop one at your exact position and it slides onto its tile over about a tenth of a second, so what's on screen matches the per-cell blast that's coming. It stays walkable until you've properly stepped off it, then goes solid.
There's a small assist for when your body is straddling two lanes and only one of them is clear: it eases you onto the clear one. The first version of that re-centred you constantly and felt like the game was taking control away from you, so now it does nothing unless you're actually stuck. Walking into a wall just stops you.
Held direction is a stack with the newest press winning, so going from D to W turns you without needing to let go of D first. Took a few goes to get that right.
I also slowed the base speed from 0.25 to 0.3 seconds per cell, since you're never stopping now.
Juice
Enemies used to just disappear when they died. Now there's a Juice autoload that handles screen shake, hitstop, burst particles and pop-up text, and it's hooked into most of the things that needed it:
- Enemies burst when they die, and multi-kills put up a DOUBLE KILL or RAMPAGE toast with a bit more hitstop each time.
- Chain explosions shake harder the deeper the chain goes, with a CHAIN toast counting the depth.
- Bombs breathe slightly while they sit, and the fuse pulses white before it goes off.
- Explosion cells race outward from the centre instead of all appearing at once.
- The cell a bomb detonated on keeps a scorch mark for a few seconds, at a random rotation, then fades.
- The infinite-mode exit portal used to appear silently, which came up in playtesting. It gets a shake, a burst and an EXIT OPEN toast now.
Bombs as ammo
Bomb count used to be a cap that refilled the moment a bomb went off. It's a pool that regenerates on its own timer now, so keeping one in reserve is a decision and standing near your own explosion isn't a way to reload.
Secondary bomb types have their own pool of 2 charges with no regen, unless you've got the Auto-Loader relic. Two draft cards go with it: Quick Reload (+20% regen speed, stacks) and Backup Bomb (+1 secondary charge, only offered if you've actually got a secondary equipped).
The HUD shows this as rows of dots that wipe as they refill, and the same dots draw above the character while the bomb key is held. Checking a side panel mid-fight to see if you can drop another one was never going to work.
The workbench
Bomb types unlock through blueprints now. You buy the Artificer skill that turns drops on, enemies start dropping blueprints for particular types, 5 of a type unlocks it, and the workbench screen lets you put anything unlocked into your primary or secondary slot.
Before you've bought that first skill the workbench button has a padlock on it and shakes if you click it, the same as a skill card you can't afford. It used to just sit there empty, which confused people.
The floor timer
Every floor gave you a flat 100 seconds, whether it was a small early map or a big late one with 20 enemies on it.
It's a budget based on the actual area of the map now, minus 6 seconds per floor past floor 6, with a floor of 70. Works out at roughly 113 seconds on floor 7 down to about 81 on floor 15. The idea is that the late run gets tighter rather than only getting more crowded.
Enemy counts ramp with the floor and don't cap at 10 anymore. The first 5 spawn with the floor, the rest come in one every 2 seconds at least 4 cells away from you, and the floor doesn't count as clear until the whole wave has arrived.
That broke the speed bonus without me noticing for a while. It wanted 80 seconds left on the clock, and floor 15 now spends around 38 seconds just spawning enemies, so it wasn't reachable. It's a par time based on the floor's own spawn window now, and the "(bonus at N s)" hint reads off the same number instead of being a separate hardcoded one that disagreed with it.
These are all first-pass numbers. I need to play a lot more runs before I'd call any of them right.
Smaller things
Death screens show a tip based on how you died. One of them covers arrows setting off your bombs, which I don't think anyone was finding on purpose, and there's a "!" spark at the contact point now too.
The draft draws with rarity weights (55/27/13/5) rather than flat odds, so Hammer Cache is properly rare. Long Arm, Wooden Shield and Head Start came back out of the pool.
Menus have a pair of markers that bob next to whatever has keyboard focus. Keyboard navigation was guesswork before.
And I went through about 35 files collapsing near-identical golds, cyans and oranges onto shared values. Nobody will ever notice. But that's kind of the point.
The open call
Still running. 2 to 3 artists, £100 each paid on delivery, one mock screenshot of the game in your proposed style. Applications close on 15 August 2026, so there's about a week left. Portfolio link and a few lines on your take to lionel@dashagain.co.uk.
More soon.
— Lionel
Published: August 2026