Hello everyone! I'm Raphaël, the developer behind Kuroobi. It's my first time writing a devlog and I'm excited to share with you some stories and challenges behind the creation of Kuroobi.

First concept: from swordplay to judo

I am a big fan of Treasure and Radiant Silvergun had a big impact for me. I am not really good at it so I never went too far in the game but its sword swinging gameplay always felt great to me. I wanted to do a game based on this mechanism and the Playdate felt perfect for it with its crank.

Playing with a sword was fun, but it was a bit frustrating not being able to destroy enemies far away. I tweaked the gameplay to make it more like baseball: instead of destroying enemies outright, striking them with the sword would send them bouncing, causing chain reaction with other foes. It was better, but animating a robot handling a sword was not my cup of tea. I settled on grabbing and throwing instead because it allowed for Rocket Knight-like animations for the hands (i.e. more programming and less drawing).

The current state of the game began to remind me of Segata Sanshiro's last commercial, where he heroically redirects a massive missile from Sega headquarters to space. This became the central theme of Kuroobi: Segata Sanshiro in space.

Game Length

I love shoot’em ups but I often find myself struggling to reach the end. I am usually pretty good at the first levels, which I enjoy playing over and over. One game that particularly resonated with me was Star Soldier R on WiiWare, which featured just two levels. It made me wonder if there were others like me – people who like to optimise their score on a single level.

My lazy side was also pretty happy thinking that it would not be that long to make, but spoiler: it was an other case of game developer optimism. I started working on Kuroobi as a side project  January 22, 2023. It should have taken only a few weeks to make, but I am still working on it and it is now my main focus.

You might wonder why it's taking so long? I will try to share more updates and details in the coming weeks and months. Thanks for joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoy learning more about Kuroobi's development process.