Kutaka Run Post-jam (Up)date!

Hello everyone,

I am pleased to announce the post-jam update for Kutaka Run! This update brings:

• Three new challenging Sanzu River-themed levels.
• Web build! Enjoy the game directly on your desktop or mobile browser (performance may not be ideal, especially on mobiles, but if you try it out please let me know).
• Improved animations and visual effects.
• New items.
• Performance improvements.
• Slightly faster movement speed.
• A better main menu, with a settings screen and score screen, and proper keyboard navigation.
• Complete Spanish localization.
• Quick restart button.

This update is a result of over three months of work, tweaking many of the game’s visual and gameplay aspects, and improving its performance to be able to run it on browsers. Some design decisions and personal lack of knowledge about the Godot engine had made it so the game consumed more resources than it had to. This became a personal challenge for me, and I put a lot of work into rewriting important parts of the code while trying to keep the same feel and gameplay as the game originally had.

However, at the last moment I noticed some camera issues that I unfortunately wasn’t able to solve completely (which were partially present before), so you may notice some jitter, especially as the levels go on. I have some ideas on how to solve it, but for the moment, I hope it’s not too unbearable and I hope you can enjoy the game regardless.

Originally, this update was going to bring even more stages, but if I did so, I would never release it any time soon. Even some art that I made for this update went unused in the end. There’s some ideas I’d like to explore, as I have found this genre to be surprisingly versatile, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to it. For the moment, this will be the last big update to the game.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my team and everyone who played the game, rated it, or streamed it. I am very proud, happy, and even surprised, of the result that we achieved together. I also deeply appreciate everyone’s comments and feedback, here on itch and on the discord server. Putting yourself out there is always difficult, but so very worth it, and I have found that the community surrounding the Touhou fan game jams is very warm and welcoming.

The previous (and first) jam I participated in was Touhou Station’s 2021 game jam, but it didn’t have any of the interaction of a common jam. Coming in to the Pride Jam, it was something new to me. It was really fun to play everyone’s games, read other people’s comments with their own experiences or interpretations, and leave comments as well. My congratulations to everyone who participated – the level of quality was insane. Since this jam, I have participated in a few other jams and it has been really fun. I hope we see more of each other in the future.

Regards,

illusorybread

p.s.: Performance on mobile browsers may not be ideal, especially on low-end devices, and I have only tested it on Android, not on iOS. I’ve heard Godot web builds have had issues with Safari, and Chrome could have audio stutter. If you do play the game on a mobile browser, please let me know how it goes.

p.s. 2: Also my thanks to the Cookie Run: Ovenbreak developers. This game naturally takes a lot from Cookie Run, and it served as a guide throughout its entire development.