News and announcements

Newspost - September 2026

Here’s what’s been happening at WHAMGAMES during September.

Cursed Stars Ascendant is seeing steady progress, with each new week bringing about new features and functionality. The project achieved something of a milestone just this week as the GitHub repository now shows a total of 100 issues marked as resolved, only 12 of which have been classified as bugs during development. That means that a vast majority of these issues have meant completing minor milestones, implementing features, and adding visuals on which the game will continue to be built upon.

Notable new advances in the game in recent weeks include a tailor’s shop, from which the player can procure clothes in order to dress and impress, as well as a hospital, which serves as a way for the player to more effectively deal with the many injuries and ailments they are bound to encounter in the game. Visuals were also added to the various status effects the player can currently gain, which range from starvation to sickness to having recently enjoyed a nice hot meal. I guess that means I need to implement a coffee shop and a restaurant into the game next! As an added bonus one of the many little interactable items that will be in the game was implemented: the lucky scratch card. A fun way to waste a bit of loose change and maybe win big!

Another big project was the implementation of the in-game newspaper item. As the game will have a semi-random pool of potential events active at any time, the newspaper can help clue the player in on notable events that are awaiting their attention, as well as providing some background storytelling about the semi-fictional world in which the game takes place. An example would be the arrival of a potential associate or nemesis into the town being declared in the newspaper, allowing the player to head to the train station to greet them as they arrive, or at least knowing to watch out in case some occult detective is snooping about, trying to foil the players planned rituals. Additional functionality, such as tracking the in-game stock market to help players invest and make money in clever ways is also in the pipeline, along with weather reports and effects which can influence both the energy cost of simply traveling around town, are already planned and have some placeholder functionality configured and ready to go.

As a final note: I’ve been drafting a trailer video to be used in more formally revealing the Cursed Stars Ascendant project. The initial script is pretty much done, but there is still quite a bit of work left on the visuals and music side. I’ve got a friend of mine looking to produce music for the trailer as well as potentially for the full game, so we shall be working together to find the right mood and feel for the game in the coming weeks and months, with most of our inspiration drawn from PS1 era horror and roleplaying game soundtracks. Hopefully, the trailer will be out during October, while a playable demo of Cursed Stars Ascendant is in the works for November of December, so that people can get their hands on the game and get a feel for how it actually plays. More videos and content coming up on the various WHAMGAMES socials, so don’t forget to check those out via Linktree.

Next update in October! Signing off.

Newspost - August 2026

First of all, I took some time off at the end of July and early August, to enjoy some actual summer holiday time. Thus, you’ll have to excuse me that there isn’t nearly as much new development with the game as there could have been, especially since returning from vacation, even a short one, can feel a little overwhelming.

I still managed to add several new features to the current prototype over these past weeks, however.

Jobs, promotions, pay raises, and basic reputation mechanics have all been added and tested, with more jobs added over time as new locations are introduced into the game. Most jobs will also provide some additional benefits, such as employee discounts on goods and services as well as access to certain people and places.

Education was also added in the form of a university, which the player can enroll into in order to complete various courses and studies, as well as to gain access to the prestigious library, which serves both students and staff. The library will provide some basic reading material to help build up skills and stats, but if delved into deeply enough, might also reveal some lost and forgotten tomes with dark secrets within!

Finally, I’ve been working on the event system, which allows various events to trigger during gameplay. For example, you might trigger a ‘minor injury’ event while working, which will eat up precious time and might lead to worse health if you lack the resources and time to recover properly. The odds of triggering this event will lessen as you get more experienced with a specific job, but progress will reset if you switch to an entirely new job later down the line. While walking around town you might encounter a stray cat (it bites) or a dog (it probably won’t bite) or one of several strangers (very unlikely to get bitten by most of these) who may or may not be kind. With the event framework in place, I can easily add a wide variety of events and outcomes that can be unlocked and triggered as the game progresses, ensuring that both positive and negative surprises await the player behind every corner!

As a final note, if you think you know anyone who might be interested in the game project, feel free to share the WHAMGAMES website with them or direct them to check out the WHAMGAMES Patreon campaign, which recently gained its first-ever subscriber to hopefully pave the way for many more supporters to come in the future!

More news to come in September! Signing off.

Newspost - July 2026

It’s time for our first newsletter! If you want to receive these into your email inbox in the future, check out the newsletter link above!

So, what’s going on at WHAMGAMES?

Things are really only starting to take shape so there isn’t a whole lot to share right now. I’m still in the process of planning for the establishment of WHAMGAMES as an actual business entity with a valid tax ID and all that, while ensuring I’m doing all the right things when it comes to any legal, tax, bookkeeping, and other requirements. It will probably be a few more months before that step is officially taken, but preparatory work will continue in the background.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on the other social media channels I recently established for WHAMGAMES, you might have seen some content about a foundation of a new game being built to serve as basis for my first commercial game project, currently known internally as “Cursed Stars Ascendant” or just “Busy Cultist”. The documents and plans for this project go well beyond any of my past projects using the Adventure Game Studio engine, but I’ve already managed to implement numerous little features that I’d never have even thought of in my smaller projects in the past. Things like gamepad controls were never a priority before, but with Steam Deck and mobile platforms being key release platforms for this project, establishing appropriate control schemes is of key importance early on.

If all goes well, I should be getting closer to having a playable demo ready to showcase when the next newsletter goes out, so look forward to seeing something more substantial in August!

I’ll also be producing content on Youtube both on the personal and official channels and Twitch on a regular basis, including plans for doing game development and art creation livestreams to showcase my game project to any curious passers-by. I will also be doing livestreams to showcase other developers AGS projects, both recent creations from the Monthly AGS contest as well as older AGS games that are revered by the community, but which I may have missed over the years.

Newspost - June 2026

This page is still very much being set up and I'm planning to have a more substantial set of news to release in July of 2026. While you wait, check out the older WHAMGAMES releases on the games page and if you'd like to stay tuned to what's going on here, why not subscribe to the WHAMGAMES newsletter?

I've also just created a fresh new channel on Youtube for releasing more formal content. You can expect to see devlogs, videos trailers and other sneak peeks into upcoming WHAMGAMES releases over there, so make sure to subscribe to make sure you're ready for new content!