Star Iliad Steam news

• Steam app typegame
• Steam App ID1649670
• PriceNo longer available on Steam Store
• Release dateTo be announced
• DeveloperCape Cosmic
• PublisherCape Cosmic
• Parent gameNot available

Genres: Action, Adventure

Company pages: Developer: Cape CosmicPublisher: Cape Cosmic

No longer available on Steam Store. This app is no longer available for purchase on the Steam Store. SteamPulse keeps live player counts, media, metadata, and historical price snapshots where available.

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Star Iliad Steam news

Star Iliad news collects recent Steam feed items, update posts, and announcements that SteamPulse can associate with this app.

Latest Steam announcements

• Dev Log #10: Fast Travel - 1 August 2026

  A rare trip has come up. An old friend is getting married, which has necessitated I travel to the other side of the world. So on that note, let's talk about "Fast Travel" in video games. One might be tempted to think it's an easy question:"How soon should we have it?"But actually, the design space for Fast Travel can be quite vast. Some games choose to not have it at all - then there's the question of the lore flavorings, how diegetic it will be, how many access points on the map, and so on.Today, I'll talk about some observations of Fast Travel in other games and tease a bit of what we're planning for Star Iliad.(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)Lore FlavoringsFirst, what's the "lore" behind Fast Travel? Will the player warp using teleporters, step into a magical mirror, or ride an epic steed?(In Star Iliad, Botan rides a steed named Gort. Gort'…

• Dev Log #09: Little Design Decisions - 2 June 2026

  When creating a game world, you have to tackle various design questions.We're familiar with the big front-facing design questions - things that require clear intent and are likely to be listed in the game design doc. They'd be questions about the game’s core genre and tone, the gameplay loop, the story, art style, and so on.But there are other design decisions to make - "little" ones that are almost invisible. They're not likely to be listed in a design doc. Maybe the designer doesn't even think about them consciously...Then every so often, an inciting incident occurs - a little exchange alerts you to the fact that something you assumed was agreed upon by everyone was, in fact, not. In those little exchanges, the little design questions announce their presence and demand an official, consciously recognized, decision.Today, I'll talk about some of these little design questions.(Note: Chi…

• Dev Log #8: HP vs Hearts - 2 April 2026

  Star Iliad uses a "Heart" system to display player health - which is a marked change from Phoenotopia's “HP”. Today, I'll explore why that is. Did we consider other health systems? And is using Hearts simply a cosmetic decision or a major change that will shape the game design fundamentally?(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)(What if, like in classic Mario, Blythe shrunk whenever she got injured?)Misc Thoughts as a YouthMy opinions on health systems have changed a lot over the years.As a kid, Super Mario World and Zelda: Link to the Past were my baseline. They were among my first games, so I took their health systems for granted. I didn't think they were “cool.”The first time I thought a health system could be cool was when I saw the health bars in Megaman X. For the first time I had a direct window into the boss's health. The moment the boss appe…

• Dev Log #07: The META of Blog Posting - 31 January 2026

  Happy New Year! New years invite reflection. Today, I’ll reflect on dev logs themselves.More specifically, why do we write them? What are they for? And why do I have writer’s block?(Note: Chinese Translation of this devlog is available! Courtesy of Baojie)A Quick HistoryI started my first blog post about 12 years ago. At the time, game dev was still foreign to me, so I lurked on game dev forums quite a bit. I saw mentions of starting a Tigsource dev log, so I started a tigsource. Then I saw mentions for Tumblr, so I started a Tumblr. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to write a dev blog. It just seemed like the “thing” game developers did. If game developers were jumping off cliffs, I probably would’ve done that too.Over time, I saw mentions of other platforms: Facebook, Blogger, WordPress. The “meta” of where you should post was always shifting. Long-form posts fell out of favor. Sh…

• DevLog #06 : Expeditions for Tech - 2 December 2025

  Spot the difference in this picture of two enemies at the moment of their demise. On the left, an enemy in Phoenotopia. On the right, an enemy in Star Iliad.Notice anything? The one on the right sports a “hit glow” FX.Note: Chinese Translation of this dev log is available! (Courtesy of Baojie)Phoenotopia surprisingly never had hit glow – something that is pretty much standard for most enemy hit FX in other games. Other tricks Phoenotopia would employ were to shake an enemy on impact (ok, that one is pretty standard), and to shrink an enemy before disappearing it in a puff of smoke.The common factor behind using those hit effects was that those techniques were free and easy – they didn’t require installing any additional assets or programming any extra shaders. And they looked “good enough.”During Phoenotopia’s development, technology was kept frozen. Once a solution was found and deemed…

• DevLog #05: Map Designing - 1 October 2025

  One common feedback we received for Phoenotopia was to add a map. Note: Chinese Translation of this blog post is available! (Courtesy of Baojie)Unfortunately, it was too difficult to do since Phoenotopia wasn’t designed with 2D geometric considerations in mind. Perhaps it’s best explained with this picture:(The starting house. Some say the confusing layout was a metaphor for the difficulties of life in an orphanage home)Actually, there is a sort of logic to it – if you looked at it from a 3D perspective:We even animated the main character differently depending on whether she was “running to the front” or “running to the back.” Neat idea in theory, but confusing in practice. Ultimately, it was still a 2D game, and to cram 3D geometry into a flat space just made the world confusing to navigate.Supporting a map isn’t something you can tack on afterward. It has to be a core design principle…

• DevLog #04: Revisiting some old Story Drafts - 2 August 2025

  The game has evolved a lot from whence it started. For fun, let’s dive into some old concepts. Don’t worry, they won’t be spoilerific since the current story has evolved far away from what will be shown.Note: Chinese Translation of this blog post is available! (Courtesy of Baojie)The First StepIt starts with some programmer art:(the weird trees above are giant hairs)From the get-go, we knew we wanted the player to feel like a microscopic entity exploring the inside of something colossal. Something about the interplay between the small and the big just fascinates and captures the imagination.(“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” – one of my old favorites)Organs naturally lend themselves to uniquely themed-dungeons, and the body’s internal features fit neatly into the “lock and key” gameplay of a Metroidvania. “Bone blocks” form hard barriers – requiring missiles to break. “Fat blocks” are gooey an…

• DevLog #03: The True Weight of a Double Jump - 31 May 2025

  One of the most common requests I received for Phoenotopia was to add a double jump. Of course, once the game was out, adding a new movement mechanic like that wasn’t feasible without dramatically altering the levels and puzzles. It’s one of those deceptively small changes that carries massive, far-reaching consequences. Still, I mentally bookmarked the idea for our next project. And now, in Star Iliad, we present to you: Blythe’s Rocket Dash! (the tells of dash ability are built directly into her suit—no separate dash indicator bar needed!) At first, I thought dash and double jump were functionally similar—so similar, in fact, that splitting them into two separate upgrades seemed redundant. Why not combine them into one cool ability: an 8-directional air dash? One upgrade, two functions! Well, as it turns out, there’s a reason most games separate Dash and Double Jump. Giving the player…

• DevLog # 02: The Importance of Pacing - 31 March 2025

  Note: Chinese Translation of this blog post is available! (Courtesy of Baojie) When it comes to making commercial video games, let’s just say it’s not our first rodeo 😎 (It’s our second) Steam automatically compiles various play data from gamers. From Phoenotopia, I know that we have a roughly even split of keyboard users and gamepad users. From achievements, I can tell which bosses were defeated and how far the player got (although our implementation of achievements requires the user manually unlock it, so it’s less useful data). Today, I want to focus on one specific data point—the median playtime for Phoenotopia. Unfortunately, the median playtime clocks in at 4 hours. I think that’s right when the player reaches Atai. (Atai – the death place of so many playthroughs) A working theory has been forming: Atai is the first real “slog” where players are stuck in one place for a long time…