- Progress Update - 12 August 2026
Greetings shoppers,We just wanted to reach out and give a quick update on our progress. The summer months have proven long and difficult so far. First, we've had to content with some periodic health issues that have been worse rather than better lately. Second, the system we use to have such a large number of objects in the world at one time has presented a lot of challenges when combined with using dynamic real time lighting everywhere. It's been a lot of work on optimization and we've run into a couple limitations and bugs in the engine itself this summer.Regardless, work continues, most of which consists of animating our new store denizens and giving them voices. I'm also excited to say we have a couple of new streamers on board for voice acting, and I'm looking forward to announcing them soon. We've had all of the in-game lore and posters voiced now so its been a massive undertaking…
- Small Demo Patch Upcoming - 1 June 2026
Greetings shoppers. Just checking in because we have a new trailer dropping today at the Horror Game Award's Midsummer Showcase! We hope you enjoy it - we're excited to share a glimpse on some of the things we've been working on!That being said, we were hoping to have a small update with some bug fixes and tweaks to the demo, with just a couple small things added, in time for this showcase today. However, the Unreal Engine source code gods frowned upon such hubris, so its probably going to be another day or two before we can get the aisles cleaned up and have that packaged for you all. You'll see that rolled out here As Soon As Eldritchly Possible.But for clarity, this is just a collection of bug fixes and as I said, a couple small content things. The big demo overhaul that brings in the things we've been working on for release is still coming up. So if you've got a craving you need to…
- Update and Lovecraftian Days! - 9 April 2026
ATTENTION SHOPPERSItems have been moved.The lights flicker longer than usual.Something has moved into the pond in the greenhouse.And someone keeps restocking the canned squid.This can only mean one thing. That it is Lovecraftian Days once again!You can check out the amazing collection over on it's Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/LovecraftianDays2026In the meantime, we have, in our hubris, added another section and a whole new mechanic to the game. The line between scope creep and insanity is as thin as our famous deli-sliced venison!And If you hear whispering near the clearance rack, please remain calm.See you in the mist.
- Quick Update - 20 December 2025
Greetings Shoppers and happy holidays! We hope you're finding everything you need to practice your holiday rituals this season!We just wanted to drop by and let you all know that progress continues on completing the store. We are actually hoping to have a completely revamped demo based on the final build of the game coming out in the next month or two and then the full game a month-ish thereafter. Reading between the lines, that means we're happy to say we're very close!New areas are completed, more shoppers are roaming the store, and we're working to finish the "storyline" of the quest itself, then add all the finishing touches. Exciting times!We'd also like to remind shoppers, during this upcoming solstice, please unplug any CRTVs that you have near AI devices. The upcoming resonances combined with solar wind shifts can cause ionic cascades leading to... unintended consequences. If yo…
- New Trailer Drop! - 29 September 2025
Greetings shoppers!it's been a bit since we've updated, but reports of our demise at the hands of things lurking in shadow have been grossly exaggerated. Any injuries were merely flesh wounds. Instead, we've been hard at work finishing construction on the deimOS gates and procuring supply chains for goods in the market. We had hoped to have everything in place for this Halloween, but while we're remarkably close, we couldn't both finish features and playtest/bug test them. I am hesitant to make firm plans, because eldritch roadblocks always seem to arise, but I will say that we're seriously eyeballing February.In the mean time, I am excited to say that we are participating in the Horror Game Awards' Halloween Showcase tomorrow (9/30 2pm EDT) and we have a new trailer dropping during it! We hope you'll join us!This is LostHarbinger signing off. See you in the mist.P.S. Stay tuned, near H…
- Small update - 21 April 2025
Greetings Shoppers! This foggy night's update includes a handful of bug fixes, some new products from Ellie around the store, and some updates to the mannequin's behavior. I completely changed the way her movement is processed, but in theory shoppers shouldn't really see too much of a difference. We did make her move a little slower, hopefully prevented her occasional cheating, and added another option to her repertoire. Hopefully this makes the blessed difficulty a little easier for people to explore in. If you run into issues or its not behaving the way you expect, please let us know. There are a few other minor changes as we try and focus the rest of our efforts on getting the main story of the game completed. Short of major bugs or problems we're going to be focusing on getting all the things done we need for our (hopefully) August release schedule. The new areas are coming along qu…
- Mechanics update - 18 March 2025
Greetings Shoppers, Today we're bringing you an update with a few changes that should significantly change the difference between the Blessed and Nameless difficulties. Namely, the Ellpad will offer extra help for avatars in Blessed mode - the Ellnotes tell you whats next on your shopping list, and may offer help for other tasks as well. Additionally, for those who find themselves lost in endless places, the Ellpad can give you a guiding line to where you're trying to go. There are also some new things to interact with in the store, as well as things that may occur while shopping. Finally, we implemented more bug fixes and corrected a few obscure items on the shopping list and made sure they should count towards lists correctly. We have another update with a few more features and a few more bugs to fix coming soon, and I'm working on a big push to get a lot of the dialogue finished. We…
- Bug Fixes - 18 February 2025
Greetings Shoppers. We have our first big update of the month tonight. There's a huge list of bug fixes included in this update. It's a wide range of bugs, from game breaking to trivial. We believe we've addressed almost all the bugs that were reported or we saw while people were playing the demo. We've also gone through and triple checked the products so that they should be marked correctly and should be properly interactable. The one exception is the grab and go sections of the store. You should be able to currently take things successfully, but it can cause some issues in the foods there. In our next update this month, players will use the grab'n'go containers to acquire the pre-cooked foods which should resolve those issues. If we've missed something, please let us know! Stay tuned for our next update, around the end of this month, which will bring some new features, QoL updates and…
- Devblog #6 - The one in which an important lesson is learned. - 2 February 2025
Greetings shoppers. I realize it's been a bit since we had a status update, so let's catch up.. The Demo came out, and has had a fantastic welcoming. Many, many thanks to everyone who has downloaded it and given it a try. We're almost giddy with how much everyone has enjoyed playing it and experiencing the world we've put together. Thank you all for your feedback, patience with bugs, constructive criticism and kind words. We've strived to address as many of your issues as we can and have had amazing feedback that has changed the shape of the game. We've actually overhauled the difficulty system - the new system will be more like a "Lore and Explore" (Blessed) mode vs an "Advanced" (Nameless) mode that is as we intended. Blessed difficulty will still have deaths and hazards, but things like the murderousness of our store inhabitants will be decreased, and instead alternative punishments…
- Demo out now! - 15 October 2024
We're happy to announce that we've released a demo as part of Steam's NextFest and Spooktober events! The game is very much incomplete early-access, as such the demo is limited in areas, monsters, and game play elements, restricting how far you can progress. However, we wanted to give shoppers the opportunity to explore the store, view some of the lore and take in the atmosphere here at Last Chance Market. Shoppers will be provided with a questionnaire at the end of their shopping experience, and any constructive feedback would be most welcome! Of course, the trickster god is working against us, so we've run into a slew of bugs and problems right out of the gate. That being said, we are existing purely on caffeine, adrenaline and pain at this point, working sleeplessly to fix bugs that we find patch holes in the fabric of existence. Now that we have a playable experience released into t…
- Devblog #5 - The Last Leg of the Journey - 30 June 2024
Another season, another brief update my fellow mist-dwellers. The work continues unabated on opening the store for business. New challenges continue to rear their heads, but they are steadily overcome. We have restructured our release schedule somewhat, and are planning on releasing a demo and early access shortly afterward. And while I abhor giving timelines, as they have repeatedly shown me to be overly optimistic, I do feel obliged to say that I feel confident that both should be out before the end of the year, if not before Halloween itself. One of the continual challenges has been using the latest version of Unreal Engine. The urge to use the shiny new features of each update is always offset by the learning curve and adjustments to existing code that are required. However, as of this latest version, 5.4, I've been able to figure out some issues. Unfortunately we're hitting some li…
- Devblog #4 - The Long Road - 28 November 2023
The seasons change but our work continues. We've got a short teaser to share with everyone today, inspired by working with the things that inhabit the store. Just a taste to wet the palate. While the project has certainly taken longer than we've hoped, we've been consistently chugging away at making somethin that we're proud of and hope everyone will enjoy, For a two person team making their first real game, its been a long road, but we can see the store lights shining in the distance through the fog. Every once in a while the terrain shifts when we hit technical hurdles or decide to rewrite part of the story, but the journey continues unabated. Just as a bit of news that we're excited about, we've gone back and changed our dialogue system in the hope of providing language localization as soon as possible. Combined with regional pricing, we're hoping to reach as many new potential flesh…
- Devblog #3 - Delayed by the fog - 16 June 2023
Hello Last Chance Market shoppers, we just wanted to make a quick update. While we've been waylaid by various issues (disease, computer malfunctions, and the ever continuing cycle of trying to update unreal engine), we have never stopped work on getting the store ready for your resumed patronage. Honestly, every time we try to estimate how long things will take, we seem to be wrong and its a repetitive blow to morale. So we're simply not going to make guesses. That being said, what we've been working on lately is a pretty long list. We've added a new area to the store with new lore to find. The menu system has gotten a revamp and been completely fleshed out. Plus we've been working on an intro sequence to introduce players to the game and the few mechanics that we employ. As a part of all that, one of our biggest concerns is always the number and difficulty of puzzles. Your feedback on…
- Devblog #2 - 6 March 2023
Greetings programs. Lost Harbinger here with another signal from the mists. It's been a busy couple of weeks here in the lighthouse, mostly focused on story and audio. In game text is always a tricky problem to address. We know our fellow gamers, so we know how often people will just skip through walls of text, regardless of how much we, as the developers, want them to read the rich story we've written. So one of the things we've always wanted was voice acting for everything that we really wanted conveyed. But with an indie budget, that's not always realistic, so we've been coming up with creative ways to put a voice to everything we can. Fortunately, one of our main characters we can use text-to-speech as they are, in fact, an artificial intelligence. The "Emotive Listening & Learning Pad", or Ellpad, is Last Chance Market's new shopping assistant, featuring the store's mascot, Ellie t…
- Devblog #1 - 11 February 2023
Greetings programs. Lost Harbinger here, broadcasting from the foggy coastal town of Last Chance, with the first of our Last Chance Market dev blogs. While I tend to want to work on making the game, rather than writing about it, now that we're getting very close to releasing Early Access I thought I'd go ahead and start making some regular (weekly/biweekly) posts to keep up to date on how development is going, what we have planned and gather community feedback. First off, I want to address our planned release date for Early Access. Obviously our anticipated timeline was inaccurate. This is our first game, and there are a fair number of pitfalls in indie game development, not the least of which is underestimation of time required, and the possibility that, with only two people involved, work can be derailed by real life events. Unfortunately, this winter has been plagued with literal pla…
- Last Chance Market Opening Update - 25 October 2022
Attention Last Chance Residents & Market Shoppers It is with a heavy heart that I am writing to inform you that the opening of the Market will be delayed. While I had hoped to have the repairs completed by the end of Elktober, I must admit the damage from the electrical fire earlier this summer, which claimed the lives of two people, was far more extensive than I had originally estimated. With staff shortages limiting us to two full time employees, earthquake related road closures and regular power grid disruptions due to the ongoing solar flare activity, we have simply been unable to complete the work on our expected schedule. My commitment is to the best shopping experience possible, and with that in mind I now expect us to be ready for shoppers in the second half of November. In the meantime, we will be conituing our weekend Farmer's Market style sales in the parking lot until the st…
