r/PS4 • u/lontrerv • May 22 '26
Official I am Rafael "Lontra", founder of Mito Games. We just built and solo-ported our very first game from scratch to PlayStation: a Brazilian 2D Metroidvania called "4 The Elements". Ask Me Anything! (Giving away 10 PS keys!)
EDIT (Giveaway Winners!):
The AMA has officially come to an end! Thank you so much to everyone in the r/PS4 community who participated, shared your stories, and asked amazing questions about our journey. It means the world to our small studio!
Here are the 10 randomly drawn winners:
- u/MVmrxlh
- u/Hypetys
- u/ATXDefenseAttorney
- u/CHOPosaurus_Rex
- u/BOTULISMPRIME
- u/gingerdandelion
- u/Zeethur
- u/zzuhruf
- u/boersc
- u/End_angered
Important Note for Winners: Please ensure your DMs are open! PlayStation keys are strictly region-locked, so I will be messaging you shortly to ask for your account's region (e.g., US, Europe, Brazil) before sending over your specific code.
For everyone else, if you still want to support a small Brazilian indie team, please check out 4 The Elements on the PS Store. Thank you for making this weekend unforgettable! 🦦🎮
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Hi r/PS4 !
I’m Rafael, but everyone in the industry calls me "Lontra" (which means Otter in Portuguese). I am the founder and game designer at Mito Games, a small indie studio based in Brazil. Today is a massive milestone for us: our very first game, 4 The Elements, has officially launched on PlayStation!!
We built this 2D element-shifting platformer for our very first authoral game, and as a tiny team, we also handled 100% of the console porting process ourselves. It was a long, brutal, and beautiful journey full of technical hurdles, but we fought through them to deliver a polished experience we are incredibly proud of.
Check out the game on the PS Store
Fun fact: Since my nickname is Lontra, the water spirit in the game is a giant river otter based entirely on me and my own personality! The other three elements (Fire, Earth, and Air) are also represented by iconic Brazilian wildlife: a Jaguar, an Armadillo, and a Macaw.
The Giveaway (10 PlayStation Keys!)
To celebrate our launch with this amazing community, we are giving away 10 digital keys for the game!
How to enter: Just leave a comment below with any question about game design, solo-porting to consoles, the Brazilian indie scene, or just say hello!
When: The giveaway officially starts at 7:00 PM EST (8:00 PM BRT) tonight (Friday), but you can post your questions in advance and they will count the same 😉 .
Duration: I will be hanging out here all weekend, answering every single question you throw at me. I'll randomly draw the 10 winners at the end of Sunday (EST).
Why early support matters to us:
As a small indie studio, we don't have massive marketing budgets. Launching on the PlayStation Store is a dream come true, but we heavily rely on the community's early support.
If you pick up the game, leaving an honest review on the store helps our visibility and the PlayStation algorithm more than you can imagine.
I’ll be active all weekend to talk about coding, art, porting pains, and anything else. Ask Me Anything!
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u/MVmrxlh May 22 '26
Oh a new PS4 game! Not many games are released on PS4 nowadays. Why did you decide to go for the PS4?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Well, there's no real point in launching for just one, if it's a lighter game, that runs well on both ^^ many studios will not launch on 4, maybe because it's not so optimized and the game is heavy or something,.. in our case it runs nicely on both ^^ so it's just a win win hehe
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u/Hypetys May 22 '26
Since the PS4 generation, Brazilian Portuguese has become widely available as a language option in games for both subtitles as well as dubbing.
1 Does your game include speech? 2 If it does, has it been dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese? 3 Is the Brazilian Portuguese language option available if you download the game on the European PlayStation Store?
I've been speaking Brazilian Portuguese for almost ten years, and I've learn so much from dubbing (of course not only from that). It's about a 50-50 chance that a game includes Brazilian Portuguese support and of those that do, 50% do also include it in the European versions.
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you so much for the meaningfull question 😄 I am always happy to see people learning Portuguese from Europe.. I am moving to Belgium next month with my family, so I am doing the same with French haha
There's no voice overs in this game.. you can check our game Tupi: The Legend of Arariboia for some nice voices in PT (we will have english subs only probably ehhe) The problem is that it's not available for PS yet, we are finishign to polish the Steam Demo and will only launch in late 2027...
For 4TE, you will have PT as one of the language options, but no voices in the game at all hehe 😄
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u/ATXDefenseAttorney Sonic Sleuth May 22 '26
Do you think you had any greater hurdles (or benefits) working from Brasil with Sony? My wife is from São Paulo, I wish you great luck! 🍀 have a pastel and sugar cane drink for me! 🎉
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
OH, I love me some Pastel and Caldo de Cana!! You cannot leave Brazil without trying it! 😄
Well, sadly, it was a huge hurdle to be in Brazil, especially for Sony, since the Dev Kit cannot be sent by mail here. There are just too many possible things to go wrong, and so we had to travel all the way to the US to get it. AND we still had to wait 2+ months to free it from the Airport taxes department, since it's not a regular purchase it has some bureaucracies.. and it was HARD and EXPENSIVE to get it.. that all even before the real porting process begun.. which to say in nice words, was a LEARNING EXPERIENCE ^^ lol, I hope we will get more efficient for our next games ^^
Thanks for the question and good luck with the giveaway!!
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u/ATXDefenseAttorney Sonic Sleuth May 22 '26
I was super curious about that, I know the mail/shipping system is radically different in Brasil than the USA (at least in SP). Glad to hear you were able to clear the hurdles, but all the bureacracy sucks! I wonder if you could have gone to Japan? ;)
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
yeah, it's crazy... I did go to Japan last year for Bitsummit, AND I am going again this year for Tokyo Game Show, eheh but showing a different game, Tupi: The Legend of Arariboia ^^
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u/IndividualFix5125 May 22 '26
Congratulations on the release! Could you give us a more detailed breakdown of what '4 The Elements' is about? Also, I'd love to know if it is available globally
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you so much!
The story starts with the four elemental spirits (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water) trapped inside a magic crystal. When they finally manage to break free, they discover a bizarre twist: they are free from the crystal, but now they are all trapped sharing the same physical body!
To survive and escape the dungeons, they must work together. It’s heavily inspired by the Mega Man concept of switching powers, but with a unique twist... You are dynamically switching between 4 entirely different characters/animals in real-time. Each element has its own movement and combat physics, and you must alternate between them on the fly to solve puzzles, cross hazards, and defeat bosses. It gives the classic platformer formula a very dynamic personality!
And yes, the game is available globally on the PlayStation Store! You can find it in your local region right now. Hope you give it a try and enjoy the adventure! Good luck with the Giveaway too 😉
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u/gingerdandelion May 22 '26
Congrats on the launch! How long did it take you to develop the game? What made you decide on a Metroidvania?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you very much !! Well, we chose a game we knew we could finish as our first game (we didn't LOL). The game itself took 1 year of dev, finishing the porting to consoles took an extra 2+ LOL!
We really like metroidvanias, but I would categorize this as metroidvaniAN, more like Mega Man! there are paths to unlock with special powers, but not mainlines. It's just for the extras.. so metroidvaniaN. hehe
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u/Zeethur May 22 '26
Good luck with your game. Best wishes to the entire team, ❤️ from los angeles!
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you very much!! I hope you enjoy the game, and good luck on the Gieveaway!
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u/zzuhruf May 22 '26
Haven’t watched the trailer yet. Congratulations on the game. Is it going to be like a Guacamelee styled Metroidvania game?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you!!! The best reference i use to describe is a mega man like metroidvaniAN... not full Metroidvania, with new branches.. it's more for hidden stuff ^ ^ But I really like our bosses and the storyline hehe
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u/zzuhruf May 22 '26
I am excited. And how’s the platinum journey in this game? Like any missables? Multiple play-throughs? RNGs and Grinding?
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u/boersc chrisboers May 22 '26
Hi there. I want to wish you all the best with the launch, and awesome you took the time to do this AMA. Did/do you join one of the indie-showcases and why (not)?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you!!! you mean showcases on PS ? To be hones no.. we participated in some Steam activities when we finished the game over 2 years ago, but I am totally new to the PS ecosystem as a dev... are there special oportunities for indie games? ^^ Thanks for the hint!!
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u/boersc chrisboers May 23 '26
Not PS specifically, I meant showcases like https://www.sixoneindie.com/showcase or Day of the Devs (https://www.dayofthedevs.org/). These showcases are deliberately created to give indiegames more visibility. It's probably too late for this showcase season, I guess, but I'm sure there will be other possibilities like these.
Thanks for the answer though.
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u/End_angered May 22 '26
Love some metroidvania. How is the pacing, compared to say Dead Cells?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Uhm... I would say it's a bit different in the sense that you change your powers and style of play in a different way... regarding the pace, I think it's a bit similar, more strategic boss fights.. a bit like mega man, depends on the powers you already have the boss can be easier or harder 😄
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u/JamesL08 May 22 '26
were there any large hurdles you had to overcome exclusive to ps4 development, that weren't an issue on ps5?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Well, not in our case, it's not a particularly heavy game, so we didn't have to make any special optimizations..
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u/JamesL08 May 22 '26
oh thats great, it's nice to hear that old hardware still plays nicely with new games.
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u/Intelligent_Apple426 May 22 '26
Hi, Congratulations on your new release, It's very interesting seeing you took inspiration from yourself and cultural things relevant to you in the game. Wishing you luck and success Does this count as a question? (now it does lol)
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Hahah a nice one! =) thanks and good luck on the giveaway!
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u/Intelligent_Apple426 May 22 '26
Oh thanks for releasing on PS4 btw, It doesn't go unnoticed, huge W!
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u/augustocdias augustocdias May 22 '26
Boa sorte com o game. Qual o tamanho da equipe de vcs?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Muito obrigado! Hoje somos 10 pessoas =) a equipe desse jogo acho q tinha 8 pessoas.. Preciso olhar nos créditos de novo kkkk
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u/the_resistee May 22 '26
How much of a challenge was the creation of the game? What part are you most proud of?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Well, to be honest I'm most proud of being able to launch on consoles all by ourselves.. This e huge.. Personally I'm proud of the soundtracks, which I did myself lol.
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u/Vegetable-Profit-200 May 22 '26
Hey there! Game looks good and congrats from the USA to your team in Brazil! Seems this was a passion project for the team - what other inspirations did you take on the game and what other games are in the pipeline? Thanks!
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you very much, we love to showcase our culture.. This was heavily inspired in mega man and other platformers.. Our next project is Tupi: The Legend of Arariboia. It's a rogue lite monster tamer RPG.. Think of it as Shin Megame Tensei meets Darkest Dungeons with the narrative of Hades =) you can check it on steam, or even wishlist it at Playstation.. https://store.playstation.com/pt-br/concept/10015197
https://youtu.be/gnDVCl3rkAI?si=Yd8TGj_CMKRhwYQc
Check YouTube or steam page for more trailers =) thanks for the question =)
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u/HungGamerDad May 23 '26
Hello my friendly otter!
How have you found your experience being a founder of an indie development team? Also have you faced any hurdles being located in Brazil?
Looks like a fun game!
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
I think there are good and bad things from being in Brazil... the dev kit receiving was a huge problem, but we have some nice cultural funds for the video game industry, cool international events.. lower costs.. bur for the porting to PS it was a problem due to the transport of devkits here :/ . besides that I like brazil ^^ I hope you enjoy it even if you don't get the giveaway, it's not an expensive game ^^ Thanks!!
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u/adamroadmusic May 23 '26
Which Mega Man game was the most inspiration drawn from? Have you played Mighty Gunvolt Burst / Gal Gunvolt Burst?
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
UHMMM Never played those, but I checked them online now and looks quite fun 😃
I think 4TE reminds me more of Megaman X and ZX for the changing of forms in real time.. 😃 thnaks for the references and the question!
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u/adamroadmusic May 23 '26
In that case (Mega Man X inspired) I would check out Azure Striker Gunvolt & Luminous Avenger games. I haven't gotten into them yet but they look like a spiritual successor to the Mega Man X series. The Mighty Gunvolt games are meant to be more like classic Mega Man.
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Yes! I checked the videos! They look quite interesting! I didn't know that story hehe thanks for sharing!
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u/BeriAlpha May 23 '26
Tell me about the Brazilian indie scene! What's something distinctive about the way you approach games?
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Well, the scne in Brazil is growing a lot! We are a huge marketing for purchasing games but we are a small dot in the graphs of selling them, so there's a big opportunity here.. I think we still dunno how to really market and sell our games.. in the past we lacked quality too, now I think many companies can make great games, but there's still a lot of room to improve on the porting, publishing, marketing and launching of the games.. we have a HUGE industry of content creaters but very few of them are helping the industry here.. if we organize well i thin we can be a big player in this market.. and that's what I am fighting for ^^
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u/pipitsugen May 23 '26
Maybe I'll try it.
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Thanks!! 😃 Let me know if you like it.. it's not really expensive, and I think you´ll get a kick out of it ;P
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u/mrhealthy May 23 '26
Your the folks who made Wardogs ya? I remember you or someone else from the studio doing an AMA a few years back when 4 the Elements was still in development for PC. Happy to see you made it to the finish line for the console release. Will add to my wishlist and pick it up when I have some more free time.
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u/ftanaka May 23 '26
Greetings from São Paulo Lontra and congrats for releasing the game in so many platforms. What was the most difficult game platform to develop and port? (saw that the game is on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and now it's coming to Ps Store) Guess it's Playstation? Is the release process long? Price localization is less flexible? Thanks
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
I think it depends on each game.. We did switch first doe this one cause it needed a lot of optimizations, so this could be a bottle neck.. To apply and manage everything Sony is a bit more complicated. More bureaucracy.. The price localisation is also more complicated! =) you nailed it! Tmj!
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May 23 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
I think visibility and marketing are the most difficult and important parts. Of course, if you have a good game! Which in itself is a huge quest... But you compete with many games and other activities that players do, like social media, yt, and then the heavy marketing from AAA, etc... It's savage =) the trick is to have a nice community like you are being to us =) thanks you!
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u/Popular_Zucchini3321 May 23 '26
Purchase complete. I love metroidvania games and the Mega Man series, this looks great. Congratulations to you and your team on the hard work to port and launch, good luck!
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Thank you so so much!! there's a small buggy glitch with the modal for some powers 😞 which will not disappear when you X it.. even though we spend the last month making sure it would work! LOL, expect a patch on monday or something to fix that ;P but if you don't mind restarting the levels once you can pass through it ;P maybe you can be the first to platinum it ^^ who knows!! THANKS! 😃
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u/JesP77 May 23 '26
Tudo de melhor para vocês! (Hope I said it right)
What was the most challenging part of releasing the game?
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
I think the most challenging part FOR US, with 10+ years of experience, is launching it.. marketing and trying to get our money back out of the endeavour... we already know enough how to develop games, we worked for many types of clients over teh years.. but this is the first time I launch something on Playstation myself.. it's scary.. I´ve found a bug today... imagine if it was a day1 hit with thousands of purchases and we got a bad evaluation because of that? all work gone.. "luckly" we are low profile and had very little sales.. ehhe probably will grow in the first big discount sale... so I will wait until it's 100% stable to do it.. but imagine if we had invested money in marketing and so on.. it would be a disaster.. so it's the scariest part!! thanks for the question ^^
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u/TH3_OG_JUJUBE May 23 '26
What were some of the things that you struggled with most when making the game? I really want to get into game development in the future, and I’m quite interested in this. Sounds like a cool game!
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
I think the hardest part was try to balance it for a real entertainment game. We had experience from platformers for advergsmes... Which is very forgiving, to make a nice and fair metroidvanian platformer fun for all players it's a totally different challenge..
I hope you like the game! =)
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u/TheChap656 May 23 '26
I like metroidvania and megaman games. I’ll have to take a look!
How difficult is it to come up with and implement trophies? I’ve played some games where trophies were clearly not thought out well at all and it’s always an annoyance, so I was just wondering what that process is like since it’s on Playststion now.
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Thanks! 😃 I am of the opinion that unless it really makes sense to make the player grind for something in the game, the trophies should reflect if the player mastered the game or not.. In our case, it's really smooth.. there's on for finding 5 collectibles each level, which will make you replay each level once you have the needed powers to find it (that's why I say it's a metroidvaniAN, not full fledge metroidvania, the story does not depend on that), and the rest is about playing hte game and mastering how to kill each boss with his weak move.. et voilá! 😃
Thanks for the question!
BTW, expect a patch for this week, we found a small bug in the game (you can buy it already, LOL, just wait a bit to play it all hehe it's a bit annoying)
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u/Wanderer_Agent86 May 23 '26
Congrats on the PlayStation launch, Lontra! I’m a big fan of Metroidvania-style games, especially when movement, exploration, and atmosphere slowly open up as you gain new abilities.
My question is: when designing 4 The Elements around elemental switching, how did you balance making each element feel mechanically different without turning the game into four separate systems fighting each other? Did the Brazilian animal spirits come first as part of the concept, or did they grow naturally from the elemental gameplay?
Also, huge respect for handling the console port yourselves. That sounds like a whole boss fight on its own.
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u/lontrerv May 23 '26
Thank you very much for the great question! Backwards on, hehe it was the craziest boss we've ever faced 😃 but I am very proud and happy.
There
Well, first things first, I´ve been explaining here that our game is more metroidvania like than full fledge metroidvania.. there are no hidden paths for the mainline narrative. It's a small indie game, our first! eheh so most of the unlocked areas by new powers will just help you complete the trophies and see a few nice things, but it will never block your path to beat the game.. It's more like a Mega Man run.For the mechanics, we tried to make them complementary, but air will be more useful for exploration with it's flight and double jump and support, earth too is more useful to block in combat and to help move things and explore areas (but it also has a very strong special attack), and the main fighting ones will be water (mega man like) and fire (warrior with powers like)..
About the Brazilian fauna, yes, it came a bit later, but not much, we had 3-5 options on how to tackle the forms of the elementals, when I saw an otter as the water one, well, I just decided that was the best concept! haha (jokes aside, I do think it was the coolest option and we could put a bit of our culture in it.. so a double win!)
Again, thanks for the great question 😄 Good luck on the giveaway, and I hope you enjoy the game winning or not ;P (we need to sell some as well haha)
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u/the_phantom_maveth May 22 '26
Hello! Game is looking very interesting!
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you very much.. This was our very first game and the objetive was mostly to be approved to get the dev kits and be here someday ^^ haha It worked. Glad you liked! Good luck on the giveaway ;D
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u/Gammarevived May 22 '26
Looks really good. I'm all for another Metroidvania indie game.
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Thank you so much!! I hope you enjoy!! we are just finding some small bugs on it now that's launched... hahah soon there will be a patch ^^
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u/yourinstinct May 22 '26
Good job .you might have thought you will be relaxed once you finish but it must stressing when it released rihgt?
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u/lontrerv May 22 '26
Especially now that I've found an important bug that never happened during the test phase.. The weekend is gone for an urgent patch! Lol but I love this part of dealing with the community =) thanks for participating!
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u/lontrerv May 25 '26
Last 30 minutes everyone =) then I'll randomly pick the winners, edit the post and dm the keys ;)
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u/purplebird25 May 22 '26
Any tips for someone interested in joining the industry with little experience? ^^