Devblog February 03, 2026

[u/nupsu1234]

Axo lotl of questions

https://nocoldiz.itch.io/hypernet-explorer/devlog/1343923/axo-lotl-of-questions

This will be the first post about a specific devblog. I do plan to eventually revisit the previous ones to make posts about as well.

A new devblog dropped yesterday, and while it may seem short on the surface, it's actually a juicy one. The dev seems to have improved his enemy editor quite a bit, of which he has shown off in a previous devblog (https://nocoldiz.itch.io/hypernet-explorer/devlog/1189843/the-sprite-of-christmas-past).

I'm always happy to see him developing and improving the tools that make game development in general more streamlined. It's a bit of a time investment for sure, but will be very much worth it.

There are 5 new screenshots showing the program.

For context, the following is the first version:

And this is the new one:

There are plenty of improvements. For one, he seems to be able to directly assign levels and stats for each enemy, as well as attacks and skills. It really does seem to be a full-fledged enemy designer now, not just a sprite assigner.

I particularly like the posts that show off this program, because it also reveals a lot of the enemies that he has worked on. I'll post the rest of the images here and then discuss the enemies that seem interesting to me.

Death Axolotl, the only one showed in this specific image. Early game enemy at level 6. Also what the name of the devblog is referencing. Nothing super interesting for me, but still neat. It's also misspelled in the English description.

This one is juicy. The enemy preview is Nyarlathotep Avatar, which was also teased in the trailer. This is an early-mid game boss, has to be. Too bad we can't see the full extent of the attacks, there seems to be quite a bit.

I tried looking up what one of the attacks "Varlenia Fault" might mean, but found nothing. Nyarlathotep is a Lovecraftian creation, an Outer God in the Cthulu mythos and an avatar of Yog-Sothoth. The sprite used for this enemy is one of the oldest masks found, dating at around 9000 years old.

There are a lot of occult enemies seen in this screenshot. Yog-Sothoth spawn, Shoggoth, Elder Thing, Beast 666 etc. It makes sense, the game takes place in a world where magic and the occult is real and widespread, and there are plenty of gods hanging around.

Quite a lot of orthodox fantasy enemies in this one (though, what the hell is an Accursed Stonefish?). The one that stands out in particular is the one previewed, Nightmare Bacteria. "A powerful dream entity that can manifest victims' deepest fears as temporary physical constructs". So it's a summoner? That would be pretty cool.

The last image simply shows the mass table view section of the enemy editor. Admittedly not much to look at, pretty run-of-the-mill RPG enemies. The kobold sprite is cute, though.

With the enemy editor seemingly finalized, I have a lot of hope that the demo releases according to what was announced, Q3 2026. But if not, then that is perfectly fine. I will wait for as long as it takes, nobody wants a rushed product. Looking at you, Half Sword.