[The year's about wrapped, and yet, the elusive EMUUROM release date yet evades your grasp.]

[What is your plan?]

> any options?

[1 Create a blogpost with detailed explanations why the game's still not done]

[2 Create a blogpost mocking your past self for his delusion and foolishness]

[3 Hide in a basement and just keep fixing the issues instead of getting in touch with people interested in your work]

> somehow, all of the above

[...]

[What]

> And at the very last minute, upload a devlog

[...................]

So.

As you might know, I had all intentions to release EMUUROM by the end of 2025, as advertised in the Thinky Direct Trailer. You might have noticed by now that that in fact did not happen! As always, the main reason for the delay is gamedev hard, but also, two wrenches were threwn in the works.

Wrench #1: Company says no

First off, I got fired from my job :D I’ve been teaching programming in a steady job for many years now, but suddenly my company decided to detonate their whole education department. So, in the final two months of 2025, I have actually had whole other things in my mind than EMUUROM, namely where should i get a steady income, i cant rely on gamedev giving me enough money can i.

The firing hasn’t even manifested as infinite gamedev time yet; I still have teaching duties until the end of February. If I don’t find another job after that, EMUUROM better turn out to be a hit… Oh no, I have to start marketing for real, am I.

But before banking on videogames money, I should fix the remaining goddamn game-breaking goddamn bugs goddammit, a.k.a., Wrench #2

So, in the beginning of November, I sent the newest build for my main playtester to playtest the game one more time from start to finish. Record the whole ordeal, take notes of bugs and other things to fix, the usual, and call it a day.

Well, turns out there WERE things to fix.

78 of them, to be exact… and that was just the first session!

I was under the, in retrospect delusional, impression that there shouldn’t be that many broken things left in the game, and I should be able to wrap up development pretty soon… but here we are. Cheers to everyone who didn’t believe EMUUROM would be coming in 2025 despite the trailer saying so. :’) You know me well enough to not believe my lies.

AND YET, I STILL INTEND VERY MUCH TO RELEASE THE GAME EARLY 2026.

I’ve been able to fix a lot of bugs and other issues (especially the game-breaking kind) in these two last months of 2025, and the game’s otherwise very much done, so maybe… the next devlog will include the release date??? (I was even going to include the date in this devlog, but then again, I was going to write this devlog earlier than 31th of December as well.)

Fair enough, is there any good stuff at least

As a surprise christmas present, EMUUROM was featured in a FuryForged video about games with hidden secrets! This gave a much-needed spike to wishlists, and new ones still keep on coming! Thank you, FuryForged! And you, dear reader, go wishlist other all-caps rule discovery games NONOLITH and MONOMOON featured in the video as well!

Thanks to the wishlist spike, EMUUROM was featured in the “Trending upcoming” lists of both Puzzle platformer and Metroidvania category on Steam. Success leads to more success, it seems: wishlist count is bound to go OVER 9000 in the next few days! Woo!

Numbers don’t bring the EMUUROM release any closer, of course, but at least it keeps development motivation up!

[The end of devlog draws near. How would you like to cap it off?]

[1 Reflect on the whole year and give a detailed, inspirational message to keep everyone's hopes up]

[2 Surprise everyone with a link to a release date trailer]

[3 Can't be arsed to figure anything out, just get done with it so you can join your friends for a new year's eve party]

You know which one is it going to be, don’t you?