This week I mostly focused on technical tasks: integrating the Steam SDK, preparing the shipping build for future uploads, setting up the splash screen logo in Unreal, and so on.
Because of that, I don’t have many visual updates to share, but I’m posting a clip from one of this week’s playtests.
I play my game every day to properly test it and make sure everything feels right. Since I’m also in the middle of bug fixing, you might notice a few bugs here and there in the footage.
This week I finished building Stage 6, the final level of Citizen Pain. It’s a close-quarters indoor environment, which allowed me to focus on tighter combat flow and intense enemy encounters.
I also implemented a parry mechanic: if timed correctly, it makes you temporarily invulnerable, with a blue screen vignette indicating the effect. It adds a nice layer of depth to the combat system.
Lastly, I updated some of the sound effects to improve feedback and impact during gameplay.
This week I updated the Axeman enemy by giving him a new character mesh, so he’s visually distinct from the Swordsman. I also changed his lunge attack to strike from above, adding a bit more verticality to the action.
On the technical side, I optimized performance by converting the level to World Partition, and I fixed several bugs, including one where enemies would shift slightly in front of the player with each hit.
Crates can be smashed with a dash, it’s super satisfying to watch wooden pieces fly everywhere.
There are “super weapons” like the axe: they deal more damage than your main weapon, but break after about ten hits, so use them wisely.
A strong tactic is to parry, which grants you a short window of invincibility. Perfect moment to land a heavy attack and hit multiple enemies at once.
This stage is a bit dark visually, hope it still comes through okay despite video compression.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of gameplay bug fixing, things like adding the ability to skip cutscenes, fixing broken UI, and dealing with enemies getting stuck, so I don’t have much new content to show. Here’s one of my playtests from Stage 4. I still need to tweak the enemy lighting in this stage, but they’re already fairly visible.
These days I’ve been focusing on bug fixing to get the demo ready for the Steam Next Fest this October. My main priority right now is polishing and fixing the bugs in the levels that will be part of the demo (the first two stages of the game).
Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave out some gameplay ideas I wanted to add (like a couple of special moves) so I can focus on making the game feel as polished as possible.
This week has been all about polishing for the demo. I added a new objective marker UI, fixed the issue where music wasn’t playing, and implemented more options in the settings menu.
On top of that, I added a combo counter (not in this video yet), which I’m excited to show soon!
In this video you’ll still notice some meshes flying around, I’m aware of it and plan to fix that soon.
I’m still working on bug fixing for the demo, but I’ve also added a couple of new features. One of them is a hit counter, since the number of hits contributes to the stage rank. I’ve also introduced a hit stop effect when performing a parry, not only to emphasize the impact, but also to give clear feedback and allow the player a brief moment to plan their next move.
I’d like to add more hit stops in other situations, but I’m cautious that too many could slow down the fast pacing of the game.
I’m still grinding through bug fixes for the demo build for Steam Next Fest.
I finally replaced the Main Menu with a new UI and in-game sequence, which is also useful for tweaking the graphics settings.
I’m a bit worried since the major bugs left take time to fix, and there are still some small ones here and there that make the game feel a bit rough. Still, I believe the core gameplay is solid, and I hope that shines through despite these issues.
This clip is a bit longer than usual, but I’ve managed to get quite a lot done over the past two weeks. I finally added a mechanic I’ve been wanting to include for a while: an area hit after a takedown, which adds some interesting risk-reward situations to the combat, along with a new impact VFX to make it feel more satisfying.
I also worked on improving the feedback when using potions, adding a hand animation and a VFX trigger when a potion is consumed. On top of that, I refined plenty of smaller details that aren’t as obvious in the clip, like new menu animations, in-game tutorial windows, and intro/outro sequences for each stage that help expand the story.
Lots of little touches that I hope you’ll appreciate if you try the demo during the upcoming Steam Next Fest.
I’m excited to announce that the demo of Citizen Pain is now available to download on Steam! The full release is set for December 5, 2025.
The demo includes the first 2 levels of the game, and I can’t wait to hear what you think!
Since this is a project made in my spare time by just one person, if you enjoy it please feel free to repost and don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam. Thanks so much for your support!
This past week I focused on several fixes that were already planned for release, but I decided to push them early to improve the demo experience.
One of the biggest updates is a new blue flash overlay to indicate when an enemy is vulnerable to a front stab, this should make combat feedback much clearer. I’ve also added a new VFX that triggers when an enemy is defeated to further improve combat feedback, along with a green visual cue when picking up healing items.
Thanks to various gameplay videos, I’ve been able to spot and polish several small details as well.
Even though the demo isn’t among the most popular ones out there, I’m genuinely happy with the progress, creating a game like this in my free time is already a challenge, and just having it out there means a lot to me.
This week I’ve wrapped up some of the most critical visual issues, including fixing mesh clipping problems across multiple stages and improving a few quality-of-life elements in the menu UI. I’ve also resolved a bug in the enemy knockdown animation that could occasionally cause enemies to get stuck in walls.
At this point, the only major tasks left before release are finishing a couple of missing cinematics and adding/polishing some sound effects. It’s almost there, I think I’ll make it!
This past week I finally completed the story intro screens that appear at the beginning of each stage. They took quite a bit of time to create, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. I also added gamepad support during gameplay (though some UI elements still don’t fully support it yet), and implemented footstep SFX for both the player and enemies, which turned out to be trickier than expected, as finding sounds that aren’t annoying takes some effort!
This is the last week before I send the build to Steam for the release review. I don’t expect any unpleasant surprises.
Great news: the Citizen Pain build has officially been approved by Steam!
Starting tomorrow, I plan to begin sending out review keys to gaming press and content creators.
In the meantime, over the past few days I took the chance to fix a few urgent issues that were still on my list. This includes some final tweaks to the last boss, completing the ending cutscene, and luckily fixing a progression exploit that allowed players to unlock the next levels without beating the current one.
There are still a handful of minor bugs left that I’d like to polish before release.
Thanks for following the development of Citizen Pain. Release day is getting closer!
Hello @Ordnas006 !
It’s so astonishing how far things have come. It’s been a long road of progress, but everything is coming together quite nicely. I’m so happy to hear that it was finally approved by Steam and can’t wait to see how it’s received by others. Can’t wait for the full release!
@The_M0ss_Man Thank you so much for the kind message! I really appreciate it.
Yeah, looking back, it’s been a long journey, and I honestly didn’t expect the game to change and evolve into what it is now. I’ll try to keep this thread updated even after release!
Citizen Pain is finally available on Steam! It’s been a long journey, 3 years ago I would’ve never imagined it would evolve from a small dungeon crawler into a full action game with beat-’em-up elements, and that I’d take the big step of releasing it on Steam after only putting out small projects on itchio. I admit, it feels like a real milestone!
I’ll continue supporting Citizen Pain fully throughout the month. I expect a few bugs to surface during the first week, and I’ll be ready to fix them. I’ll also take the opportunity to add things I didn’t have time to finish, like achievements and some minor improvements.
Thank you to everyone who supported me and to all of you who keep following the project!
I’ve finally released a new patch for Citizen Pain!
Due to personal reasons and other commitments, I wasn’t able to work on it as much as I wanted, but I focused on prioritizing fixes based on player feedback and requests.
At the moment, I don’t expect any major patches coming soon, but as always, I’ll keep an eye on the situation and step in if needed.
This update introduces the option to launch the game in DirectX 11 as a workaround for crashes on some AMD GPU configurations, the ability to skip shader compilation on first boot, a Motion Blur toggle, and the addition of several missing or incorrect sound effects.
If you want to support me, consider adding the game to your Wishlist, and if you decide to buy it, leaving a review really helps a lot and is hugely appreciated. Thank you all for the continued support!
Due to the holidays, I haven’t been able to do much gamedev lately, so I decided to upload the first part of the Citizen Pain walkthrough (since there weren’t any videos available yet!). I hope this, and the next parts, can help anyone who might be stuck on a particular stage.
I’m playing a bit more calmly than usual to try to show everything, even if that means taking a few more hits. I also enabled VSync to avoid screen tearing in the video, but the added input lag with mouse controls is noticeable.
I’ll try to upload the next parts in the coming days. In the meantime, I’ll start upgrading my PC in preparation for the next project!
