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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery

@starspawngame.com
637 followers 50 following 241 posts

Your scholarship is in danger, your friends aren't human, and something ancient awakens in the dreamlands. As reality becomes uncertain, questions of identity and transformation become matters of survival. Just another finals week at Miskatonic U.

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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 18/09/2026
Implementing some new baddies. The shoggoths always know where you are but move towards you slowly
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 10/04/2026
Celephaïs library reading room
A glorious library reading room. Shelves from floor to the vaulted ceiling. A long table with chairs. Statuary and an orrery in the rear. Beams of light shine in through the windows; green chunks of crystal intrude on the serenity
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 04/04/2026
Finalizing the chapter 1 maps. Library entrance!
A pixel art map of a library. It has two levels with wood floors and a variety of shelves and periodicals, it feels very cozy
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 01/03/2026
We're zeroing in on the elements we want for the top-down 'navigation mode' of the game. There's no combat, but we still want things to feel dynamic and keep you on your toes. We have some exciting traps coming next!
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 29/12/2025
automated tests heck yeah
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 18/12/2025
They fixed it 🙌 we haz automated UI tests #gamedev
    testsuite inventory:

        before testcase:
            # Open the inventory screen
            pause 2.0
            keysym "K_i"
            pause 2.0

            assert "Combine"

        testcase can_open_and_close_inventory:
            pause 2.0
            keysym "K_1"
            pause 2.0

            assert not "Combine"

        testcase can_hold_and_unhold_item:
            assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory)

            move pos (770, 100)
            click

            assert eval (game_state.held_item == fortress_cool_rock)

            click button 2 # right click
            assert eval (game_state.held_item is None)

        testcase can_unhold_item_outside_inventory:
            assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory)
            $ game_state.held_item = fortress_cool_rock

            # Close inventory screen and confirm
            pause 2.0
            keysym "K_1"
            pause 2.0
            assert not "Combine"

            pause 2.0

            click button 2 # right click
            assert eval (game_state.held_item is None)

        testcase can_combine_items:
            assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory)
            assert eval (fortress_exploration_supplies in game_state.inventory)
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 30/11/2025
We've been busy working on the script and some top secret UIs, so there hasn't been anything particularly photogenic to share. But here, have a chapter one story beat
label .give_diana_grant_seen_prof:
    main "Yep. He actually made {b}less{/b} sense after that. It almost sounded like he'd been experiencing things in the wrong order."

    diana "Huh. Okay. That's a new one."

    main "Dude's nuts."

    diana "Duh. Did he say anything else?"

    main "He knew my name before I said anything."

    diana "Interesting... Well, if he's experiencing things out of order--"

    main "You're just gonna run with this?"

    menu(screen="choice", side=True):
        diana "You got a better theory than time shenanigans?"

        "In {i}Slaughterhouse-Five{/i} it's a metaphor for PTSD. We probably just met at a mixer or something.":
            $ game_state.change_rapport(diana, +1)

            diana "Good reality check. It's always worth considering plain old madness... It {b}could{/b} all be in his head..."

            main "{b}Something{/b} definitely is."

        "Lucky guess?":
            diana "Hunter. I know you don't want any of this to be true, but {b}come on{/b}."

            main "Okay, umm, he could have... supernatural... luck?"

            diana "And it turned him into {b}this{/b}? I appreciate your willingness to brainstorm here, but I'm gonna stick with time shenanigans for now."

        "Literally any theory would be better.":
            $ game_state.change_rapport(diana, -1)

            diana "You can't just say that and not provide an alternative. How many impossible things have already happened to you today?"

            main "More than I'd like, that's for sure."

            diana "Exactly."
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 30/11/2025
Playing with multi-level maps, doesn't make that much sense as a library at the moment but the tileset looks great. Guess I can't do much with the space under the overhang though (we don't have "you can see through walls if you're under them")
Screenshot of the Tiled map editor showing a library. Welcome desk on the bottom, stacks in a T shape, stairs going up to a nice study area. Space beneath the overhang provides nothing
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 08/11/2025
It's Friday night so you know what that means! That's right--we're implementing a point and click puzzle
A drawing of a messy and very weird professor's office full of occult items and damaged goods. Translucent pink squares overlay the clickable areas since we're in debug mode
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 12/10/2025
Added additive lighting for night scenes, real bulb glow, colored tints
top-down pixel art map of a new england college campus. brick buildings, one has a big gym sign... it's nighttime and dark. gas lamps around the map glow with yellow cores and reveal the true colors underneath, tinged yellow
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 21/09/2025
lockable choice menus
Visual novel screen. Weird gym background. Ethnically ambiguous character is thinking (Alright. That's enough sitting here and moping...)

Options are 

(Getting the feeling that this day will never end if I freak out every time I see a monster. Let's play ball.) (Madness ≥ 50%;)

(I should go back to my room, lay down, and mope there instead.) [Madness < 50%)
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 19/09/2025
who up finally making it to water polo practice
visual novel screen, a vertical text box to the left reads "Brody: Yo, Hunter! You made it!" In the background is a very strange and dilapidated gym. oh, and Brody, who's in the middle, is huge and green and has tentacles for hair and webbed hands
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 17/09/2025
Made a screen that’ll let us set really granular game states and jump around the story
Ugly checkbox screens showing lists of game state keys and inventory items like

C1_DONE_INTRO

cl_seen_beach

cl_seen_stealth

cl_seen_shrine

cl_seen_fortress_exterior

cl_seen_fortress_entrance

cl_seen_bas_relief_room

cl_seen_sculpture_room
cl_seen_control_room
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 10/09/2025
ewwww
Pixel art of a weird horned dinosaur skull fossil, but it’s got 8-9 eye holes of various sizes clustered together
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 28/08/2025
Ice world!
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 24/08/2025
Got dynamic nighttime + lighting rendering working, that was quite an ordeal. Just gotta add variable dimensions which should be a cinch
A top down pixel map of a dorm common area showing a roaring fire and TV, at night, the room is dark but the darkness fades in a gradient from the light sources
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 21/08/2025
new tiles
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 17/08/2025
Bit wordy but i think this story is off to a strong start (Alt text continued on second picture of same page lol)
June 6, 1960
Reykjavik. The bay of smoke, if you translate it literally— and why shouldn't you? That's what it looks like. Fog rolls in from the North Atlantic. Steam wafts in fits and starts throughout the city, escaping from heating systems. Not too far away the landscape itself smokes where the earth moves beneath your feet, two continental plates separating an inch per year, the island ever growing, shifting, erupting, melting, freezing, falling into the sea.
And all is damp, damp, damp, even the gathering spots, communal hot springs and pools where old men boil themselves for hours on end.
Reykr- that first part of the name — means smoke, though it's cognate with the English reek, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Reykjavik means stinking harbor. Half the steam smells of sulfur. The hot water smells of sulfur. You shower in sulfur and emerge a clean rotten egg.
It has gagged me for all three days that I've been here, though I do find that the odor vanishes more with each hour. I am acclimating - changing. This does not trouble me; I have changed before and will change again; but in my line of work, one must be aware of such things.
I have failed to journal in that time. Forgive me. I know that these day-to-day chronicles are the lifeblood of the Old Road, but there was little to write about other than my settling in. I arrived on a cargo ship bearing factory equipment; you know that. The day was long but strangely dim; this you could have guessed. I have eaten too much herring soup, obviously, being surrounded by herring. Piles of fresh herring go into the processing plant, barrels of salted herring come out, as do equally large piles of herring guts (this smell, too, becomes less pronounced by the day). After my shift, I drink caraway aquavit with the herring girls who work harder cleaning the fish than any fisherman does catching them.
My work at the processing plant is dull. My work at the harbor is dull. My work at the construction office is dull. They have me translating paperwork! When I leave at night, even the sun is dull. Somebody must do it, though, for the Old Road; there are places that factories and piers must not be built; and our presence here fell to me, for I am the one who speaks Icelandic.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 16/08/2025
Here’s a choice bit I like a lot 🙂 deepcuts.blog/2025/08/16/i...
"[Cosmic horror] stories provide a ripe foundation for exploring non-heteronormative identity because both involve recognizing that consensus reality is more fragile and constructed than it appears. Cosmic horror traditionally focuses on themes of transformation, hidden knowledge, and the inadequacy of established categories, all of which create natural space for examining gender and sexual fluidity without requiring explicit positioning.
The genre frequently features characters discovering their true nature, often something that existed before their conscious awareness or
something that has been heavily suppressed.
Both resonate strongly with non-binary and trans experiences of self-discovery.
To cap it off, the horror elements can effectively capture both the terror and liberation that can accompany stepping outside normative social structures."
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 10/08/2025
Arkham's central shopping district. What do we think
Pixel art screen of a new england town. It is a bright sunny day. American colonial brick architecture with neon signs for prescriptions and psychics, and graffiti, mark it off as a modern location despite the construction being frozen in time
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 09/08/2025
A puppet of a momkey awkwardly looking to the left and the right
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 28/07/2025
Stick figure guy looking at a Lovecraft compilation saying “wow! Monster beyond comprehension” meanwhile an arrow going over his head shows the point he is missing: 

MASSACHUSSETS IS THE SCARIEST PLACE
ON EARTH
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 08/07/2025
My husband dug up this old shoggoth cat from Mofusand, I think ours is better though
A cute orange tabby cat wearing a green squid outfit. Keychain tab
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 03/07/2025
Look out Lune, there’s a nevron behind you!
Samwise the big gray cat hiding behind my monitor. The monitor is displaying Clair Obscur. He’s peeking out looking at the screen
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 22/06/2025
more proper texting interface #gamedev
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 19/06/2025
adding the actual dynamic parts of campus life. now you can enter your dorm room like a normal person
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 15/06/2025
I hear it's #screenshotsaturday! Here are three variations on some Elder Things. (pixels by the lovely @2dchaos.com) #gamedev
A charcoal/ink-on-sepia treatment of some Elder Things walking around an arctic wasteland, all tentacles and wings and starfish heads. On the left we see a picture of a shocked man pointing and saying "My god"Arctic wasteland again, this time in top-down pixel art. The elder things are sprite monsters nowA sculpture inside a crumbling temple of an elder thing fighting off shoggoths, in top-down pixel art, recalling "laocoon and his sons" sculpture. A beam of light shines down, striking it
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 07/06/2025
who up thinking about the fallout 3 metro npc #gamedev
a 3d character with a blue and steel subway train instead of a head. although i've heard it might actually be equipped as a handheld item? anyway, the game engine didn't support moving vehicles, so the subway train was just a guy with a train for a head who ran really fast.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 04/05/2025
I also added some little throbbing animations to the pause screen tentacles, it's subtle (good--don't want it distracting) but pretty creepy once you notice it
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 04/05/2025
Wanted to feel like professionals so we added a little pre-menu screen that makes us feel like professionals
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 03/05/2025
New title screen! #gamedev
A full-screen drawing. The background is a school fading into a symmetrically-designed dirty fantasy city. Laid over this are "starspawn: a miskatonic mystery" and all of the characters who are described in this thread's alt text https://bsky.app/profile/starspawngame.com/post/3lnqmtkihj222
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 27/04/2025
New tagline
My profile

Your scholarship is in danger, your friends aren't human, and something ancient is awakening in the dreamlands. Just another finals week at Miskatonic University.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Last (in order of appearance) but not least we have Misha, a mysterious tavernkeeper in the dreamlands. Saying much more would be a spoiler, so: Misha, everyone!
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
You don’t know Samira very well, but she does seem to pop up at auspicious times to steer things around. Including, most recently, last night. It’s possible that taking the “sleep supplement” she gave you was a poor decision…
A drawing of a young black woman in a houndstooth skirt and coat. Purple flames wreathe her body

Samira, the chaos between worlds
Samira is intimidatingly charismatic, so it wasn't hard at all to accept that sleep supplement she offered at that party last night. You'll definitely have to talk to her about what was in it when you see her at film club tonight... if you can hold her attention, which sometimes seems to be everywhere at once.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Speaking of aquatic themes: meet Brody! He’s as chill as the puka shells would suggest, though there do seem to be some dark undercurrents. Besides, you know, the obvious.
Brody, the camouflaged colossus
Brody is the captain of your club water polo team. You've always been jealous of his physique--or is it something more?
He's crazy popular, but far beneath the gentle waves of his easygoing attitude lurks a dark charisma that frightens even him.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Your best friend Silas is a good guy, but it seems like he’s going through some stuff 😔
A drawing of a slight young man with pale blue skin and fish fins growing out of his ears and the top of his head

Silas, the tide-claimed confidant
Silas is a melancholic film major from the small fishing village of Ipsminster. A sweet young man, he's your best friend at school, but there's always been something gnawing at him. Now that you can see him for what he really is, you're starting to understand what it is... and starting to really wonder about Ipsminster.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
What to say about Dr. Perdido. I think everybody would agree that he’s had a few screws loose ever since those wild personality swings started. The guy is just obsessed with conspiracies about ancient aliens and stuff
Drawing of a chubby older professor with a hand in his coat pocket and his other index finger raised, about to make a point

Professor Perdido, the fractured scholar
Dr. Perdido teaches anthropology. Or, more accurately, his graduate students do; they've had to cover for him for a couple years, ever since his big
personality change. He recently changed again--the rumor is he finally started taking his meds--but still he always seems to be in his own little world, focusing on independent research that you aren't sure the university even condones.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
And what would a college be without a goth reference librarian who’s been there as long as anybody can remember?
Ada, the reclusive empath
Ada has been a librarian for as long as anyone can remember. She's all business--always willing to help, but never to linger; people say she seems lonely. You've never work closely with her--rare and ancient books haven't really come up in your geology curriculum--but that's about to change.
Assuming you can look past the tentacles. Those are... new.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Diana’s coworker, Sgt. Earnest (Ret.), has always had his eye on you—no, not like *that*. Probably.
A drawing of a dapper old man with an eyepatch, gray slacks and vest, adjusting his red tie

Sergeant Earnest (Retired), the weathered guardian
You've seen Sgt. Earnest behind the counter at the occult store, working with Diana. He's unnaturally observant, and something about his demeanor suggests that his background is not entirely military in nature. Maybe it's the bulge in his vest that you've never noticed before.
Why is everybody at that store so heavily armed, anyway?
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Diana is a cheerleader with, one presumes, a dark secret
Drawing of a cheerleader in an “MU” uniform with a long ceremonial dagger

Diana, the zealous blade

Diana is a cheerleader who you've chatted with in the gym. She also works in the hippie crystals-and-occult-stuff shop in Arkham, where you very occasionally buy an overpriced mineral specimen. Lately she's been good at catching your eye--could there be a spark there? Or does she want to talk to you for other reasons? And what's up with the ceremonial dagger? You've never noticed that before.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
Next we have our unofficial mascot: whatever the hell this thing is!
A drawing of a cat made of tentacles and mouths

"Shog", the singular imp
Whatever this thing is, it's definitely not a cat--it's seven feet tall! You met it in your dream. Even though it seemed confused by its very existence, it was confident enough to tell you the story of an ancient and terrible war, which it said could reignite if you don't figure out what happened in the geology lab... but can you trust it?
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 26/04/2025
We’re pretty much just waiting on our trailer video before we start launching store pages and the demo, and the Kickstarter! So… let’s meet some characters! First up: you!
Drawing of an ethnically ambiguous young man in a polo shirt, looking befuddled and a little scared. 

Hunter, the dream-touched student

You're a sophomore majoring in geology who really needs a good grade on his independent study. Unfortunately for you, it gets completely ruined by horrors from beyond the stars. But at least figuring out what happened to it is a good way to make some friends, even if they're not entirely human. Which friends will you make? How will their stories end?
It's up to you.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 22/04/2025
#gamedev
Anime drawing of a pilot saying “I am a genius!” Followed immediately by them upset saying “oh no!”
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 09/04/2025
Adding a bethesda lockpicking clone, of course
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 08/04/2025
Okay, integrated the 'shadows' feature into the stealth/maze mode. Your shadows can halt a guard. Still needs effects and stuff, but, prototyping y'know #gamedev
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 05/04/2025
More detailed view of ch. 1 and 3. 1 has a great shape--there's a big fanout on the left, and then we slowly collapse things together into the next fanout point. But something's wrong with 3; multiple things to work on at once, but they're all linear. Not ideal, but might live with it... #gamedev
A flowchart showing a bunch of interlocking puzzle nodes slowly combining down to one terminal node.Another flowchart showing something similar, except there's not really a gradual collapse, just a bunch of parallel graphs with nodes connecting 1:1 and converging on a point.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 05/04/2025
Just realized I forgot to include most of the stuff from the demo on here, but for the most part it's the circled bit in the top left...
The same image with two of the nodes circled. It's not a lot
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 05/04/2025
Please enjoy this spoiler-free & simplified puzzle dependency graph for chapters 1-3! These are a great way to organize your thoughts and see when you might be neglecting a location or if your puzzles are too linear. #gamedev
a large directed graph of things labeled ITEM 1, ITEM 2, etc., showing the connections between various things in the game.
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 02/04/2025
or there's snake
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Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery @starspawngame.com · 02/04/2025
experimenting with ghosts that follow you around for some future minigame/puzzle stuff, though we probably don't want those ghosts to be echoing your idle animation... #gamedev
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