Overwhelmed by never-ending demands from players, the solo developer behind hit indie horror Homicipher is bringing an end to updates 

Yatsunagi, the sole developer behind the sleeper Japanese indie horror romance game Homicipher, recently announced on their Note creator page that they would be releasing one more update that includes an extra ending before wrapping up development on the project entirely. While Yatsunagi initially planned for regular updates, the amount of fan requests and feedback for Homicipher has become too much for them to handle. 

While Homicipher is Yatsunagi’s personal passion project, the game’s overwhelming popularity has resulted in tons of daily inquiries from players. Yatsunagi is very appreciative of the support, but lately, they seem to be getting incessant requests for Homicipher updates, as well as questions related to fandom drama and things people could easily find out based on information already available. Every piece of content released comes with a slew of demands for the next update, with very few words of gratitude or appreciation. 

“More! More! More! More!” 
“What about the next update?” “Is there anything else?” “How much longer is it going 
to take?” The players keep asking. They never say thank you for the meal (i.e. piece of content). – Excerpt from Yatsunagi’s Note, “The Future of Homicipher” 

Even harmless inquiries about Homicipher seem to be getting to Yatsunagi, as they have to process an insane number of daily messages to make sure they don’t miss the important ones, such as bug reports.  

It has gotten to the point where Yatsunagi cannot devote what little free time they have to the game itself, considering they work a full-time day job. Since they work with a publisher (Gamera Games) they are required to produce content on a schedule. Once the content is released, Yatsunagi must fix any existing bugs and begin work on the next content update. But when dealing with endless user inquiries mixes with a tight development schedule, they are left with no time to rest. To be clear, Gamera Game isn’t at fault here; it’s just the harsh reality of being a solo game developer with a schedule to keep.

The overwhelming demands of constantly creating and maintaining Homicipher has pushed Yatsunagi to distance themselves from the project. Even though they would like to add more content that includes story beats featuring Mr. Machete, Mr. Crawling, and Mr. Scarletella (characters that serve as Homicipher’s version of love interests), they will leave this content out and focus on their next piece of work. Yatsunagi also says that while Homicipher has a Nintendo Switch port lined up in the near future, they will leave the whole process to the people chosen for the task without adding any new content. Any planned Homicipher merchandise will also be produced by another party without Yatsunagi’s involvement. 

Yatsunagi’s “The Future of Homicipher” Note entry emphasizes that while Homicipher started out as something personal that they made as a hobby, the game’s success has led fans to started consuming and interacting with it as if it were a commercial product. This is an important takeaway here, as holding small-scale indie games to the standards of corporation-managed titles can place a big burden on the developer(s). 

As far as Yatsunagi’s involvement with Homicipher goes, after their last content update (which does not have a set release date yet), they will be doing basic PR related to the game’s sales and posting a sales commemoration to celebrate 100,000 copies sold. Other than that, they said that they might work on making a DLC for the game’s text version or a completely new game with different settings and characters. Yatsunagi toys with the idea of making the entire project into Twitter (X) illustrations which they can post online, as these will not require post-release support and will likely attract less attention. 

It’s always disheartening to hear an indie game developer stop working on their game for negative reasons. For every Japanese indie hit like Elin and Downwell, you get less well-received titles like Ein’s Sword that can potentially cause creators to retire from the gaming industry. Homicipher is one of those rare instances where a game’s success can lead to its developer leaving the project, but hopefully, this gives Yatsunagi the chance to get their bearings and start fresh again.