Arlo the Mole

 Randomly one night I was watching a video and just started scribbling ideas on a page in my Japanese study book. I told Cailey about them in the morning and we started our super big overarching goal to create a Hollow Knight type Metroidvania. We both love Hollow Knight and Silksong, and I have also played Nine Sols, which was amazing. This has definetely been a struggle due to the surplus of learning required, but we've had a ton of fun designing and learning, we're hoping for a very basic movement and attack base build for the year of 2026 and maybe even an area finished just to see what it would be like.

My scribbled big brain boom moment;

Arlo MK III (this is our main character, an eastern mole);

Montley the Grand (Froblian) is a boss I designed (he's a clown frog who uses balloons for most attacks);

Aibo the Newt (he's our cute map seller who has a glowing mushroom he carries everywhere, the pencil sketch are his most recent designs), plus an older colored design Cailey did (This was to decide between red-spotted newt and eastern tiger salamander for his species, we decided on the first);

The Jiki Stone and Wim, plus some random enemies for an area full of enemies that rely on magnetic waves (We planned on having an aquatic type environment with auroras):

Gorgeous Butterfly Forest idea Cailey had (She's significantly better at adding the color than I am lol):

Ukai the Otter (his name is still undecided, it was originally Toto, but currently Ukai, this may switch and we'll move the birds name back to him. He is a Japanese cormorant fisher);

We have a lot more ideas and designs but these are the most interesting thus far. I definitely plan to add more blog posts about the game as it develops, we plan on it taking close to 7-10 years to finish and hope to release it to allow people (mainly friends and family) to play.