Another month, another bit of progress on Tactichord: Glam Strategy. Those who know, know, but Sweden in July basically shuts down and things slow to a crawl. This is the month where we switch over milestones, people take long vacations, and not much development occurs. This is mostly true for us this last month as well, but we took the opportunity to make a few small changes and show the game in Japan for the first time!
In the middle of July we were fortunate to have an opportunity to show the game at Tokyo Indies, an event very similar to the Indie Game Dungeon we often frequent here in Stockholm. We gave a short presentation on the title, and other developers and fans alike were around to try the game. These kinds of things are always made more easier with the help of our amazing marketing assistant Shinta, who lives near Tokyo.
There have been some small improvements to the UI in Tactichord as part of our larger core experience improvement we've been working on based on feedback from the last few playtests, but we'll save those GIFs and explanations for a future dev blog.
What we can talk about is some tangential news related to the seminal rhythm title for Nintendo DS, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. July was the twentieth anniversary of the Japanese cheerleading game's release and our creative director David was a part of the small indie team that created to the title. There is a lot of Ouendan in the spirit and delivery of Tactichord, so fans of the former have a few little surprises to look forward to. Along with lead artist Atsushi Saito and lead engineer Norhide Okada, David was interviewed by Retro Gamer magazine for a six page article covering the making of Ouendan. If you've ever played Elite Beat Agents or the fan game osu!, this is where it all began. You can order a copy of the Retro Gamer July 2025 edition from a number of resellers online.
Thirsty for more? You can be a part of our micro- dev logos in our very own studio Discord! Share ideas of Backbeat universe lore with other players, learn about upcoming events and campaigns, and let us know what you think about the evolving look and style of the game. Click here to reach the Discord! Next up, Gamescom!
/David