It took three years, but Digital Sagas has officially released its first full commercial game: Shape Swarm.
Shape Swarm was never intended to be a massive breakout hit or a game that would financially support the studio. Instead, the project served as a proof of concept and a way to learn the publishing process from start to finish. Development began near the end of November 2025 with a very specific goal in mind.
While larger projects like No One Leaves the Field and Lost Colony continue in development, I wanted Digital Sagas to enter 2026 as a studio that had actually shipped a game. Because of that, the project needed to be smaller in scope while still feeling polished and professional.
Why Shape Swarm Was Made
The target timeline was aggressive:
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Demo launch by the end of December
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Participation in February’s Steam Next Fest
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Full release shortly afterward
Several ideas were considered during early planning, including:
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Kart racers
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Match-3 puzzle games
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Breakout-style arcade games
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Block stackers
Ultimately, I settled on a minimalist action roguelite inspired by the growing “survivor-like” genre. The art direction focused on simple geometric shapes combined with glowing emissive effects to create a retro arcade aesthetic.
Building the Core Gameplay
At its core, the game only needed a few systems to function:
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A player controller
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Enemy movement
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Auto-targeting weapons
The player became a glowing hexagon, while the first enemies were simple circles that slowly drifted toward the player. Once those systems worked together, the overall gameplay framework started coming together quickly.
Interestingly, many of the foundational systems came directly from Lost Colony. Enemy spawning, state management, and object pooling were all adapted from earlier work on that project. Reusing those systems dramatically accelerated development.
Enemy design then evolved around geometric shapes with distinct movement behaviors. As a result, players constantly needed to adapt their strategies during a run rather than relying on a single overpowered build.
Defeated enemies dropped green XP gems that allowed players to level up and choose new upgrades. Although this follows standard roguelite progression design, several of the systems improved significantly during development. In particular, the power-up management system became much more flexible than the original implementation from Lost Colony.
Studying the Genre
During development, I spent time studying other games within the genre to better understand pacing, balance, and player expectations.
Naturally, Vampire Survivors became an important reference point. I also played Geometry Survivor because it shared similarities with Shape Swarm’s concept and presentation.
More importantly, I spent time reading player feedback and reviews. Understanding what players enjoyed — and what frustrated them — helped shape the game’s direction.
Because of that research, two additional modes were eventually added:
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Infinite Mode
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Architect Mode
Architect Mode ultimately became the feature that most differentiated Shape Swarm from similar games.
Rapid Development
Development moved extremely fast. By the end of the first weekend, the project already had:
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Player movement
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Enemy spawning
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Endless scrolling backgrounds
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Infinite space gameplay
The infinite background initially created an unexpected issue. Some players realized they could simply outrun enemies and survive by running in one direction until the timer expired. To solve this, enemies now wrap around the playfield whenever the player gets too far away from combat.
By the second weekend, the game already featured:
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Four enemy types
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UI systems
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A level timer
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Early music tracks
At the same time, work began on Steam assets and capsule art. Since Shape Swarm was never expected to generate major revenue, hiring a professional capsule artist would have pushed the project beyond budget. Instead, I used Blender to create glowing 3D renders of the shapes and refined the final images in Photoshop.
The Steam page officially launched on December 18th.
The Demo and Steam Next Fest
Next came the demo. Rather than include every mode, I decided to focus on a single polished experience. The demo targeted a 12-minute run, while the full game would eventually expand that to roughly 18 minutes.
Fortunately, the demo also became an effective playtesting tool. Feedback from players helped rebalance several upgrades, especially Thorn Shield and Health Recovery. Initially, both abilities functioned as one-time-use powers. Later, they were redesigned into passive upgrades for the full release.
Unfortunately, marketing became the biggest challenge of the project. Because development moved so quickly, there simply was not enough time to build strong visibility before Steam Next Fest.
Even so, outreach efforts still included:
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Streamers
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Media outlets
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Content creators
When February’s Steam Next Fest arrived, the game had only 40 wishlists. If Shape Swarm had been intended as a major commercial release, I likely would have delayed the launch to build more visibility first. However, the primary goal was experience rather than sales.
By the end of Next Fest, the game had reached 111 wishlists.
Expanding the Full Release
For the final release, several major additions were implemented:
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New enemy types
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Boss encounters
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Infinite Mode
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Achievements
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Architect Mode
Architect Mode became the standout addition. Instead of enemies evolving automatically, players choose how enemy forces grow stronger throughout the run. As a result, the mode becomes dramatically more difficult and strategic than the standard experience.
Launch Results
Shape Swarm officially launched on April 14th with 131 wishlists.
During the first month, the game sold 16 copies.
Financially, that obviously is not life-changing. However, that was never the primary objective. The real achievement is that Digital Sagas successfully shipped a commercial game that people purchased and reviewed positively.
Currently, Shape Swarm holds four positive reviews on Steam.
Lessons Learned
More importantly, the project accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do:
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Teach the full release pipeline
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Establish the studio publicly
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Build development confidence
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Improve production workflows
The game also now serves as a long-tail cross-promotional title for future projects. In addition, there are plans for:
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A mobile release
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A WebGL version for Patreon supporters
Ultimately, Shape Swarm taught me more than any tutorial or course ever could. The project provided firsthand experience with:
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Scope management
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Steam launches
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Marketing beats
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Demo strategy
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Festival timing
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Post-launch support
Every game released from this point forward should benefit from those lessons.
Meanwhile, work continues on both No One Leaves the Field and Lost Colony. No One Leaves the Field is planned for release later this year, while Lost Colony is currently targeted for next year.
Play Shape Swarm
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