Pumpkin Spice Story started out as a solo project by Darian Shaw in 2022 -- originally called Pumpki-boo! When working on Pumpki-boo in isolation, there were no limits to what could have been included. Anything from branching storylines to a entire sequel were planned in parallel. Naturally, this would've created a long development cycle. To combat this, Darian joined the Saba Soft team in order to streamline development.

There were a lot of things that were conceptualized during that time that wound up not making it to the 2023 release, largely due to time constraints and the overall experience of the new team. The Director's Cut Update was a way to bring that back, completing the game in the way it was meant to be.

These past few months have been dedicated to those updates -- development time for Pumpkin Spice Story at this point in time is (ignoring the break for our third project) roughly 5-6 months, and that time was well spent. There are a lot of quality of life updates this time around--updating the battle and dialogue systems, rebalancing combat, auto sorting items for the player's inventory, and providing better feedback for the UI--all bringing a great amount of polish to the game that we previously didn't have the time for.

We were also able to bring in two special things from the original concept that had been delayed; the Bad Ending and the second phase to Algernon's boss battle. Spoilers down below for those of whom who have yet to experience these:

In 2023, flags were a new concept we didn't have experience with and didn't have the time to look into, so the Bad Ending had to be delayed. This wound up being a good thing--here in 2024, we had the time to make the Bad Ending an incredible experience. The player can find the Poltergeist's Grimoire by the great urn in the mausoleum maze, and using it in his boss battle will prompt a cinematic to play--the player is possessed by the poltergeist for the rest of the game!

The poltergeist will give additional commentary on environmental and NPC dialogue, cultists will notice him and provide offerings on occasion, and the player's stats change. The boss battles are harder, and the new ending is unlocked.

Algernon's boss battle is another major change--phase two activates when the player defeats him in the first round, and in the Bad Ending he gets an additional move as well. Phase two was a part of the original concept of the game--Algernon manages to make contact with an Eldritch being and transforms in a desperate attempt at gaining immortality, only to be defeated by the player.

There's yet more to be added to Pumpkin Spice Story; there's been a call for more NPCs, more grimoires, and other surprises. We won't spoil too much talking about it now, so look forward to seeing more devlogs coming up after a little break. We're not done here quite yet.

Halloween (as far as Darian is concerned, anyways) is never over.

As always, thanks for tuning in, and we hope you've all had an incredible spooky season! If you're interested in keeping tabs on future updates as well as future projects, you can follow us on Discord, as well as Instagram and Bluesky!