Devlog 8 – Infecting a community

Sometimes an indie game community starts with a shared love of games. Sometimes it starts with a free merch.
This month, Niko takes over the devlog to tell the story of how he went from discovering Stay Dead at GDC to playtesting builds, breaking the game, and eventually becoming one of the voices of our community.

Devlog July 2026 – Rebuilding the Boss Fight

A great boss fight is more than a bigger enemy with a bigger health bar. It’s the culmination of everything you’ve learned along the way: a final test of the mechanics, puzzles, and skills you’ve picked up throughout the level. This month, we’re taking you behind the scenes of how we rebuilt our first boss encounter through playtesting, redesigns, community feedback, and a few bugs determined to steal the spotlight.

Devlog June 2026 – Building the Gameplay Loop

Our first playable demo proved something important: the gameplay loop works. This month, we shifted from asking “Can this game work?” to “How do we make every room teach, surprise, and reward the player?”

Devlog May 2026 – Building the Bite

After months of prototypes, broken systems, and trying to figure out what Stay Dead actually wanted to be, we finally built our first playable demo of the year! (Insert round of applause for our sleep-deprived dev team here.)

It’s messy and held together with duct tape and hope, but we’re ridiculously proud of it and can’t wait to show you what we’ve been building.

Devlog April 2026 – Three Demos, One Bite

We’ve been back at the drawing board — again. This time, everything revolves around one question: what happens when the Bite becomes the core of the game?

Devlog March 2026 – Back to the Lore

This month’s devlog is a bit different.
Instead of showing new gameplay, we’re stepping back to talk about something we’ve never fully shared before: where the world of Stay Dead actually comes from.
Not the full story of course (we’re still working on it)… just enough to make you want to #GetBit.

Devlog January 2026: Biting Back to the Core

This devlog is not about finished features. It’s a peek into our design process: the systems we scrapped, the sandbox we built, and the weird experiments we’re running to make the Bite feel like more than just a zombie trope.

A Brief, Incomplete, and Slightly Biased History of the Zombie Bite

Humans treated it like a curse. A countdown. A messy way to go. And while it’s admittedly scary to be bitten by anything with a rotting jaw, the bite wasn’t always a death sentence.
Let’s rewind.

Devlog 6: Ready for 2026

We spent 2025 building our demo. Then we threw most of it out.
This is the story of how Stay Dead changed direction, found new brains, and went back to the drawing board, not out of failure, but to finally chase the spark that could make this undead game feel truly alive.

Bram’s Best Zombie Life

I have finally been authorized to speak publicly and deliver my first official missive. Consider this my formal “sliding into your DMs,” as the human kids say, from the youngest and arguably most intellectually advanced member of the Rottington family.