Final 12 months, indie sport writer Humble Video games went by way of what it referred to as a restructuring, a course of that resulted in mass layoffs. Not solely have been numerous workers members affected, but in addition a number of video games underneath the writer, together with Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus. Developed by the small group at Squid Shock Studios, the colourful platformer impressed by Japanese folklore would grow to be the ultimate title revealed by the in-house group at Humble Video games.
Quick-forward to November 2025, and Squid Shock Video games remains to be arduous at work on Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus. The group has simply launched the free Tanuki Kabuki replace for the sport, a significant content material drop that provides new post-game challenges, gameplay choices, and collectibles to the sport, with one of many highlights being a Kabuki-style Boss Rush mode the place gamers battle in entrance of an viewers that reacts to every conflict. A brand new Gauntlet Mode has additionally been added, and this can be a curated collection of challenges that additionally options customizable issue choices.
Getting right here wasn’t straightforward for Squid Shock Video games, as following the restructuring of Humble, the group needed to fill a number of roles that the writer had beforehand dealt with. We spoke to artistic director Chris Stair about how the studio bounced again, was pressured to adapt on the eleventh hour, and the teachings realized from this ordeal.
“Truthfully, the primary factor was it left me–and my complete group at Squid Shock–feeling fully confused, deserted, and misplaced proper after launching our very first sport. Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus was the primary title Squid Shock ever launched and the primary sport I might ever labored on in my life. We had launched actually 5 days earlier than Humble’s restructuring hit,” Stair mentioned. “My group and I have been on an absolute excessive. We have been at Bit Summit in Kyoto, Japan, assembly devs we would idolized for years, throwing an unbelievable launch social gathering, soaking in all of the love from the group. After which, in a single day, it felt like the bottom simply vanished beneath us. Even simply recollecting it proper now makes my cortisol spike.”
Stair added that it was a disheartening expertise to see the information about Humble Video games and obtain emails from former workers on the writer, lots of whom he’d labored with on advertising the sport. In a extra sensible sense, nevertheless, Stair now needed to confront the truth that all of the beforehand organized post-launch writer assist had been dramatically altered. “It doesn’t matter what anybody else would possibly say, our launch was completely sullied by this. Not simply the sensible stuff, however my whole emotional and psychological state. A lot psychological bandwidth received eaten up by pure insecurity about what the hell was going to occur subsequent that the studio and I went straight into survival mode. Assets and vitality that ought to have gone into nurturing the sport in its essential first weeks as an alternative went into simply holding our heads above water,” Stair mentioned.
Following its departure from Humble Video games, Squid Shock needed to adapt and fill a number of behind-the-scenes roles–like advertising, press, creator outreach, gathering storefront suggestions and sentiment, QA coordination, localization fixes, and more–quickly, however the single greatest “nightmare” for the studio have been the console patches.
Stair defined that Humble had been their intermediary with console firms like Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. When the writer restructured, their connections to the large three have been vastly impacted, in the end leading to an incapability to launch very important updates. “It actually sucked studying participant suggestions about bugs and efficiency points on sure platforms and realizing we actually could not do something about it for months,” Stair mentioned. “I believe this actually irreparably broken our fame on sure platforms, particularly Xbox, which had some nasty crashes on launch.”
Whereas gross sales of Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus have been “reasonably profitable,” they did not meet the expectations that Squid Shock had for the sport. “We got a conservative estimate of what number of copies we’d promote within the first 12 months and we actually fell in need of that,” Stair added. “Is that due to the problems we had with Humble? There is not any strategy to really show it, however clearly that complete scenario solely damage our potential to ship a greater product over time.”
The tragedy right here is that Squid Shock had a very good working relationship with Humble earlier than its sudden closure. Stair says that whereas they weren’t good, the writer knew what it was doing and it “supplied unbelievable assist all through growth” that may not have been there if the studio had gone down the self-publishing route. As Stair defined, publishers do excess of simply assist get a online game out the door, as a very good firm will help with QA, localization, manufacturing timelines, porting, trailers, subscription offers, and a lot extra. All important elements in a sport discovering success in a crowded and really aggressive market.
Squid Shock is now working with Good Video games Group,a publishing group based by former Humble workers. Should you’re interested by seeing Bo: Path Of The Teal Lotus in motion, it will be featured in a Video games Completed Fast livestream this weekend.