Hollow Update — The Steam Demo Is Live, and a Lot Is Changing
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a proper update here, so there’s quite a bit to talk about.
First and most importantly: the Hollow demo is now available on Steam.
The itch.io demo was where a lot of this started, and I genuinely appreciate everyone who downloaded it, played it, followed the project, or gave me feedback. Hollow has changed a lot since those earlier builds, and development has now moved primarily to Steam.
The Steam demo is giving me something I badly needed: real players putting the game through its paces. And they have definitely found things.
The good news is that the overall response to the core game has been encouraging. Hollow was heavily inspired by the original Diablo, and I'm not trying to hide that. The slower dungeon crawling, dangerous encounters, resource management, darkness, exploration, and old-school ARPG mechanics are intentional.
At the same time, player feedback has exposed several areas that need work before I'm satisfied with the game.
I'm currently working through things including:
Better support for different resolutions and ultrawide aspect ratios.
A redesign of the skill/ability interface to make character development clearer.
Additional movement and control options, including keyboard movement.
Improvements to mouse controls, targeting, and standing still while attacking.
Better enemy distribution throughout procedural dungeon floors so exploration doesn't result in long stretches of empty rooms.
Fixes for occasional enemy AI and synchronization issues.
Improvements to loot from chests, barrels, and other dungeon objects.
New interactive dungeon objects such as caskets and mausoleums.
Better shop pricing so different merchants value appropriate equipment differently.
Equipment additions and other smaller quality-of-life improvements.
Map improvements, including Fog of War.
General balance, UI, combat, multiplayer, and bug fixes based directly on what players are reporting.
There are also things I'm deliberately not changing just because they're old-fashioned.
Hollow is supposed to have some teeth.
Running blindly into a room full of enemies should be dangerous. Resources should matter. Character builds should matter. Preparation should matter. Some mechanics are going to feel closer to an ARPG from 1997 than one from 2026, because that's part of what Hollow is.
The goal isn't to modernize the personality out of the game. It's to remove the frustration that isn't contributing anything while keeping the old-school systems that make Hollow what it is.
The Steam release itself has also had a few bumps along the way. Valve's review process uncovered problems with the online co-op build that I need to correct, particularly around Steam lobby discovery, joining games, client control, and multiplayer character synchronization. Those problems are being addressed rather than rushed around just to get the game through review.
That's really where Hollow stands right now:
The demo is out. People are playing it. Feedback is coming in. Bugs are being found. Systems are being reconsidered. And the game is getting better because of it.
If you played one of the old itch.io builds, I'd especially love for you to try the Steam demo and see how far Hollow has come.
And if you've already played the Steam demo, keep the feedback coming. I read it — even when it hurts a little.
Hollow is still being built by one developer, and there's a lot left to do, but we're getting there.
Thank you to everyone who's been following the project from the beginning.
See you in Gravesend Hollow.