Hello everyone, it's been a while. Rest assured, I've been working *very* diligently on the game!
And to announce one of the biggest things, I've decided to change the name of the game for a few different reasons:


Recognizability

The name Laika is already used by another popular (and good!) Steam game, and not to mention the famous dog, the original namesake for the game.

Understandability and meaningfulness

So, as you may or may not know, this project is from 2021 at least, and at the time, the scope for this game was much, much smaller scope.

At the time, I decided to name the game after the space dog Laika, as I was somewhat interested in that story at the time; however, as the game's scope has increased and production has become longer, a lot has changed about the game and me. And so, in the interest of making the game more consistent and "accurate" thematically, I've decided on a name that fits the story, the character, and the theme better. Laika (character) is not Russian, and the name does not particularly mean anything in the game


RIYOU

So then, how did we come to the name RIYOU? Well, it certainly took a lot of effort to come up with a more fitting appropriate name for the game, I went through a lot of trial and error and talks with my peers, some rejected ideas were Shouganai, Hitori de, OMOIDE, and NUKOMORI （most of these being rejected for originality purposes and recognition issues)

Finally, I decided upon the name RIYOU. I chose this first of all because I feel like it fits the character more. Riyou is a Japanese person/character, not Russian. 

So, where does the name come from? It comes from the word 寥々in Japanese (read as Ryōryō), meaning lonely, dreary, desolate, barren.
However, if you take half the word (Ryō) and you read the individual hiragana (りょう), you can* get "RIYOU" 

*In Japanese small kana, often called chiisai kana 小さいかな, are smaller versions of normal-sized kana, which are used to form compounds such as にゃん (nyan), にょ(nyo), or in this case, りょう (Ryō). Here i am simply showing the connection between 寥々 and RIYOU, as if you take the ょ in りょう and make it to a よ, you get  りよう (Riyou) ((which sometimes as a name is read as Ryō, or Riyo, Riyou, etc.))

Additionally, I will at some point be updating my Creator Name, as this one is quite old and deprecated, but I still need to think about that one


Anyways, as a reward for reading this whole ramble, enjoy a sneak peek at some new stuff:

Reworked Portraits!

New area!!! + multiple followers

Additionally, I have been working on (another) visual overhaul to separate myself more visually, as when the game began development, I referenced my inspirations a bit too much, and I want to separate myself from that again. This will happen again as I discover my style more and more in pixel art!

And that's all for today! Stay tuned closely in the coming weeks and months, as the DEMO is still coming this year, possibly sooner than you think!