Updates (release notes)

November 4, 2026Game version: 20261104-162449・20261104-163840・20261104-165005

Official launch! Bigger field guides and bumper-catch events

Today is the official launch (MVP), announced on our official X account (@roadvania). Along with it, we rebuilt the fish guide and started "events" where certain fish bite much more on some days and seasons. All numbers are provisional.

✨ New things to do

📖 A proper field guide

• Open "🐟 Fish guide" from ☰ (B key, gamepad Y).
• Sort by number, name, times caught, size, first found or rarity.
• Filter by found / not yet, habitat (sea, river, pond), rarity (★1–5) and tackle.
• Search by Japanese name, hiragana, English name or scientific name (katakana and hiragana are treated the same). Fish you have not found yet do not show up by name, to avoid spoilers.
• Fish you have not found show as a silhouette and "???".
• Details show a description, family, habitat, size, best season and time, and the scientific name with its source (GBIF). Flip through with "← Prev / Next →".
• Your record: times caught, biggest, the date and area of your first catch, last caught, which tackle caught it (simple rod / pro bait / pro lure), and lord-of-the-waters catches.
• All 22 species now have guide descriptions (Japanese, hiragana and English).

📚 Show your guide at bookstores and libraries

• Bookstores and libraries on the map now show "📚 Enter". Show your guide to the clerk or librarian for a comment on your progress and a reward.
• Rewards depend on how many species you have found. Either shop gives the same rewards, once each.

• Titles you earn are listed at the top of "📊 Records & stats", where you can choose one to wear.

🎉 Events (bumper catches and more)

• On some days and seasons, certain fish bite much more. You get a notice when you enter the area (once per event per day).
• "Today's events (around here)" appears at the top of the 📜 Journal.
• The guide shows "🎉 Bumper day", and the catch card says "🎉 Bumper day!" when you catch one.
• Random events are decided by date and area (about 50 km square), so everyone playing in the same area on the same day sees the same event.

🔧 Improvements

• Fish in hand and the rig selection moved to 🎒 Items › Fishing, so the guide is just the guide.
• 📊 Records & stats now include guide progress, RV from guide rewards, events met and fish caught during events.
• Added Updates (this page) to the official site. You can also open it from "About this game" in the game.
• The official site's logo now uses the same pixel-style lettering (DotGothic16) as the logo at the end of our announcement video.

⚖️ Number changes (provisional)

• How often each fish bites now depends on the time of day (morning, daytime, evening, night) and the month. Night-loving fish (marbled rockfish, Japanese rockfish, whitespotted conger, Amur catfish, etc.) still appear more at night.

• The chance of small fish biting on pro bait now follows the time of day (slightly different at night).

⚠️ Good to know

• Your existing records carry over to the new guide. Catch counts and biggest sizes are kept. First-catch dates, areas and tackle are recorded from this update on (earlier catches show "Before records began").
• We have not fully tested the guide on real phones and gamepads yet. If something feels off, please tell us through Support.

November 3, 2026Game version: 20261103-173712・20261103-174701・20261103-190824・20261103-192908・20261103-193604・20261103-204339・20261103-211223・20261103-212403

Official site, customizable menu, and an items screen

A day of preparing for the full release. We opened the official site and support desk, and made the on-screen buttons customizable. Numbers are provisional.

✨ New things to do

☰ Menu and button arrangement

• A ☰ (menu) button now leads the column of buttons on the right. Buttons not shown on screen are listed inside ☰.
• With "Arrange buttons", choose which buttons appear on screen and in what order. By default, phones show 4 and large screens show all.
• Screens opened from ☰ go back to the ☰ list with the close button, Esc or gamepad B.
• Esc (gamepad Start) closes the open screen, or opens ☰ when nothing is open.

🎒 Items screen

• The 🍞 button is now "🎒 Items". Tabs for consumables, key items and wearables show what you have and how many.
• Usable items ask "Use it?" before you use them.
• Items from convenience stores and home centers now go into your bag when bought (before, they were used immediately). Carry up to 5 of each (provisional).

🎮 Control screens with a gamepad

• Shop, settings, journal, conversation and other screens can be operated with a gamepad: choose with the D-pad or left stick, press A, close with B. The selected item has a blue frame.

🔧 Improvements

• Request givers now show the area name (e.g. "Convenience store (… town)"), so you can tell which shop it was even after starting elsewhere.
• Tap an active effect (🍙 etc.) at the top left to see what it does and how many minutes remain.
• You are told the moment your hands become full of fish.
• Map credits (ⓘ) now fold right after you close Settings.

🌐 Official site and support

• Launched the official site roadvania.com (Japanese and English).
• Added a support form. Opened from "About this game", it comes prefilled with your user ID and game version.
• Wrote terms of use for the game, including our all-ages policy (no violence, no religious or political content, no material that infringes others' rights).
• The privacy page now states that the game contains no analytics or ads.
• Improved page descriptions and the sharing image so the game can appear in search results and on social media.

⚙️ Behind the scenes

• Measured server load and raised the number of simultaneous connections so many people can visit at once.

November 2, 2026

Fish and sell, town requests, a home, and trains

This is the day we added the main pillars of play ahead of the full release: carry and sell your catch, take requests from people in town, buy a home, and ride trains to distant towns. All numbers are provisional and will be tuned as we play.

✨ New things to do

💰 Catch, carry and sell

• Fish you catch go into your hands with a size and freshness. If your hands are full, you release the fish (it still counts in your guide and totals).
• Freshness drops only while you play: "fresh-caught → fresh → okay → going off".
• Sell fish at tackle shops and supermarkets on the map (one at a time or all at once).
• Walking and discovering places also earn a little RV.

🎣 Pro tackle and big fish

• After 10 fish, pro tackle appears at tackle shops.

• 9 big fish of 15 cm or more (Japanese rockfish, blackhead seabream, Japanese seabass, whitespotted conger, common carp, Amur catfish, barbel steed, largemouth bass, white crucian carp). Bait catches big and small fish; lures catch predators.
• When a big fish bites, gauges for line tension and distance appear. Hold to reel in; too much tension snaps the line, too little lets the hook slip.
• The "large shadow" at night can be caught with pro tackle as the lord of the waters, the biggest fish there.

📜 Requests from people in town

• Shop staff talk to you when you enter. Choose "Accept / Later / Decline". You can ignore requests entirely.

• See your requests in the 📜 Journal (J key). Track one to show an arrow with direction and distance; press it to walk there automatically along the roads.

🏡 Your home

• Buy a home at a 🏠 real estate agent (2,000 RV, provisional). It is built on a road near that agent. Buying in another town means moving (500 RV).
• Your home has a freezer (20 fish, no freshness loss) and a display shelf (5 fish).
• "🏡 Start from home" appears on the title screen.

🏪 Convenience stores, bakeries and home centers

• 🍞 Breadcrumbs (30 RV, up to 3): start your next session from where you placed one (one spot only). 🥐 Bakeries give you one breadcrumb a day.
• 🛠️ Home centers sell bait and ice. Supermarkets also sell 🦐 frozen shrimp (works as bait, 10 casts for 40 RV).

🔍 Search, preview and trains

• 🔍 Search nearby facilities and place names worldwide. A place search sends only your search words and display language (never your location).
• 🔭 Preview: look at the map of a searched place (your character stays put).
• 🚉 Trains: at a station, "Board" to travel near your destination. Fare: 10 RV + 1 RV per km (provisional). Beyond 500 km it becomes ✈️ a flight.

📊 Records & stats, and your user ID

• Days played, time, distance, fishing, money and more are recorded on your device (Settings → 📊 Records & stats).
• Settings shows your user ID (RV-XXXX-XXXX). Include it when reporting a problem. Compensation for bugs is given as a grant code for that ID.

🔧 Improvements

• Add to Home Screen to open full-screen like an app. With a weak connection, it still starts from the version you opened before.
• On phones, drag with two fingers to look around and pinch to zoom. On computers, right-drag to look around.
• You can enter shops in large buildings from near the building's edge.
• Place search is relayed through our server and repeated searches are reused, so it keeps working even with heavy use.

🐛 Bug fixes

• After returning to the title, "Continue" could start from where you were before a train trip. It now starts from your latest position.

October 16, 2026

The public beta begins (October)

We put a public beta anyone can open at roadvania.tarp.tokyo. This note covers that day and the other big October milestones.

🛣️ October 11: Walkable roads

• Map road data is now connected so you walk along the roads.
• Overpasses, bridges, tunnels and underpasses are kept at separate heights, so you never jump from an upper road to a lower one.
• Walk with the keyboard, by dragging, or by tapping.

🎨 October 15: A pixel-art map and an emoji character

• Real maps are now drawn in a pixel-art style.
• The character and facility icons use emoji (Twemoji), so they look the same on every device.
• Your walking distance is now counted.

🚀 October 16: Public beta

• The public beta now plays in phone and desktop browsers.
• 📍 Start from your location: start on a road near you using your browser's location. Coordinates are never sent to our server.
• Added a scale bar, walking distance and a speedometer (shown from Settings).
• After real-world testing, fixed long detours caused by sidewalks and driveways not connecting to the main road.

🎣 Light fishing

• Buy a simple rod (50 RV) at a real tackle shop (about 7,600 worldwide, from OpenStreetMap) to start fishing.
• Near the sea, a river or a pond, press "🎣 Fish". Cast, wait, and reel in when you get a bite (!). Too early or too late and it gets away.
• 13 common small fish of Japan (sea: yellowfin goby, jack mackerel, anchovy, multicolorfin rainbowfish, grass puffer, marbled rockfish; river: pale chub, dark chub, Japanese dace, Rhinogobius goby; pond: stone moroko, silver crucian carp, bluegill). All under 15 cm, with smaller ones more common.
• Sometimes an old boot. At night only, rarely: "A large shadow got away…"
• After 10 fish, the tackle shop hints that new items are coming.
• You start with 100 RV (provisional).

🔁 October 23: Transfer codes

• Move your save to another device by QR code, copy or share.

October 15, 2025

Game design begins, and the name "Roadvania"

The day we started designing Roadvania. From here, we slowly shaped what the game would be.

🌱 What we decided first

• We named the game "Roadvania".
• Our tagline: "Walk an endless world."
• A travel game where an emoji character walks on real-world maps
• Walk anywhere in the world, from your own neighborhood to a street corner in a country you have never visited
• Walking itself is the heart of the game; fishing, shopping and more are added as "reasons to walk"
• Playable in a browser, free and with no ads
• Important information like your location stays only on your own device

🗺️ The play we imagined

• Strolling and exploring anywhere in the world
• Fishing in the sea, rivers and ponds, with a fish guide
• Shopping and helping people in town with small requests
• Someday, walking together with friends