Roadvania — Updates (release notes)

Official launch! Bigger field guides and bumper-catch events

2026-11-04T12:00:00+09:00

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.

Fish species found	Reward (provisional)	Title
3	50 RV	–
5	100 RV	Apprentice angler
10	300 RV	Friend of the waterside
15	500 RV	Fish scholar
All current species (22 now)	1,000 RV	Fish master

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.

Event	When (provisional)	What (provisional)
🍂 Autumn goby day	Sep–Nov, 15% chance per day in each area	Yellowfin goby 4× more likely
🌸 Rockfish night of spring	Feb–Apr nights, 10% chance per day	Japanese rockfish 3×
☔ Rainy-season catfish	Every year, Jun 10 – Jul 10	Amur catfish 2.5×
🏖️ Summer-break pond	Every year, Jul 20 – Aug 31	Small pond fish 1.5×

🔧 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.

Fish	Best season
Yellowfin goby	Jul–Nov
Japanese jack mackerel	Jun–Sep
Japanese rockfish	Jan–Apr
Whitespotted conger	Jun–Aug
Blackhead seabream	Apr–May
Pale chub, bluegill, largemouth bass	May–Sep

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.

Official site, customizable menu, and an items screen

2026-11-03T12:00:00+09:00

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.

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

2026-11-02T12:00:00+09:00

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.

Item	Value (provisional)
Fish you can carry	3 without a cooler, 10 with one
Time until freshness bottoms out	about 20 min without a cooler, about 2 h with one
Sale price	species value × size × freshness; half without a cooler; at least 1 RV
Cooler box	120 RV (tackle shop)
Walking	1 RV per 200 m
Entering an area for the first time	+10 RV
First time near a named facility (station, school, landmark…)	+3 RV

🎣 Pro tackle and big fish

After 10 fish, pro tackle appears at tackle shops.

Item	Price (provisional)
Pro rod	300 RV
Line (normal / heavy)	60 RV / 160 RV
Bait (10 casts)	30 RV
Lure (reusable, up to 5)	100 RV

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.

Request	From	What
🛒 Stock	Supermarket	Bring 2–3 local fish, bought at 1.5× the usual price
🎣 Catch report	Tackle shop	Catch a large fish and show it (you keep the fish)
✉️ Errand	Post office	Deliver a letter to a nearby facility
📦 Parcel	Delivery company	Take a parcel to a facility's front desk
🍱 Lunch delivery	Convenience store	Take a lunch box to a nearby facility

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

Item	Price (provisional)	Effect (30 min)
🍙 Rice ball	15 RV	Walking income ×1.5
🥤 Sports drink	20 RV	Walk/run speed ×1.15
☕ Coffee	15 RV	Bite window ×1.6
🧊 Ice	10 RV	Fish in hand lose freshness half as fast
🗞️ Local paper	5 RV	For the day, nearby shops with requests show "!"

🍞 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.

The public beta begins (October)

2026-10-16T12:00:00+09:00

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.

Game design begins, and the name "Roadvania"

2025-10-15T12:00:00+09:00

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