Hello and welcome!

It’s about time we finally started sharing some devlogs. And what better place to begin than at the very start of our project?
Mooncrawler and the team behind it have gone through quite a few changes over time, and we thought it might be interesting for you to see how it all began.

Mooncrawler began as a student project, created by three game developers with a passion for juicy 2D roguelikes. The team came together to develop a game as part of their master’s program.
At the time, the team consisted of Nils (Game Designer/Programmer), Leo (Technical Artist/Programmer) and me, Nikki (Artist/Manager). And since the three of us wanted to produce something really fun and juicy , we quickly settled for the teamname: Team Juicebox

Over the course of three semesters, we worked on Mooncrawler, experimenting with lots of ideas and iterations along the way. Besides coming up with some interesting Game Design ideas, one of our early goals was to create something with a unique look.
To achieve that, we tried designing a 2D game set in a small 3D world with a curved horizon - kind of like Animal Crossing, but with shooting mechanics!

So we started with a very simple mock-up...


...quickly began with the fist shader experiments...


...and added very simple shooting mechanics.


And behind the scenes, we worked a lot on the character design. (Our moth used to be yellow!)

But no matter how many different things we tried, our vision just didn't work out. The shooting felt weird and not juicy at all, so we decided to 'kill our darlings' and redo the whole thing in the very last semester.  This was technically the first real reboot of Mooncrawler.
But we managed to pull through, which was only possible with some additonal help:

During a game jam I initially attended alone, I randomly approached two devs who looked like they could use some help with art. And
after an exhausting but fun weekend of jamming, a new friendship was formed between Niklas (BrutDev) and me!

("You look like you could use some art" Dramatic reinactment of how Brut and I met)

We quickly realized we vibed really well and talked a lot about games, random stuff and the local game development scene.
So it didn’t take long before I showed him Mooncrawler and then some time later, he joined our Team Juicebox as an additional Programmer!

With his help, we were able to develop a completely new version with lots of Game Design changes and cool new systems in only one semester.  While our Game Design was still not perfect (No time for balancing at all lol) we were pretty happy with the finished product-And our players were too! Many praised the overall look and vibe off the game and especially younger players kept coming back for more juicy shooting gameplay.

You can take a look at the old, how we like to call it,  "Student Version" here:

After the release, we all took a well needed break from the game. The summer went by and one question still needed an answer:

"What is going to happen to Mooncrawler?"

The individual members of Team Juicebox each had their own new goals: finishing their thesis, continuing their studies, or searching for a job.
So Mooncrawler became, for the most part, just a “finished project” .Something we had submitted for our degree.
And that was completely fine.

But I didn’t want to stop there.
I had grown really attached to our mysterious moth and wanted to see if Mooncrawler could one day become a full release.
The continued praise from players kept me motivated.

So I reached out to everyone on the team to talk about what continued development might look like.
We all agreed that Brut and I would take ownership of the project.  And I’m so glad there were no hard feelings.
In fact, the others were happy, saying: “Mooncrawler will live on.”

So this is where we rebooted the whole thing...again!
Brut created a whole new project and reworked all the systems. While I planned some major Game Design changes and took care of our rebranding. We officially retired Team Juicebox and formed a new Team:

And we’ve already reached some exciting milestones!
We developed a whole new version of the game with major game design changes, tested it at our local indie developer meet-up, and even had the chance to exhibit Mooncrawler at the Baltic Gamesfest in Neumünster, Germany.

All of this marks a fantastic start and keeps us motivated to keep pushing forward.

With Brut working full-time and me juggling a part-time job alongside a thesis I still have to write, progress won’t be super fast. 
But we’re motivated to release Mooncrawler sometime in 2027 (hopefully!).

So, to everyone following our journey: Thank you for being here!
We hope you’ll stick around for more updates and devlogs. There’s a lot coming your way.

We already have some exciting things planned and will soon release a roadmap in a dedicated devlog, where we’ll share everything we’ve got in store for 2026.

If you want to see more, share some ideas or just get in touch with us, follow us on Instagram and join our Discord server !

And special thanks to Nils, Leo, Adrian and Esther for being part of Team Juicebox and Mooncrawlers development from day one <3

That’s it for now. Until next time!
Cheers, Ditzy