Octopus City Blues

An Octopus City simulation about everything and nothing. Try the demo on Steam!

[octopuscityblues]

You're a tentacle trimmer living on a giant octopus!

💬 Spread rumors and lies

😰 Manage your anxiety

🤠 Meet eccentric people

🔎 Uncover dark secrets

🤔 Make difficult decisions

🪲 Explore bizarre dreams

Support us by adding our Octopus City Simulation Software to your Steam Wishlist. You can try a lengthy demo on Steam:

Octopus City Blues on Steam

An octopus city simulation about everything and nothing.

[tommytom-tom]

LISTEN YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HIM LIKE I DO MY FRIEND DIDN’T HEAR THE END OF IT WHEN HIS NAME WAS LITERALLY KAFKA WORLDS BIGGEST FRANZ KAFKA FAN OK i read the books ESPECIALLY THE BEETLE IMAGERY OKAAAYYYYY

[octopuscityblues]

One 83-color palette, four screenshots.

Octopus City Blues on Steam

In a world of ice, the last human city is tearing itself apart. Explore the underbelly of a monstrous metropolis in a surreal adventure abou

[octopuscityblues]

How do I dilute the tentagrow stuff in my inventory?

Look around and examine everything in Kaf's apartment. With that said, if you're trying to help the malnourished tentacle outside the mansion then using TentaCure won't really do much. The conclusion of that particular event isn't in the demo and will be in the full version. Thanks for playing!

[starsystemm]

On magicaldraw with bestie and drew him again, I think you can see like a good 10% of Hellen on the right

[crunchybeards]

wip of my middle-aged goat Kaf Kaffkaryan

[king-magppi]

Guhhh.... King and Joker.... also Kaf. Replayed the demo again yesterday and got to see another interaction with The Shrimps I didn't know was possible before!! 🃏👑

Reminder to say NO to octoblood!

[king-magppi]

JUST SOME OF THE MANY COLORFUL CHARACTERS YOU CAN MEET IN THE OCTOPUS CITY BLUES DEMO...🐙 🌃

[octopuscityblues]

A second opinion? Well, you're also as ugly as a sandfish...

[octopuscityblues]

Play as a dastardly doofus married to a tentacle on a bogus journey to save a doomed city!

Spread sinister rumors, make questionable choices, and keep your stress and health in check in the world's first octopus city simulation shareware.

Try the demo (Steam / GOG / itchio)! Ace a job interview! Feed a slimy child! Fight delinquents! Crush insects! Solve a crime! Cure baldness! Hack ant farms! Learn to love yourself! Add to your wishlist!

[octopuscityblues]

Life of Kaf

To marauding tentacle hordes and those who valiantly oppose them,

Following up on our last update, the team continues to plug away at everyone’s favorite octoblood guzzling simulator. Due to a bunch of boring reasons, things are going slower than I’d like, but the 2026 release plan is still on track.

We’re currently working on one of the last major dream sections, centered around a golden city and a cast of colorful weirdos who call it home. Karl (the concept artist) came up with many character designs and ideas, and Marina and Niko (the pixel artists) continue to flesh them out and create the necessary spritework and animations to bring these characters to life.

Concurrently, the demo was recently updated on Steam (and GOG/itchio) to bring it in line with the development version. While most of the changes were behind the scenes, there are some interesting additions I’d like to share with you.

A number of events were re-balanced to make certain outcomes more likely. For example, it’s now slightly easier to defeat a teenager in a knife fight, and a certain ruffian is more likely to attack Kaf after an unfortunate sewer encounter instead of making a deal. The changes were based on observing many playthroughs since the demo was released and noting how difficult it was to experience these scenes if the player wasn’t explicitly trying to trigger them.

Additional character responses were also added or tweaked to make them more natural and reactive to the player’s choices. For example, in one scenario where Kaf betrayed someone only to help them later, that person would previously continue to respond angrily without acknowledging Kaf’s subsequent actions. To improve this, I added additional dialogue and interactions to cover these gaps.

While the update isn’t about introducing new content, it does complete a quest involving an accountant and a cure for baldness (I doubt anyone will actually finish it, though; It only progresses after the main demo content and takes quite some time to advance). Other changes include a new opportunity to give Mom to a shady organization, and additional special comic issues to find.

A new addition that you might notice right away is the introduction of coins scattered around the city. Since you need money to buy centipede train tickets in the full version, the randomly generated coins will hopefully encourage exploration and provide a way to travel even if you run out of cash.

Beyond that, there were a lot of bug fixes, tweaks to the stress system, and several quality of life improvements. Many of the demo changes actually tie to content from the full version. That includes meeting the cyborgs in the Robot Graveyard, working with a shady “fixer”, visiting the Conman’s shop, and various dream sequences. Please let us know if you tried the demo and ran into any issues.

In the meantime we’ll continue to work on Octopus City Blues one tentacle at a time. Things have been busy and slow, but we’re getting there. You can expect one more update before the end of this year with more information. Until then, please continue to water your rambunctious pet appendages and avoid stepping on any wayward beetles.

Yours faithfully,

Ghost in a Bottle's Malevolent CEO (Creative Excuse-making Officer)

[octopuscityblues]

In addition to being a faithful Sonic the Hedgehog fan game, Octopus City Blues also owes much to the best JRPG of all time!

[octopuscityblues]

I think we skipped the "make it exist" part…

[octopuscityblues]

Citizen Kaf

We’re still slowly working on Octopus City Blues. Since the beginning of the year, key team members were unavailable for extended periods of time. This made it very difficult to plan effectively. One of the reasons I struggled to write an update was because I wanted to have more clarity about their availability, something that didn’t happen until last month.

This project has been in development for over 12 years, and much has changed in everyone’s lives since then. I’m lucky to still be working with a supportive and passionate team of people. At the same time, each of us had to deal with a myriad of personal problems and unfortunate circumstances.

At the beginning of 2022, I managed to secure funding that allowed me to work full-time on OCB (doing most things that aren't art or music). I initially came up with a two-year budget plan that was eventually stretched over three years. You can read more about that in last year’s June update. By early 2025, the part of the budget set aside for me was used up, and I was also contributing less frequently because my work is dependent on the rest of the team.

One way to deal with that dependency is to get additional help, and indeed we recruited an additional artist last year. Unfortunately they were not available during the first half of 2025 and it was unclear if I needed to look for someone else. At the same time, I had to find a part-time job to pay the bills and secure additional funding. Job hunting took quite a lot of time and energy, but in the end I managed to find one that still allows me to work on Octopus City Blues.

Everyone on the team is currently available again, and we’ve finished quite a few areas and scenes since the last update. As I don’t have the time or budget to get additional people to help at the moment, I came up with a new plan that’s as realistic and unambitious as possible, with a release date in Q2 2026. This is meant to take into account the team's erratic availability, including the effect of my new job on my own productivity.

I’ve always had a hard time managing this project because the original scope was too naively broad and unrealistic. At the same time, I was never able to make the drastic cuts and simplifications needed to get it out in time. I keep going back and forth between cutting things, struggling to make up for their absence, and spending too much time getting everything just right.

On the other hand, we’ve made significant progress over the past three years in particular. I stopped stressing over deadlines and release dates for the most part, and I know that’s not what some of you want to hear. While I’ll continue to update my plans and do my best to keep everyone focused, I also feel like a passenger on this long and meandering journey.

But I remain optimistic, because I’ve seen all the beautiful things we'd like to keep as a surprise, including some of the world's most elaborately detailed tentacles. We all still love the concepts of Octopus City Blues, and everyone is doing their best to make it a reality.

Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to us. Thanks to those of you who wrote comments or requested an update too.

[octopuscityblues]

One 83-color palette, four screenshots

[octopuscityblues]

What they say about our demo:

Gross, surreal, thoughtful, funny, sweet, and scary

Every second I spend with Kaf makes me want him to suffer more

A huge demo with lots of insane moments

Абсолют гейм 12/10

Would you try it and leave a review?

Octopus City Blues Demo on Steam

In a world of ice, the last human city is tearing itself apart. Explore the underbelly of a monstrous metropolis in a surreal adventure abou

[octopuscityblues]

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