Reception devlog · The whole story

How Reception was built

October 19, 2026 · BellHop Studios

In eleven weeks, Reception went from a dot wandering a grid to a live alpha with testers, 26 heroes, a gacha and a server that owns every save. Along the way we logged about 300 dated changes and cut about 70 features.

Reception is our gacha dungeon game. You join a guild run by its receptionists as the new hire, collect heroes, and send four-hero parties out. In a Field Exploration the party wanders on its own and you only ever see what it can see. In a Dungeon, you lead them room by room. This is how it got here.

Where it started

On 26 July 2026 the project was called Dungeon Runners, and you couldn't play it. You could only watch: a four-hero party nobody controlled wandered a 100 by 100 tile dungeon, rolling a direction once a second until it stumbled onto an exit. The very first build was the simulation and a debug view. No menus, no gacha, no combat.

That watching simulation is still the heart of the game. Every party still moves on a one-second tick, and every hero still has a personality that shapes how the party behaves.

How we work

• Small steps. Most changes start as a sentence or two. From late September many start with a screenshot or a tester's message, and the change answers that player.
• Research before big systems. From mid-September, every large system started as a written research memo. There are 16 of them, on retention, gacha menus, combat, monster behaviour, tutorials, roster size and more.
• Specs as the source of truth. Each system has a design doc (fatigue, the gear economy, the dungeon ladder, the story). The folder holds 48.
• Tests that grow with the game. The first build shipped with 9 automated tests. By 11 October there were about 1,350, including balance harnesses that play thousands of seeded fights to measure win rates.
• House rules. No em dashes in player text. No speed control, ever. Nothing earned is kept on the player's device. Every ability card states its exact effect. Hero portraits are anime illustrations.

Six bursts of work

The build came in six bursts, with quiet gaps in August and early September. Each has its own devlog post:

1. A game you could only watch (26 July to 4 August). Ten working days turned a wandering dot into a shared world with fights, loot and a server-ready simulation.
2. Becoming Reception (30 August to 3 September). The prototype got its name, its guild of receptionists and its core rules.
3. Design first (18 to 27 September). Research and specs, then fatigue, the gear economy and the gacha, built in one pass.
4. Going live (29 September to 3 October). The server took ownership of every save and testers were playing within hours.
5. Taking the lead (4 to 7 October). Players started leading Dungeons themselves, and heroes started fighting by personality.
6. The roster and its rules (8 to 11 October). New anime portraits and lore, and every card made to state its numbers.

What we cut

About 70 features were removed or replaced, most of them in two waves: 31 August, when the prototype became a product, and the week after testers arrived. Run speed controls, starter gear, a one-tap "send again" button, a "never sell power" rule: all gone, each for a reason. The full list is in 70 things we cut, and the ideas we went back and forth on are in Seven decisions we changed our minds on.

Where it stands

• Heroes: 26 (11 Common, 7 Rare, 4 SR, 4 SSR), ranks up to +10 from duplicate shards, and a Mettle and a Banner on every hero.
• Places: two Field Explorations (Rat Fields and Bat Fields) that you watch, and two Dungeons (The Cellar and The Belfry) that you lead, each with Tiers 1 to 3.
• Monsters: rats, bats and ghouls in four tiers, with poison, bleed and boss abilities.
• Gear: 56 pieces in four slots. Combine to +20, salvage into four metals, and check Sena's daily stock.
• Hiring: Writs of Hire from a daily claim, Arena first clears and Sena's shelf. Hard pity is 40 during the alpha.
• Fatigue: per hero, a full rest in 8 hours, and a free daily tonic.

Next up: more heroes (we're aiming for 36 at launch), better pay for higher dungeon tiers, real decisions in The Cellar, menu music and a player market. The numbers behind all of it are in Reception by the numbers.