Weekly Dev Roundup: Aug 17–24

One of the things that's become clear over the last few months of building these games is that they each have their own rhythm. Some weeks, everything's humming; other weeks, one project just takes over your brain and everything else goes quiet. This was one of those weeks — and the game that took over is one that's barely three weeks old.

Special Bylaw Unit

I've been calling Special Bylaw Unit our youngest game, and it's been growing up fast. The repo went live on July 31st — that's less than a month ago — and this week it absolutely exploded. The entire second half of a courtroom trial came together in what I can only describe as a sustained fever dream of a sprint.

The week started with a serious foundation-laying push. I built out the defense witness system — you pick a witness and do a direct examination, which feeds into the prosecution's cross-examination. I added a half-time mechanic where jurors lean one way or the other based on what's happened so far (complete with little thought bubbles that show you what they're thinking — I haven't quite got the rendering right yet on those, more UI tweaks to come). And then I did something I should've done earlier: I tore apart the trial screen and rebuilt it as nine dedicated phase pages instead of one monolithic view. It was the kind of refactor you dread starting and feel amazing about finishing.

By midweek the coin flip mechanic landed — yeah, an actual coin flip — where you call heads or tails and the result determines which side presents first in certain trial phases. It's a tiny thing, but it adds this wonderful moment of tension right before a big courtroom moment, and it leans into the game-show-meets-legal-drama vibe I've been chasing. I also swapped out the splash screen for the proper Bunnyhug Studios logo with light and dark mode support, which makes the whole thing feel a lot more real and a lot less like a prototype running on my laptop.

Then the end of the week hit, and honestly, looking back at what landed on that one day — it's a little absurd. The closing arguments phase, where you pick your arguments from horizontal cards and the system tracks whether you're addressing the other side's rebuttals. The final jury deliberation, where the animal jurors actually deliberate and cast decisive votes. The verdict screen itself. And then, as if that wasn't enough, I set up the Cloud Build config, Dockerfile, and LLM token usage tracking — the kind of infrastructure work that says "this thing is actually going to ship."

"Implement final jury deliberation, decisive verdict voting, and courtroom ruling screen"

That commit message says it all, really. In four days, Special Bylaw Unit went from having a first-half trial flow to having a complete courtroom experience. Is it polished? Not yet. Are there bugs? Almost certainly. But does a full trial run from jury selection through verdict? Heck yes.

What I love about this week is how it reveals the game's structure. The trial isn't just one big linear sequence — it's a series of distinct phases, each with its own feel. The direct examination has a different energy than the cross-examination. The closing arguments feel different than the jury deliberation. Breaking them into separate screens wasn't just a code organization thing; it changed how the game feels to play.

The other thing worth noting: this project is entirely solo, and it's only been in development since the end of July. The pace has been intense — partly because the idea is so clear in my head, and partly because the LLM-driven courtroom format (generating jurors with personalities, generating witness testimony, tracking composure during cross-examination) is just genuinely fun to build. When the AI is doing interesting work, you want to keep seeing what it does next.

Infinite Scribe

Infinite Scribe had a quieter week — just two commits, both surgical — but they're the kind of changes that make a real difference for players.

The big one is a model refresh: I moved image generation over to Gemini 3.1 Flash Image and text-to-speech to Inworld TTS 2 Flash. Model upgrades are one of those things that don't make for flashy changelogs but can dramatically change the player experience — better-looking chapter illustrations, more natural-sounding narration. When your game is built on AI generation, the model is the product in a very real way, and Gemini 3.1 Flash is a meaningful step up from what we were using before.

"Updating to gemini-3.1-flash-image and inworld-tts-2-flash"

The other fix was one of those tiny things that only matters when it's wrong: image scaling. The reference images passed between chapters for continuity were getting distorted, and a 15-line fix in the image service sorted it out. It's the kind of bug you might not notice as a player — "huh, that character looks a little squished" — but fixing it makes everything feel more cohesive.

I should mention that Infinite Scribe has been live and in players' hands since the start of the year, so updates at this stage are more about refinement than revolution. The game's core loop — write your story, make choices, watch it unfold with AI-generated illustrations and audio — is solid. These model upgrades and polish fixes are about making that loop feel better every time someone opens the app.

Beyond the model refresh, I've also been putting work into tablet support ahead of the upcoming Sask Retro Game Con. I'll have some table space alongside other game studios in the province and a bit of time to present to the crowd, so making sure Infinite Scribe looks good on larger screens has been a priority. Nothing kills a demo faster than an app that only works in portrait on a phone when you're trying to show it off on a tablet.

Headline Harmonies

Headline Harmonies also got some love this week, and for the same reason — Sask Retro Game Con prep. I fixed a handful of layout issues that were making the game feel cramped on tablets, tightening up the UI so it breathes better on bigger screens. It's the kind of work that doesn't make for dramatic commit messages but makes a huge difference when someone's holding the game at a booth.

For those who haven't been following along, Headline Harmonies is our daily news-meets-music game hosted by Harvey the Hyena — you get a real headline, you pick a song style, and Harvey turns it into a full musical performance with AI-generated vocals and instrumentation. It's been live and building a player base for a while now, and I'm excited to get it in front of people in person at the con. There's something about watching someone's face when Harvey delivers a perfectly absurd musical take on a real news story that just doesn't translate through screenshots.

The Rest of the Lineup

Doodle Doo and ShutterClash were both quiet this week — no commits. Doodle Doo is a live game with active players; ShutterClash has been in a maintenance-while-reviewing phase, with occasional iOS bug fixes trickling in from app review feedback (lots of issues on smaller screens). A quiet repo doesn't mean nothing's happening — it just means this particular week belonged to the courtroom (and a bit of last-minute convention prep).

It's honestly energizing to look back at a week like this. Special Bylaw Unit went from "can you pick a jury and start a trial" to "can you play a complete trial from opening statements to verdict" in a single sprint. That's the kind of progress that makes you excited to open your laptop in the morning. I hope to have a build worth sharing soon — the core loop is there now, and it's just a matter of polish, testing, and making those animal jurors as entertaining as they deserve to be.

And with Sask Retro Game Con on the horizon, I've been sprucing up Infinite Scribe and Headline Harmonies for their first real public showing. If you're in Saskatchewan, come say hi at the booth — I'd love to see what y'all think of Harvey and the crew in person.

Have a good week!