Year 12 of the Cogmind

Here we go again! Yet Another Annual Review, the twelfth of its kind, wherein we highlight milestones from the past 12 months and maybe also catch a glimpse of the future of Cogmind. Unlike 2024 which was split between technical advancements and content work, this year was pure content as we continue diving deeper into our string of planned expansions.

To start off, here’s our usual visual collage of images shared in various places throughout the year:

Selection of images from the past year of Cogmind-related development as posted on this blog, Patreon, and social media (larger size here).

Development Time

Among my long-term internal graphs, of particular note this year is that I just barely broke the 20,000-hour mark on this project :P

Cumulative Cogmind development hours, 2013-2025.

That’s calculating from the start of full-time commercial development, so the summer of 2013, and excluding the pre-pre-alpha 7DRL months, and all the work on the engine in years prior to that, before I even knew I’d be making a 7DRL named “Cogmind” and eventually turning it into something way bigger…

Due to health issues, total hours recorded for 2025 alone were lower than the multi-year peak of last year, but still came in second among the past five years, and again retained the trend of relatively more work on the game itself than community-facing endeavors. In fact, as a subset of that game work, in my graphs I also noticed that for the first time since 2017 when Cogmind was released more widely via Steam, specifically the cumulative amount of coding work finally caught up to community hours:

Cogmind development time breakdown by category, 2013-2025.

The community side of things was focused almost entirely on the core player base via Discord, which is where I hang out most days helping folks, fielding issues, engaging in design discussion, or just staying up to date with the latest strategies and runs in progress.

There certainly hasn’t been much activity here on the blog compared to previous years, but instead I’ve been writing more on Patreon instead, in some cases content that would have been suitable to adapt for this blog but I never got around to it :P

I did do that Roguelike Radio interview back in August, and as it was near the start of my latest spate of health issues and didn’t come out all that great (or at least didn’t meet my own perhaps unreasonably high personal expectations xD), I ended up putting together an accompanying in-depth article to really do the topic justice! It was nonetheless nice to revisit the podcast after a decade, further driving home the fact that since my last appearance there I still haven’t moved on to another project, heh.

Anyway, while I would’ve preferred to be able to put even more time into every aspect of development, progress was still good in the area that matters most: more playable game :D

Releases

This year saw two major releases, finishing off one expansion and kick-starting another.

Beta 15 “0bPrime” added a significant new map, 100 new items, and Cogmind’s 10th unique ending concluding the UFD plot line. It was also known for removing free tracking by Extermination and Assault squads, a welcome change that has turned out quite nicely.

We are one.

That cycle having since been completed, the leaderboards for Beta 15 were archived and I analyzed player stats to share results here.

We are one also in our love of data.

More recently this year came Beta 16 “The Unchained,” introducing the first members of, and mechanics for, that long-anticipated subfaction. Much more to do on that front in coming updates, but initial results are good in that they’re producing quite a few interesting challenges and stories, and any issues in terms of balance or fairness are well on the path to being resolved as they’re fleshed out.

Who let the dogs out?

Unchained exist primarily for experienced players, but among other general improvements and new mechanics the release was also accessible to others with the addition of a large set of new achievements to facilitate and/or recognize interaction with the rest of the hundreds of hours of Cogmind content added in the years since the last batch.

A screenshot from Steam Replay, 2025, from Hermelin. They’ve been very active lately, sharing entertaining run after run, as long-time players have naturally used the opportunity to not only meet the Unchained challenge, but also catch up on all the new achievements.

The first batch of Unchained was smaller and less developed than I would have liked, but I also didn’t want to keep everyone waiting too long, and did want to put them out there for more people to play around with while the rest are under construction. Plus other new stuff was already lined up to play with, so it was worth getting that release out there and just plan to follow up with a minor release to add more (soon!).

Community

Those pesky new health issues have kept me from streaming for the past several months, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of streaming I want to be doing (both Cogmind and other roguelikes!). I imagine I’ll get back to it at some point, just not sure when, and for now can spend that time engrossed in content development anyway, so I guess it’s not all bad news :P

As far as getting my community Cogminding fix, I can at least do so vicariously through runs shared on Discord. And for anyone else seeking out streams in my absence, those are pretty much a daily occurrence among the frequent players, be it friendly backseating, crazy runs, or just random play.

I’ve also really enjoyed the huge amount of fan art that players continue to create. Going back through my previous announcements, or just browsing images in the Discord channels (including pins) you’ll find lots of cool stuff, but here are some more recent entries…

Derelict bots printed from Runia’s 3D models and painted, by chrome_knight. You may not easily recognize some of these variants ;)

Hyperstylized Cogmind themes, by ivelieu. (There are more, but spoilers, and these were compiled into a collage by me--they were created individually. You can find more on Discord, including these in their original form.)

Hypothetical Exiles FarCom link with 8R-AWN, by sergeooo (small secondary section spoilered for content). (sergeooo has put together a wide range of neat spoiler art and memes, some pinned in Discord)

Okay, not terribly spoiler but here’s another nice piece by sergeooo.

A particular doctor and friends, by plasmoidman, who has been doing a ton of concept bot drawings, often with some very interesting perspectives.

A printable sticker sheet made available by McSaucyNugget. (The sample above is a subset rearranged by me since the full set includes big spoilers, but you can find the proper version in the main #cogmind channel here if you’re interested.) Just so colorful!

Real Authentic Licensed Merchant Bot Salesman, by CaptainWinky. “Subscribe to BotBuddy Prime for regular ally dispatches. Regular as long as you have the credits, that is.” Or subscribe to CaptainWinky’s huge and always-growing fan lore thread.

The community has always had a lot of fun making memes as well, though I don’t normally share those since they’re often a bit too insider, esoteric, or spoiler anyway. But here’s quick selection of this year’s, from among many.

Various memes by aoemica, CaptainWinky, EPacifist, erkyperky, Jamba27, muesli, Runia, and sergeooo (open for larger size).

2026

As currently planned, the coming year will be full of content, content, and, yes, more content. Also maybe a surprise or two ;)

I’ve already covered the long-term roadmap in my Cogmind Vision 2025 announcement from last year. All that still stands, and you can see from reviewing it that we are currently partway through that process right now. You can also see that as 2025 comes to a close there’s still a lot left to do, because I have a habit of making everything many times bigger and better than necessary… Can’t help myself, it’s just too tempting to flesh out the world with more and more mechanics and lore, all while doing whatever it takes to maintain the right balance to keep it fun but challenging at the same time.

I promise the coming releases will blow your cog-mind.

Beta 16.1 will be out early next year, as it’s already reaching the tail end of development. Precisely when will depend on how long it remains in prerelease testing once it hits that phase, but shouldn’t take too long in that regard, due to its focus.

Beta 17 is coming in 2026, to be sure, as well as probably the beginning (but not the conclusion) to the Merchants expansion, which itself will be another game-changer that can impact your runs right from the start.

In between I’m sure Patrons will vote to add other stuff that injects some delays by adding content and features selected from my large ongoing list of optional possibilities.

Looking forward to more Cogmind in the new year :D

“You are just the droid I’m looking for.”