Hey everyone,

I’m Onon, the director and developer of Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale. For the past eight years, this game has been nearly my entire world. A dream that refused to let me go, even when there’re so many obstacles and struggles standing in my way.

It started as a personal trauma: The rejection of my mom. I used to constantly dream about yelling at her, but the voice can’t come out. And she never response.

I think that I’m probably not the only one with have similar feeling. I think everyone’s somehow had some different levels of trauma or toxic relationship with their parents.

So, I think I NEED to tell this story to everyone. But I don’t want to tell it directly which is too boring. What if a story looked like a sweet, cartoonish fairy tale but felt like a punch to the heart? What if you could explore the mind of a character literally, reading thoughts not as gimmicks, but as windows into deep, painful, human secrets?

That idea became Apopia.

The game follows two girls:

• Mai, a human girl who experienced an accident with her mom, falling down from a cliff, only to wake up in a strange bunny kingdom.
• Moly, a bunny princess fighting a civil war against a terrifying enemy BOSS

Their stories seem separate, a psychological drama and a fairy-tale adventure, but they are threads of the same rope. The game design carefully tied both storylines together into one ice-cream with two favors.

For eight years, my small team and I have built this world, wrote and rewrote these characters, and balanced a tone that’s both whimsical and devastating. I’ve cried at my desk more times than I can count, writing scenes that dug into my own fears about love, acceptance, and the parts of ourselves we try to hide.

And now… it’s finally done. The last line of code is written. The last emotional scene is voiced. It is now less than one month from our release.

And I am terrified.

Not just because it’s our first game, or because we know nothing about marketing. But because this story is so personal. I’m about to hand players a piece of my heart and say, “Here, see if this means something to you too.” So I’m coming to you for help. If the idea of a game that’s more than it seems, a “sugar-coated tale” with a bittersweet core speaks to you, please take a look.

I’ll be sharing more in the coming weeks: stories from development, the real crisis that almost killed the project, and why I still believe in this impossible dream.

But for now, I just wanted to say hello, and thank you for reading.

If you’re curious, you can wishlist Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale on Steam. And if you have any questions, I’m here.

Onward,

Onon

Director, Apopia