“This Irreparably Damaged Our Reputation”: How One Game Recovered After Publishing a “Nightmare”

Last year, indie publisher Humble Games underwent what it described as a restructuring, a process that resulted in widespread layoffs and significant disruption to its publishing pipeline. Among the affected projects was Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, a hand-drawn platformer inspired by Japanese folklore and developed by Squid Shock Studios.

The game ultimately became the final title released by Humble Games’ in-house publishing team. For Squid Shock, a small independent studio releasing its first-ever game, the timing could not have been worse.

Despite those setbacks, Squid Shock has continued supporting the project. In November 2025, the studio released the free Tanuki Kabuki update, a substantial post-launch expansion that introduces new challenges, gameplay modifiers, and collectibles.

One of the update’s headline features is a Kabuki-style Boss Rush mode, where players fight a sequence of bosses in front of a reactive audience. The update also adds a new Gauntlet Mode, offering curated challenges with customizable difficulty options designed to extend the game’s post-completion experience.

Getting to this point required a rapid and difficult adjustment. Following Humble Games’ restructuring, Squid Shock was forced to assume responsibilities that had previously been handled by its publisher. According to creative director Chris Stair, the transition was sudden and deeply destabilizing.

Stair explained that the news arrived just days after the game’s launch. The studio was attending BitSummit in Kyoto, celebrating its debut title and engaging with the development community, when the restructuring occurred. What had been a career-defining moment quickly turned into uncertainty about the studio’s future.

Beyond the emotional impact, the loss of publisher support had immediate practical consequences. Squid Shock suddenly had to manage marketing, press outreach, storefront coordination, quality assurance, localization fixes, and community engagement internally, all while continuing development.

The most severe challenge, however, involved console support. Humble Games had acted as an intermediary between Squid Shock and platform holders such as Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. When that relationship disappeared, so did the studio’s ability to deploy timely console patches.

As a result, known bugs and performance issues—particularly on Xbox—remained unresolved for months. Stair noted that seeing player feedback while being unable to respond meaningfully was one of the most frustrating aspects of the situation, and he believes it caused lasting damage to the game’s reputation on certain platforms.

Commercially, Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus achieved moderate success but fell short of internal expectations. While it is impossible to definitively measure how much the publisher’s restructuring impacted sales, Stair acknowledged that the disruption limited the studio’s ability to properly support the game during its most critical launch window.

Despite the outcome, Squid Shock maintains that its working relationship with Humble Games prior to the restructuring was positive. Stair emphasized that the publisher provided extensive development support, including quality assurance, localization, production planning, and platform coordination—resources that are often underestimated but crucial for indie success.

The experience reinforced for the studio just how much infrastructure publishers provide beyond funding alone, especially in an increasingly crowded and competitive market.

Squid Shock has since partnered with Good Games Group, a publishing collective formed by former Humble Games staff. Meanwhile, development and post-launch support for Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus continues, with the Tanuki Kabuki update representing a major step forward after an unusually turbulent launch period.