Interview: RAD – Repeat After Death Makes Your Last Run the Enemy

Hands-on at gamescom asia × Thailand Game Show 2025 (Bangkok): ‘RAD — Repeat After Death’ turns your past runs into your worst enemy

Fix Gaming Channel spoke with Derric about RAD — Repeat After Death, a 2D action-roguelike where your previous runs return as hostile echoes that mirror your moves. A free demo is live on Steam now, and the team is targeting a Q1 2026 launch. This interview came from our event coverage in Bangkok; more show-floor reporting is collected on our Gaming Events hub.

Official Trailer

Trailer courtesy of Exploding Soes.

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RAD — Repeat After Death

Release: Q1 2026 (Planned)

Genre: Action Roguelike, 2D Platformer

Developer / Publisher: Exploding Soes

Platforms: PC — Steam

Award: 1st runner up, Garena Game Jam 2023 (Indonesia) — per Steam.

Why it stood out

In quick hands-on play, the premise clicks instantly: you’re not just fighting enemies—you’re fighting yourself. Your last run becomes a ghost that repeats your moves and timings, forcing you to rethink routes, spacing, and risk. It’s a neat twist that lets players effectively set their own difficulty based on how they played before.

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Who are you, what’s the game, and your team?

Okay, my name is Derek, I’m from Exploding Zeus. We are currently making Repeat After Death. This game is an action-roguelike kind of game, platforming game, where you become your own enemy. So, yeah, you ever heard that sometimes the game will be much easier the more you become, because you become overpowered and you can just kill the enemy instead. But if you become your own enemy, it will be really suck. So, this kind of game will make you set your own difficulty by yourself.

 

How did the idea come together?

We come up with this idea from the Game Jam. So, this game is actually from the Game Jam, it’s on the Garena Game Jam before, at 2023. And actually this game concept is repeat. So, yeah, we extend this kind of repeat in this idea and then we just come up with this kind of, hey, how about we just repeat ourselves and I’ll be becoming the enemy of myself. Oh, oh, that’s great then. Yeah, here’s the game.

There’s a demo now—when do you expect to launch?

So, yeah, actually this demo is already on Steam. You can just download it and just play it. And if you are interested, you can just wishlist our game. And our plan is actually to release this game at Q1 2026. So, yeah, we will be catching up on the updates soon and we will reveal the actual date later. So, for now it’s Q1 2026.

Any spoilers?

Spoilers? No, not yet.

Is this your first Gamescom—or have you shown the game elsewhere?

So, for the Gamescom, this is my first time on Gamescom but if we’re talking about the event, we have visited several events before. We have visited IndieJam Malaysia in May this year and also we have been just this week, no, just this last week. We have three events, two from Indonesia. The first one is IGX, Indonesia Game Expo. And the other one is the IGD, Indonesia Game Developer Exchange. And we also visited Level Up KL in Malaysia during last week. So, yeah, we have been visiting the expo and we presented our game and everyone likes the game actually. This kind of concept is very unique.

How’s the Steam feedback so far?

So, because this game is still on demo, so this demo is actually still not very, the reach is not that big right now. But we believe this kind of things, if someone just like a big media or something like that, just hit up this game. Like us. Like, I don’t know, maybe yours. And also maybe like the big YouTuber platforms. It will be very helpful. Once people know about this game, I think they will keep talking about this game. Yeah, I believe it will be like that.

Summary

RAD — Repeat After Death is a 2D action-roguelike where your previous runs come back as hostile “ghosts,” forcing you to outthink your own habits. A free Steam demo is live now, and the team is targeting a Q1 2026 launch.

Wishlist on Steam
Play the free demo

A bit more about RAD

• Hook: Your last run replays as an enemy that mirrors your movement and timing, so the difficulty scales with how you played.
• Format: 2D platforming with action-roguelike runs; clear stages while managing spacing, routes, and “echo” paths from prior attempts.
• Origin: Started as a Garena Game Jam 2023 project; developed into a full title by Exploding Soes.
• Availability: Demo playable now; base page open for wishlists; target window Q1 2026.
• Event: Hands-on captured in Bangkok at gamescom asia × Thailand Game Show 2025.

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