A store page for the prequel to a free horror game that a solo developer spent 8 years completing has gone live on Steam.

The game is titled The Aquarium does not dance: The Idol Who Wants to Die. It is a prequel to The Aquarium does not dance, which was released for free on Steam in February 2024. Japanese gaming media reported the store page’s debut between August 1 and 2, Japan time (August 1 in North America in both cases).

The protagonist is Hikaru, a failed idol. Hikaru visits Bianca Aquarium hoping to have her wish to die without suffering granted. The game depicts the 24 hours before Hikaru leaves this world.

At the aquarium, Hikaru meets another character, Holo. Holo is actually a cleaner wrasse who claims to be “the self-proclaimed cutest maid in the world.” Holo performs a ritual known as “the Dirge of the Abysmal.” The story is set in motion when the ring with the blue stone, essential to that ritual, turns out to have been swapped for a fake.

Players must explore the aquarium and solve puzzles scattered throughout it to progress. While exploring, they can be attacked — and even killed — by grotesque entities known as “Creepies.”

The game is being developed by daidai. The original game was a horror adventure made with RPG Maker; development began with a team of 5, but daidai ultimately carried it on alone, taking 8 years to complete, according to multiple Japanese media outlets. However, whether daidai is developing this prequel alone as well could not be confirmed from the sources used for this article.

The original game has won awards at events in Japan. The Aquarium does not dance Special Edition, its complete edition, placed second in both the overall ranking and the adventure category of 電撃インディー大賞2026 (a Japanese indie game award). The free version won the grand prize at “DREAMSCAPE#1,” an indie game exhibition event held in Osaka on April 26, 2024.

Currently, the only confirmed platform is PC (Steam), and the release date is yet to be announced. The store page does not mention a demo. The interface and subtitles support 5 languages — English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean — while full voice acting is Japanese only. The publisher is Frontier Works Inc., and a wishlist goal of 30,000 has been set.