Aug-Oct '25 Dev Blog
Sorry it's been a while
So while my blog has been quietly waiting for me to write something, I have been swamped working on the game's progress.
Back at the end of August/ beginning of September, I went to PAX West (yay for 3 years running). In preparation based on last year's experience, I decided to create a mini trailer this time, in case anyone cared enough to see what I was doing during a conversation.
While I only showed that video to one person at the show, what it did for me, combined with what I saw in the indie area at PAX West, was kinda monumental. Because I could, for the first time, see the whole game instead of playing through it for the hundredth billionth time, I noticed some flaws. The biggest one was that the game lacked some life, and the second was that it wasn’t really consistent. The lack of consistency was really in the art style. While it all looked like it was made by one person, it didn’t have a consistent feel from one level to the next. This, of course, makes sense given that this is my first game and my first time doing art this way, so each level improved on the previous one, but as a result, the game felt kinda funky.
I had some discussions with my partner and even with ChatGPT to see if we could pinpoint areas for improvement and possibly areas where I might need additional study. Through this, I ended up taking two online courses, one of which was an introductory digital art course designed to better address some gaps in my digital (reminder: I am a traditional artist by trade). The second course was more specific, focusing on developing a feel for creating Ghibli-style backgrounds. This has been the aesthetic I've been going for the whole time, but I felt I wasn’t quite getting to the picture in my head.
Fast forward two courses and god knows how many hours redrawing every tile for all three levels I have so far, plus other miscellaneous items, and my game is now in a state where it looks really coherent and has a lot of life to it.
Here is a before and after of the forest level to show the difference this time has made:
