Studio Ganzheit

Still working on environments. Maybe halfway through, or a little past halfway. The pace has picked up a bit compared to before, but it’s exhausting. Not being able to hike or even take walks because it’s so hot outside is probably a big part of it. As completion gets closer, I get a bit scared and unhelpful thoughts keep surfacing, though I’ve gotten better at not indulging them compared to before. Back when I was in QA getting hammered with criticism and completely disoriented, maybe being too busy to think was actually easier. Still, the environments do seem to be slowly getting better, which feels good.

I’m placing as little as possible by hand — most of it goes through tools I’ve written. Laying down masses of cables on the floor, covering walls with computers, generating rooms, corridors, stairs — all done programmatically. Baseboards, door frames, repeating objects and columns, mesh walls are handled by tools too, though at this point I’m nervous about digging any deeper, so a lot of it ends up semi-automated. It bothers me that some decals are still being placed by hand, but this late in the project I’m hesitant to touch certain things. If I get to make another 3D metroidvania, I’d want to automate much more of this — make space design faster and easier so I can focus purely on the logical design.