I spent a long time thinking about how to put together a new trailer, but ended up spending almost the entire week just fixing bugs. And even now, a lot of nasty old bugs are still hiding in the game. Also, I realized something frustrating: when I bake lightmaps by sublevel, it still saves the lightmaps of hidden maps. If you’re using Perforce, you can just re-sync and overwrite, but if not, you have to rebake the entire world, which is pretty inconvenient.
One thing I’ve realized while working alone is that making a game isn’t just about building the game itself—it’s also about observing and managing myself. I had suspected this for a while, but talking to ChatGPT made me recognize it more clearly: I was far more focused on maintaining systemic consistency than on what players would actually experience. This leads to three major problems, listed from least to most critical:
First, it makes me overly hesitant when adding anything. Even something as simple as putting a sign on a wall feels uncomfortable if I can’t fully justify why it’s there. The reality is, very few players would ever care about that level of logical depth, so I end up worrying about things that don’t really matter.
Second, I become blind to what actually affects players. Because I focus so much on consistency behind the scenes, I often overlook what’s truly important on the surface—without even realizing it.
Third—and the biggest issue—this obsession shrinks the space where players are free to explore and play. In trying to maintain airtight internal logic, I end up creating a playground where everything is rigid and predefined.
Even if there are a few silly gaps here and there, it’s better to patch them as needed, letting players experiment and mess around freely. I was silly not to see that earlier.
In that sense, even though the last update was incredibly difficult, it was a major turning point. I had already built the necessary systems, but to stay “logically consistent,” I had layered on all kinds of restrictions about what players could access and in what order. This time, I removed most of those limits, and the game’s freedom opened up dramatically. I haven’t gotten much feedback on this change yet, so I don’t know how players are feeling about it—but today, I received a post on the forums asking about save files. I didn’t even know how to respond—I was just so happy to get it.
Looking back, I realize a lot of the things I unconsciously pursued—like pitching to publishers in hopes of finding a producer—were really attempts to break free from the chains of consistency and logical perfection. I had always envied people who could think more flexibly and freely. Maybe, deep down, I was constantly searching for someone who could loosen or even break the chains—the chains of consistency and logical perfection—that bound me. But the idea that someone else could break them for me—that was the fantasy all along. At least now, I’m aware of those chains—and I’ve decided that the ones who can help me break free are the players themselves.