Studio Ganzheit

I also posted a dev video on DTF, the Russian community I mentioned two weeks ago, and for some reason, the reaction was once again better than the trailer. The impressions were about 8 to 9 times higher than my previous post, and I stayed up almost all night replying to comments.

More than that, something truly amazing happened. A user named Nikolai pointed out a few things; I was hesitant to ask for a video, so I just asked if he could explain in a bit more detail, but he surprisingly sent me a 45-minute gameplay video. Watching that video, I kept trying to mimic his movements and thought about what to fix, eventually narrowing it down to two specific points. The wall jumping had always felt a bit clunky, and I had been wanting to fix it for a while but couldn’t quite get a feel for where to start. After watching Nikolai’s video, I felt I had a general direction, and amazingly, a few hours later, Nikolai pointed out the exact two parts I had in mind. It wasn’t just a vague critique like “this is uncomfortable” or “clunky”; it was a specific opinion on which part needed to be fixed and how. Surprisingly, it perfectly matched what I had been thinking and what I ended up fixing. I had been a bit unsure while making the changes, but his feedback gave me the confidence to finalize them. Funnily enough, it was just one line of code and a single node added, but the controls feel much better than before (though this may vary from person to person). In my case, I felt a definite improvement. I always felt like the controls were a bit creaky, but this fix gave me a sense of certainty that, at the very least, they aren’t creaky anymore, and I was so happy.

There have been several major turning points in this game’s development driven by user feedback, and regardless of the actual scale of the fix, this felt like one of those turning points, which was truly thrilling. I was so glad that I asked Nikolai for permission to mention his name and the details on social media and my blog. For the record, Nikolai is an ID used only on DTF and is unrelated to his real name. Besides that, after seeing him get lost in the gameplay video, I added a bit more guidance, though I’m not sure how it will be received. Compared to when I first revealed the demo in April last year, the game has changed tremendously—into a form I couldn’t have even imagined back then.

Also, I’ve caught the slowdown bug that has haunted me for over a year. Around summer or fall last year, I discovered a UI-related bug and performed a major overhaul, which improved things a bit, but recently the slowdown bug had become serious again. Not knowing where to start, I began by checking video RAM usage, and eventually, the culprit turned out to be the FX. I had assumed that if I deactivated FX, they might take up memory but wouldn’t significantly impact performance, but apparently, that wasn’t the case. After cleaning up the deactivated FX that weren’t being used, the slowdown bug disappeared. Since these were static assets placed in the background, I handled it by setting the FX assets to nullptr, though I’m not sure if this is the “proper” way to do it. For now, it works well. I just pray no problems pop up later.

Looking at how the game has evolved until now, it seems very different from what I first conceived and intended. Personally, I feel that the core identity as a Metroidvania has remained unshaken, and I’m relieved that it seems to have strayed from my expectations in a good way. These changes didn’t come from my own head; they came entirely from the users. This is my first time making a game in this manner, and while it’s shocking, seeing the gaps being filled by users feels like watching rain fall on parched land—it is both joyful and thrilling.

It’s already been a month since I mentioned starting work on the final stage, yet I’ve spent the entire time doing other things. These were all tasks that absolutely had to be done anyway, and I feel a sense of satisfaction because the game has clearly improved. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder what on earth is going to emerge from this final stage after taking so much time to build up.