Author: Studio Ganzheit

Last month, various metrics for the game suddenly deteriorated, so I tried to avoid looking at anything as much as possible. Then, I went in to see if I should change the tags and was shocked. The ‘Parkour’ tag, which I had added to better describe the game, was banned by users. I thought it was parkour if it included wall jumps and wall running. However, it seems that parkour basically refers to a genre like racing, where you run quickly to a destination without falling or with a time limit, and because of this, users expect an absolutely seamless, smooth flow. So, for now, I have completely removed ‘parkour’ from the game description and tags. It made me wonder if this was the reason the numbers were like that. The game doesn’t seem to have anything particularly unusual, yet it’s in an ambiguous position to explain, so I struggled and tried using the word ‘Parkour’, but I didn’t expect this to happen.

After seeing the sudden drop in social media impressions last time, I felt I needed to come up with a solution, so I prepared a video to try something on a new social media platform and my existing YouTube channel. It is a gameplay video where I pick one area, show hidden things, and explain them. I have no idea how it will turn out because it is my first time making a slow-paced video with a larger context like this. Therefore, I first asked for opinions only from the community that has helped me the most. I don’t know how much interest and feedback they will give, but they are the community that has provided the most help so far.

Other than that, I am still working on the boss. Bosses really require a lot of work. And as I make them, it seems that every time I create a new boss, I often have to build many of the necessary functions from scratch instead of reusing existing ones. So it seems to take more time. I made the missiles the boss shoots and the ability to kick the missiles. For now, the video only shows the scene where the boss shoots. The kicking needs to be fully connected to the boss’s armor breaking.

I am working on a boss. Progress feels incredibly slow. It feels like I have almost reached the top of the mountain, but I am crawling up drained of energy.

The impressions on the social media I run have suddenly dropped by over 95% since last week. It seems the algorithm has changed, and since this is a repeat of what I experienced last year, I feel at a loss and frustrated. Without a clear guide or proper alternatives, the fact that I have to be unilaterally swayed by the system as a solo developer is deeply exhausting. For the time being, I will have to adjust my posting frequency or videos and look for other channel alternatives. I know it is a mountain I must accept and adapt to. After all, if there is a mountain, you must either climb it or go around it. But it is truly overwhelming at times.

The boss in the attached video is the final boss of ‘Threshold’. I plan to start with three patterns: shooting sword beams from the air, scattering missiles, and sweeping across the ground.

I have roughly finished the final area. I put a puzzle at the very end of the area, but I felt it was not quite right, so I removed it and am working on a boss. It is a waste to discard the puzzle I made, so I plan to move it to another location.

Below is the boss currently being modeled. It is a type that attacks while flying in the air, but looking at it after making it, it resembles a Chocobo, so it looks like it cannot fly. I will keep modifying it as I continue making it.

It takes me a long time to make a boss. I think it is because the modeling, animation, and behavior patterns are all exclusive to them. So originally, I was going to make two more bosses, but I thought about making only one more and tried filling the rest with a puzzle, but it did not work out in the end. After doing plenty of parkour and action, doing a puzzle right before the end like playing chess felt like a sudden mood breaker. I had put a lot of thought into making the puzzle, though.

I might need a lot of hard-surface mechanic modeling in the future, so I am spending some time doing it for practice and to set up a pipeline. If I keep practicing, the speed will become faster and the results will improve. Also, since it is an enemy that moves in the air, I am remaking its movement method in a slightly new way. It is because I think there will be occasions to use it in multiple places.

It has been a little over two years since I started development, and I do not think there was any wasted time as a result, but it is a bit regrettable that I spent slightly more time than I originally thought due to overambition. Only now do I realize it, but I did not know it at the time. I should do better next time.

It is the final of the final areas… but I still have not found the direction. It is truly the end, and I want to finish it quickly. For a week, I think I spent quite a lot of time modifying the wall-running mechanics during parkour. It was not gameplay feedback, but while pondering the feedback I received from a gameplay video, I saw a direction that matched the part that had been weighing on my mind, so I tried modifying it.

When reaching a wall through a wall jump, if the next jump was pre-input, it would immediately connect to the next jump, but otherwise, the character would stick to the wall for a moment. In this state, if there was no directional input for a certain amount of time, the character would slowly slide down and fall, and if there was directional input for a certain amount of time, it would start wall-running. The reason I put in this ‘input wait time before wall-running’ was to prevent unwanted wall-running. This was because it was quite disconcerting when I jumped to a wall and wanted to jump to the next wall, but wall-running proceeded due to the directional input I was maintaining. However, due to this wait time, the connectivity of doing consecutive smooth wall-runs or immediately transitioning to a wall-run after a jump was significantly reduced. At the same time, it was also difficult to wall-run at the desired time to avoid obstacles. These points had been weighing on my mind the whole time, and as feedback on the video post I uploaded this time, there were many comments saying that the delay from sticking to the wall until the wall-run was awkward.

Since it was already weighing on my mind, I wondered what to do and ended up putting in a dedicated wall-cling key entirely. On the gamepad, it was the LT button that I intended to use for a special attack, but I judged that if combat is used as a garnish anyway, it is reasonable to allocate an important input to parkour. As always, even if I judge it this way during development, I do not know what kind of complaints will come up once it is actually tested. Even if I have to see about that when the time comes, I thought it was reasonable to move in the direction that I consider right for now, so I proceeded. The controls have become slightly more difficult after acquiring wall-running, but it seems much better in that I can do it as intended, and because of that, I felt the degree of freedom has also increased.

I have completed the second to last section. I have wrapped it up as a first draft for now. I was able to proceed by quickly building and breaking almost all the background placements using the tools I have accumulated over time. Since I have roughly set up the basic gameplay, I will move on to the next stage for now and refine it during polishing.

When I started the current project, I set Brutalism and Mid-Century Modernism as the direction. Brutalism aside, I have been constantly agonizing over how to use Mid-Century Modernism, mainly approaching it through carpet patterns. However, now that I have reached the end, I feel like I have somewhat found the direction, so I am a bit worried about how far back I should take this to do additional work. Of course, I have no intention of extending the development period to apply this; I plan to do it during the polishing period after the alpha test.

To record a slightly deeper story and write a little about the design of the stage called the ‘threshold’: it is a stage designed based on nine letters left behind by a key NPC in the game. This NPC spent about 2 months in real time, which translates to about 160,000 years in the virtual world called the ‘threshold’, building a security system called ‘Lotus one’ alone. (‘Threshold’ is a caching virtual space that runs about 1,000,000 times faster than reality.) I grouped the letters by threes and tried designing it so that their meaning could be seen in the level (probably), and I have now finished the stage for the second group. Actually, there is no strict need to do so, but since I am the type who cannot proceed without a story, theme, or meaning, I ended up starting it that way. Now, only the final stage themed around the final group of letters remains. I do not know how much I will end up completely overhauling during polishing, but looking at how I have fixed the game through feedback so far, I do not think there have been cases where the grand concept or design completely changed.

In the final stages of the threshold, there are no newly acquired abilities. Therefore, the progression mainly consists of solving spatial puzzles with mechanical demands, finding paths within the space, and using different applications of the existing suit programs, rather than the experience of connecting spaces with new abilities. This bothers me a bit, but I will try to modify this as well later while receiving feedback. Since it is the final part, I do not know how much feedback will come, but I will try as much as I can. I keep seeing the end approaching, so it is very exhausting, but I am happy indeed.

Another week has passed as I updated the demo and modified the existing stages. I integrated Game Analytics into the game to check where players drop off the most and am making modifications based on this. This feels somewhat like dissecting myself, making me feel a bit sad, but at the same time, feeling like it is something I absolutely must do. At least in my case, it is. It feels as if a 60% or 70% number is slapped onto a result created by immersing myself in the game world and agonizing over things like, ‘What meaning should it have to place this object in this spot?’, ‘What do I have to do to make them look over there from here?’, and ‘I should probably say something around here in the flow.’ It is like the feeling of a cow I raised with affection turning into a product with its weight in grams and a label attached at a butcher shop. Yet, in my case, a developer cannot make their game if they do not attach affection to it.

Below are the movie posters I put in the theater area of the game. I wanted to include posters that hint at my favorite movies so that users who like movies could see them and try to guess them, but… While wondering if it is right to spend hours agonizing over a single poster used as a prop that might be seen for maybe 0.5 seconds as players pass by… I spent a whopping 4 days making the posters. I wonder if I am doing the right thing. I will just move on by saying that I love movies so much that I allowed myself this kind of romance just for the movie posters. A week has passed while doing other things after only preparing to work on the second stage of the final section. They are things that have to be done at some point anyway, but it feels like when you have to study for an exam, a book you don’t normally read seems interesting. It is a little uncomfortable, but the end is still in sight.

I have finished the first of the three final stages in the threshold. Clearing one of the final three stages opens an important gate one by one, and in the process, reveals important parts of the story little by little. I am making the final stage, but I have absolutely no idea what the difficulty level is like. I have no idea if it is okay to provide no hints at all, if I should provide them, or to what extent I should provide them. I have no idea whether it is difficult or easy either. Since it is the final stage, I am just trying to make it as difficult as possible for now, while trying to follow the rules below as much as possible.

• Minimize state puzzles involving multiple on/off switches. Even if included, use only one switch.
• Avoid jumping matched to timing. (Timing-based play is completely nullified by bulletwalk anyway.)
• Keep physical requirements to a minimum.

I will just build it first and try fixing it during testing. It has been 2 years since I started the current project, and I think I am slowly getting a bit exhausted. Perhaps I am getting tired as I age. I want to finish the remaining two stages and 2 bosses by June and quickly enter alpha testing.

Another week has nearly flown by while I was tweaking the demo build and fixing bugs I had missed. Still, towards the weekend, I was able to resume work on the last stage of the threshold, which I had intended to start a month ago. While reality focuses on Brutalism and Mid-Century Modernism, for the threshold, I am trying to create a vibe inspired by Brutalism combined with 70s abstract art and art galleries. I liked the sunset at the end of the clip—specifically, the way it reflects on the sea—though I am not sure why. While searching for 70s abstract art, I discovered “Dansaekhwa,” a form of Korean monochrome painting from that era. It seemed very similar to the feeling I am trying to achieve. I have no idea how I ended up here. It might be because things I saw before I even became self-aware were imprinted on my mind.

It would be easy for people to say, “Not another box game,” but I am not just mindlessly placing things; I am putting a lot of thought into every detail to create a specific atmosphere. I am not sure if it is worth it though. It is difficult. That is why I was so impressed when I looked at Marathon recently. Their design seems to walk a thin line where it could easily look terrible, but they pull it off perfectly. I think that is an incredibly hard thing to do. Also, as I might have mentioned before, their cinematic short is so good that I have lost count of how many times I have watched it. I never get tired of it.

Perhaps because it is the final stage, or for some other reason, progress is incredibly slow. Aside from the demo build updates, the pace is just not there. It was not like this when I was working on the reality stages. Maybe it is the pressure of having to make the final stage both difficult and ingenious. Anyway, I am not really sure. Meanwhile, time is passing by incredibly fast.

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.

A week has flown by as I’ve been busy fixing the demo based on feedback and tinkering with various things. Since I didn’t create anything new this week, I just posted a few small updates, but frustratingly, it looks like this post is on track to more than double the view count of the trailer I stayed up two nights to make. It seems like there’s a specific kind of video that people prefer. I’m sure streamers have studied those rules extensively, but since that’s not my field, I have no idea. So far, all I’ve learned is: 1) The screen needs to be bright. 2) Cuts should be within 2-3 seconds. 3) If I like it, people usually aren’t interested. 4) Satisfying 1, 2, and 3 doesn’t necessarily mean people will like it. That’s about it.

I had been using 3ds Max 2019, but I accidentally updated Autodesk Access. Because of that, I spent days installing and uninstalling versions from 2023 to 2025 until I finally got it working again with help from Autodesk support. However, since moving to 2023, the software crashes constantly when exporting or opening old files. It’s incredibly stressful. I was barely managing to push through, but today, a character mesh simply wouldn’t export. After struggling all day, I ended up filing another support request. It is truly miserable when time is wasted like this.

I need to finish the final stage quickly, wrap up the story events, and finish two bosses. I want to complete the Alpha stage by June, but things just aren’t going my way. I barely managed to switch into “marketing mode” to make videos and post content, and then into “analysis mode” to gather feedback and fix drop-off points from GA, but now I can’t seem to switch back to “writer mode.” I’ve tried watching Pluribus and the 480p Predator Badlands—both great and entertaining works, putting aside the fact that the resolution was a relic of the last century—but I still can’t get back into the zone. So I decided to just work on character lip-syncing and asked a friend to help fix the character’s facial rigging, but even the export for that is getting blocked now.

I had nothing new to report for the week, and I’m struggling because my ‘mode’ won’t switch. Yet, the post I uploaded half-heartedly while rubbing my sore shoulders is getting a better response than the trailer. It only makes me feel more hollow.