Author: Studio Ganzheit

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.

I’ve managed to finish the trailer somehow. It was truly difficult to start working on it because I couldn’t switch modes, and now that it’s finished, uploaded, and I’ve replied to comments, it’s hard to get back to my original work.

While making the trailer, I kept the feedback from the previous one in mind. It felt like I had to make the tempo a bit more breathless than my usual rhythm or feel for people not to get bored. Maybe that means I’m getting old. Since I need music to make a trailer, I started with the music first. I re-edited and used a track that I hadn’t utilized well in the past due to a lack of experience. I bought vocal stems from Loop Master and layered music over them; perhaps because the vocals were simple and in a major key, this was the hardest music I’ve ever made. Still, I had so much fun that I stayed up all night. Among programming, planning, graphics, and music, music feels the closest to pure joy, regardless of the outcome. Storytelling is also very thrilling and fun, but staring at a blank document in the editor is incredibly painful. Music isn’t like that. It’s just pure fun.

After making the music, I spent about half a day just pondering what scenes would fit. In the end, I decided to show some challenging gameplay from the point where the music shifts, and show a summary of early gameplay before that, and then I pieced the B-Roll together. It was just a matter of capturing early gameplay a couple of times and picking them out in order, so editing was easy and choosing B-Roll didn’t take as much time as before. I had my doubts about this approach, but I was exhausted from staying up all night, so I just went ahead and uploaded it. I was happy with how the music and trailer turned out, so I hoped it would be well-received, but the reaction wasn’t quite what I’d expected. I think I just got my hopes up for nothing. Even after experiencing throughout my life that expectation is the root of all evil, I still haven’t been able to let it go.

I also posted in a Russian community for the first time. Since the Russian-speaking world shows the most interest in the game after the English-speaking world, even though I know nothing about Russian, I’m studying the Cyrillic alphabet and reading it slowly. That’s how I learned “соло разработчик” (solo developer). It felt like the kind of difficulty I experienced when trying to move from 3ds Max to Blender (though I never actually managed to make the switch). When I first saw Cyrillic, the existing alphabet kept interfering and it was very confusing, but I think repetition is the only answer. I don’t know how effective posting in the Russian community will be, but I plan to work hard at it for a while.

I’m currently polishing the backgrounds. It’s comfortable and fun, but also agonizing; whenever I look at places like under the stairs or in recessed planters, my hands itch and my heart flutters because I want to make a hidden path. It’s like the feeling I had as a child, hiding in a wardrobe and imagining there’s a door in the back that opens to a large cave underground, and enjoying the thought of going down that cave. But I have to resist because I need to finish and release it quickly. Sometimes the sky shows through an accidental gap in the background, and even then, the temptation is great. It feels so good to go out to an unexpected place and see the sky. I mean, I just want to add exactly one more hidden room.

I was extremely lucky to get a 43-inch 4K monitor for free. It feels like the best work environment I’ve ever had in my life. I love that I can use the editor and Visual Studio with plenty of space while keeping the text at a comfortable size. I’m also glad the lack of monitor space that frustrated me while making FX is now resolved. And it was great to personally experience and fix UI bugs that only appear at resolutions higher than 1920. I’ve squashed all the bugs that were visible for now.

Besides the bugs, I’ve heavily updated the demo. I struggled and did my best to make the early-game UX more tense and engaging, but I’m not sure how players will perceive it. Since I had to generate demo builds, I ended up rebaking the lightmaps repeatedly. Right after mentioning that this is my best work environment yet, I found myself looking up PC parts and quotes because the lightmap baking took so long. I’d heard that RAM prices were insane, but they really are crazy. Between that and the current exchange rate, part prices are overwhelming. Even if it’s painful, I think I’ll have to stick with my current PC until my next project. Looking at a build with dream components tucked into a retro case with wood accents feels like Zalem from Gunnm. Just imagining how fast lightmaps would bake and how quickly builds would generate on that machine warms my heart.

Enough nonsense. I think the hardest part of solo development is switching modes. It was manageable to jump from level design to updating the demo when an idea struck me, but now that I have to work on the trailer and the Steam page update, I’ve suddenly hit a mental wall. Since it’s something that must be done, I’m writing this dev log while I try to shift my brain into that mode.

I watched Bugonia. I haven’t seen the original, but I found it enjoyable. The idea of delusional disorder spreading through head-butting was intriguing. Or perhaps it was already transmitted and only just manifested. Or maybe, it’s not a delusion at all.

They kept saying Cakewalk by BandLab was ending, and now it finally has. I assumed I’d have to pay no matter what and was comparing Sonar and Studio Pro, but fortunately, I can use Sonar for free for now. (You do have to wait 10 seconds at startup, though.) Aside from the UI design, I’m not really sure what’s changed in Sonar, nor do I know how long it will stay free. If all else fails, I might have to go back to Sonar X3, which I bought on Steam a very long time ago.

I am still working on the very late-game chambers. These are the deeper sections of the chamber I mentioned in the dev log three weeks ago, along with the adjacent chamber. While it is technically the second-to-last Reality chamber, the final one is dedicated to the boss fight, so this can be considered the final gameplay chamber of Reality in a practical sense.

As mentioned three weeks ago, that specific chamber was a space where the AIs commemorate how their super-ego is indebted to the labor of Indians; however, due to their schizophrenic symptoms, they have scribbled those phrases all over the walls. The monument built at the very bottom of this chamber—representing the lowest level of the AI’s unconsciousness and the absolute bottom of humanity’s physical reality—appears around the middle of the development video.

I used Chand Baori as the theme for this chamber but inverted it, which serves two purposes. First, I wanted it to symbolize the labor of countless people and the “original water” or the source of the super-ego. Second, obtaining the Air Dash suit program has completely changed the way players climb walls, necessitating the use of overhang structures.

Previously, climbing a high place required two walls in close proximity, but with Air Dash, a player can climb even a single wall. To prevent this and encourage new patterns of play, I am utilizing overhang structures to block simple “single-wall climbing,” forcing players to find their way through new logical methods. I hope that the difficulty will rise appropriately for a final stage by challenging both the way players move and the way they find their path.

I had hoped to finish this chamber today, but I spent the entire day fixing the demo, so I will have to complete it tomorrow. Whether it’s the early game or the late game, development never seems to get any easier.

After a sudden realization, I have made significant revisions to the game’s early-stage UX. Now, players will acquire the Wall Jump (C9 Leap) suit program right from the start.

Ever since my previous project, whenever I heard comparisons to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance or Ninja Gaiden, I had no choice but to repeatedly explain that my game is not a “spectacle fighter.” However, the thought suddenly struck me: if I want to clearly establish that this is a game about exploring various places using wall jumps, I must provide this ability at the very beginning. Rewards that were previously obtainable only through backtracking using the wall jump can now be acquired immediately. It should have been obvious that the most important feature of the game needs to be presented first, but perhaps I lacked the confidence until now. I had been struggling to define the game beyond the somewhat vague label of “3D Metroidvania,” but a clearer definition also came to me out of the blue.

I remembered playing the classic Tomb Raider games in my youth and how much I enjoyed them. I can’t recall exactly if it was up to the third or just the second entry, but I played them with incredible intensity. Even with the awkward camera and frustrating controls, I would stay up for days on end playing those games.

I’ve always loved the Metroidvania genre and wanted to try making one, so I built that characteristic structure in 3D. The flow involves solving puzzles within individual chambers to open shortcuts, connecting those chambers, gaining new abilities, and then using those abilities to access previously unreachable areas. However, the intent behind the chamber puzzles was not to demand high physical execution from the player, but rather to encourage them to analyze the space, figure out which skills to use to reach a destination, and then execute that plan. My goal was to allow for logical failure, but not failure due to a lack of physical dexterity. Because of this, the wall jump was originally restricted to specific locations, functioning almost like an automatic elevator. Following user feedback, I changed the wall jump to be usable anywhere, and that became a major turning point for the gameplay. The freedom to wall jump anywhere made the game much more flexible and fun.

I had been immersed in the “Metroidvania” label, describing the game vaguely as a “3D Metroidvania.” Now, I feel I can describe it as “Classic Tomb Raider + Metroidvania.” Looking back, the way action is used like seasoning feels similar, as does the way players must understand the logical structure of a space (e.g., using wall-running to connect two distant points) before applying a skill. I’m not sure if “Classic Tomb Raider + Metroidvania” is the definitive answer—especially since the protagonist’s actions differ—but I’m sure as I continue development, other inspirations will surface.

Regardless, I am heavily revising the demo and preparing a new trailer. I’m taking the feedback from the last trailer into account, adding footage of newly created sections, but I plan to completely remove all action sequences.
Action sequences were essentially a poisoned chalice when explaining my game; while they functioned as an effective hook, the more I showcased them, the more they misrepresented the game’s true essence. There are far too many people who insist it’s a Metal Gear Rising clone just because they see a character with white hair and a black bodysuit holding a sword.

In reality, the white hair reflects the immense hardships Kei has faced—alluding to the East Asian sentiment that one’s hair turns white after enduring great suffering. The use of a sword is also a tactical choice rooted in the lore of my previous game: rather than lugging around heavy anti-bot artillery, it is far more efficient to utilize a high-mobility suit paired with a blade made of metal that reacts to bot armor. Some even mistake the protagonist’s name for Maria, but regardless of these misconceptions, I am profoundly grateful for even this misplaced interest.

I’m planning to spend the next couple of days putting together a trailer that highlights the game’s identity as a parkour exploration game. I will also remove every single combat screenshot from the Steam assets and descriptions, replacing them with several parkour screenshots. I hope these efforts will help in accurately communicating the true identity of the game.

I am currently working on Chamber 420, the area where you obtain the Bulletwalk suit program. For now, I’m focusing on completing the main path. Although there is another route beneath the floor shown in the video, I’ve decided to come back to that later. I’ve introduced some new gimmicks, but I feel like I’ve spent far too much time in this specific area.

A key update to the mechanics: Bulletwalk now recharges when exposed to sunlight. In the current “Reality” setting, the sunlight is weak due to the falling snow, but being outdoors will still charge the program. Standing still speeds up the process significantly. In contrast, within the Threshold, where the sun never sets, the program recharges constantly.

To be honest, the concept wasn’t revolutionary, and even after building it, the result doesn’t feel like anything groundbreaking. Yet, the work has been surprisingly slow and draining. I thought I was well-acquainted with the reality that effort doesn’t always yield immediate results, but it’s still a difficult lesson to swallow.

Out of the five remaining Reality chambers, one is a boss chamber—where the boss design takes precedence over the environment—and the others are intended to be high-difficulty areas. They say it’s usually hard to make a game easy and easy to make it hard, but for some reason, this game stays difficult regardless of my intent. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m overreaching, so I’m considering locking three of these chambers for now and opening them at a later date. It feels more crucial to pour my remaining energy into the final climax chambers of the Threshold.