Production progress and small early updates. A casual entry-level support plan. (Patreon)

[Silver and Above] Last Year Was About Action; This Year Is About Walking Through the World

In last year’s demo version, my first priority was to properly shape the action elements.

Players could control the character, fight enemies, and check the feel of attacking, evading, and transforming. As development moved over to UE5, this demo was meant to answer the question: “Does it feel fun to move around and play as a game?”

Of course, there were still issues such as fine-tuning and performance load, but overall, I think the action portion reached a point I was mostly satisfied with.

On the other hand, what becomes necessary after that is not just the action itself.

It is the flow of the player walking through this world, discovering locations, heading toward a town, and then connecting into quests, conversations, and events.

That is exactly the part I’m focusing on this time.

Currently, I’m working on the level design for the forest area and the area around the town of Diaspora.

In particular, I’m focusing on the atmosphere of entering the town from the field, the feeling of the protagonist walking around the Diaspora area, and creating a natural flow that guides the player toward the next location.

Because I want to value an open-world-style experience, I don’t want to simply block off paths to force the player in a certain direction. Instead, I’m adjusting the terrain, scenery, and how locations appear so that players can be guided naturally.

I want to preserve the feeling of exploration while making sure the game doesn’t become too confusing.

I’m currently searching for that balance.

Last year, I mainly showed the experience of combat.

This year, I want to take one step forward and also build the time spent heading toward places where combat happens, as well as the atmosphere of arriving at a town, into the overall game experience.