11/16/2025

I’ve developed a “Ten Thousand Kicks” idea about Magic. One of my friends who plays at our weekly MTG night only has a handful of decks, and ultimately ends up playing the same deck many weeks in a row. This has caused his proficiency with his deck to increase quite a lot and now he threatens and gets wins because he’s so familiar with his deck. I’ve likened this to that Bruce Lee quote where I’m paraphrasing but effectively “fear the person who has trained one kick ten thousand times rather than the person who has trained ten thousand kicks once” or something christ I really butchered that. But you get the message. I could have just opened a new tab and googled that.

Anyways this recognition has spurred me to figure out which of my decks will be the one that I play every single week so I can get really good at it. Typically we only have time in a night for about two games of commander, sometimes three if we’re lucky. I have a lot of decks because I enjoy variety, and each of them is decently strong, but some of them are just kinda stupid (Krenko, as an example). So even though these decks are complete they don’t see a lot of play because they’re either boring to pilot/lack interaction in some capacity or they have a rather direct path to victory that gets easily thwarted by the time I fire it off.

One of my strongest decks is Niko:

Niko has a tendency to “win out of nowhere”. Basically I flicker Niko a whole bunch, making some permanents called Shards that can then turn into a creature. So I get about 8-12 shards out and then I turn them all into a crazy good creature that I just cast that turn and I swing out and win.

So my weekly group has started removing the creature I cast before I can turn my shards into it. I have to be constantly wary of counterspells and removal and have to hold up mana just to protect my board state. It slows me down and is annoying.

This is all to say this is one of those factors in choosing what deck to play every week! Niko is incredibly strong but has a kind of easily exploited weak point. I need something more resilient that I can make it to late game with.

Right now I’m thinking Magus Lucea Kane.

I need to rebuild this deck from the ground up and cannibalize a handful of other decks to do it, but this deck can be kind of explosive. I want to run it as kind of an X spellslinging deck, ideally untapping Kane a whole bunch and copying a direct damage spell to just kill all the other players on the spot. This deck will naturally run a decent amount of ramp to get my X spells to be large, but historically I’ve found card draw to be difficult. There’s a handful of X spells that do it, but you have to make sure that by the time you have the perfect X spell in hand (i.e. a lethal one) you have enough mana to cast it, and casting spells just to draw cards can make that tricky. I dunno tho, maybe this is a problem that can be solved with more ramp.

Anyways, interesting game. I’ve thrown a handful of the cards onto Moxfield to work on the deck and based on online retail prices for singles the deck has over $400 worth of cards in it, and that’s before lands. Interesting game, expensive game. Too expensive now tbh.

11/15/2025

Man I fucking love Magic the Gathering dude what a good game. But I gotta stop building decks at this point cause I play about once a week and that means on a good night 3 decks tops.

11/7/2025

Q&A

“What's your indie take on AI in the gaming industry? I mean Square Enix is planning on handling 70% of QA with AI models. Do you believe that's viable? Do you use AI yourself? greetings :3”

Generally speaking I have disdain for AI. I think art by definition has to be created by a human being because the process of creation is what makes it art. Telling someone or something what you want and then getting the finished product is not being an artist, it’s being a taskmaster. Of course this is more related to generative AI/vibe coding etc.

In terms of how Square Enix is going to use it, I’d certainly be curious to see how well it actually works. QA requires a lot of human creativity (i.e. “I wonder if I can break the game in this way”) that I don’t think AI will be able to replicate successfully. Like they might be able to catch the pretty obvious bugs but if those bugs are so obvious they need to be programming their games better off the rip.

11/6/2025

I’m going to have actual content to show in regards to the enemies real soon so hang on to your hats ya’ll. They’re really coming together nice at this point. I feel like I said this before and then it turned out they were bad. Such is the cycle.

11/2/2025

Rethinking enemies a bit for this game. Progress is being made.

10/22/2025

Getting the enemies right just continues to elude me man. Being honest with myself and essentially all of you, I think I keep trying to take shortcuts in search of an acceptable product when really I need to sit down and actually rig and animate some shit. The 3D workflow is brutally slow compared to 2D which is still a little bit hard to get used to. But I think it just requires more planning.

10/19/2025

Q&A

“How do you get inspiration for your games' style and story, like going from OTXO to Manus Dei they are totally different games from their style and story.”

I usually make the core gameplay first and then wrap it in some kind of aesthetic that matches it (or doesn’t get in the way). I tend to like stories that are relatively simple and with few characters and my games tend to reflect that. Manus Dei in particular is much more of a style piece than OTXO cause it doesn’t really have anything to say. OTXO does have something to say, which is “depression sucks”. I wouldn’t hire myself as a narrative designer.

10/17/2025

Game’s called Basilisk, it’s a survivor-like where you fly a train around in space and kill demons and interact with wizards. I dunno honestly, it got away from me. I’ll do a little writeup on the thought process soon but I stayed up too late playing Silent Hill f.

Check it out: https://lateralis.itch.io/basilisk

10/16/2025

Jam game done, will post in the discord tomorrow. I think it’s alright!

10/14/2025

We jammin’.

10/10/2025

Going to end up redoing my first enemy already, which is expected. I know I can do better with it so that’s what I’m going to spend next week doing. Then more polish and it should be something.

I’m tired though.

10/9/2025

Work on the game is going super smooth right now. I’m getting everything ready for a patreon playtest which should hopefully be soon. There’s a lot to polish up but I’m really pleased with the aesthetic direction.

10/7/2025

Today is my birthday.

10/1/2025

Q&A

“How many musical instruments can you play?”

I can play guitar and drums decently! I use synthesizers but I’m not the greatest keyboardist. I’m most comfortable with guitar though, and I play both electric and acoustic.

“If I wanna join your game studio and work alongside, how do I do that and what all skills would be a must.”

I won’t be working with anyone else for quite some time most likely, but I like your enthusiasm. Anyone that I eventually work with I would like to see that they themselves are kind of standalone and a go-getter. Like if you’ve released your own game I think that’s huge, and it shows that you’re willing to put your ass in the fire lmao. Making games especially standalone is quite the trial and anyone else who willingly put themselves through that I look at with a lot of respect. If you’re serious about this question, I would honestly tell you to pursue your own projects and work hard. I’m just some guy but I managed to do this shit, you know? I’m not especially good at programming or art or even music (honestly) but I just work my ass off until it’s done.

9/28/2025

Q&A

“Will future games be mod friendly?”

I will say probably never intentionally, but that’s not a slight towards modding or the community or anything like that, I’m just trying to be efficient in my game development and a lot of the tools I use tend to be difficult to mod, so any modding that the game would have would have to be completely designed and implemented by myself. And while I recognize that in many ways it would be cool I can’t justify the time spent to create, implement, bug test, and ultimately ship those features with my projects. Also economically for my continued career I have to keep producing new games until one of them wins the ol’ game dev lottery.

9/27/2025

Q&A

“Why Lateralis?”

When I was coming up with a name for myself as a chiptune artist back in the day I decided I wanted to use an image of a dog/wolf/canine for myself cause I like dogs. I was looking up some obscure scientific names for canines and came across this:

As you can see, one of the seven subspecies of Side-striped jackal is titled L. a lateralis, and I saw that and went “Welp that’s it”.

So now here I am, Lateralis. I like it because it’s not particularly stupid, I typically don’t have to have a bunch of numbers after it, and calling my game development studio Lateralis Heavy Industries sounds cool imo.

9/21/2025

Going forward (and retroactively) I’m going to put all questions in red so that they’re a bit more legible, I realize the white with bold isn’t necessarily enough to tell the difference sometimes.

As far as the project goes, I’m honestly really comfortable with it. I’ve got a track done for the combat gameplay which is rad, and I’ve got a lot of environmental detail stuff to go through and do next week. It feels like I can see the vision clearly.

9/19/2025

Q&A

“Have you always worked solo? If so, would you ever consider collaborative efforts or working for an indie studio? lybb”

I have, generally speaking, always worked solo. I have on the agenda a collaborative project but it’s incredibly distant and relies on some timing factors. So yeah I would absolutely consider collaborative efforts. I’m less keen on working for a studio because in a lot of ways that’s just… a job. The best and worst part about my work is truly having total control over it, so to get that in a studio environment I would have to start my own studio, which in turn seems to make “running a studio” your fulltime job. And I think that would probably blow. If anything as my projects increase in scale I’d probably hire some contract work.

9/18/2025

I’ve been absolutely busting ass with the game right now. That’s all. I’m excited to show something from the combat.

9/17/2025

I’m gonna be unable to finish for the Falling Block Jam, I haven’t even done anything!

9/14/2025

I’m trying to do the Falling Block Jam (LINK) and I ain’t got jack shit. No idea, no direction, no plan.

9/10/2025

Q&A

“Hey there, does your song Gore actually play in Manus Dei? If not, would you consider adding it? Really love the song”

It does lol, it just doesn’t play until you’re at the final boss fight. I made the game in 3 months! There’s a lot of bad decisions.

9/8/2025

Q&A

“The soundtrack of OTXO is one of the greatest game soundtracks of all time. Reminds me of Gesaffelstein and Ehiztaria is in particular a banger. Would it be okay for you, to share some about the technique you use, your process, technical stuff like what DAW you use, what inspires you? If you ever find the time I would watch tutorials how you make music. Keep up the good work, mate!”

Thanks! I use Reaper and a handful of generally free VSTs + Serum. I usually start with the drums and a bassline and go from there!

“Are you aware that someone has put your OTXO soundrtack on Youtube music under the name "RECURSION LABEL"? If not - they are riffing off your work, afaik. Thanks for the games, cheers.”

Yeah I am aware of this, I’ve put in a report with Youtube and ¯\(ツ)/¯. So that’s that I suppose. Honestly it seems like it’s a losing battle, it’s likely less an actual person as a malignant entity as it is just some automated bot that rips albums from elsewhere and repuploads them so the combined views net some dude somewhere a handful of cents. It’s annoying but people who actually want to listen to the soundtrack usually find it. I don’t need to scrape the few listens I get off appearing in a few random radio shuffles.

9/4/2025

Q&A

“I missed the Vinyl release for the OTXO soundtrack. Will there ever be a CD release, or a second press on vinyl?”

There are currently no plans for another physical release of the soundtrack. Burn a CD for yourself, send it to me, and I will bless it as an “official” CD.

8/27/2025

I really should have been just making a boomer shooter from the start and I think I was trying too hard to get away from it. I probably felt that I had already kinda “made my boomer shooter” with Manus Dei but that’s dumb. I like boomer shooters. They’re fun.

8/23/2025

Progress is already being made on Alkaline. The car has been totally converted into a hovercar now and I’ve completely reworked the driving system. Initially I was using an asset which was great but ultimately unwieldy. Now it’s my own code that I understand + it makes the car behave more “realistic” to how you would imagine a hovercar would work. It’s exciting.

8/20/2025

About a week ago I hit a significant snag with “the card game” that caused me to realize my core mechanical ideas were a bit poorly implemented and slightly misguided. My initial goal was to solve the deckbuilder ideal strategy of “card draw is best”, and I had the novel idea of using a blackjack adjacent mechanic for that. Once I deemed that was too boring I attempted to add a card-matching puzzle to the cards themselves, stacking a mechanic on top of the pre-existing blackjack mechanic. The game only ever produced mediocre results, and while it was interesting and I sunk a lot of time into it I don’t think the path I took with this one was the correct one. I’ll probably try again in the future, I think part of the issue was there was just so much randomness in the card draw because cards were typal (attack/defense/etc) as well as number based. When I try it again I’ll probably reduce the randomness element to just the number, and allow the player to assign the number to their preferred type that turn. I had the thought of using dice for this today which could be kind of neat (roll dice, assign dice to attack or defense or whatever, roll until you’re at or under 21), just have to make sure not to ape Dicey Dungeons. I worry about engagement a bit but rolling a dice and assigning it somewhere is inherently more interesting than “do i draw another card or do i not”.

Anyways I’m working on Alkaline again. My initial scope was moronic so I’ve brought it within reason, and I’ve made the Alkaline itself into a hovercar. The structure of the game, as currently planned, is basically car “platforming” sections, halted by outside-of-the-car boomer shooter sections. I’ve wanted a reason to put another boomer shooter out there because I don’t feel Manus Dei lived up to its full potential, plus I want to make loud guns again.

8/10/2025

Sometimes it feels like I get the most work done in these tiny little spurts of inspiration and energy. And then the rest of the time I’m sitting there figuring out how the fuck to solve the problems the game has.

8/5/2025

Vacation has brought clarity.

7/24/2025

I’m taking an 11 day vacation (big roadtrip) which I’m looking forward to because it’ll be nice to be away from the game a bit. I know there’s some problems still with the core of the game but I can’t really figure out exactly what they are. I think some aspects of the game don’t feel entirely right or could be improved on quite a bit. Hopefully some time away will grant me some clarity. Anyways, see ya in 11 days.

7/22/2025

Alright, new Patreon playtest is out. Lots of work went into this one.

7/20/2025

Q&A

“Hey there! Couldn't find a better way to reach you so this'll have to do. I was randomly recommended these "albums" on youtube and they're literally just the ost to OTXO. Since they were a topic channel I thought to look on spotify and they're also published there. Feel like I should report this to you so here's the spotify profile! It's the 2 albums with the red covers. - https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/artist/6Uv5HOxG8JtgSpgUonQhnf”

I’ve sent in a copyright strike through Spotify’s help service a while back so I’m just kinda waiting on that now. This is probably just a product of living in the age we live in ya know? Not much to do about it.

7/19/2025

Everything is coming together nicely now. There’s been massive changes to the game behind the scenes despite the game’s mechanical identity not really changing. If I can pull it off I’m thinking I’ll have music in the next playtest too.

7/18/2025

Q&A

“Hello Lateralis could you uncap the frames by any chance in OTXO my game doesnt really run smoothly i wish to play the game with uncapped frames since the game being locked at 60 frames only sucks and i feel like if the game is uncapped that it would be much better...”

I cannot uncap the game’s framerate. I built the whole game tied to Gamemaker’s step event, so it’s completely locked to 60 FPS as all the bullet travel, character/enemy movement, etc, moves based on frames. I would have to rebuild the game from the ground up. If it were as simple as just pressing the “uncap frames” button, I would have done it by now. I didn’t know any better at the time and I’d do it differently if I were to make the game today.

7/17/2025

Q&A

“First of all thanks for the absolutely wonderful game otxo and keeping the midnight animal dream alive by Yan. Secondly would you ever work in on future OTXO content possibly a DLC with new stages, levels, enemies, drinks, bosses, characters and some new exotic weapons. As a HLM fan, you made a game which was a dream come true and I'm still starving for more Stay well and thanks again”

I won’t make any dlc or further updates to OTXO. It is incredibly likely that I’ll make a spiritual successor to OTXO in some capacity (I like those kinds of games) but it probably won’t be top-down.

7/14/2025

Q&A

“Any indie games you got your eye on? (except for MWINYD and WE KILL MONSTERS, of course :3c)”

The sad answer is no, honestly. I even went through my Steam and looked but the reality is besides my friends’ games and my game I’m just not super aware of the community. Part of that I think is cause I left twitter but it really sucked ass over there (and engagement went out the window), so I’m following a lot less people on Bluesky. I’ve seen a lot of hubbub about FISH FEAR ME, Heather Flowers’ new game but I have not played it (it looks pretty hogwild), so I’m gonna say that’s the one I have my eye on. I should probably play it.

On a further note about games and my lack of exposure to them, it’s a huge bummer. But I also have to balance it with the reality of my life, like I can’t play a videogame that wastes my time for an extended amount of time because I don’t have the time for that. And a lot of games that get popularity are co-op titles (valid) but as someone who would also like an engaging/interesting single player game it sucks to either play a game not intended for it solo or be locked to the play sessions of my friends. And then I don’t know if this is just a me problem but I also find myself so tired of so many games. Like Nightreign is a completely fine game but I also have no desire to start it up because I’ve played almost every souls game + Elden Ring. Like why would I put away another 40 hours doing effectively the exact same thing I’ve already done? I want games that are interesting and exciting. At least Doom TDA did that last part right, maybe it wasn’t the most interesting game in the world but it was exciting and fun. And it had a campaign you could finish in about a week. What a treat man.

7/9/2025

Q&A

“is water wet”

I would say yes, I think if you were to touch water, your hand would become wet, by the existence of water being on your hand. So if water is the necessitating factor for something to be wet, water is all water, therefore water is wet.

7/6/2025

Look at these dingdongs.

7/3/2025

A lot has changed and I’m excited to feel like I have some control over the project again rather than nebulous question marks.

6/29/2025

I feel I’ve cracked the game’s identity a bit better, but also learned a very valuable lesson: there are certain things that I am good at doing. I was intentionally not doing those things. It’s probably an interesting exercise and obviously it’s what made me learn this lesson, but once I went back to doing what I’m good at it all immediately snapped into place.

Here’s beautiful Uncle Rico.

6/28/2025

Thanks for sending questions ya’ll I love seeing these pop up.

Q&A

“Is there a brand, IP or franchise you would be interested in HYPOTHETICALLY working with?”

Absolutely. Doom, Warhammer 40k, The Matrix is an easy top 3 I could see myself doing something with in this fantasy scenario, but fuck it I’ll throw in Magic the Gathering as well if they wanna do an OTXO Universes Beyond.

“Dear Nate, thank you so much for your work on OTXO. It was a blast, and I'm among the few (1%?) who cleared all Achievements. Took me 46h, of which I got immense enjoyment. Then, I researched OTXO and found your site, and realized this entire masterpiece was pretty much solo-made... Including the incredible music that I listen to every day in my Spotify playlist called "Slaps Hard". What you made is astonishing, I am in awe of how someone can be so talented; you make the world of gaming a better place, or the world overall, given how crucial creativity is. I'm a passionate, avid gamer at heart, who started at 3 years old on Ms Dos. I’ve always wanted to make games. Yet, I am also so stupid that I went into business studies and jobs; and nobody in my entourage has ever been into gaming or into development careers to guide me on that path early enough. So one thing led to another, I got into some random office jobs, became a head of deparment and team leader; and I'm now at a point in which I can't do these "bullshit jobs" any longer. I have interesting game concepts on paper, and I am learning Unity daily now to try and make my own, like you did (albeit yours might be Unreal?). It's gonna be super hard without any dev/design background, but games like Otxo and solo devs like you keep me hopeful. So, with this message, I just want to thank and congratulate you on your success. I can't wait for your next games. And, if you happen to have maybe 30 minutes to spare, I would like to invite you for an interview. You have not much to gain, as I'm a random marketing director in industries that can probably barely be helpful to you. But perhaps you'd like to share how you made Otxo possible, so that I can perhaps one day join the ranks of successful solo-devs who contribute to the gaming landscape with fun, unique ideas made passion-first. Cheers!”

Thanks for the nice message! I went to college and graduated with a “business and communications” degree, then worked a desk job for 3 years before I started trying my hand at game development. Honestly I hadn’t even really dabbled too much in game dev before that point either, but I was very serious about it so I locked in and made Dogworld. This is all to say that good ol’ saying about planting trees: the second best time to do it is today. So if you wanna swing for the fences, the first step is to start fuckin’ swinging.

“Hello there. Recently I noticed that OTXO tracks from the playlist of megaOmega were authored by a guy named RECURSION LABEL on Youtube Music. I also checked out Spotify and found RECURSION LABEL with loaded tracks from your game and the same names. Is that guy with you? I just won't give any money to this guy within monetization or something and wrote to you”

Bro do these fuckers ever quit AAAAH. I got a copyright strike sent to spotify so hopefully that gets taken down.

6/27/2025

The previous post was NOT correct.

6/22/2025

I’ve had a nice 4 day break from even thinking about the game and now my mind, body, heart, and soul are all fully replenished. Funny how that works. I’m feeling solid about the direction of the game, and honestly I’m getting excited to start adding more content.

6/17/2025

I’m hitting a “pushing builds for the patreon testers” pace of a new build every day, which is either really good or really bad.

6/15/2025

I’ve been busting my ass on the mechanical side of the game and I believe my lack of devotion to the aesthetic/fictional parts has kind of burnt me out. I’m hoping that going forward I can give more attention to the world-building. I think not only does the game need it (and was always intended to have it) but I also need it to get excited about the project again.

6/11/2025

Q&A

“Will you be making a sequel or similar game to Otxo maybe in color? I absolutely love this game. Probably one my all time favorite games! 🖤♥️”

I don’t plan on making a direct sequel to OTXO, but eventually I imagine I’ll make a spiritual successor (used loosely). Generally speaking OTXO is a fast paced action game and I think I’ve got some more of those in the tank.

6/4/2025

Faster = more fun. Don’t argue with me on this one.

6/2/2025

Q&A:

“I found a Youtube page with the OTXO soundtrack but it's unlabled. I was curious if someone had stolen your music and distributed it or something.”

Appreciate you finding this for me. I’ll see if I can fire off a copyright strike. This isn’t the first time this has happened and seems to just be a consequence of the internet world.

5/28/2025

Every time the game gets a little bit better I can’t help but wonder if it’s actually gotten a little bit worse. But that’s a problem for the playtesters now.

5/23/2025

Pleased to report my game has now entered the “not bad” zone.

5/21/2025

I believe I have learned something. If a player says that they don't use something in your game or they find themselves never selecting it or wanting to use it, the first appropriate thought should be whether or not you should cut it entirely. It's easy to fall into the trap of "well I added the thing, I just need to fix it so players like it" but in my experience it often just leads to inelegance and a bunch of shit tacked onto your game because you want it, NOT because it serves the game.

I have a larger philosophy that you have to be super self-aware to be an effective developer, which this fits into as well. Not self-aware in a social sense, but self-aware of what you're currently experiencing. This is a long way of saying that when you play your game, you have to be honest with yourself about what you're feeling and the way that you play. Example incoming.

My current project involves cards numbered 1 through 11, and though the higher number cards are "stronger", they decrease the player's consistency and often lead to accidental losses. A recent playtest note brought to my attention that players aren't typically comfortable choosing the higher cost cards. However, only later did I realize that when I play my own game, I don't choose those cards either! They aren't optimal, they aren't useful, and they make it harder to win. I think in the back of my mind I was thinking "well, some players will probably want to do this" but damnit I AM the player. If you have something in your game that you yourself wouldn't use to try and win, and consistently find yourself not using it, then what is it doing there? Who is it for?

5/19/2025

Alright I’ve got some changes being made here, hopefully in the right direction. There’s been a lot of carryover as the game has transitioned and there’s a lot of cleanup to these other aspects.

5/17/2025

The game is missing something.
I don’t know what it is.

The game is missing something.
I don’t know what it is.

5/14/2025

I think removing the card limit is probably the right move, I always knew it was a concession I made because I had to fit a certain amount of cards on screen. And I always knew it felt like an arbitrary restriction, which sucked. I’ve gotta go through and reupdate the artefacts to fit with not having a card limit but I’m pleased about this.

5/13/2025

Playtest is out. It’s only Tuesday and I’m pretty beat lmao but it’s out so now I will simply see what the thought is. I honestly feel good about this one. Every change has been an improvement so far.

5/7/2025

It’s all shaping up. Patreon playtest next week.

5/6/2025

I’m angling towards a playtest by the end of the week but I’m beginning to believe in what I’ve got here. There’s changes from a base level that increase the overall complexity (and player decision-making) that the game needed. In hindsight I think the issue was that the base gameplay wasn’t all that interesting. This is a lesson I already learned with OTXO: if the base gameplay is fun, anything else you add is just cherries. I think I forgot it here because I wasn’t sure “base gameplay” necessarily existed in a card game but I have since learned.

5/5/2025

I think I’m making a game that my mom might be able to play and I’m finding a certain happiness in that, plus the startling realization that I’m just old.

5/4/2025

Q&A:

“Do you deal with sampling a lot when making music? How do you search for/find the right sound?”

I actually don’t sample too much, most of everything is VSTs for certain instruments. I do sample a ton for sound effects though and the secret there is to just keep browsing freesound and stacking sounds until it’s loud af.

Just paying the cat tax today.

4/30/2025

I think I’m on the cusp of figuring this out.

Or I’m nowhere close. It feels like I’m wandering around with my eyes closed grabbing bits and pieces of the game but looking for that special something.

4/29/2025

Trying out some new complexity additions with the card stamps, I figured they could be other things besides just “position in the card order”. However I want a lot of the new additions to be things that deal with card order in some way, which I’m finding to be a little bit tricky. The stamps have to be complex enough to be interesting without overwhelming the player. It doesn’t help that half the ideas I have I can’t even implement because I wrote the stamp system in some sort of delirium.

4/28/2025

Alright, noted a couple things over the weekend. I still feel like the game is absolutely missing something, and I’m still unsure what. But I think maybe the direction is to provide more polish on top/more narrative moments for the player to feel each run as unique, which is a conclusion I had landed on a bit at the end of last week. I feel a certain lack of “depth” to the game currently but I don’t mean like mechanical depth necessarily. I think what I mean is I want the game to be a bit more all-consuming, so the player gets lost in the experience. Obviously better art and adding music will do some of that but I feel like on a purely gameplay level you should be able to be immersed: i.e. you are thinking only about the game; you’ve entered a flow state. I’m not sure what it is but it feels like whatever puzzle piece is missing it has to do with fully locking the player into the experience.

Q&A:

“Do you keep archives of the different builds you make during the production of your games ?”

Yeah, on the production side I use github just to keep everything backed up and have some version control, but then I will occasionally zip a full build exe of the game and just keep that somewhere. What I mainly try to do is not empty out my videos folder cause all the clips I record of the game in development sit in there and do a pretty good job of capturing the game’s transformation.

4/27/2025

Q&A:

“Any plans on lore of YAAW? You've been working hard on the gameplay, but any ideas for the surrounding stuff?”

Only the truly loosest stuff you can imagine. The initial conceit was you go into a dungeon to find a rare/powerful staff, and the dungeon is full of other wizards doing the same thing as you. Served to launch the gameplay but not really final plan material.

4/26/2025

It is the first day of the weekend and I’m already thinking about YAAW lmao. Put out a Patreon playtest yesterday that’s been well received so far.

4/25/2025

The game is still missing something but I find myself just genuinely unsure what that is. Ideally over the weekend here I can remove myself from the project a bit and come back with an open mind. The more I do game development the more I realize it’s all about how you treat and utilize your own brain. My body rests quite often: I sit at a desk while I work, I sleep. I take walks and such of course. But by comparison I’m ALWAYS thinking about the game and I have a tendency just to circle. That said it’s also fun to think about my game because I like the problem solving, which just makes the circling that much worse. Regardless I’m gonna take this weekend and make a conscious effort not to think about YAAW and come back to it fresh.

4/24/2025

Initial playtest reactions are good, and confirm what I thought: currently the game is the best it has ever been. The question is how to push it further. Obviously polish and such is gonna get it there but there’s gameplay aspects that could be refined.

4/22/2025

Next playtest for patreon members is going to be coming soon, at this point I’m just fixing up minor bugs and trying to apply a little bit of polish. The closer you are to a project the more you tend to lose sight of the big picture which is where I’m finding myself a bit currently, but I imagine the playtest will help lock some things in a bit as we find the fun.

4/21/2025

Something I realized about YAAW recently: overlimiting is ok. That’s part of the gamble. If a player dies to a gamble that they knew they were taking, they typically don’t get too pissed about it. Mark Rosewater (lead designer of Magic The Gathering) had a podcast talking about the mana system in Magic and how even though the mana system in Magic can basically screw you over randomly, it can also randomly screw over your opponent, which is to say, it can be random in your favor as well. The same applies in YAAW, the gamble gives the player hope, because even though they could over limit they could also cursebreak. I think I was hesitant for a long time to make the gambling aspect of the game so pronounced but it’s really the thing that makes it interesting.

4/20/2025

First entry on this thing, lets go.

Ain’t nothing down here!