I’ve registered an Instagram account too - so now, alongside TikTok and YouTube, I’ll be posting shorts there as well. There was a bit of a pause recently... but I’ve decided to start posting consistently again across all platforms.

I optimized tile interactions: now area-of-effect skills transform tiles across their entire radius... instead of just a single point like before. I also reworked the underlying logic - previously, collisions had to be placed only on the top layer, but now they can be applied anywhere.

Dodge behavior has been improved too: NPCs no longer dodge beyond the player’s vision range… and they won’t dodge outside the navigation mesh anymore.

I created the first puzzle - it’s located roughly a quarter... maybe a third of the way through the level. The idea is to infuse trees with energy from the character... and it has to be unique energy. Otherwise, the tree won’t accept it. In the future, I’m planning that if a tree already contains a certain type of energy... adding the same type again will actually reduce its value.

As a reward for the puzzle, you get a quest item. I’ve introduced loot into the game overall - although, like before, the inventory won’t be heavily used... mostly just for quest items.

I also had a friend test the game. Surprisingly, even without a proper tutorial - and despite me explaining things verbally - he managed to go through every object in the game. There were, of course, plenty of comments and bugs... which is expected. But considering I develop on Linux, and the game ran fine on his Windows machine - that’s already a good sign. And yeah, he easily passed the 10–15 minute gameplay target... even though the game currently has only about 30% of its content.