Remaining challenges and upcoming final levels news - Paramelancholia

Greetings all.

Now with most of the game mechanics in place, and level 8 (nearly) finished, the end of the game is coming into view. Largest challenges still lay ahead though, as levels 9 and 10 will be most technically complex and require some clever engine workarounds in order to bring into fruition the vision I have had from the very beginning. It is still uncertain how many compromises will have to be made, as I am still new to the engine and its nuances. Just as an example, knowing that certain features are off-limits for the WAD file format would have been useful to know before starting. There is a lot I would do different now, if starting again from scratch, but then again... I predicted this from the very start, and knew that only way to start developing was to start from somewhere blind, and figure out problems as they would arise.

From testing side of things, I have gone through early levels a good number of times by now, and iteratively honed map flow with small tweaks. Perhaps there are still some player guidance points that could be inserted, but I am leaving most of that for now in favour of general map detail, sounds/texture enhancement and enemy tweaks. It is no point going through the same things from my own same perspective, after all, as finding out new perspective through this singular one is, by definition, a foolish endeavour. As for the graphical side, there's always little things to improve, such as more fitting textures for walls and floors, or better suited lighting sources for ceilings. This, too, I do not worry too much, since there will be plenty of time to look at it again fresh, after having completed all the levels.

For final words I should mention that creating this game hasn't been easy, but of course I never expected it to be. Starting in the first place was only possible with pre-existing framework, but even with it, many small surprises and issues have been on the way which have taken annoyingly lot of time to solve - time that could have been better used in level detail, lore addition, or sound enhancement. Nevertheless, I am fairly content with what I've been able to put together so far, and even if it is a far cry from the original vision (as all my works always are - be it writing, visual arts, or now: video games), it all still brings the whole of this art-project closer to the objective world, into actualization from mere concept-space.

Thank you.