Devlog #2

The Demo Now Has an Ending

(Kind Of. In A Threatening Way.)

You can now win the demo battle.

Celebrate! Cheer! Relax!

Just kidding.

Because right when victory music starts playing and you think you’re safe… a massive troll appears out of the forest like it missed the memo.

He doesn’t attack. He doesn’t move. He just stands there.

Menacingly.

This is intentional. Definitely not because he would annihilate the party in one turn.

Boss Units Are Big

Like… Grid-Breaking Big

This was the week I learned an important lesson:

Grid-based games do not like it when you suddenly introduce something that takes up more than one tile.

A 2×2 unit sounds simple in theory. In practice, it means the pathfinding system, turn order, and half the UI all briefly stop believing in themselves.

Future maps with big units will be:

• More open

• Fewer chokepoints

• Less “why can’t I stand here?” energy

The troll is teaching me. Violently. In advance.

Performance Corner (AKA: The Engine Is Yelling)

At one point, Unreal politely informed me:

“Non-Nanite meshes are covering a large area of the shadow map.”

Translation: “I am doing my best. Please stop.”

This happens when:

• You place a forest

• Then place another forest

• Then decide the forest should also have opinions

Optimisation is coming. Right now we are in the “it runs, don’t touch it” phase.

UI Progress – It’s Starting to Feel Like a Real Game

The HUD now:

• Shows turn order clearly

• Updates hit chance and crit chance in real time

• Doesn’t explode when a new unit joins combat

Which is nice.

Watching the numbers update as you reposition units feels good. Dangerous, even. Like the game is daring you to take a risk.

Bug of the Week 🏆

This week’s award goes to:

“The game plays the victory stinger and immediately skips it because the camera wants to pan to the next unit.”

The solution was:

• Lock the camera

• Let the music finish

• Respect the moment

I am slowly teaching the game manners.

What’s Next

• Clean up lighting so daytime doesn’t look like mustard apocalypse

• Finish the demo flow (fade out, tease, exit gracefully)

• Decide how evil the troll should be later

• Start preparing this thing for the outside world 😬

And yes…

Packaging. Uploading. Steam.

No pressure.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for following the chaos. If you wishlist the game, just know you’re directly responsible for me staying awake another night fixing “just one more thing.”

More soon.