Developer Diary #1 — Making Queer Chaos Feel Playable

This is the first in a series of developer and creator diaries for The Things Left Behind. Through these posts, we want to share honest insight into the creative process behind the game, the struggles, breakthroughs, frustrations, and moments of pride that shaped development along the way. Our goal is here is not only to document the journey, but also to give back to the community by sharing what we’ve learned, while uplifting and giving voice to the creative team behind the project.

This first diary comes from Lanxin, a team lead and developer on the project, reflecting on the development of “Harried” and the redesign of the Make Breakfast minigame. Lanxin is a cozy-game lover, kitchen experimenter, occasional dancer, and collector of cute little joys in everyday life.

I really love working on Harried (one of our level's names)—it's been such a rewarding experience.

When we first started talking about redesigning the Make Breakfast minigame, I was excited, but also nervous.

The moment I would say: when I first heard about redoing the Make Breakfast minigame with new development ideas (i love new ideas!), I was honestly overwhelmed. Could I really pull this off in just 1-2 weeks? It felt like a big challenge.

Once development started, the biggest hurdle appeared much earlier than I expected.

The hardest moment came early on when I was rebuilding the core breakfast mechanics. Something that should have worked just... didn't. I spent the entire day stuck on this bug, going through the code over and over, testing different approaches, copying the old script. It was frustrating, but when I finally figured it out, it felt amazing—like everything suddenly made sense.

As the systems became more complicated, the real challenge became making all the distractions interact naturally with each other.

Adding the distractions like the spills, ants, and phone notifications turned out to be way more complex than I expected. Each one needed its own clear logic, but the real challenge was making them work together. For example, with spills, I had to figure out: what happens if you're already holding food when a spill appears? Can you still place it, or are you stuck? I realized I needed to block picking up new items during a spill but still allow placing what you're already holding. That small distinction was the breakthrough.

Once those systems were working individually, I wanted the gameplay to feel more dynamic and chaotic in a controlled way.

Then I made it so distractions could appear at the same time—spills and ants happening together, forcing players to prioritize. I added visual highlights for the paper towel during spills and the fly swatter when ants appeared, giving players visual cues without making it too easy. The whole system needed to feel chaotic but fair—if you're quick, you can avoid distractions entirely, but if you're not, things pile up fast.

Looking back now, the experience became one of the most rewarding parts of development for me.

What started as an overwhelming two-week sprint became one of my favorite parts of the project. Figuring out how to make controlled chaos feel fun was incredibly satisfying.