Hello humans! This is PlayerXT, and today is another filler episode of the "a very crazy developer" series, or in other words...

◇ Day 17 of demo 4 production ◇

Okay, no fuss!!!!! Engine? Check. Lo-fi 8,000 hours? More than check. Functional brain? As much as possible. So let's get this cutscene over with!!!!!

Okay, in the meantime, how about we talk about something else?

Ummnn... Ah! I know, I'll talk about the hubworld after all, demo 3 can't have a devlog, so it's only fair!

The hubworld is nothing more, nothing less, than the result of several crazy ideas and a combination of coincidences (what a surprise coming from me, right?) But let's take it one step at a time.

Initially, the Hubworld... wasn't a hubworld, but an afterlife zone? At the time, I wanted to do something unique with the game's death system, beyond the classic "die, return to the checkpoint," so I came up with the idea of a kind of zone outside of time and space. Every time the player died, they would go to this zone and have to overcome a short obstacle course to return to the normal game. There would be several stages in these zones that would be randomly selected when the player died. A cool idea... until you remember the pacing... Yeah, oddly enough, players don't like being taken out of the main campaign to face a random challenge every time they die, especially when the game, specifically, is a platformer where you die from 1 hit. It's funny how players behave, isn't it?

In short, the idea was scrapped... or maybe not...

A few months later, I started to face a dilemma: there was no way to replay previous stages of the game without having to replay the entire campaign!

"No problem," I said innocently, "Just make a menu to choose levels and that's it!"

So, I made the menu... and... it was so boring... like, it didn't fit the game's style.

So, I tried making a top-down map with Willy being able to explore areas and stuff, like the classic Legend of Zelda games, but without the depth and inventory (and creativity). However... it seemed so disjointed? One minute I'm jumping and running through various levels, then I enter the map and... I walk around... that's it...

In short, I wasn't satisfied with anything! Until, while analyzing the discarded levels, I found this death zone and tested it, and that's when the idea came...

"What if the death zone was an infinite space where the player could choose levels? What if the pieces of each area floated together, creating little islands? What if they also involved challenges and a variety of things to explore?"

(Don't ask me how I arrived at these thoughts.)

And that's when the idea for Hubworld came about. 

Once everything was ready, the screenwriter began to ponder the following dilemma...

WHAT'S THE LOGIC OF THIS?!?!

And then came one of the ideas I consider the most creative I... I mean, he's ever had: Hubworld is fragmented and illogical... because it represents... a mind... that is, memories...

How? Where? Why?

Oh, I'll let you figure it out, but you can be sure that this not only solved the problem of the levels but also the game's pacing. While the main companion is pure action and adventure, Hubworld is a calm and peaceful place, where, like Willy, you reflect on your journey, trying to understand the universe around you.

In other words, Hubworld solved the problem of levels and pacing, deepened Willy's characterization, increased the game's longevity, expanded the exploration aspect of the game, expanded the player's sense of progression, and brought one of my favorite characters, Juploop!

But enough, or I'll give away spoilers!

Back to the cutscenes...

(18373661723 hours later)

I did it...

The cutscene is ready...

I did iteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to explain in detail the things I learned from making this cutscene, but, nheeeee... leave it for another day. For today, I'm just going to do everything except develop a game.

So, bye-bye!

[Imagine me sitting in a chair on the beach]

Yeah, I'm too lazy to make a visual representation of this, but thank goodness you have the power of imagination, right?

...

right?