So, I was up late last night and then woke up crazy early this morning, and while I was unable to sleep I worked on adding some new enemies, a few new maps (the area known as the Garden of the Duchess of Mushrooms is almost done!) and just keep on plugging away. At first the new sections, I realized, where ramping up the difficulty too much. The new enemies had more complex patterns, so I had to scale it back, and have maybe one or two new enemies in an area, tops. Later areas I can place more in there, since it will be a gradual increase in complexity and difficulty, instead of just, heyyyy one easy enemy, two easy enemies, OMG WHAT THE HELL RUN RUN RUN OH NOES.

And this kind of difficulty ramping makes for a more natural gating, I think. The original Zelda used this really well- it felt like you could go anywhere you wanted! But, at what cost? You go to a place that's out of your abilities, you'll get murdered fast and sent back. I'm also using the old school Zelda/DW style of death- where if you die, when you continue you keep all of the items you've gained before you died, rather than just going to the last save point. This, I think, increases your interest in exploration. You get rewarded for trying out new areas, you might even get a really cool item before you were supposed to, and then when you die? You still have that really cool item.

I am happy with these new areas. I'll keep plugging away, and yup, this is definitely not going to be a super long game. But that's okay- there are going to be enough secrets that are not easy to get to, that I think players will come back after they beat it, just to see what I've hidden where. Including entire optional areas that only appear during certain moments of the game, glowing doors appearing in the fog at night...

Anyway, I'm really excited about all of this. It's been a ton of fun working on it, and I can't wait to share it with everyone.