Welcome to Azthengar

Today at work I was busy doing what most of us do, living life and grinding through the day. I ended up working in an area that honestly felt like the corner of a dungeon. Burnt-out rubble, dim lighting, the kind of place you’d expect to find in one of those old eighties movies.

You know the one. The British couple trusting the government to protect them… and, well, it doesn’t exactly end well. Long story short, they die, and it’s bleak as hell. Not exactly something I’ll be rushing back to watch again.

But yeah, that was the vibe. And then there’s the job itself, just slowly draining the soul like usual. Nothing new there.

We’ve been dealing with issues on a new product, and whenever that happens, there’s always that moment where you quietly hope it’s not your fault. Because that’s not how I want to go out on the job. Apparently it’s just “a few small issues here and there,” but you know how that goes. It always rolls downhill eventually.

Still, setting all that aside…

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Azthengar.

Now that the foundation is in place, I’ve started adding structure to the world. Floors have identities. Enemies actually belong to the places they appear in. If you’re in the Bone Galleries, you’re not just fighting random enemies, you’re dealing with necromancers, skeletons, things that feel like they should exist there.

That’s when it clicked for me.

It’s the small details that make everything come alive.

Defining each floor, giving it personality, making the dungeon feel like a real place instead of just a series of rooms. That’s the difference between something that’s playable and something that sticks with you.

It also got me thinking about the past. A time before everything felt like a constant race. Funny enough, we call it the rat race, and rats are vermin… so maybe that says something about the whole thing. Some parts of society definitely feel that way.

And don’t even get me started on mimes.

But yeah, lately it’s been simple. I’ve been spending time at home with my family, working away on Azthengar, building it piece by piece into something I actually believe in. Back to the dungeon tomorrow. Same as always.

If you want to see what I mean, check out my latest video.