Welcome to Azthengar

Happy Good Friday to all of you fine folks out there. I’m not particularly religious, but I won’t complain about a three-day weekend. Honestly, it came at the right time.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. The kind of thinking that creeps in when things just don’t feel right anymore. I hate my job. I really do. And I’ve been looking for something else, something that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve settled for less than I’m capable of. It’s hard to stay motivated when you’re surrounded by people who treat quality like it’s an inconvenience, like taking the time to do things properly somehow gets in the way of profit. And when that mindset blows up in their faces, they turn around and play the victim, as if they had it right all along.

It’s frustrating. It’s exhausting. And more than anything, it’s something I just don’t want to be associated with. I think you probably understand what I mean.

But in the middle of all that noise, I’ve had something else to focus on.

Azthengar.

I’ve been at home, running episodes of Code Monkeys on repeat, completely locked in, just building. There’s something about that show that hits perfectly if you’re into programming, retro games, or just that old-school vibe. It feels like it belongs in the same world I’m trying to create. For those hours, everything else fades out. It’s just me, the code, and the game.

Earlier, it was snowing. For a moment, it felt like one of those perfect coding days. Quiet, isolated, almost timeless. Then it stopped, just like that. Kind of fitting, really.

Because nothing seems to stay still for long.

That said, I’ve been pushing Azthengar forward like it’s the only thing that matters. And in those moments, it kind of is. No one’s played it yet except me, but that’s going to change. I do plan on putting it up on itch.io at some point. Let it out into the world and see what happens.

Lately, I’ve been working on something that I find strangely fascinating: history.

Not just basic stats, but something deeper. A full record of the player’s journey. Every fall, every decision, every moment that led to the end of a run. When the player dies, it doesn’t just reset. It gets remembered. Logged. Preserved. Almost like the game itself is keeping a chronicle of every soul that enters and fails.

I’ve always loved that idea. The way chess games record every move, every turn, every decision. There’s something powerful about being able to look back and see the exact path that led to an outcome. I want Azthengar to have that same feeling. A legacy document that grows over time, filled with stories, not just numbers.

At some point, I’d even love to push it further. Maybe something like Doom, where gameplay can be recorded and replayed. Entire runs preserved like artifacts. I don’t know if it’ll fully come together yet, but it’s one of those ideas that sticks with you. The kind you have to at least try.

I also spent time building out endless mode.

Now you might be wondering why a game like this even needs one. But to me, it makes perfect sense. The first fifty floors, that’s the journey. That’s the structured experience. You fight your way through enemies, manage your resources, keep a constant eye on that food meter, which, honestly, might be the real enemy of the game. No alarms. No flashing warnings. Just a quiet message telling you that hunger is creeping in.

And if you ignore it, that’s it.

That kind of design matters to me. Subtle. Unforgiving. Real.

But once you reach floor fifty and defeat King Azthengar, something changes. The world doesn’t just end. It shifts. It becomes unstable. The structure starts to break down, like the dungeon itself is unraveling now that its ruler is gone.

That’s where endless mode begins.

It’s not just harder. It’s different. It’s unpredictable. It feels less like a continuation and more like stepping into something entirely new. Almost like a hidden sequel living inside the same game.

That idea comes from the classics. Games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, where finishing the game didn’t mean you were done. You pressed a button, and suddenly you were playing something familiar, but altered. Sharper. Stranger.

And yeah, I’ll say it. Off the record, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is still one of the best in the series. I stand by that.

But the point is this: that feeling is gone in a lot of modern games. Everything feels overproduced, overpriced, overexplained. There’s no mystery left. No sense that the game might keep going without you, or that there’s something deeper hidden beneath the surface.

That’s what I want Azthengar to be.

A game that never really ends. A game that evolves. A game built by someone who taught themselves how to do this, piece by piece, mistake by mistake, until something real started to take shape.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about.

It’s about fun.

It’s about shutting out the noise of the outside world and stepping into something else, even if only for a little while. One save slot. One journey. An inventory, a dungeon, and a world that keeps going whether you’re ready for it or not.

That’s what a game should be.

At least, that’s how I see it.

Until we meet again, Azthengar awaits those brave enough to enter.