Welcome to Azthengar

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, with steak and potatoes waiting on the dinner menu, I found myself thinking hard about the future identity of Azthengar.

After some much-needed reflection, I decided to move away from the whole BUILD identity and push the game toward a more serious version format. That is where AZTHENGAR v4.20.4.7 comes in. It feels cleaner, stronger, and more official. It makes the game sound less like a temporary test file and more like something real, something growing into its own name and legacy.

Along with that change, I also started exploring a new idea built around collecting five keys. The plan is simple in concept but exciting in practice. Once the player collects all five keys, they can unlock a secret door that transports them to a bonus stage. Instead of the keys just being another item in the player’s inventory, they become part of something bigger. They become a mystery, a goal, and a promise that the castle still has secrets buried inside it.

The idea was that any locked door could become the gateway once the player had gathered the required keys. The player would open the door, expecting the usual result, only to be pulled into another part of the game. That kind of surprise fits Azthengar perfectly. It makes the world feel unstable, cursed, and alive, as though the castle itself is bending the rules when the player least expects it.

Of course, because this is game development, the castle had other plans.

During testing, I discovered a nasty little bug connected to the bonus room, the Five-Iron Vault. Instead of behaving like a temporary secret area, it seemed to stay active while the floor system continued descending. The player could become trapped in the room while the game kept moving forward underneath them. Hunger continued draining, the floor count continued changing, and eventually the player could starve inside what was supposed to be a reward.

Around the 10:44 mark in the footage, things became even stranger. The video turned glitchy, the audio disappeared, and the whole moment felt like Azthengar had eaten itself from the inside out. As frustrating as that was, it also created something strangely fitting. The bug looked and felt like the game had accidentally created its own cursed commercial. A broken secret room. A starving hero. A dungeon that forgot how to let go.

That is the weird beauty of building Azthengar. Sometimes the mistakes are annoying, but sometimes they reveal the exact mood the game is trying to become. The Five-Iron Vault still needs to be fixed, of course. The player should be able to enter, experience the bonus stage, collect whatever reward or horror waits inside, and then return safely to the proper flow of the game. But the idea itself is strong. It has mystery. It has danger. It has that old-school secret-door energy that makes players want to keep exploring.

With AZTHENGAR v4.20.4.7, the game feels like it is stepping into a more serious chapter. The version number gives it weight. The five-key system gives it purpose. The glitch, as broken as it was, gave it a strange kind of myth.

And honestly, that feels right for Azthengar.

A cursed castle should never feel completely safe.