Google maps is so not the one for cycling!!

Would really love to get folks to beta test the later levels! Shoot me a DM or join the discord: discord.gg/kp9W9Qr

There are now almost 60 levels! Translation:

We have a video game folks! 🎉

I'm hard on myself, but wouldn't be possible without features I started mucking with years ago. It's edifying to see my instincts come good - they just needed generous brain-in-the-cave immersion time to crystallise!

I wrestled the blank canvas so many times over the last months

But one happy accident at a time, I teased out new patterns and crafted a journey that ties together so much of what only existed as ambient potential before.

My favourite levels weren't designed, so much as discovered.

More levels had always been a "later" problem.

Of course, this was naive. Level design is an intricate art, later arrived and I had to confront that my programmer brain was avoiding the problem. I knew how I wanted the arc to feel, but I wasn't really sure how to execute it...

Crucially, Cadence just didn't have enough levels.

Game length isn't a good metric for quality (Monument Valley only had 10 levels). Puzzle games especially see high drop off rates as levels get harder. But people still want to experience an arc, and end somewhere different from where they began

Simple example: for ages Cadence couldn't competently tell you how many levels you'd completed 😅

The new overworld menu now does that job well - but it's table stakes. It doesn't move the needle or make people care, but they do care if it's missing...

As I explained to a novelist friend: "You wouldn't release a book without an editor"

As a reader you don't want to see spelling mistakes. As a gamer you might tolerate some bugs, but a game still needs to meet many expectations...

The second one!

Basically all the late game levels rely on "play the sections in a specific sequence"

On the flip-side: Vercel and on-demand deployment is a marvel of the modern world 😍

From zero to new holding page in a couple of hours:
www.madewithmonsterlove.com