One More Thing

After submitting the Alpha, things shifted gears a bit. There was a short moment of celebration — the level was functional, structured, and stable — but then it was right back into the small, sharp pieces of polish and systems to complete.

The big focus this week was giving the ending some visual weight — something that felt like a real conclusion, not just a placeholder fade-out. Now, when Anita reaches the Bloom and interacts with it:

• A soft glow builds
• The screen shakes slightly
• Anita floats into the air
• And then: she begins to dissolve

The dissolve effect is handled by a custom material with a dynamic dissolve map, triggered via timeline. It's clean, lightweight, and thematically appropriate — like her form is returning to the mycellial network she came from.

This was also the moment I removed the air dash mechanic. It never earned its place, and following Fumito Ueda's (ICO and Shadow of the Colossus) philosophy of Design by Subtraction, it was clearer and more meaningful to let the player's movement remain grounded and focused.

UI and HUD Finalised

• Spore counter is now functional and styled, including a 3D spore icon created by placing a small spore model in front of the camera a-la Spyro the Dragon.
• Interaction prompts and dialogue boxes now use the updated visual style to fit the game better.
• The CRT post-process toggle is wired into the pause menu and fully functional.
• Unused systems (like the old collection logic) have been fully removed or isolated for clarity.

Challenges

• Dynamic dissolve effect: Creating a material-driven dissolve system that triggered at runtime and synced cleanly with animation and screen transitions.
• UI reference cleanup: Ensuring widgets like the spore counter cleared their references properly to avoid lingering HUD elements or re-add errors.
• Camera control logic: Smoothly blending to and from cinematic cameras (like the Bloom shot) without breaking player input or control state.

All that's left now is the tutorial popup system — the second half of the research question.

The environmental path is already in place and functioning, but soon I'll be building the direct guidance variant: popups, hints, clear UI-based cues. Once both versions are in, I’ll be able to begin proper testing and feedback collection.

The game is feature-complete in every other regard. The puzzles, traversal, interaction, visuals, and narrative light-touch are all in place. Everything feels cohesive and intentional now.

It’s almost there.