In Proti Island, the prologue chapter, one of the early challenges we faced was teaching players to climb ladders. I used environmental cues like torches, broken walls, and clear pathways to guide attention naturally to the ladder. The visual flow made the mechanic feel discovered rather than instructed.

During the design of the Great Dam, a huge challenge I faced was creating epic visual moments within our isometric camera constraints. I used a vista camera to reveal the flooded farmlands' scope, with runtime grid tweaks keeping distant debris visible. This created an epic reveal that sold the destruction’s scale despite the limited viewing angle.

The trickiest part to designing the game’s first proper dungeon, Fiend’s Hollow, was designing it in way with minimal backtracking while maintaining exploration rewards. I designed a central hub with branching paths that curved back naturally, letting players discover new areas without retracing steps. Strategic placement of shortcuts and interconnected loops kept forward momentum while preserving the satisfaction of thorough exploration.

In the Flooded Farmlands, one of my biggest obstacles was seamlessly integrating Erana Ruins, a hidden temple quite late in production into an existing layout (in this case, farmlands) without breaking immersion. I used Greek architectural elements and improved water systems to create natural reveals, such as narrow rivers and waterfalls that hinted at the temple's presence. Careful placement teased players through exploration while preserving the discovery's impact.

During the deisgn of Pyrgos, the first HUB of the game, what proved most difficult was balancing the visual spectacle with technical performance, in a crowded hub area situated on top of a cliff. To double down on performance I tried to optimize compositions with as few draw calls as possible, and creatively recycled some modular micro compositions to reduce unique primitive counts. Similarly I tried to use negative space around the edges to highlight epic views, while reducing the need to draw additional objects in the distant runtime grids.

Another big hurdle in the large open “roaming” areas in the Central and Northern Flooded Farmlands ahead of the content pipeline while the team was still expanding. I created flexible open spaces following the core narrative, leaving room for side quests to be added later in production. The goal was capturing total flood devastation which I achieved by designing mostly destroyed farm areas with flooded plains, ruined houses, and newly carved rivers from the flood.