Aug 14, 2025
i'm once again at the point with retrush where i have to tear myself away from having fun with the finished levels to work on the unfinished levels
(this is a very very good sign)
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seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Brazil
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i'm once again at the point with retrush where i have to tear myself away from having fun with the finished levels to work on the unfinished levels
(this is a very very good sign)
hi chat
still wip but zeta world 2 is getting a proper airship run and i'm gonna do it RIGHT
(🔊 sound on! 🔊)
Early Zeta DX Details
sshhh don't tell anyone but working on zeta again recently has given me a burst of creative energy that i haven't had in a long time!! i've got lots of cool ideas for the dx version and i got to throw some together this week, here's a sneak peek...
zeta has a new hud! i've switched it to use the new 'simple hud," and added a foreground on top to make the design look extra fancy. the design even changes color depending on what world you're on!
additionally, the timer now ticks down in real time instead of in fake SMB1 "seconds." this means i got to rebalance the times on a bunch of levels.
the new hud matches with the new levelscreen, which is where all of those cute level names are being moved to! the levelscreen was designed with Z's for Zeta, so the rest of the hud was designed to match up.
here's a mechanic i've always wanted to use in a level: glass bricks! these are bricks that you can fire portals through, or break them with a mushroom or a shell if you need the physical space. 1-3's really strange design was EASILY retrofitted with glass bricks, and now the whole level is a lot more cohesive!
finally, i'm using new powerups added in new versions of the game! each world will feature one specific powerup. world 2's mountains were never really a good fit for fire flowers anyway – the hammer suit fits much better. very excited to play with all these new toys 💖
i have other big plans like remaking levels outright... but nothing to show just yet! i'm hoping these smaller changes help zeta feel like a more cohesive and professional product that isn't just a product of its time. we'll see how long this creative fire burns for...
sneak peek @ upcoming video. made this kirby from scratch in affinity designer. i promise to only use my powers for good
new experiment live… check out https://skyso.me/plural and https://skyso.me/plural/autumn for me 💖💖💖
what's the coolest thing that you did this year?
so normally i would direct people to send asks to my main blog, especially if they make for good writing prompts like this one. but as you just noted, i kind of already answered this question!
...in a professional capacity. i left out one important detail about Retrush that i'm incredibly proud of, and i want to touch on it here.
i kind of keep this on the down-low in professional settings due to the stigma around it, but most of y'all here know that i'm plural. and the truth is that i, 🤍 Autumn, have kind of taken center stage in our shared life. most of the others in my system have plans and dreams that go unrealized, as hard as it is for me to admit...
tomorrow a second post will go up that compares my accomplishments vs my resolutions. my resolutions for the year are a shared compromise between us in the system, as a way of saying "this is what will make all of us happy together."
the truth is that we fell quite short of our resolution, and i feel like i'm letting the rest of my system down...
but 🖤 Ghost is backing me up with a memory.
see, Ghost's plan for the year was to find us a new job and a new place to live. this is the "stronger foundations" in tomorrow's post that we're a little afraid of admitting on a professional blog where my coworkers could see it.
(they've commented to me personally on some of the things that i write, which i love, but i sometimes have to be wary of what i post. it's chill!)
Ghost's memory is: her plan was to find us a new job early in the year. but then, all of the news stories started to roll in about layoffs. and Ghost took one look at that and said:
"hey, Autumn, let's finish Retrush while we wait for this to blow over. you have my full support."
and we did! and she was a HUGE help in keeping me on track with the project, managing our soft deadlines and which nights we could work on it, as well as getting others to help with things we couldn't do alone – she came up with the idea of commissioning our partner to cover Last Wave and help us work on the pre-release trailers.
we've never been so coordinated as a system before! we've always stepped on each others' toes and scrambled over each other to get anything done. i still remember in 2018, when i wanted to do anything to relax, how i'd hear a nagging voice in my head telling me to work on my resume instead of resting, because we needed a job Right Now...
but this time there was no such thing, and i think it's one of the coolest things we've ever accomplished. we were a united force seeing Retrush through to the end, and i couldn't have done it without my Ghostie leading the charge. thank you ;-;
our new years resolution for 2024 is to start HRT finally, because that's what she wants and it's long past time to pursue. no more making half-baked, compromised resolutions – i want us to be a united force for all of our dreams!