Originally published on March 31, 2026
This month marks a new milestone for the Sad Land demo. For the last several months I’ve been working toward building functional versions of the areas you’ll encounter throughout the demo and this month I completed the last area on my list. Now that I’ve laid down the framework, I am finally ready to focus on completing the writing, music, and visual assets that will make the game shine.
The image above is the entire area map of the dream world where the vast majority of the demo takes place. Outside of the hub area (top-left), there are four main themed areas (castle, graveyard, coast, and forest), each made up of about 7-9 interconnected rooms. All four areas have gone through several iterations since I started working on them back in October.
This fenced-in field is one of the central locations in the forest area and still needs a lot of polish.
Just beyond the field is a cluster of buildings. The buildings are taken from a sprite sheet I created for a town several years back. I still have to convert them over to the black and white color palette to match the dream world, but, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m waiting until the next phase of production to sink time into tweaking the art assets. I love the designs, especially the blacksmith house in the middle, and appreciate any chance I get to dig through old sprite sheets of mine to incorporate in this demo.
In April, I plan to do a first pass on all the text that shows up in the demo and start polishing up the art assets where they are most egregious. Getting the demo to the point I can start playtesting it, even in a rougher state, is my goal and that doesn’t seem too far out.
Beyond Sad Land, I was busy this month attending both GDC Festival of Gaming and PAX East. I’ve been going to PAX East for over a decade I wrote about PAX East 2025 last May), but it was my first time taking the trip out to GDC. Here’s how it went…
In April, I plan to do a first pass on all the text that shows up in the demo and start polishing up the art assets where they are most egregious. Getting the demo to the point I can start playtesting it, even in a rougher state, is my goal and that doesn’t seem too far out.
Beyond Sad Land, I was busy this month attending both GDC Festival of Gaming and PAX East. I’ve been going to PAX East for over a decade I wrote about PAX East 2025 last May), but it was my first time taking the trip out to GDC. Here’s how it went…
Sunday, March 8th
I left my apartment around 6 AM ET, took the MBTA commuter rail to South Station, and from there I hopped on the Silver Line bus to Logan Airport. I had a breakfast sandwich and latte once I got to my terminal and didn’t have a proper meal until I landed in San Francisco around 7 hours later. Once I found a decent place to eat, I nabbed an iced coffee and took a 40-minute ride on the BART train to the Powell St. stop and walked from there to my hotel near the Moscone Center.
The panels and events for GDC didn’t start until Monday, but the Day of the Devs, a curated video game showcase, was happening just a few miles away. I took a shower, got myself settled, and then hopped in a taxi.
When I’d left Boston there was still snow on the ground, so being outside and exploring the city with its warmer weather was a pleasant change of pace. I also love the foliage on the California coast.
When I got to Day of the Devs, it was teeming with people and game demos as far as the eye could see, like an expo and an afterparty rolled into one. For those unaware, Day of the Devs was first established in 2012 by video game developer Double Fine Productions and merchandising company iam8bit before it spun off into its own non-profit entity. The annual event was free to get in and had 67 playable games throughout the event space along with food trucks, a bar, and a merch table selling games and vinyl records. I was a little spaced out and exhausted from my day of traveling but had a blast scoping out new games, wandering from room to room to see what else there was to see. Some games that caught my eye were Colorbound, Petal Runner, Stretchmancer, and Moomintroll: Winter's Warmth.
After the event, I made my way to the nearby bus stop, passing by this wild prop shop on the way. I took the bus back to the hotel, stopped by Trader Joe’s for a few snacks and drinks, and then watched TV until my wife got back to the room. She works for GDC and had spent all weekend working to prep for the show. We experienced very different days, hers with meetings and work, mine watching Zootopia 2 on the flight and taking all forms of public transit to get to the hotel, but it was grounding to catch up with her at the end of the day before bed.
Monday, March 9th
I got up early and puttered around the room until it was time to walk over to the convention center. My friend Brandon teaches Game Design at Southern New Hampshire University and was also at the conference, so we met up for breakfast and then headed to our first panel of the day.
2025 map of GDC at the Moscone Center retrieved from expofp.com
GDC is hosted in three different buildings that make up the Moscone Center: West Hall, South Hall, and North Hall. I spent most of my three days at the conference in the West Hall where a lot of the panels and talks were held. The South Hall housed the expo show floor (didn’t open until Wednesday) and some meeting rooms in the upper levels. During the day, the North Hall contained a merch/book shop at the entrance and downstairs held the main stage for the big nighttime events.
My favorite talk of the day was called The Tension: Designing For Discomfort in ‘Wanderstop’ given by Steven Margolin. Wanderstop is a 2025 game from Ivy Road studio about a sword-wielding fighter named Alta who takes up residence in a magical forest to brew tea. Morgolin discussed the game’s subversive nature, working against the player’s expectations, and the difficulty the team had in making art that might challenge their intended audience. I read earlier today that the studio behind the game Ivy Road was unable to acquire funding for their next game and will be shutting their doors. One thing I heard a lot of developers talk about at both GDC and PAX East was the difficulty finding proper funding for their game. It’s sad to see yet another small studio fold.
Later in the afternoon, I went to the panel The Rise of Independent Game Journalism (Panelists included Nathan Grayson of Aftermath, Jeff Grubb of Giant Bomb, Dean Takahashi of Gamesbeat, Stephen Totilo of Game File, and moderated by Perrin Kaplan of Zebra Partners). Like the game industry, game journalism too has had a difficult go of it. Over the past decade, I’ve seen many publications fold/downsize and a few branch off to go independent, which gives them more freedom but less financial stability and no corporate legal representation if things get dicey. One panelist remarked (Takahashi, if memory serves) that they see whoever is left covering games today as the small tree sprouts you see in the aftermath of a forest fire. Sad to hear but a compelling panel, nonetheless. Directly funding independent media is how it stays alive!
From there I met up with my friend Teppi, a cartoonist and educator at Champlain College, and headed to Oracle Park for the first big event of the week. We got overpriced beer, chicken, and French fries, spent some time at the board game playtesting area, and ended our stay at the baseball stadium catching the last 20 minutes of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World on the big projector. The city had cooled off after dark, so it was a chilly walk back to the hotel but before hitting the hay, we capped the night off with a trip to Mel's Drive-In.
I just realized I have two more days to cover and instead of hastily glossing over the rest of my trip, I’ll continue this travelogue in next month’s newsletter. Stay tuned!
Sincerely,
Neil
Sincerely,
Neil