Posted January 07, 2026 by posshydra
hi, its austin.
im still recovering from the holidays with a persistent cough.
i want to provide an incentive for players to visit previously completed stages. i want to subvert the player's expectations of the linear nature of the game and provide myself some opportunities to flesh out the world, while still locking some exploration behind linear progression.
the way i've tried to implement this is through giving every stage an "initial" setting and a "revisit" setting. each stage will use the same scene in its initial and revisit setting, but there will be some minor changes and new secrets to uncover.
this way, the player gets an initial experience with the stage and characters in a linear fashion. When they visit the stage later on in their campaign, they get to see the students in a new place doing new things in whatever order they prefer. my hope is that this will make the world feel alive and moving in a way that differentiates it from the source material i'm inspired by. i also plan to have students from other stages "cameo" in different locations, un-battle-able but with fun dialog snippits.
Checkmage! is still in active development. If you want to support me, please consider sharing with friends. The game will be released on Steam and Itch for sale when I'm done making it.
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