June 24/2026

• Been a while. Lots of side stuff keeping me away from progressing. A MAZE judging/Berlin trip, a trip to Ethiopia, and work on some exhibition projects. All good stuff, but I do need to sacrifice working on TORI or else I’ll burn myself out. I still have opened it a few times a month to make adjustments, implement new tech, and other small and big things. Part of me is in creative research mode as I explore lots of different media to spark inspiration for some visual direction. The TORI gate will be going away. I’m moving away from grounded imagery and cultural exported and mass consumed visual motifs. What to replace it with is still the question. That’s just one of many changes.

June 29/2026

• Played a game demo on Steam with some really great vibes. But a lot of the experience was ruined by its gameplay being a series of fetch quests and confusing puzzles. Spaces that feel evocative slowly deteriorate as the once great atmosphere loses its appeal as you try to find that one missing item to complete the quest or roll my eyes at yet another out of place switch puzzle. It’s not even meaningful item hunting, very much a “get X amount of Y to continue…oh and we hid them in weird places good luck”. This is actually what the main loop of TORI is too…and I hate to use the word loop and hate to admit that I’m comitting the same design I dislike. I realized this much earlier, and the key thing is not to make the finding of the items such a prevalant goal. It’s a guiding post to other experiences. What I’m striving to do is have the items you find have something unique in their location to discover. A soundscape, visual one shot, story beat, something. Fidning an item isn’t just a “3/5, 2 more until i’m done”. I hope for it to be more like stumbling upon constant wonders along the way. You aren’t so focused on the main goal being the ending as the only motivation. But still, it’s the one thing in TORI that feels like a game still, and that’s not a good thing.