Still have some bug kicking my ass, so can't jump in and pound out intense level design, but feeling better and I think tomorrow will be the jumping off point.

Level design has been an ongoing issue, and for too long it's been an afterthought.

I'm really torn, because I don't have a budget or artists and as it stands I have a few randomly shaped rocks that I got for free off the unity store. Is it responsible to spend days building up a game world using art not geared for level design?

Terrain just doesn't feel like the right option any more. 1 month ago SeaCrit was an action game that was all about killing random enemies in an open environment. But now I see it far more as a Metroidvania where you explore a large ocean with secrets in all given  directions. Terrain does not facilitate rapid prototyping or these interesting branching paths. But what's the solution?

I SHOULD spend a few days developing custom 3d assets that have proper collision and facilitate caverns and long ravines, and ocean floors and various shapes.

Holy shit. I just had an idea.... I've always thought of terrain as being face up at the bottom of the ocean... what if I turned it on its side and painted in the caves and such sorta like an ant farm...

MY GOD... this might actually work. Well it's worth a shot anyway. But then again... I want the areas I create to be modular sorta like Metroid, so i can reuse them over and over.

Ugh, I hate being spread so thin, and not being able to devote my all to pipelines that demand full attention. I don't have the time or energy to devote months to developing the environment and building out a proper world. It always feels like everything has to be perfect and I just don't have the time or resources to build what this game COULD be.

Eh, I'm leaning towards mashing these rocks together and just building up something that's sorta fun. At the end of the day high fidelity graphics are not the end all be all. It's all about making something that's fun. I'm quite happy with the early game art, it's ok if the quality goes down a bit later, this is a demo after all and I need to get this sucker out the door.