Chimera

Timeline

The same boy, the same town, the same machine underneath, made five ways in a year and a half. Very little was thrown away. Most of it was moved somewhere else, and waited.

Kai, six times

27 May 2025

A pixel sprite, a day before the portrait. The sword is already coming apart into symbols.

Drag, or use the arrow keys. Left alone, he ages by himself.

  1. Five documents in one day

    Before there were pictures there were documents. On one day in May: story and world ideas, a story outline, a philosophical narrative, the game's medieval facade, and Kai's execution, modelled on the one Dostoevsky survived. Most of what the story page calls the 2025 design starts here.

    • RPG Story and World Ideas 1
    • Story Outline I
    • Philosophical Game Narrative Development
    • Game Start: Chimera's Medieval Facade
    • Kai's Imminent Execution, Dostoevsky

  2. A world, a family, eleven faces

    Three days at the end of May. House Lumina and its history, the great houses, a princess, the settlements, how the city maps would be made, spells and weapons, an outline for a game in the manner of the Super Nintendo. On the 27th, a map of the world. Then a portrait for each of eleven people, each with a pixel sprite beside it. They are further down.

    None of this is the look now. It is where the people and the places started.

    A painted fantasy map of island continents: the Shifting Wastes, Aethelgard, Ferrus Magna, Sylvandell, with sea creatures in the water.
    The first map, 27 May 2025. Its labels do not quite spell. North-Centhweral. Sryschllo Doivers. Aethelgard three times, Ferrus Magna three times. It is kept as it was.

  3. A first Kai in three dimensions

    A reference of Kai in a T-pose, red and navy, and from it a textured 3D model and an animated one. The same day, a medieval village in 3D. On the 31st and the 1st, tile maps: a town square and a test town. The pixel game and the 3D game were both started in the same week, and both came back.

    Kai in a T-pose: spiky red hair, a navy and red coat with straps and pockets, black trousers and boots.
    30 May 2025. The T-pose.

  4. The browser game

    On 13 February the first scenes were outlined again. On the 17th there was a JRPG for the browser, in pixel art: battles on a time gauge, a bandit camp with its prisoners, shops, quests, the village of Havenwood.

    It opened in a desert. Kai walks until his knees give out. The horizon is a liar. It moves as I move. He wakes in a tent, and three hooded figures stand in the shadows, faceless and completely still. Both came back in October: the game begins with that walk again, and a Hooded Stranger sits in the Rusted Cog and does not speak.

    The home page had this as 20252026. The files say February 2026.

    Pixel-art village square with a fountain and a large tree.
    The square.
    A pixel sprite of Kai face down, asleep, a small cloud above his head.
    Kai, out cold.
    A painted desert canyon at dusk, a path between rock walls.
    The desert plateau.
    A sheet of small hooded figures in brown cloaks, walking, from four sides.
    The strangers, walking.
    Kai small in the opening desert of the current build, rocks on the left.
    October 2026. The desert again.
    The Hooded Stranger in the Rusted Cog, a taupe cloak and an empty hood.
    October 2026. One stranger, still not speaking.

  5. Godot

    The same town in native 3D, in Godot. It played. It read as toy blocks, and that is what sent the work to paint.

    A three-dimensional village square with half-timbered houses and a fountain.
    The Godot square.

  6. A postmodern replica of a JRPG

    The art brief converged after months of studies. A painted world, a drawn hero, and the drawing sometimes fails.

  7. The painting is the asset

    The first playable slice that was approved. The courtyard painting became the level, and Kai came out of a drawing through image-to-3D.

  8. Moving to Unreal

    The world that was proved in Godot as a painting with a relief moved to a native Unreal Engine 5 build. Same courtyard, same Kai, a different way of building.

  9. The look is locked

    Three versions of the same shop corner on one sheet. Ink, five bands, paper grain and flat painted surfaces won, with global illumination off.

  10. From the drawing to the game

    The procedural townsfolk could not be patched out of looking like stacked parts. The Well Woman was remade from her drawing instead, and that became the rule.

  11. The first recording

    Forty seconds of the packaged build, walking Havenwood from the courtyard to the street and back, with two conversations on the way.

  12. Five drawn figures, a street, and a packaged build

    Every resident in Havenwood is now the drawn version. The street is in. A new Mac build is packaged, and the next batch doubles the town.

  13. The town reaches the sea

    Four new places on one map, from the courtyard down the lane to the harbour and up the coast path to the chapel and the hill village. Six more residents, two new names, a save that remembers where you stood, and sea walls that finally stand on rock.

  14. Four doors open, one gate stays shut

    Seven batches and ten packaged builds in three days. A chapel, a shop and a tavern you can walk into, a rooftop garden up a ladder, a first barter, four more residents, the road to the estate gate, Kai moving on new clips, and a first patch of the desert where the game now begins.

  15. The cape is still. The road is open.

    Kai moves more quietly, the Stranger has gone dark, and the Long Road has a first playable loop. Nic accepted its movement and layout as a base. The scenery is still made of boxes.

  16. The road has learned the colour of grass

    Five more Long Road builds. Golden ground, river bends, olive trees and longer shadows. The jump changed after Nic played. The latest scenery is packaged, with acceptance still open.

The cast, as first drawn

Eleven portraits and eleven sprites, 27 and 28 May 2025. Only Kai has been drawn again since. The rest wait on the characters page for a lineup in the town's hand. Hover, or tap, for the sprite.

  • Kai

    The hero. The only one drawn again since.

  • Rex

    The pragmatic scavenger.

  • Seraph

    The awakened enforcer.

  • Zenith

    The glitch-witch.

  • Valerian

    The archivist.

  • Lyra

    The apostate, or one of the three Lyras.

  • Cora

    The princess.

  • Kaelen Lumina

    The reality weaver.

  • Aris Thorne

    The technocrat.

  • Valerius Lumina

    The whispering glitch.

  • King Greyon

    Drawn, never written down. The robe says Lumina.

End of the painting.

The paint stops here. Past this line the town is not drawn, only described, and the description is restricted.

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