iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 18h

having formally studied literature i cannot unsee the plainness and malnourishment of my own writing. im in my twenties and barely literate. great poetry bears a long full life in tow, and pulls the earth up with it.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 18h

lest we wonder why solo projects are only beautiful under cover of pity: i feel most lonesome when it comes time to produce an aspect of the work within which i am aware of my own shortcomings.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 18h

or i can just send an email or whatever but i loathe the challenge of advocating for the artistry of my semi erotic fantasy fps videogame to a small local press in the heart of the inland northwest. likely i will just write my own trash and spew it all over the walls of this hollow vessel ive made

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 18h

read a poem tonight that well mirrors the tone i wish for bruiseland. if only i could create a tapestry of poems and lyrics to be found in small hidden places. but under copyright law we are forced to toil in solitude and channel the work of our betters through starry eyed imitation, homage at best

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

yeah despite the movement allowing for fast play i do build the levels with the intent of slowing the player down. especially at first. i like to build things dense, which is antithetical to 'movement shooter' design. bruiselands becoming a bit more spacious tho; i grapple w that a lot rn

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

fennel is supposed to be anomalous in their ability to move. supernaturally agile. all other game ideas i entertain and prototypes i made have been characteristically slow, uncomfortable and deliberate. i daydream about slow games.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

you would not suspect this from the games i work on but i much prefer a slow and plodding methodical shooter over a double barrel airdash grappling hook 'shmover'. tho in 2021 i may have said the latter was the peak of the form.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

i have been asked to add a photo mode and i have been asked, elsewhere, to add a leaning function. rather than either of those things, you will be given the ability to move the Freecam around. here is an image of me doing so in my test environment. this fulfills both of the requested functions.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

finished another level today. big ol thing. goes places. 54 enemies to kill for the domination coin. couple dozen dialogue interactions with sigg and you get a random one every time. a little less 'freedom' than the usual fare but still offering some clever backdoor play. runs well too

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

having returned to this im now compelled to include it in more places. where all can i work sigg in to the game? its cool having him there as an active participant in one of the contracts, and now i wanna go further

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

tonight i got to write 70+ lines of dialogue between sigg and fennel. i havent had the pleasure of doing so since the end of gutter world's development. glad to be inhabiting these two characters again.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

it appears i stumbled into making a furry roschach test by accident

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

and i guess this is a chance to show them off with the new gnashling model. yay be forewarned they are thusfar absent from bruiseland. wouldnt make sense for them to be out there. and their gameplay purpose is now satisfied by other enemy units. but in time we'll see if i contrive a reason.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

i even went back and looked through all my gutter world scene files to see if id left a goat trooper in there somewhere. can't find any. so it remains to me a mystery why this interpretation is so widespread. i have to assume its the balaclavas?

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

i often see people referring to the Foe Hammer troopers in gutter world as goatmen. this gives me pause because early iterations were in fact goats, with long horns. but presumably no one would have seen those, because by release i had changed them to pig men.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

this is another variant of Pact trooper bsky.app/profile/knif...

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

yep its those. i removed them because in unitys physics system, if a projectile was moving fast enough, it would hit the enemy and their ward in the same frame, meaning the ward would 'block it' but not before it could deal damage. i had to rework them entirely for bruiseland, to be less 'literal'

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

it just puts out fires and prevents fire from catching. its effect on gameplay is a nonfactor tbh

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

im pretty loose w/ game design. and untrained. so my advice may be counter to conventional wisdom or simply 'wrong'. ime what matters in a game is temptation, momentary bliss, and all manners of surprise. all my designs converge on those things. i dont design things on paper, for better or for worse

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

as for the combat, guns are definitely becoming more prevalent, by nature of there being more gun wielding enemies and the game being centered around picking up enemy's weapons. but its something im keeping an eye on. i dont want the game to feel like a shooter

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i will likely not be including official controller support but i play gutter world via steam input all the time and it is serviceable

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i also have some systems that are functional but i dont know where to include them. for example, shovels can dig things up. theyve been able to for like, years. but then i gotta come up with a place to put a hole with some loot and i usually just say 'ehhh whatever' and forget abt it

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

one that im siked abt rn is 'wards', projectile shields that some enemies had in bb1. fennel had one for most of the game's development as well. but they were buggy, so i phased them out. theyre entirely absent from gw. but i got em working again for bl and theyre an important mechanic now

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

oh yeah, tons. especially early on i was just making whatever system sounded cool and ignoring how itd play into the greater scheme. status effect system is a good example (burning, wet, poison, venom, blind). buggy and half-implemented. i dont think venom and blind even have a way to proc in-game

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i made my own system and ran it for several years

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i am fine and development continues apace

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i wish i could share those early ttrpg sketches i used for their designs but theyre so rough, i would wanna redraw them. maybe someday. ultimately i dont think i could communicate 'how to draw them' because im particular about what they look like but in nebulous 'vibey' ways. make whatever you like

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

well they can have a bunch of eyes. or only a couple. they can have antennae or horns or fins or antlers. they can have long floppy ears, or none at all. there are way more of them in the next game so itll make more sense then. their only unifying traits are scales, forked tails and beady black eyes

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

fanart's great. i love seeing it. not my place to say what i do or dont wanna see. people can draw whatever, its cool. im just happy to see that people enjoy the game and are attached to fennel

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

honestly the gameplay change people are gonna 'feel' the most is that doors and hatches are breakable. but theres plenty of other stuff going on too

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

yeah theres more interactivity in the environment, breakable stuff etc. and a greater focus, as you said, on gunplay. 'wards' return from bb1 (the projectile shields) and they finally work properly. fennel has one as well. shooter enemies have a little more variation to their behavior. i could go on

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

if you need help figuring it out you can dm me and i will respond in greater detail when i can

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

cutthroat is quite a bit harder than earning dom medals but you can hack your way into it by modifying your saves. i believe theres info on the steam forums about how to do that. its in your appdata folder. the file for level completion stats is called 'leveldata.txt' iirc. replace the 0's with 1's

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

patreon is uncomfortable because im not sure what i could regularly provide people that would make it worth it. and i would have to make a discord server (yikes). but i wont write it off as an option. i hope i can just survive off 'releasing video games' but that is a tenuous prospect on its own

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i can't be specific right now because i may have to cut things before the end. but my modest answer would be, 'a bit bigger, a lot better'

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

that is the goal, yes. and part of why i wanted to delay. there are way more npcs to talk to in general. fennel is meaner and the world is worse. sigg is lovely as ever, and far more present than he was in gw. i have much to write still but i think it will be beautiful in aggregate.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

jesus i dunno, i put them everywhere. and when you restart the level they respawn. you could probably eat ash trays forever

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i am delaying it because if i were to make my current deadline i would have to cut a ton of stuff. the result would be another game the size and scope of gutter world. but i want to do more

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

already like really a lot and probably even more

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

thank you. i feel capable of making what is in my heart but am mostly concerned about making what is in my bank account. that is the greatest cost of delaying something like this, but i think i can manage. and the result will be worth it artistically. whether my career survives it, we will see

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i have more levels in progress than gutter world had, and they are much larger and more complex. but some may get cut. the worst case scenario would be the same amount of levels as gutter world but they themselves are all much greater. but i am aspiring to make more.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

i won't be commenting on a release date, in case i have to move it again. i do intend to update the demo before launch and hopefully put it in a next fest. gutter world will likely not see updates at least until bruiseland's release. after that, the future is unclear.

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

way more going on in each contract in the form of narrative and mechanical gimmicks. and the reintroduction of supernatural elements

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tris - Brush Burial @knifedemonsoftware.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

hard to say. many of the new additions to bruiseland are built on previous mechanics or things reintroduced from bb1. for something entirely new, i think sigg's influence is greater in some hopefully surprising ways. for me personally that is emotionally potent

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