#002 - First Checkpoint Release v0.0.2 + Character Creation

Today was mostly about turning HyperKourier from “a bunch of promising systems” into something that feels more like an actual playable slice.

A lot of the work was unglamorous in the best way: tightening movement, making the camera and HUD easier to read, wiring the first district route into the live game, getting the multiplayer path and public preview into better shape, and setting up a cleaner release rhythm so the project has real checkpoints instead of one endless pile of “work in progress.” We also cut the first proper little checkpoint release, which feels good even though we are still very much in early prototype territory.

The big lesson from today is that readability matters almost as much as raw features. A route can exist, a hack can work, and movement can be technically functional, but if the player cannot immediately understand what direction they are facing or what the game wants from them, none of it really lands. So the current focus is less “add more stuff” and more “make the stuff that exists feel clearer, sturdier, and easier to test.”

On the more art side of things or front-end side of things, a lot of work being done on the starting characters and on the pipeline to make the 2D assets that will eventually turn into 3D assets. I have been able to start dialing in a process workflow that will give me consistent style with character creation using in particular the GPT Image 2 model. I even made custom Claude Code skills that work directly with Higgsfield's image generator so that anytime I want to create a new character, I can pull up a slash command in any chat with Claude. It will create a 2D character turn-around sheet in Higgsfield in exactly in the style that I want for the game.

(Meet 'Big Juan' one of the canonical kouriers you'll meet in the game. A CartGoblin veteran in N9, originally hailing from Andalusia, he knows the city like the back of his hand... or maybe the back of his oven mitt... Don't let his size fool you, this Tio can get around the city quicker than most.)

Next up is more playtest hardening, making the public build easier to verify, and starting to push further into the visual side of NEUKOLLN-9 so the game begins to look as specific as it already feels in my head.