LibertyWorlds: what I'm building, and why it takes time

I have been working on this project for six months. The first building is standing, and so is the campus around it. It is big. Big enough that crossing it on foot takes a while, and that is on purpose: I don't want a place you can visit in ten seconds.

Where the idea came from

I wanted a place you can stay in. Not a game you finish in one evening, but somewhere you come back to because you have your habits, your friends, your room. I picked a high school because everyone has one in mind, and because every corner has a reason to exist: a hallway, a library, a dorm, a field. Each place should make you want to open the next door.

A campus made of places

Around the central square, I build one building after another. Planned: the gym with its big glass roof, the science rooms, the library, the dorm, the sorority row, the stadium, and around all of it a lake and a forest. Not everything is built yet. The Hall of Fame is a gathering place, with no combat.

When you leave a building, you go through a short loading screen and arrive in the next one. Each building is its own place. It spreads players out and keeps every spot light, especially on phones. It also gives me time to get the details right: moldings, cornices, window frames, textures. I want it to hold up up close, in first person.

Something for everyone

Some people like quests and RPGs. Others want to shoot, others want to be scared. Some just want to chat, learn things, or compete. The campus has to hold all of that without one getting in the way of another.

There will be quests, challenges, games inside the game, powers to unlock, weapons to craft and dungeons where you get lost. Everyone finds their own way to spend time here, and that is the point.

Your place on campus

I want you to have a spot of your own. A dorm room, rented every week with the Credz you earn by playing. A sorority house to join, or to start with your friends. A corner to come back to, arranged the way you like.

The campus is only one universe

LibertyWorlds is several universes linked together. The goal is that what you earn in one (your level, your Credz, your items) follows you into the others. A game of a very different kind is already open in beta next to the campus, and more will follow. That link is still being built, it is not finished yet.

And if you look into the distance from the campus, you will see something else on the horizon. I won't say more.

What I want in the end

To be able to act freely across all of these universes. Move from one to another, have a space of your own, join a sorority, make your place. I am not giving a date. I would rather say so plainly than promise something I can't keep.

Why it takes so long

There is a huge amount of detail, and I do it one piece at a time. Every power, every weapon, every building goes through tests, fixes, and then more tests.

I use an AI to move faster, mostly on code. It can't produce a campus this size in one go, and it can't decide what makes people want to stay. That is my job, and the job of the people who test.

What got in the way

My first campus was too small. You had to feel the distance, so I rebuilt it bigger, with a level of detail that holds up in first person too. It costs more time, but it is the right base.

I also audited my shooting system, and it had weak points. So I am rebuilding the reference weapon from scratch: the model, the textures, the shooting, the animation and the sounds. It slows me down, but every weapon after it will follow its lead.

What's next

I keep going building by building: more places, weapons, the first dungeons. No date. The public roadmap is updated every day, and I show here, in video, what has been validated.

And you, which place would you want to find first in this campus?