This is probably obvious to any actual game designer, but I had to learn it the hard way: don’t try to make things look realistic.

When I first wanted the game to look beautiful, my instinct was that more realism is better. It turns out realism is expensive on two fronts. You need a lot of detail to pull it off, which costs performance. And even when it works, the result is boring — a slightly worse version of a photograph nobody asked for.

Once I let go of realism and instead leaned into the things I actually wanted the player to notice, the screen got a lot more readable. I made buildings disproportionate, with oversized windows, chunky sills, and chimneys far taller than any chimney has a right to be. The difference is immediate — you can tell what each building is from across the map, and the world starts to feel like it has a point of view instead of just trying to look real.