Development ledger · volume one

Field notes from
the projection booth.

Exact budgets, failed experiments, conversion traps, and the boundary between a playable port and a verified cartridge.

01

Contact sheet of the Theatre Stalker idle, walk, attack, and death clips

animation · Aug 20, 2026

Making the Stalker move

A rigged zombie, reusable hands, and an M1911 that still reads when the whole frame is only 320 by 240 pixels.

  • 17-bone stalker
  • four authored clips

02

Blender overview of the original Orpheus Theatre map

art pipeline · Aug 20, 2026

Texture budget as art direction

How a 4 KiB TMEM ceiling turned an abandoned theatre into readable N64 horror instead of muddy miniature realism.

  • 2,497 visible theatre triangles
  • 27 material textures

03

Archived August 20 Ares TAS frame from an earlier Zombies64 native build

cartridge · Aug 20, 2026

The cartridge is the product

Why the browser build shares rules with Zombies64 but never gets to certify the N64 game.

  • 720 ticks
  • hash add9d567919f0b49