I decided to give myself a little early xmas present and buy and play through Leap Year, by managore (Daniel Linssen).  I had my eye on it for a while, it being a puzzley platformer that is small and doesn't overstay its welcome.

It didn't disappoint!  Like I was fully expecting from managore, it's well designed, hits you with "aha" moments and stumbling blocks, and I was able to finish the entire game in 1.5 hours (ymmv).  It had a nice sense of progression and there was always something to tease out but not overwhelmingly so -- there was only one point at which I felt like I was "stuck" and had to re-evaluate what I had missed / hadn't yet explored.

I don't play a ton of puzzle platformers or a ton of puzzle games in general and it always astounds me how these things can be crafted so well, but I'm assuming that like anything else it comes with experience.  Just like level design is probably a skill that needs refinement, I think puzzle design, or "level puzzle design" is most likely like this too.  I don't really have that sense, only having dabbled in this sort of level design for a few games really (Colors of Your World being the most extensive).  But making a Rhythm Quest level is probably second nature to me at this point, or just making a song in general.

I tackled another level in the Augustus campaign, this time the fourth mission.  My final city looked like this:

I did good with this one!  Didn't need to restart my entire city from scratch, though I was getting a bit worried at times.  There were some silly mistakes made along the way -- the lower-left housing block had some food distribution issues in particular, and the reservoir on the left there is super awkward and only exists to provide water to the concrete makers (which I didn't even need after I finished my monuments).  The aqueducts connecting that reservoir actually completely cut off the southern farm block, which I didn't realize until later when I facepalmed and then made sure to just add a road going through them.

Turning all of the houses into grand insulae was juuuust enough to hit the prosperity rating on this mission, and it looks like 3 "double-size" housing blocks were the right amount to get the population to exceed 5000.  I'm worried about the next mission as the terrain is really challenging (lots of rivers and rocks everywhere) and I need an extra 500 people, as well as 70 prosperity instead of 65.  I'm looking forward to the challenge, though!

It's already going to be Christmas morning...time seems to have rolled along, but relatively peaceful.  And that's a good thing, probably, I think.  Taking some time to remember that we don't have to worry about everything so much.  Life is not "supposed to" be stressful.