Month: March 2021

Today was not as bad as the days before. The weather was very pleasant and I felt a lot better in general, especially after I visited the doctor. I won’t be able to see her next week so I hope my mood can remain relatively stable until the week after. I think it’ll be okay though. It feels like a lot of my stressors dissipated, or at the very least, receded today.

I finally decided to re-attempt converting the project file to GMS2.3. In my last few attempts, which were over a year ago at this point, I suffered some major technical issues and in general I found the new update to be rather dramatically overrated in terms of the expanded utilities it promised. 

This time however I’m compelled more by necessity: a project that I’m collaborating on as designer is targeting a Switch release, and I discovered today while watching Nate port Dogworld that the Switch runtime will not function properly with earlier versions of GMS2. So I decided to just bite the bullet again and commit this time. 

It seems like they fixed a lot of the issues and incompatibilities that I’d been plagued by the last time I tried. The transition was remarkably smooth and as far as I can tell, the project seems to work completely fine without any major modifications to the code base. I still have to get used to some of the new code-based features they’ve implemented, but overall the process went astonishingly well. The entire IDE just feels a bit more stable and responsive now than before. I’ll keep the old project files on storage for a month or so until I can complete a more thorough rundown of everything, but with what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem like that will be necessary. Here’s hoping.

Minor progress today. Continued modifying the medical menu a bit, I moved around some of the elements in order to accommodate a new information panel which displays the item attributes, including the quantity and description. I think it looks better, and has as bit more functionality now. Barring any unforeseeable personal issues, I’m pretty confident I’ll have it completely done by tomorrow. The rest of the work on it is just busywork.

I think Gloria and I are more or less done. Not that there was anything much there to begin with, but… it’s gotten to the point where I want to talk to her but when I go to message her I find that I can come up with quite literally nothing to say. She barely responds anymore and when she does she might as well not have with how little she gives me to work with. 

I think I’ve tried my best, I really do. Told her everything I meant to say and actually meant everything I said. Reached out when I thought I should, gave her space and time and most of the patience I usually reserve for my friends and myself. I dunno, maybe I’m just not a very interesting person. Maybe the distance was just too profound.

In any case, I don’t feel any kind of anger or bitterness or even frustration, nor do I hold anything against her. I don’t regret anything either. I’m just disappointed. In the way things turned out, in how quickly they turned out that way, in how easily I’m giving up, and all the stupid expectations and hopes I’d placed into this to begin with, even though I knew better from the start. Most of all though I’m just disappointed in myself. In who I am, in what I am.

God-damned coward.

Felt even worse today than I did yesterday. Went to bed real late last night for no reason at all, woke up in a mild haze with something like a headache and didn’t even try working on anything for the rest of the day. It’s days like these that really make me reconsider the possibility of a future.

I felt pretty awful today for some reason, just totally apathetic and filled with resentment. Regardless, I actually somehow managed to get a decent amount of work done today. I spent the entire morning clipping samples from a bunch of ASMR videos to make a breathing track for Avery. Originally I’d only intended the tracks to be used in the medical menu but actually they sound good enough that I might consider using them elsewhere as well… they’d certainly add a bit more texture to a bunch of the generic animations.

I also ended up actually achieving my goal earlier this week to fully finish one wound treatment. All the basics are in place and can be easily modified to serve as a template for other wounds in the future.

Spent the morning working on more log entries. I feel like I should start setting aside dedicated time for them soon, get at least two done every day… I definitely need to catch up work on that part of development, it’s been almost three months since I last took a serious look at any of it.

I spent the entire afternoon and evening hanging out with Haolun. We went up to the dam at the reservation, and then just drove around for a while and talked about a bunch of stuff. It was pretty nice.

Spent the afternoon recording and mixing a bunch of sound effects for the wound UI. There are a few that are still missing and/or need to be improved – basically all of the tools – but most of them are good enough for now and have been fully implemented in-game. I’ll have to give the remaining ones a bit more thought…

I also started implementing full functionality for the menu itself, in accordance with the description I wrote out a few days ago. It’s mostly just a lot of tedious work, although I’ve been facing some logistical difficulties trying to figure out the most efficient solution for dealing with alternative solutions animation-wise: for example, due to how involved the sprites are, I potentially may have to create up to four different copies of each wound model based on what combination of treatments they decide to apply (sutures + bandages, sutures + duct tape, glue + bandages, glue + duct tape). It’s not the end of the world but it’s definitely not my preferred method… although I’m not sure how else I’d go about doing it in a way that won’t cause massive potential frustrations later on should I decide to add more treatment methods. Lastly, I also have yet to do any of the sprites for when bandages/tape are applied…

Regardless, today was a pretty good day. I made a decent amount of progress – more than I’ve made on any single day in a while – and I felt pretty good about things in general.

Finished iconography for the medical UI. I hope I’ll be able to get the menu fully finished by the weekend… I’ve been spending way too long on this, it’s starting to really frustrate me.

Saw the doctor again today. I like talking with her. She asks the right questions, makes me feel like she really gets what I’m trying to say. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive to talk to her. I get it though. I’m gonna need to figure something out pretty soon, I don’t think my current savings will last me long at this rate…

I took the day off. Gloria was acting a little weird I think. It felt like she was being oddly reticent, and in the few moments she did get back to me, she came off as a bit passive-aggressive for some reason. I hope I’m just being paranoid. I wish she would talk to me more about how she feels. I wish she would just talk to me more in general. I dunno, maybe I’m just projecting. Whatever, it’s not my problem. Back to work tomorrow.

Added visual selection options for the wound treatment UI. So far I have two categories done in terms of iconography – cleaning/disinfecting, and tools/devices – which leaves two more: sealing, and pain management. Neither should be particularly difficult, and I hope to be able to get them done tomorrow. I’ve yet to implement functionality to any of it but I’ll work on trying to get one full wound model done by this Saturday.

Started working on a proper revamp of the wound treatment UI, focusing on the information hierarchy as well as setting up the initial visual layout. After a few hours prototyping a bunch of designs this afternoon I feel I’ve finally arrived at one that feels straightforward enough to simplify the user’s experience (as well as my own workflow) without sacrificing nuance. 

The system revolves around a universal three-step treatment solution – roughly, cleaning/disinfecting, tool application (stuff like scalpels, pliers), and sealing/binding – with two additional optional steps in the form of pain management and medicinal aids (stuff like antibiotics, and booster shots). The player chooses one tool to use in each category from a list of any available treatments in that category and the efficacy of the solution will be calculated using a hidden list that attributes each tool a percentage (for example, using sutures to seal a wound is much more efficient than using duct tape or superglue). The final efficacy percentage, which is additive and takes into account each category including pain, will determine how much willpower Avery loses after the procedure is complete. 

I wanted to get the wound treatment UI done today but I ended up wasting a bunch of time trying to figure out the iconography and eventually just got frustrated enough that I decided to do nothing. Otherwise the day itself wasn’t too bad at all actually. It was the first day of spring and the air was light and cool. The mood felt apropos to the weather despite my utter lack of progress, and I felt vaguely optimistic all throughout the day.

Didn’t get as much work done today as I wanted, but I did get the UI for the journal app finished. I still have yet to figure out a landing screen (or whether I even want a landing screen at all) but I don’t think it’s that important right now. Eventually I would like it to display in reverse chronological order (latest entry to earliest), which shouldn’t be too hard. 

Actually managed to get a bit of work done today. Set up the foundation for the journal app in the PDA: the entries properly display with functional scrolling and navigation, although the formatting is still pretty off and I think I’d like to have an index screen that allows the player to scroll through a list of all entries. I’m pretty hopeful that I’ll be able to get it done tomorrow.

Nate launched his game today. From the initial streams and impressions, it seems that the reception is overwhelmingly positive. I hope that the sales will be able to corroborate the sentiment. I’m proud of his achievement, and seeing his success in being able to accomplish what he set out to do makes me feel a little bit more optimistic about my own chances.

Wanted to work on the PDA a bit more today, but suffered a rather extensive spike of anxiety which persisted all throughout the afternoon. Ended up getting nothing done.

Managed to finish up the update on time, got it out around noon. A minor victory. Didn’t get much else done beyond that, but hopefully that can change tomorrow. This afternoon I visited the doctor. She seemed nice, a good conversationalist. Asks the right questions, picks up on the right things. It’s a bit early to say anything for certain, but so far I like her well enough. I’m going to be seeing her again next week, the same time. In a bit of an odd way, I’m looking forward to it.

Jim died last night. It came as quite a shock to me to hear the news… He was rather sick for a while, so I suppose it wasn’t really a surprise, but even still. They buried him in a tiny coffin in the backyard. It feels in a way as if a small vacuum has opened up in a part of my heart where he used to rest. You’d think that after enough times you start getting used to the feeling but somehow, it’s different every time. The same pain, just applied elsewhere.

I spent the rest of the day trying to work on this month’s update. It’s basically done, but I’m just not feeling it at all. Maybe a sense of guilt about how little I’ve accomplished this month. It should be good to go tomorrow. 

Took the day off. Sawyer came over for the first time this year I believe to record some audio for a project. We then ate some fried chicken at the station and talked for a while. The doctor also got back to me this afternoon. We’ve scheduled a consultation for Tuesday. I feel a bit better today than before. I feel like I’m very suddenly learning about a new kind of honesty.

Spent a good part of the day completely wigging out, but by around 1500 or so I gained just enough control over my mental faculties so that I was able to make some progress. I got the entire PDA app for the BCU monitor set up and functional, and started working on a new wound UI. 

The BCU monitor, which displays digestion biostatistics and caloric balance, has now been consolidated and merged into its own independent application accessible at any time through the PDA. Included with it as well is the wound monitor, which, when activated, opens up into a separate window specifically dedicated to treating locational afflictions. I’m gonna have to significantly modify the appearance though moving forward I think, as it’s gonna be difficult to accommodate the number and variety of medical tools and medications available.

I spent some time tonight with Haolun, and it really helped to ease some of my earlier anxieties during the day. I hope this sense of relief persists and that I can carry it forward into my actions and decisions in the foreseeable future.

Ah, it was just as I figured. How foolish of me. How pathetic. What a mistake. What a mistake.

No progress whatsoever these past two days. Wednesday, I guess I was just distracted or something… the weather was exceedingly pleasant today and I hadn’t gotten any work done by noon anyways, so I made the conscious decision to just take the day off again and spend the rest of it sitting outside looking at the sky.

I’ve experienced over the past day and a half a series of personal developments that may or may not be good. It’s too early to tell so I won’t say much more about it in case it most likely ends up being nothing. I’ll probably give it a week before concluding anything for sure. But I must admit in the meantime that regardless of how it turns out, right now, in this moment, I feel something that’s almost like a kind of intense clarity of perspective. As if someone took a lantern and shined it directly within the recesses of my spirit, uncovering those parts of me I tried to hide away from myself because I was afraid. I wish I didn’t feel this way, especially over something so insignificant. I would rather feel nothing at all. But I have no choice. I brought this upon myself. Best to just get it over with as quickly as possible.

Spent the day making minor progress on the PDA. The biggest changes are a “completed” home screen (it still looks very bare, but it’s fully functional and could pass for being “finished” if necessary), and the introduction of a status bar, with functioning – theoretically, at least – battery and network status indicators.

I felt unreasonably wiped today. Progress has just been way too slow and uneventful… every day I make some progress but it’s just so glacial and the last thing I can afford right now is to be dragging like this.

Spent the first half of the day designing the layout and icons for the PDA. Honestly, the biggest bulk of time was just trying to figure out how to design a button-oriented layout, as opposed to the touch-based ones I’ve grown so used to. Once I settled upon a good-enough solution (which still looks way too sparse for my liking, and lacks a few necessary icons), I merged all of the various PDA sub-objects into the single parent object, which makes switching between “modes” (which is to say, the diegetic “apps”) much easier, and gets rid of the annoying visual resets that would happen with the object-based submenus.

I think I’ll be able to finish all the current apps tomorrow, and I hope to be able to redesign the home page better to my liking. The middle of the month is rapidly approaching, and I’ve yet to even start in any meaningful sense upon the work I wanted to finish this month…

Got nothing done today. The awful feelings from last night persisted into today and left me psychically debilitated. On top of that – and most likely, as a direct result of it too – I woke up around 0300 despite going to bed quite early last night, and wasn’t able to go back to sleep afterwards, leaving me physically exhausted all throughout the day.

There’s just this dark, rotting abscess in the centre of my soul, and it’s filled with this swarming mass of wretched thoughts and impulses simmering just beneath the surface of my self-control. It’s been there as long as I can remember, just growing slowly and silently… These past few years in particular, I feel like it’s just gotten worse and worse, even though the surface above appears to have healed over. It feels like every day now I get stuck on something and it just eats away at me until there’s nothing left in me but utter malice, and an absolute disregard for the lives of others. When it hits, it feels like I’m being drowned in the heat of my own blood, boiling within me. 

It gets especially bad when I have to go back out into the world. The sight of pretty strangers makes me sick, and the only way I can get through the rising sickness within me is by focusing on this image in my head of what they would look like separated into pieces, rendered into meat. But that recognition of my own nature too twists me into a different state, of immense disgust and self-hatred, which only makes it worse. I start thinking about the person I used to be, who I could’ve been if only, and then I remember that as long as I can remember, it’s always been like this, I’ve always been like this. 

My friends don’t get it. I can’t talk to them about what I really feel, because what they will tell me will only confirm the things I already know, and that’ll just make me feel even worse. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this kind of thing anymore.

No one really gets it, because when you try to tell them about it, they just look at you with that same tired mix of disgust and shameful pity that they ever knew you, and they tell you, always, to “get help”. That’s probably the worst part about it. Everyone’s always too busy dealing with their own stupid shit and no one’s got time or energy left to care. Everyone’s always too busy telling you to get help, but no one’s ever able to really help anyone, especially themselves.

Man, I hope the game sells well enough that I can start seeing a doctor or something…

Took the day off, spent the afternoon playing one of the top-down Tomb Raider games with Martin, and then hung out with Julia and Vikram in the evening. I was having quite a good day actually, up until right at the end. I don’t really want to discuss what happened – nothing at all remarkable or noteworthy on its own right, just a minor slip – but it sent me spiralling into a dark, wretched hole of anger and resentment for the rest of the night. 

Most of the worst thoughts have receded by now, but it’s left me with a sick feeling deep inside my chest. I always think about just finally reaching out to a therapist in moments but like this, but that too always sends me careening even further into the recesses of my malevolence. I wish I didn’t have to live with these moments; or even if they were just less frequent. It’s this kind of shit which always hits my productivity the hardest, and leaves me psychically debilitated for hours, even entire days on end. 

I’d originally intended to spend the day adding a few new pages to the PDA, but I was struggling to get started until I stumbled upon a very cool extension that allows one to quickly and seamlessly embed a fully-functional Chromium browser into GameMaker projects. It was very straightforward to set up and get working with the in-game computer, and because it draws the browser render to a GM surface, it was also easy to apply my dithering shader over it, rendering it more in line with the game’s visuals overall. I’m really surprised at just how high-quality this asset was for something I just came across completely accidentally, and it’s immediately expanded the range of potential activities (as well as implementations for older ones) I can feature for the in-game computer.

I think moving forward I’ll spend some time building a couple of locally-stored HTML pages to form a small repository of documents – some linked, others which must be accessed by finding addresses out in the wild – which will provide some further worldbuilding not directly related to the main plot. Because it’s Chromium, it may even natively support PDF displays, which would be really useful as I could then load the reference and instruction manuals directly in-game without forcing the player to switch to a different window on their machine.

At some point I’d like to explore the possibility of creating a special visual effect when accessing non-local files (basically, anything addresses on the real internet) to suggest extensive data corruption. I also have to implement a feature to prevent the player from “connecting” (in other words, just being able to access) to the browser when the in-game network is down. It should be pretty straightforward: I think I can build it into the splash screen that I have to make for it anyways, and simply have it destroy the instance and display a special error message if outside of the range of hours in which the network is active.

Lastly, while I was getting ready to go to bed at the end of the night, an idea for Estelle’s section came to with sudden and startling clarity. I was almost immediately certain that it was the best implementation of the idea yet, in terms of both thematic fit, and efficiency of design. I’m looking forward to getting started on working on it now.

All in all, pretty unexpected progress on multiple fronts today, although certainly encouraging.

Woke up late again… decided to take a break from working on in-engine stuff and shifted focus to writing. I spent the evening working on the log entries, and have started rewriting them sequentially. Don’t have much more to say about that. I baked some banana bread last night and it turned out quite well, much better than I was actually expecting. Next time though I’m gonna put some raisins in it I think.

Stayed up until noon for no good reason, fell asleep until 1700. I spent a few hours going over notes from playtesters and fixing a variety of bugs, but truthfully accomplished little of worth. I have a feeling that maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself to transition too quickly, and that I probably need a bit more time and space to reflect upon my progress so far and figure out what exactly I need to do moving forward instead of feeling so pressured to get it done immediately. I hope I’ll be able to figure that out by the time the weekend comes around…

Spent the day “researching” options for designing this next section, which means that in reality I basically did nothing all day except sit at my desk watching random gameplay videos and frankly learning very little of worth. Hopefully I’ll be able to get properly started tomorrow on something…

Uploaded a build to get some feedback on the map overall, spent the afternoon working through it with my playtesters and watching them navigate the environment. I’m pretty satisfied with the overall response, and it’s helped me develop a decent amount of insight into areas that need to be both fixed in a technical sense, and also improved design-wise. 

I spent the evening planning out my work for the next week or two, focusing on the first sequence. I have a pretty solid idea now of how it’ll work, although I still need a bit of time to figure out the precise logistics in terms of appearance (and especially that age-old question of how to handle verticality).

Last day of the month, last major day of work on the map. I finished plotting and setting out the trail system today. It doesn’t really look as good as I wished – although to be honest, I don’t really know what exactly it was I actually imagined it would look like to begin with – but hopefully it’s functional enough to help players develop a sense of direction over the course of this section, especially at the beginning. I’m beginning to realise now that there’s also probably a lack of landmarks (and particularly notable interiors…) which hopefully I’ll be able to address when I revisit this in a month or two… but tomorrow (or later today, I guess) a new section of work starts! I’m looking forward to it. I hope by the end of this month I’ll be able to fully finish both sequences, but we’ll see…