Finished and released the demo. I feel okay about it, I guess. I don’t really know. We’ll see how the response is. I’m not optimistic that things are gonna be much different than they have been, or there’s gonna be a sudden influx of attention and interest; but that’s fine. Mostly I’m just pretty tired. There’s not really any anger left in me anymore, just a bit of a quiet ache where something used to be. I finally get to go home tomorrow. I hear it’s been raining a lot in the city. You know, at the end of it all, despite the surrounding circumstances, I think this was one of the better trips I’ve taken. I got a lot of stuff done. Next time though I think I’ll just stay inside the States.
I had a dream that the build was approved and that I was happy and when I awoke I discovered that the build had in fact been approved although I was still not happy. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up some ancillary tasks and lingering issues, all of which I was able to complete to satisfaction, which means that the build will go live tomorrow and, for now, my work comes to a rest. Just in time for me to return home, as well. When I get home I will sleep for a long time. I hope people will like the game.
Didn’t really work today, just reviewed some tasks and repeatedly refreshed the Steam store page to see if the demo was cleared (as of right now, it hasn’t been). I made some new assets for the store page. I feel calmer, and more listless. I haven’t gone outside in two days, maybe even three at this point. Tomorrow I’m going to get a bunch of stuff done, the last of the immediate content that warrants attention. I hope the demo clears tomorrow.
Calmer today. I spent most of the day working. The demo is in a more respectable state now. As of this current moment though, it’s still yet to be approved, which means I’m probably not going to be able to make, at the very least, the first day of the press preview segment. What a debacle. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m going to add in a few more bits of content tomorrow, and then get it up. After that, I’ll spend the remainder of my days here at ease. I look forward to returning home.
Spent the entire day working. Significantly rebuilt the backend for the in-game computer, so that it’s now handled as a persistent object in the game world that’s visually accessed through the workstation in the outpost. This will hopefully make it easier to ensure compatibility later on down the road for various interface elements like the navigator and network sweeper that share a significant amount of cross-functionality and design with their workstation equivalents. I also designed a better-looking login screen.
One more day tomorrow before the press preview starts. Technically I have until the evening of the 28th as well, but that’s cutting it pretty close. I hope that the build is approved by the end of tomorrow.
Woke up to a terrible sadness. Spent the rest of the day working so I wouldn’t have space to think about it. It mostly worked, except the moments it didn’t. The build failed approval because apparently at some point the content warning survey was updated to a new format, and I’d failed to keep it up to date. Fortunately someone at Raw Fury was able to get it back in the queue almost immediately… but all that means is that I’ve now been shoved back into the review queue once again. I don’t know how it’s going to affect the approval date seeing as they took basically the maximum amount of time they’d allotted themselves for this in the last round, but there’s not much I can do at this point except just continue to work on the stuff I can actually work on, which is what I did today. The air is cool and pleasant in the mornings and evenings, and the days billow with a breeze that comes sweeping through the rooms of the apartment every quarter hour or so. You can buy a 66cL bottle of beer for under $5. When I’m not working, I lie there and stare up at the ceiling and feel my heart tearing apart at the seams in slow motion and think about shooting people’s loved ones in front of them.
I finally got around to finishing (ie paying for) the registration process for the Apple Developer Program this afternoon, which means I can now export to Mac for the next year at least. I hope that hundred dollars pays itself off. I hope that the game will be done by then. If it isn’t, I think I’ll hang myself. I won’t lie, I feel pretty awful about this demo. I have a feeling it’s gonna completely sink. It completely falls short, like just about everything else I do these days. I don’t feel like I can do much of anything right anymore. Can’t keep any promises, maybe never could. I’ll have to find some other way. I finally fixed the config menu window, and consolidated the code so that its functionality is shared with the faux-BIOS config menu during the spin-up sequence.
Well, at the end of it all, it turns out it was just another day like any other day. I really wish I could’ve spent my birthday this year at home, but instead I forced myself to commit to this accursed trip for, what, some false pretence towards accountability? self-flagellation? and now here I am, once again far from any notion of home, not even in the same slipstream of time anymore, trapped hopelessly in my loneliness. I went out for the first time this morning and walked for about an hour at sunrise hoping it might be able to move me towards some kind of feeling beyond this sadness, but it only afflicted me with an even greater sense of sorrow. I drifted around aimlessly for the rest of the day hoping for something to change, but nothing did, not even the feeling, and I think that’s really the worst part: that nothing changes today, nothing will change or ever does, that the clock moves forward but I never do, and all I do is just get stuck in the past and that’s all I am, that’s all there is to me. I miss my home. I miss Ana. I feel so stupid for admitting either. But that’s all I seem to have these days: just a whole lot of missing, and not much else left to give or do or say. Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.
My heart aches in a lonely, familiar way.
Forced myself to take a break from working over the weekend on account of my birthday, but it’s almost immediately proved to be a terrible idea. I slipped back into an obsessive, depressed anger basically as soon as I woke up after submitting the build, and it’s only gotten worse in the hours since. I just can’t seem to shake this feeling, it always comes back seemingly worse than before. I just want it gone. All of it, all of the memories, the feelings, the pain. All I can think about is killing. I get physically nauseous at the slightest thought of her. I can’t seem to do anything except recoil and writhe uselessly from these wretched wounds. I feel like my life has been fucking cursed.
I’ve been up for the past 23 hours grinding out the rest of this demo. I feel mildly unwell as a result of that, but am otherwise relieved that it’s over. I’m not that satisfied with it, to be honest, but it’s the best I can do for now. I’ll probably make a few more stealth changes over the next couple of days, but as of right now, it’s 99% content-complete and about as bug-free as I can get it.
It’s been just about a year to date since I met her. I left that night feeling so sure of… something. I didn’t know what it was back then — I don’t know what it was now — but I never could’ve imagined any of it would go the way it did, any moment of it. I think I felt a happiness I have never felt before in my life. People keep on telling me, Ana herself, the worst of them all, that I’ll feel it again, with someone else: but they’re wrong, and they know they’re wrong, but they have to live their lives believing otherwise, because otherwise it would dislodge them from their perfect continuities, the ongoingness of their lives, their gathered, undisrupted selves — It feels like it’s been so much longer than that. It feels like these wounds are ancient, from before I existed. That’s the most bitter part of it all: there’s so little left that the memory of pain has failed to devour that I can barely remember anything now that hasn’t been maimed by the agony of the present. It’s sickening to think that life has just moved on, utterly indifferent to the lot of it. I think that’s why I felt so compelled to die in those moments: not to end my own pain or to inflict more upon her, at the end of it, but because I was so afraid of the end of it, the decay into meaninglessness of it, that it felt more preferable to die in that moment and freeze it in the amber of tragedy than to let it be wasted by an ongoingness so thoroughly and cruelly indifferent to the fragility of such things as to be indistinguishable in effect from rot itself. That’s what it feels like. All the moments after, too: the months I spent trying to hold on to something that was already long lost at that point, thinking I could outwill its decay, only to degrade it even more, to even further rob the whole debacle of what little remaining pretence of dignity we could muster. It ruined everything. I ruined everything. I miss her terribly, and I’m powerless to do anything about it, because I am powerless to do anything about anything. Even if she were to suddenly re-appear I fear it wouldn’t change a single thing. I don’t remember what she looked like. I hate her ability to remain uncompromised. Her terrible ongoingness. I would do anything to leave a stain across that. If, for even just a moment, I could hurl my body upon the tracks and register as an unexpected jolt: I don’t remember anything about her at all except the pain she inflicted upon me. My heart’s become rotten. One of these days, I keep on telling myself. It’s been a bit longer than “a bit”. I wish I could blot the entirety of this past year from my life. This is gonna sting. It’s all gonna catch up to me, one by one. I have become filled with vile, bitter feelings. I don’t know anything about anything. I have become sick with longing. I don’t know anything at all.
Worked steadily this morning for the longest period I think I’ve ever consistently worked in years. Still, it wasn’t enough: but I’m definitely closer, and the end (for now) is much more palpably in sight. At this point, I’m so tired that I’m not even really able to think about much else beyond the immediate deadline. I guess that’s a good thing. I added controller support some time last night, or maybe it was this morning. I finished a bunch of animations as well in the basement. When I return to work, I’m switching over to working on the computer for a bit. Maybe by the end of tonight I’ll be able to get the surge in…
I’m not quite sure what day it is anymore. I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep since I arrived. It’s been very difficult to focus on much of anything, let alone work. But I’m trying. It’s gonna get done no matter what. No way out now.
Spent over half of my waking hours today cramped into an airplane seat. I watched half of the Saw franchise. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although I don’t think my neighbour did at all. Someone was wearing the same perfume as Ana. It kept on drifting in and out every few minutes throughout the entirety of the flight. Eventually I approximated its origin to a woman sitting a few seats ahead of me. I can’t be sure though. Now I’ll never know. It had an unexpectedly devastating effect. Like getting pulled under a tidal surge of sadness. Each time it hit me, it was like all of it just came rushing back to me all at once, utterly unabated: no more shame, or fear, or dread, or pain, but just a whole lot missing. It was like that the entire flight. It was a terrible thing. It’s like that still. There is no mutilation machine masterful enough to dull or distract me this feeling. Now I am stuck here in a city I neither know nor care to know in a country I neither know nor care to know for little real reason, alone with all of this. I wish I could just go home. This bitter, empty earth and all its people. My bitter, empty heart and all its absences.
Had a terrible dream about Ana last night. I awoke in a dark mood, with a gnawing pain in my chest. Thankfully I was able to force myself to work through it, and after about an hour or two, it subsided into a dull ache. I spent the afternoon working on character animations. I renamed a bunch of global variables to make them more legible. It’s terribly tedious work. There’ll be a meeting on Monday with Raw Fury, presumably regarding my discontent with our working relationship. I’m bored of all of it. I feel like I’ve hit a wall. I’m not really progressing in anything; and in this world, that means that I’m falling behind, maybe still very slowly at the present rate, but nonetheless, certainly. It feels like this game will never be finished. It feels like I’m being eclipsed by the shadow of better days.
Worked until 6 this morning, and then fell asleep. Took the rest of the day off on account of seeing the doctor, and then picking up some stuff from my brother in the city. I’m going to continue working tonight until I finish up the character animations for the worm farm. I expressed to Raw Fury last night that I no longer care to even pretend to hold myself accountable to any internal deadlines, which gives me a bit more room to breathe, and time to get things done without having to worry about superfluous actors potentially getting in the way. At one point I likely would’ve found myself appalled at the casual callousness of that statement but I’ve reached a point where I no longer care, or even want to care. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish before sunrise.
Finished furnishing the basement, as far as necessities go. Didn’t get any of the actual character animations or functionality done today regrettably, but I no longer really care. I realised I’ll have more than enough time to do that stuff in between the layover and the flights themselves (being optimistic here a bit with the latter to say the least, but it remains open as a worst case scenario); and on top of any of that, my frustration with Raw Fury has reached a tipping point. Maybe it’s just the fatigue talking, I don’t know. It seems unlikely.
I felt a bit calmer today. I cleaned my room. I was able to get a couple of hours of work done in the early evening. Cleaned up the appearance of the basement entrance and interior. The sifter has been animated as well; all that’s left furniture-wise is the oven, and grinder, both of which are fairly static and require little advanced animation. I will need to create some sounds for everything… I also have to block off the generator room. Tomorrow I would like to completely finish up the basement, including all of the interactions with the worm farm. I don’t know how feasible it is — I feel doubtful — but I’m sick of working on it any further.
That, in effect, leaves one day to work on all of the computer interface interactions, and another to work on miscellaneous interactions (mostly animations) around the outpost, before I have to submit to QA for testing. I hate submitting builds. I’m also considering the possibility of slightly expanding the amount of area accessible in the demo (mostly around the cliffside), and removing the restriction preventing the player from navigating away from the outpost cell once they’ve entered it, in order to encourage the player to look around a bit more and gain a sense of the diversity and scale of the environment.
It’ll be a squeeze, but at this point, that seems like the only way things get done. I actually wouldn’t mind it too much, if only I didn’t have to constantly concern myself with the pressure of a mostly useless middleman. But I guess that’s just the cost of things. Whatever.
Walked around just about the entirety of lower Manhattan today with Sam. It was real nice being able to finally meet him in person. Every time we speak I get a greater and greater impression that we are quite similar in a variety of unexpected ways; and this time, I am especially convinced. I was unable to show him the game as we had planned due to some negligence on my part in failing to properly turn off my computer, causing it to overheat in my bag and rapidly drain its battery; but I have come away from our discussions with a significantly improved resolution to work on the game and get it done right.
It turns out that at the end of it all, the one thing that always, incontrovertibly seems to help is being reminded that there are still people out there who are genuinely enthused about this work beyond friendly interest, and who would like to see me succeed in it. I am glad to be able to share this project with him.
Accomplished a bit of work tonight: added occlusive shadow-mask when moving in and out of the outpost bedroom, and made further renovations to the basement. I’ve decided to revisit the layout a bit by blocking off the generator room into its own subsection, and completely redoing the lighting. I might also revise the way the torch works altogether: I’m no longer particularly satisfied with its appearance or functionality (or evident lack thereof, for that matter). I think that’ll be a task best left for after the demo is completed, though.
My sleep has grown completely disturbed, and when I am alone, I find myself in near-constant struggle against thoughts of the most appalling and malevolent nature. My dreams have become monstrous.
Woke up even later today, still exhausted. Worked for about an hour in the evening, and immediately felt overcome by fatigue. At least it’s a start. There is still some time: but not enough to continue wasting it so profligately. This wretched heart of mine. I will go to sleep earlier tonight and commit to working a full day tomorrow, come hell or high water.
I didn’t work at all today. I woke up late into the afternoon, confused and vaguely unsettled. I don’t feel like I’m doing much of anything right as of late. My heart is in a constant state of dull pain, and I am filled with unease. Tomorrow, I’ll try again…
I’ve grown sick of nearly everything. Tomorrow I will resume working.
The air has become uncomfortably hot again. It’ll be like this all throughout the week, which puts me at ill ease. I felt overcome by a dim malaise throughout the weekend, that was mildly, momentarily abated by the assorted company of some old friends. With only my own company though, it has only lengthened into a depressive anger. I’ve run out of patience for the disappointments of others. I’ve once again let my life slump into a kind of decline.
My heart has become possessed once again by vile, vicious ruminations.
Woke up late into the afternoon, plagued by horrible dreams. The temperature’s been getting colder, although I think next week, it will once again be very hot for a brief duration. When the air gets like this, it’s always reminded me of when I was very young, coming back to school from summer vacation. I was always so excited and scared in equal measure to discover if my friends were still my friends, if I was still who I was. These days though, there’s not much to look forward to, and the days are really just all the same, with little exception. Today was no different.
And now another summer’s over. Time passes really quickly now. I don’t think I felt any better today, but I also didn’t feel as bad. I don’t really know, it’s hard to tell. I feel real alone though these days. Kinda like the way it was before. I’ve been afflicted by a terrible sadness once again. I’ve been thinking about everyone and everything a bit too much. But that’s the thing about it, I guess: things only seem easy and alright in recollection because by then, they’ve already passed. You already know what’s gonna happen, and more importantly, there’s nothing you can do to change any of it anymore. In the moment, though, it was really no different at all than this one. And the awful part is that when I think of all the things that can remain constant in my life, this is the one, I know, that’s gonna keep coming back, again and again, as long as I live. Man. Oh, man.
