Author: Spencer

And here I was, thinking there was a chance that things were gonna be better this time around. Goddamnit.

Finally back to work. Today was a good day, by all accounts. I’ve decided to ease back into the project by revisiting the plan for the demo, and building off of that. Much has happened, although little has changed. No matter. I just have to get through the rest of it from here on out. No use thinking about what comes after.

My leave of absence was officially approved as of yesterday. All that’s left now is to write the update for this month. I’ll finally be able to rest for a while after that.

I’m still feeling pretty good about things. The euphoria has largely passed, but I’m surprised by the realisation that I still feel remarkably clear. I actually feel very consistently optimistic and secure in my feelings about things for once. Not just one or two things either, but… everything, basically. 

Of course, some part of me – a very foundationally-located part of me, to be sure – remains deeply suspect of all of it: of the intentions of others, of the sheer apparent improbability of things to come. But lately I feel like my trust in others has been strengthened to a degree that I don’t think I’ve ever possessed before in my life. To be honest, I actually feel like I’m running out of excuses to convince myself why I should suspect anyone around me at all. 

How strange it feels to be typing out a new year. So much has happened in these few brief days, and how volatile they’ve been. I can’t say for certain yet – although I hope that in the days and weeks and months to come, I will grow only more confident in this – but I want desperately to believe that I have emerged in the midst of a newfound, unprecedented sense of clarity and, at least in this immediate moment, what feels like some kind of peace. It’s undoubtedly been bittersweet as well, but right now, I don’t feel scared, or insecure, or despairing, or alone anymore. 

I know now that there are people out there who care about me deeply, many more than I could imagine. I know now that there is someone out there who has held the fullness of my spirit in its totality, and chosen to return to me their own in kind. I don’t speak casually when I confess that I believe I have, for just a moment, brushed up against the very grace of God itself. I don’t know if the moment is over, or if it will ever happen again. I have no choice but to keep on living.

I felt really happy today, and at peace with things. I likely won’t be back again until the new year but I’m glad that I was able to wrap this year up here like this. Happy New Year. Peace, love, and grace be with you, now and forever. I’ll see you soon.

I’m too exhausted to recount everything that’s happened. I can’t promise much, but I think I’m getting better, though. I’ll try to write at least one more entry for this year before it ends. Good night.

Feeling fucked up.

Nothing done today either. I don’t know what’s going on. I just feel too tired to do anything most of the time, and of the few remaining handful of moments I actually feel awake, I feel too distracted to think straight. Maybe seeing the doctor tomorrow will help.

I felt a lot better today. After service, I helped to set up some Christmas decorations. I feel at peace again. I didn’t work today after all, but not because I felt bad. I wanted to preserve that sense of peace. I do have to write the monthly update though tomorrow. It’s already several days overdue.

The past few days have been a trial, to put it lightly. There were a few stretches there I thought I was gonna die. I’ve been able to mostly recover from it though. I can’t yet tell if the peace I feel right now is the genuine peace of reconciliation, or simply the lull of exhaustion. Maybe the distinction isn’t all that important. Either way, I have to get back to work soon.

I spent most of today gripped by anger and an intense desire to shoot myself in the face in such a manner that would render my corpse undisplayable. I worked slowly and unsteadily throughout the afternoon, and I plan on working through the night as well.

I felt calmer today. I woke up rather late, so that the first task of my day was to see the doctor. It was a very pleasant way to start the day, though, all other considerations notwithstanding. I felt better, and was, by nightfall, able to recover the ability to work. 

I’ve finished all of the intertitles for each day. It was a nice change of pace from working on the build itself. I spent the night going through a bunch of books and selecting passages to use for the titles and captions. I have to return to working on the build tomorrow, though. I’ve decided not to worry about the appearance of anything, and just get all the functionality in place. I think that once I’m able to get the skeleton set up, I’ll be able to feel a bit more at ease with it.

I fear that I have let the past few days overwhelm my senses too thoroughly. I must remember that a person cannot live animated by electrical fervour for long. Perhaps I was mistaken in my happiness. No, that’s not it… I wasn’t mistaken, but more likely, misguided. I think that I have, in certain ways, made a farce of my feelings.

Moreover, every day, I grow to resent my work more and more. I find myself frequently astounded by how insipid and uninspired it all feels. The only part of this project to which I’m looking forward is its end. I keep telling myself that it’s only a handful of months left, that once it’s over, I’ll finally be free. 

But even in this sense, I’m being dishonest with myself. It’s not my work I hate, or even this particular game; but the pathetic, arrogant cowardice with which I live my life. I hate the speed and easiness with which, despite having felt so flush with such certain and intimate joy, I have allowed myself to slip back into this familiar, repulsive worthlessness. I hate the listlessness that descends like a heaving miasma over my days, suffocating out any sense of responsibility or will towards something greater than the assuaging of my immediate psychic pains. And I hate most of all the jealousy that percolates within my chest and rises on occasion with the nausea in my throat. What right do I of all people have to it? 

How disgusting, the lot of it.

I’m not sure how to even begin talking about the past few days. I feel like my life has palpably changed. I feel like I have changed. I’m no longer alone. Even with all the surrounding complications and agonies, I think I’m happy. I think I’m really happy.

I have grown tired of living the way I have lived. I have grown terribly, bitterly tired.

Another largely wasted day. I woke this morning nauseous from dreaming, far too early. I spent the rest of the morning battling the fugue of a feverish fatigue before deciding that it was not worth it to remain awake any longer. It was already dark by the time I awoke again. I had intended to submit my revised documents but I failed to even start working on them. I feel that I have fallen far from Christ. I feel so bitterly alone and empty all the time now. At least before, there was the semblance of something like sadness occupying that space. But now, it feels like I have nothing anymore, and that I am nothing.

Terribly tired today. I woke early this morning from a crushing dream about Alexandra that haunted me for the rest of the day. I’m sick of thinking about her. It’s been years already. I can’t stand this emptiness. I wasn’t able to get any work done today. After I returned from service I wandered around aimlessly for a bit and then fell asleep again when I returned home. When I awoke, it was already dark. 

The start of December has come and passed in an unseemly fit of exhaustion, spurned in equal parts by procrastination and insomnia alike. First it was the UI build, which I still haven’t finished in its entirety; and then some business about creating promotional holidays cards, which I did finish, although possibly not on time. I was awake for nearly three days straight. By the end of this weekend, I will have to have written and submitted a fully realised proposal for an apparently upcoming demo, as well as a comprehensive update to the plot document describing the revisions I’ve made over the past several months.

For once, it feels like things are picking up. To some degree, I actually welcome it. I’ve been having terrible dreams nearly every night for an entire month now, nearly all of them unified in (and equally so, by) their subject. I’ve barely gone out or seen anyone since I left the station that evening, and the thought of being anywhere near the city fills me with nauseating dread. But the past several days have been so thoroughly exhausting that I’ve found that the sheer pressure of each moment is almost nearly enough, in rhythm, to eclipse the otherwise-unignorable pangs of loneliness and embittered grief that tear and crash through me like waves every other moment. 

It’s a diabolical trade-off, to be certain; but at this point, it’s not like things were going to really get better as they were, and just as certainly, I’ve discovered now all too well, I should no longer be so trusting of the kinds of happiness which come from others. At least at the end of this period of trials, I’ll have a game to sell and, more importantly, a contract satisfied.

Wasn’t able to finish the build on time for submission, but I wrote up a document instead going over the changes I’ve made to the computer interface, which I’ve submitted for now in lieu of a proper build. I spent the day drafting out the functionality and appearance of the ACV app. I feel pretty good about the design. Tomorrow, I’ll start implementing it after I get off the check-in call.

Although I still feel pretty terrible overall and am still very much struggling, I’m glad that I was able to recover a little bit – if only just in this one area – and finish the month in, at least in this one particular regards, a better state than that in which I started it. I think that December will be particularly hard, but I am certain that, for better or worse, I will make it through the end of the year regardless. 

Finally some real work, for once. I’ve committed to a complete overhaul of the outpost computer UI. The overall appearance is a lot more unified and accessible now, and, at least in my opinion, aesthetically interesting. I’ve merged all of the system apps into a single object that loads directly from the launch screen, and I’ve dramatically decluttered the backend so it’s extremely stable now, and easy to troubleshoot in case QA picks up anything. Right now, only Log is fully implemented functionality-wise – the other two are still basically just visual mockups, as it stands – but it’s a very solid foundation and honestly, I’m just glad I was able to finally get something done.

My lack of progress – both in getting work done, and getting over myself when it comes to my feelings – has progressed from frustrating to maddening. Despite my efforts otherwise, I’ve gotten basically nothing done since Thursday. Now the weekend is over and I’m once again left with nothing to show for it. I don’t know why it’s so difficult to just get the work done on time, especially when I know what exactly needs to be get done, but today in particular felt impossible to overcome. Every hour I made some excuse for myself to start at the end of that hour, yet I barely got more than ten minutes of real work done at the end of all those hours. What a waste of a life. I hate working on this fucking game. At this rate, it feels like it’ll never end.

Thanksgiving was pretty nice. For a moment, I felt a bit better. It didn’t last very long, but while it did, it was pretty nice.

I don’t remember not writing an entry yesterday, but I guess I don’t remember much of anything these days. I worked for about twenty minutes this afternoon – just UI stuff – before succumbing to a dark restlessness that continued to disturb me for the rest of the day. I went for a walk. The night air felt clean and thin, and there were few sounds but the spilling of the wind through the streets and branches of trees. 

Published the monthly update this afternoon. Spent the rest of the day in a disconsolate fugue. I thought cleaning my desk might help, but instead it just left me feeling terribly deflated and unfulfilled.

I woke this morning from a dream that left me deeply sad. It was difficult to get out of bed but eventually I somehow did. I was able to get a little bit of work done, mostly just on the Kickstarter update. But after only an hour, I began to feel an immense tearing sensation deep in my chest.

I’ve begun feeling vaguely feverish these past few days whenever I think about certain things too much. My body starts to overheat, and I find myself quickly becoming overwhelmed by a dizzying confusion that rather rapidly and uncontrollably develops into full-blown nausea after several minutes.

Shortly afterwards, I started feeling suicidal again. It persisted for hours. 

Once again fallen behind tasks. Still haven’t written either the spec doc for the soundscapes, or this month’s update. It’s not that I’ve not been trying, I’ve just been too distracted lately. Everybody’s always telling me that I’m too hard on myself, but if I had the capacity to be kinder to myself, or even just being able to recognise what that might actually entail, I probably wouldn’t find myself in these situations to begin with, I think. The realisation that so little time has actually elapsed in practice just exacerbates it. I don’t mean to be dramatic when I confess that each night has been getting harder and harder to get through. At least the desire to kill oneself is still an active desire, however destructive it may be. Now, it’s as if I have no desires left at all. I can’t find it within me to want to do anything; and everything that I do just feels like a waste of time. I just feel like a waste of time. 

In any case, I should probably commit to finishing the audio write-up and the monthly update tomorrow. 

Thoroughly drained. Still no progress. I completely forgot to write the soundscape design sheet for the composer last week. I opened up a document, wrote the title, and then felt so overwhelmed with physical fatigue that I found myself hardly able to look at the screen much longer, let alone conjure any useful thoughts. I’ll have to get it done tomorrow before my meeting. 

This week I’m supposed to deliver a build with additional content in it. Seeing that both tomorrow and Tuesday will be more or less completely occupied, that leaves me approximately eight hours or so on Wednesday – and that’s if I’m lucky enough to be debilitated by psychosomatic ailment – to come up with and implement any such content in full. I don’t know why I place such burdens upon myself. I feel useless in the face of it all.

Nothing to update, other than to confirm that I’ve continued to not get any work done. I met with Tawanda across the river instead. We ate pizza, and then sat and watched the lights of the city for a while. The night was bright and streaked with thin, pale clouds that seemed to tumble endlessly across the entire sky. I’ve become sick with longing. I am certain now that, against any efforts to humiliate myself into believing otherwise, what I felt was starkly, unabashedly real. In the wake of that realisation, my former loneliness, in/to which I had so surely resigned myself prior, has become unbearable. The past has suddenly become inhospitable, yet there is no refuge in the present, either. I have little other apparent choice but to wait and suffer the death of this experience in real-time, at the level of my spirit and body alike, all the while mourning its passing, actively unable to effect any other course. The death of something that could’ve been. Maybe. An inchoate, pluperfect future. You know, I still haven’t changed the sheets. I’m afraid to do so. Of what it could mean, of what it might suggest. Instead I pass my evenings lying there on the floor, hours on end, door locked, until it goes completely dark, breathing in and out the ever-diminishing scents of that afternoon until I become nauseous from the heaving in my chest. The nascence of tears that never seem to arrive when they should. I fear the moment has passed for us, irreparably. On what grounds? I don’t know. What is faith? Holy fool. Fucking idiot. 

More marginal fixes. Someone told me once that as long as you do a single thing every day, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is, you’re making progress. I guess they’re right in a logistical sense. But in the moment, it just ends up feeling even more frustrating than doing nothing. 

I’m discovering, day by day, that the oblivion of my previous despair was, in retrospect, a far more comfortable burden to hold than that of my present grief. I will be the first to admit how annoyingly melodramatic that likely comes off; but right now, I can no longer stomach the desire to care otherwise. I can’t believe so little time has actually passed. At this rate, it’s hard to believe that I’ll be able to make it through this winter intact.

Optimised the generic forest rooms, and changed the primary typeface to Arial. I feel physically exhausted, and I can’t concentrate on anything. I worked for about an hour, maybe two at maximum, in the afternoon before I succumbed completely to a total fatigue of both my body and spirit. I can’t even properly recall what I actually accomplished, if anything at all. I feel like I’ve made such marginal improvements to the game’s performance that they could just as very well be negligible altogether. I didn’t see the doctor today. I wish I could talk to someone, but the thought of being near another person right now, with the exception of the doctor, deeply unsettles me. I don’t even know what I would or could say. All of this is so pathetic. It makes me sick.

Didn’t work at all this weekend. I probably should have, but… I don’t know. I don’t really have any excuses. I’m tired of coming up with them for myself. I just feel empty. That’s all.

Spent a bit this morning optimising some stuff, or at least pretending to do so. I set up the YYC compiler and did some cursory tests: it seems to work surprisingly well. I haven’t encountered any issues with it yet although I certainly imagine that it’s only a matter of time. I spent the afternoon playing Siege. I don’t particularly enjoy it, to be honest, but it’s the only thing that seems to really work to keep my thoughts steadily and completely occupied. That, and sleeping, I guess. I’ve been doing both of those a lot lately. Even just a few minutes on my own, I start to unravel. I can’t stand this. I hope it ends soon.

First day back to work in-engine in what feels like a month. So much has happened just within the past week alone, I don’t even know where to begin to recount any of it. A part of me feels at peace, yet another part of me feels just completely hollowed out. I feel alone again. I guess that means I have to start working again. I don’t know what else to do. I feel like if I don’t, I’ll start coming apart.

Took a day off to rest, and then spent most of today catching up on the previous day’s responsibilities, which included finishing the final cut of the trailer (for good, this time) and recording some kind of introductory video, which was a complete failure. 

I feel a little bit better about it now, it’s slightly more interesting than it was before and taking a day off to give it some space provided the necessary distance to be able to evaluate and address its shortcomings more pointedly.

Taking the rest of the week off after tomorrow’s meeting.

Finished and submitted the trailer. It’s completely forgettable and falls short of just about any measure of adequacy, but at least it’s done and I can finally rest. I still need to do a few touch-ups on it tomorrow and record an introduction video, but the worst of it is now in the past. I’m going to rest until the weekend, and then start working on the game again proper.

Burning the oil on the trailer. It’s going to be complete shit, but at this point, I no longer care. I suppose, though, in a roundabout way it is a very honest and accurate reflection of where I stand on the project. I’m sick of all of this. 

I’ve been spending too much time in the world. I don’t belong here.

Spent last night with Haolun, until this afternoon. We had a long talk today about my difficulties with work. I feel better about it, or at least more motivated. I guess we’ll see how I feel after tomorrow morning’s meeting.

I realise I’ve completely lost touch with the essence of my work. These past few months I haven’t thought about any elements within the game itself. All I’ve been thinking about and struggling through are questions about how I think others may perceive this project: whether through the tutorial, or various mechanical systems, or the marketing, or this goddamned trailer. I haven’t thought about the characters or the ideas driving this work at all in what feels like over a year now. 

After this trailer is done, I’m completely pulling back. No more of this, all of these distractions. I’ve allowed myself to be buried by all this irrelevant noise. I need to reorient and rediscover within myself what makes this game matter at all to me, and just spend time with that alone, on my own, moving forward. Everything else is just static.

Returned last night from seeing a new friend. This morning, immediately upon sitting down at my computer again, I was overcome at once by a wave of despair so great I nearly collapsed. I didn’t work on the trailer. I didn’t work on anything at all. I must confess a rather inconvenient and terrible truth that’s dawned on me. I’ve grown to resent this project deeply. The work has become meaningless. Dull and unbearably pretentious. I despise working with my publisher. I get the sense that I am utterly marginal and deprioritised in their schemes. I’ve grown sick of all of it. The meeting last week was the final push. Any remaining hope that I might be able to recover some semblance of joy, or meaning, or even just plain curiosity from this project in its present state has been buried. I just want it to be over. Now that I’ve felt true happiness, I can no longer bear the deception, the delusion of the rest of it.

I woke up this morning to discover that my choice in music for the trailer – which is to say, in other words, the very backbone of its composition – has been deemed too legally risky. The few options I was given to remediate this were effectively all non-options or, even worse, inadvertently humiliating. In practical terms, I’ve been left with just over a week to a deadline to discard all my present work and completely redo the trailer altogether.

Well, to put it lightly, I’m demoralised. Not just about the immediate future of the trailer (which, to be honest, I was already thinking about redoing in its entirety anyways), but also about the longer future of my relationship with the publisher.  More and more lately I’ve been feeling a mounting frustration with how they’ve handled – or I suppose, are handling – this project. I’ve realised only recently just how much it’s drained me both personally and in terms of my interest in, and motivation to work on the project.

To be fair, I don’t think any of it is a fault of their specific practices, I should clarify: but I feel like I’ve been repeatedly deprioritised this entire time to the point where just about the only benefit they’ve provided me in practical effect so far has been the money (which, also to be fair, is certainly no small thing). But if money was the only thing I was looking for, I could’ve gone with virtually anybody else; and there were likely even better options in that capacity as well. I suppose disappointment is the best way to put it. Disappointment in their relative lack of involvement, yes; but more so, disappointment in myself in thinking I could somehow be an exception.

Finally back home, and more or less settled back in. I can hardly even begin to describe the events of the past week, let alone adequately. The best I can offer is that I’ve come back changed, and not necessarily for the better.

Fortunately my desire to work has been rejuvenated wholesale. I spent the night going over the existing cut and adding a few more pieces. It seems to be coming along alright, although I definitely need to shoot a lot more footage. (There’s also the question of whether I should reshoot the old footage for sake of visual consistency, but I’m not quite ready yet to consider the necessary tedium of that suggestion…)

I’m also thinking about significantly cutting down the actual song length, or even more radically, just using another song altogether. I’m sitting at almost an exact minute right now and still have an entire minute of audio left. With the speed of these cuts, that’s a massive amount of material I’ll need to shoot in composite, for which frankly I doubt I have either the time or patience. I’ll be working on this all of tomorrow, so I’ll see what I can do about halving the length, or even using a new song. 

Didn’t end up finishing all the footage for the trailer, but I feel good about the work I have left. I’m going to put some final touches on it tomorrow, including editing down the song length proper, and then submit it for this week.

After talking to the doctor, I feel much better about the upcoming trip as well. I hope that by the time I come back, I’ll have enough energy in reserve to push through it all at once the week I return.

I had the strangest night last night. Not at all in a bad way. It completely cleansed away the distaste of the preceding day. In any case, I got back late enough that I just didn’t bother going to sleep and instead worked on the trailer for a while. I’d like to get the layout done and submitted by Tuesday. I didn’t attend service today. I wanted to go but I felt like I needed some time to think about things on my own.

Feeling pretty drained. Woke up late, spent most of the day pretending to write this month’s update. I had planned on working proper tonight, but ended up having to attend to other matters. I think I’ll go to sleep early instead and immediately start working as soon as I wake up tomorrow.

Submitted the initial “draft” of the trailer yesterday. It seems to have been received well. It was immensely relieving. I feel like it’s the first time anyone’s been excited about the game in a while. I know for certain that’s not true, but unfortunately reality so rarely ever corroborates feelings, for better or worse. I’m beginning to feel better about the project again. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about this announcement.

I’m hoping to get all of the new assets done by the end of this weekend. I’ll be out for a bit Saturday night, but otherwise it should just be straight shooting from here. I didn’t work at all today after the meeting, but I feel pretty good about things.

I finally finished this cursed animation that’s occupied the entirety of the weekend. It looks pretty good, actually, so maybe it was worth it ultimately. I struggled for the rest of the day in terms of how to lay out – and then, naturally, fill out – the rest of the trailer. 

I was visited just now by a tremendous surge of inspiration, however, which has almost singularly changed the direction of it. I will continue working a bit longer throughout the night.

I’ve spent nearly two consecutive days (only a handful of hours per day, to be fair) working on a single animation and I’m not sure if it’s been worth it. I suppose I won’t know until it’s done.

Returned from visiting several old friends. I have been left deeply moved by this experience. I believe I have learned a new kind of love from this, a kind that can only be realised through a certain ellipsis of time and perspective. I have missed them all more dearly than I may have realised, and now confess.

Started working on assets for the trailer this afternoon. The bulk of it is animations: I’m trying to keep as much of the footage for the trailer contained to stuff that actually appears in the game, rather than complementary stuff I have to build specifically for this. Helps keep things focused, and saves me some work in the long run as well. If I work diligently, I may even have a content-complete first draft by the end of the weekend. We’ll see.

Another day with limited apparent progress; but I feel much clearer in regard to my vision for this trailer than I did before. I’ve decided to drop the hymn for this one: I’ve been having too much difficulty coordinating a flow of images to it with what I currently have (and am willing and able to produce, for that matter) within the limited few weeks I have left. I also have begun to feel that, at the current stage of the project, it feels like there’s a bit too much potential for it to be misinterpreted tonally, and I don’t feel like I can do it justice now. Hopefully for release though…

The new idea is pretty interesting though, and it feels very clear to me. I started working on a proper treatment late tonight. It’s unfortunate, and immensely frustrating that it came to me so late and that I won’t be able to have a proper deliverable by tomorrow’s meeting. I’m cautiously optimistic about this idea though. I suspect it may not be as immediately and broadly impactful as the last trailer, but if I can get it right… I think it’ll be good. Conceptually, it feels right.

I didn’t get as much work done today as I would have liked, but I still felt marginally more productive than I have in the past several weeks, so I suppose I should count that as some kind of progress. 

Of course, I must admit that feeling in itself has little bearing upon actual material progress, of which unfortunately I can’t report much: I’ve begun to realise that my energy is seemingly much more limited than before, and that spending time in anyone’s company is enough to thoroughly deplete the rest of the day’s reserve of attention.

I don’t think that this in itself is a bad thing by any means, and in fact, I think I feel more fulfilled now by the presence of others in the immediate than I did before. But it’s become rather difficult to establish a rhythm in which things may get done at a reasonable pace, while also holding so much space for others. I wouldn’t mind if it was just the doctor. But lately it feels like every other day I have to meet someone or the other – for reasons I often willingly and gladly volunteer myself, to be honest – and it feels nearly impossible to settle into a pace of work that allows meaningful thought without disruption. 

Thankfully winter is not too far, at least in terms of the temperament of the weather if not the seasons themselves. I hope it will provide me the refuge of an excuse that I desire. Else, I’ll be stuck making excuses for myself, and then regretting them irreconcilably.

First day back to work. A terrible humidity has set over the next week that bodes ill for the near future. Regardless, I must resume a steady schedule. I promised my producer an initial draft by this week’s meeting. I’m hoping that tomorrow I can finish most of the graphic assets for the intro sequence, and get the bare text laid out. I reckon I should probably draft a proper treatment too at some point, not just for the sake of a submission but to set it in stone.

September. It seems the period of greatest confusion may now be in the past. A sobering clarity has set in. I have fallen into a profound sadness; but I’m no longer confounded in purpose. I’ve been able to start thinking about work again. This afternoon, I finally found within myself again the ability to conjure and maintain a much clearer vision of my work than I have in months.

The end of a season. Unofficially, anyways. The weather cooled significantly today. Still nothing to show for any of it. I’ve become beset by an intense paranoia. 

I missed service this morning. I don’t know how, but I just failed to wake up. I had a terribly sad dream. I’ve been thinking about killing again lately. Everything just seems to set something off within me. I fear that I’ve grown apart from the people I’ve cared about. I fear that I’ve wasted all of my talent away. I spend all my days and nights trying to come up with new and interesting ways of killing myself. My work feels meaningless. My relationships feel meaningless. I’ve grown sick of talking. Talking never goes anywhere. I was never going anywhere anyways. In my dream, everyone turned against me. I’ve grown sick with longing. I missed this month’s update. I’ve fallen out of love. It’s all gone stale. It’s not that I’ve lost faith in God, just myself. All I can hope is for me to get better. I’m no longer enough. 

Talking to the doctor didn’t help at all this time. I don’t feel like she engaged meaningfully with much of what I’d told her at all. Too many interjections of her own biases and assumptions, to the point of being annoyingly unhelpful. Or rather, more charitably, I’m deeply frustrated that I wasn’t able to articulate my concerns effectively. Either way, I’ve come away with an even greater sense of disappointment. 

I suspect that this failure of communication has, unfortunately, somewhat significantly accelerated the progression of my symptoms as of late.

A profound sadness has once again taken hold of me. I know now it’s not simple burnout, but something much worse and unforgiving. 

The past few weeks have felt, simultaneously, interminably long and yet also unbearably short – and nearly every one of those moments in between has been quietly excruciating in retrospect. My days are filled with a constant, languishing weariness. By noon each day, without fail, I find myself completely depleted of any ability to hold compassion or grace for others, least of all myself. And all my nights are even more exhausting, dominated by thoughts of suicide and sharp, painful bouts of paranoia. I used to think that if hell were to really exist, it would be the best day of your life, and the worst day of your life re-experienced so many times that they become indistinguishable from one another in effect. I’m beginning to feel that way again.

It’s not that any one thing in particular has been distinctly bad, to be clear; but admitting that, too, further confounds and frustrates my thoughts. It feels like any progress I may have made in the first few months of this year have been utterly undone, in the sense of an unraveling. Little bits and pieces from everyone, from every direction… all manner of minor misunderstandings and misschedulings and misinterpretations and miscommunications just piling up day after day in a slow but certain metastasis of disappointment and frustration beyond resolution. In every part of my life. 

I have lost my ability to trust others: neither their intentions nor their feelings, least of all in their apparent efforts towards sincerity, which in my confused state feel like, at best, mocking pretence. I no longer trust my own feelings. My heart has betrayed me. I have felt my old inclinations rise within me late at night. In the cramped, stale silence of the afternoons. All of it makes me sick. I get the distinct feeling that, in my efforts to improve myself, I have instead somehow managed to make myself much worse.

Spoke to my producer about my thoughts and feelings regarding development. Fortunately I was met with understanding, and I feel more prepared to handle the next few months knowing that I have some support. My next primary objective is the trailer. I’m going to spend the next week preparing a spec sheet for it so that I’ll be able to break things down week by week. I’m not going to focus on anything else until it’s done. I hope that in working on it, I’ll be able to regain a sense of connection with the overarching plot and themes as the audience will experience them, and create bookends for myself both visually and in terms of implementation.

I feel I’ve arrived at a certain amount of peace regarding the past several weeks’ worth of uncertainty, although I can fairly confidently say I still do not feel like I’m in a position where I can resume working. It’s strange: emotionally, I guess I feel pretty stable, like I’ve worked through most of the things that were troubling me. But physically, and in terms of my ability to work, I feel utterly debilitated: my thoughts are completely scrambled, my memory and ability to form and maintain coherent thoughts have both completely dissolved, and I constantly feel afflicted by a sense of persistent, indeterminate hunger and fatigue which never seem to be satisfied no matter how much I eat or sleep.

I haven’t completely stopped working, to be honest. I’m working with Sam now on the soundscapes and the audio for the trailer, which is exciting. I’ve also got a thing with a magazine coming up to which I’m looking forward. Both, I feel, have restored a bit of my personal interest in the project, and have at the very least reoriented me to the possibility of resuming some kind of work.

The obvious, and extant problem here, of course, is how my publisher will react to all of this. I suppose I won’t know for sure until this week’s meeting, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’ve come up with a fairly cogent plan for the next few months, and a clear argument (at least in my opinion) for why I feel like this would be good for the project overall. I hope they’ll be receptive to it.

First day of August. First day back to work as well – technically, anyways.

In truth, I feel absolutely terrible. I barely managed to get the strategy document written and submitted just now, at nearly 3am; I’ve yet to even think about anything else. My mind just feels totally flatlined, like I can’t produce a single cogent thought.

I’ve been overcome by a terrible sadness. It’s the onset of a depressive state, I’m certain now. 

My thoughts have become entirely clouded by a dismal pall that hangs over every moment of the day.

The thought alone of having to open up the project file and actually work on something, let alone get something done, let alone get the demo done, feels abjectly inconceivable to me at this present moment. Even having taken an entire week off, I feel no better rested or prepared. In fact, I feel even more unsettled and uncertain of the state of both my being, and the future of my project. 

It feels like this is going to go on forever, even though I know that it won’t. I’m thoroughly tired of all of this though, and to be honest, I hate working on this project, and I’m pretty sure I hate making games too. If I could do anything else, I probably would. But I can’t. 

The other guys couldn’t make it into the office today either, after all. Another no-start day. 

If I’m being honest with myself, I’m certain I’m on the knife’s edge of burning out. I can feel its weight pulling me down every time I try getting started. It’s the little things, really: waking up in the heat only to realise I’m gonna be spending the entire day moving around UI elements pixel by pixel with virtually nothing meaningful to show of it by the end of the day. Or opening up some code thinking I’d need to make a few adjustments or additions here and there, only to realise that I don’t understand a single thing I wrote years ago now. 

It’s not even a matter of bloat so much as it is just pure noise. It’s like every step I take, even if I’m certain it’s in the right direction, it’s met with a nearly opaque wall of noise that discombobulates and utterly disorients my sense of both purpose and direction. For the past six months, maybe even a year, it’s felt like nearly every time I’ve sat down to work on something, I’m just stumbling endlessly headlong through darkness with no measurable sign of progress. 

Realistically I should take a break. But I’m already too far behind where any time I stop working it just feels wrong. I’m gonna bring it up this week at the meeting. Until then, I think I’m just going to try my best to take the next few days carefully. 

Turns out my thoughts were still too cluttered to get anything done today. I would be lying if I said I didn’t know why, but I’m too much of a coward to admit it. Better luck tomorrow, with a little help from my friends.

No work today or yesterday. Oddly, I don’t feel as pessimistic about it as I did two days ago. I have a plan of work outlined for tomorrow after service. My mind still feels restless with other thoughts – some new ones having joined the usual ones after the events of yesterday and today – but oddly, I feel more in control now, or at least a bit more clear. Or maybe it’s just because the air conditioning’s been on for once these past two days, who knows. Here’s hoping it can stay with me through the next week.

Added an additional confirm screen before printing a recipe.

Another day of incredibly slow progress. I worked the full day today for the first time in a while, although I feel like I just kept on getting distracted: not by anything in particular, I think, as much as it was a general hum of things simply happening from moment to moment that wrested my attention away. I managed to make a minor addition to the printer recipe but otherwise have not progressed meaningfully in the slightest. There’s just too much going on in my life now, too many other – and if I’m being perfectly honest, better – things to think about.

I’m gonna be out tomorrow. I doubt I’ll have anything to show for this Saturday. but maybe I’ll be able to get the printer done by the end of the weekend. Not looking forward to reporting my abject lack of progress these past few weeks to my producer…

A bunch of miscellaneous work on the printer UI.

Was able to get a bit more work done today, but it’s still way too slow. Every day I realise more and more how much time I’ve lost – which is to say, wasted away – and every time I think about it it takes a severe toll on my motivation. This project has just gone on way too long: I’ve long reached the point now where the things I designed and built years ago have now come into full friction with the passage of time and evolution of my own interests and skills as a designer. It feels like most days these past few months, I’ve just been fighting an uphill battle against my previous decisions. Every step of the way feels like a struggle to not completely break everything else. The heat wave has certainly exacerbated my frustrations to no small degree. But I believe these problems would persist regardless.

Regardless though, there’s nothing I can do except continue trying day-to-day, and remaining honest and accountable. This is the final stretch. In a few months, this will all be over, and there’ll be time to rest and reflect.

Terrible conditions these past two days, no work done at all. My computer overheated and completely crashed today, that’s how bad it’s getting. Running the dehumidifier makes my room too hot to safely work, but if I open the windows, then it gets too humid and I can no longer do anything. On other days, it’s simply too hot, and running the fans eventually only ends up pushing around hot air, if not also contributing to it because of the electronic output. Cursed weather.

Got back home today, a bit after noon. Thought I would have enough time to get all the stuff I’d hoped to have done for the update out but between writing it, and how tired I felt, I just barely got the update itself out before succumbing to the exhaustion and humidity. Effectively nothing of worth to show for today: just one minor contextual animation for turning to use the printer (and other interfaces in the outpost). It looks pretty terrible but I’ll just leave it in for now in case I decide to revisit (or more likely remove) it later.

Redid the printer UI.

Didn’t get as much work done as I’d hoped, but at least it’s something. The face of the printer UI has now been substantially redone, so that interaction is tied to a dial that’s turned in order to navigate, and pressed inwards to select items. It looks a lot better and brings it up to par with the other interfaces in the game which feature the same level of visible mechanical manipulation. I need to simplify the interface itself – I think I’m going to substantially cut down the amount of materials – but it should be ready with just a bit more work.

I’d like to start on the animations tomorrow. I’m gonna need the printer itself heating up and printing the food (two variations, one large and one small), as well as character animations for using the printer panel, loading in new cartridges, and then both packaging rations (two variations, one large and one small), and eating the food on the spot (two variations, eating a snack while standing, and walking the bowl to the table, sitting down, and then eating it). Animations usually aren’t bad at all, and I’m looking forward to working on them. I’m pretty sure I’ll have something by Saturday.

Some updates to the inventory system.

Another day of tedious, seemingly fruitless work. While I can tangibly recognise what I’ve done – which is to say, I revisited the inventory system and “fixed” it a bit by streamlining some of the information and redirecting the worst of the excessive and redundant to a more presentable CSV – it feels utterly useless nonetheless. Just looking at how I built the inventory system previously makes me angry because of how unintuitive all of it seems. So much functionality for such little purpose, and with such little clarity at that.

I’m tempted to just completely discard the lot of it and rebuild it altogether. I don’t think I’ll actually end up doing that for the back-end, ultimately (which at this point I think is beyond meaningful salvage; I’ll simply have to build atop it and hope the worst of the problems can be mitigated through some questionable hard-coding); but the interfaces certainly need to be revisited and redone in their entirety. I hate this part of the job. No more of this bullshit in the next project.

I need to get started on work earlier during the day, and commit to it. It’s now been four days in a row where I’ve found myself too lethargic by evening to even think straight, let alone work. I suspect the heat is playing a considerable role in so thoroughly retarding my senses: I don’t know if we’re in the midst of a heat wave, or if the weather has just finally caught up to the seasonal temperament, but regardless, it’s been mercilessly destructive to my ability to get anything done. 

Fortunately, my mood remains constant, and clear.

Suffered from a spell of exhaustion last night, was too tired to post an entry. It seems like the same spell has hit me once again. I spent the day drafting up an outline of tasks though on the next thing to do, which is to implement the cooking and eating system. 

Next week is gonna be pretty busy in terms of scheduling, including the fact that I have to write another update, but I hope I’ll be able to get this stuff done by Friday so I can include it in this month’s update. I think the best bet is to spend one day getting all the mechanical systems in (most of which, fortunately, are already there) and another day doing all the animations. 

First though, I have to go in at some point and completely redo the inventory system… that’s easily the most daunting and confounding task that lies before me. Just gotta get a grip and get it done…

Another day without work. It was way too hot and humid to concentrate on much of anything today. I thought I’d solved this problem with the acquisition of the dehumidifier, but I underestimated how hot my room gets with the windows closed. Absolutely terrible. 

No work today. Sitting in on calls kinda wiped my will to do anything. I instead spent the rest of the day finishing up and releasing another mod. I’m genuinely pretty surprised by how quickly I was able to get it done. It almost makes me suspect that I’ve overlooked something critically, obviously wrong; but I’ve checked it over too many times for anything to have missed my attention. 

Either way, I get back to work proper tomorrow.

Continued working on the exterior of the dorms. 

Finished the sound masking and the staircase as I had planned yesterday, including some placeholder footstep foley for the staircase. I discovered today that curiously, I actually had never recorded any audio at all – either for this project, or elsewhere – for footfalls on metal surfaces. I should make a note to myself to revisit those at some later point.

On top of the usual meeting, I have a consultation scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully it proceeds smoothly without any issues. Otherwise, I hope to be able to get most of the the layout and spritework for the interior done.

Finally got around to starting (and mostly finishing!) the exterior of the dorms, with a little help from my friends. Still need to lay out the sound masking for the asphalt and staircase, as well as build a door linked to the interior cell, which I haven’t started yet. I plan on taking care of those tomorrow. I’m not all that satisfied with it entirely, but as far as implementation goes, it’s certainly functional.

Another Independence Day come and gone. The weekend was very pleasant overall. The problem with all good times though is that they serve as an ever-present reminder that I’m not working.

I think I’ve come to resent my work a bit. Not the project itself, so much as the seemingly interminable drag of working itself, and the constant reminder that every moment of time that I spend not working, whatever the reason may be, is a debt I will have to pay in both spirit and body alike somewhere down the line.

I think the more honest truth though is that I’ve grown bored of my work. It no longer feels meaningful to me despite my best attempts at renegotiating it continuously with my evolving interests. Although I suppose it’s not to say that I’ve lost interest in it: just that everything else in my life has grown so much greater in comparison that it now feels insignificant. 

I suppose that’s a good thing in the greater sense of who I am. But none of that matters when it comes to hitting deadlines: and I will now admit that I am not hitting them, not even remotely.

Finally back to work. Well, notionally, anyways. Spent the day finishing up the exterior of the dorms, and then started working on the task list for July. I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately, not in a bad way, just in a… tired way. I’m thinking that maybe things have just started to catch up to me, although I also feel pretty content right now too, and not at all troubled or dissatisfied in any particular manner. I hope next month will be more productive.

Went to see Maverick today with Tawanda. I’m not exaggerating even a little bit when I say that it’s easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen. I’ve been wasting too much time though. Gotta get back to work tomorrow.

Finally feel recovered enough in full from the trip to return to work proper. Not too many days left in the month, yet still an almost entirely unfulfilled task list. I’m going to need to really concentrate these next few days to get all this back in order. Will have more to write about tomorrow, hopefully.

Pretty exhausted today, checking out early. I’ve got the roof and the facade of the main dorm building drawn, but there still need to be a few more additions before I can actually call it finished, including the staircase. Progress has been really slow otherwise, although I hope that tomorrow, before I head out for the day, I’ll be able to at least finish the building in its entirety. Maybe I’ll even start to get it implemented in-game. 

Started plotting out the dorms today. I know that “plotting out” isn’t exactly the same as “getting done”, but it’s a good start. Tomorrow, once I return to the office, I think I’ll be able to get the work itself done pretty swiftly.

Two buildings: one completely inaccessible, the other only accessible by a staircase that leads to the second floor. Only one floor, and three rooms will be accessible. I imagine the hardest part is going to be setting up all the assets, and then making sure the z-positioning works consistently. I spent some time tonight taking a look at the interior lighting system, which is a bit of a mess. I’m going to need to clean it up a bit before I can implement it properly elsewhere.

Dropped off a bit there in logging entries. Last week’s meeting went well, we were able to establish a clear understanding of objectives to come. Since then, though, I’ve yet to work a single day, which means I’ve already burned three days off of what is already a very tight schedule. 

I’m going to go to sleep early tonight, and then tomorrow, after service, I’ll start working proper. I think that I’ll start by working on either the basement, or the dorms. That should give me something with immediately visible returns, and hopefully help to stymie my motivation again.

Finally finished up the task list, at least as best as I can for now. I don’t know why I always procrastinate so much, especially since I never fail to catch myself when I do. I always tell myself I’m going to work on it, that I’ll do better next time, but I don’t. At this point in my life all it does is exacerbate the sense of frustration with myself.

It was nice to see the doctor today. I forget that I actually miss her quite a bit in the weeks I don’t see her. I spent the rest of the day working on the revised outline. 

Working on it has made me rather acutely aware of the amount of work left. At the same time though, seeing it written down in a precise, itemised format, it doesn’t seem nearly as much as I’d envisioned in my mind. 

I made sure to front-load some asset-heavy work for the rest of this month so that I have some things to release to the public. Call it vanity – and maybe it is to some degree – but it helps a lot to keep me motivated. It’s been rather difficult this past month working in the obscurity of UI backends (which, if I’m being completely honest myself, I seem to have somehow broken with my latest attempts at optimisation). Soon though I’ll have more interesting work to show.

I had intended to finish the CPBE today but when I woke I found myself in a contemplative state of mind and so I spent the rest of the day in discernment instead, reflecting on my work and restating my thoughts and intentions with it. Despite the lack of material progress, I feel satisfied with the results of today’s contemplation and feel adequately prepared to draft the revised outline tomorrow. 

I would like to finish the CPBE by this week’s meeting, so that I may finally be able to redirect my focus towards more outwardly productive tasks.

Pentecost. Spent the day out with some friends. The sky was clear and filled with light, nearly cloudless. I feel overcome with a sudden sense of peace, and clarity. 

For whatever reason, instead of working, I’ve just spent the past two days reading. The sickness seems to have passed almost entirely, save for the occasional bout of coughing that could just as readily be attributed to the dust lining the surfaces of my room than any malady within me.

Slept terribly last night on account of a painful cough that developed rather suddenly over the course of the evening. This morning’s meeting was productive, and helped solidify my attention for, at the very least, the next week. On top of wrapping up work on the CPBE by the end of this weekend, I am to assemble a revised task list of objectives for the next few months, as well as an updated version of the plot flow. All very useful things. I’m looking forward to this week’s work.

First day of June. A wet, cool day, with heavy rains throughout the afternoon. It’s provided me a good opportunity to collect my thoughts, and reground myself in the work for the coming month.

I didn’t make as much progress today as I’d hoped. I started implementing the timer for the questions, but didn’t get very far as I got needlessly distracted thinking about the design of the icon. (I have a tendency, I’ve come to realise too late, to overcomplicate these kinds of things at the expense of greater issues.) Tomorrow I will have it implemented by the end of the night, along with the next batch of questions.

I’ve also renamed a number of iconographic sprites in (a probably futile) pursuit of a more unified naming scheme. I suppose now would be a good time to stake, for future projects, a commitment to a reasonable set of conventions. Too late for now, though…

By next week I hope to have completely finished this wretched test, so that I may resume work on the parts of the game that actually matter (and which actually need to get developed). I shall have my producer hold me to that in tomorrow’s meeting. I’ve spent too much time messing around with this beyond reason, and – at least for now – with little apparent payoff.

Cancelled session today, for obvious reasons. It would’ve been a pretty brutal walk if I hadn’t, anyways: a steady 94F throughout the afternoon, unrelenting sunlight. The cancellation gave me a bit more time to just rest, and gather my thoughts. Seems like the soreness has receded a bit, and the cough is manageable with a substantial amount of water throughout the day. 

I was able to get a bit of work done today, and my thoughts felt clear while I was working. I’ve continued working on the CPBE questions, cleaning up the backend a bit so it’ll be easier to adapt it for different uses down the line. I’ve also introduced the ability to render certain sections in bold, which has done a surprising amount of work to substantially improve the appearance of the interface overall. 

I hope to be able to get it done, and sent out by the end of this week. At this pace, I feel this is once again attainable.