Author: Spencer

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.

Sore throat has intensified to a cough. Feel exhausted all throughout the day, drifted in and out of an unsteady state of consciousness multiple times. I get a few minutes of work in here and there but altogether it’s too sporadic to provide meaningful. Twelve more questions left… if I could just get three done a day, I could be done by the weekend. Maybe if I push myself a little bit…

Some kind of sickness, not yet sure if it’s COVID. Focusing on recuperation the next couple of days.

Thunderstorms all day. Overcome by fatigue again. Days like these are, barring unforeseeable disaster, the hardest to get through: just enough energy to remind yourself that you should be getting things done; but too little to be able to sustain that work in any suitable manner that won’t burn you out further. Maybe I should talk to the producer about it next week.

New animated loading cursor, updated GM to 2022.5.08.

Trying to ease my way back into things. I won’t lie, it’s rather difficult to find myself motivated when confronted by something as abstract as an interface puzzle. Nonetheless I’ve started the work by just forcing myself to sit in front of the program and look through it, get things done where I can. I’ve made some cursory adjustments to the collision alignment for the cursor and the CPBE buttons, but nothing too substantial. Regardless, progress is progress. I have to keep believing that for myself, no matter how frustrating it always comes off.

I’ve really been slacking on work this week. The realisation that it’s almost June has startled me into clarity. I don’t know why I’m struggling so much to get back into it. I’ve once again fallen behind schedule. I need to get it together, get back on track. 

Finally back from the city. It feels like I’ve been gone for weeks. The last few days have taken a considerable toll on my body and mind (and checking account, and copy of Thiselton’s Theology, and… etc) alike. It would be an understatement to say how nice it feels to finally be back where I belong. 

Unfortunately the temperature this weekend has reached unseasonably heights, to put it lightly. Yesterday was the worst of it, and of course it also happened to be the day I spent several hours walking many miles in a pair of borrowed boots that didn’t quite fit, carrying an obscene amount of weight in equipment for which I had no need. 

Just one more day of this wretched heat, though and it should be back to more reasonable temperatures come Monday. Hopefully the same can be said about the humidity as well…

The weather’s been exceedingly pleasant since Monday night. I’ve been trying to just take things easy, not think too much about work. It’s more difficult than I think anyone really ever expects. The creeping sensation that I’m actively wasting away my time. 

Gonna be out the next two days, which means that, come the weekend, I’m probably gonna be completely wiped. I’ve mostly just been reading otherwise. Catching up on things, you know, that kind of thing. I’ve spent way too much money this month, and I haven’t even spent the worst share of it yet…

Sporadic thunderstorms throughout the day. By evening, the humidity had cleared almost completely. Nothing but cool, almost cold air now. My head feels a lot clearer, like a fever has just broken.

I’ve decided to take the week off, although I’m allowing myself time here and there to work on sporadic tasks as they come to mind. Nothing serious though. I’m just going to take some time to slow down, let things percolate for a bit. That includes the article. 

I did end up writing and releasing the monthly update today, which I think helped improve morale a bit, even if the write-up itself was kinda lacklustre. It’s also forced into sudden clarity the fact that it’s almost June. That’s a pretty terrible realisation. I keep on telling myself this, but I really do have to pick up the pace. 

Turns out I didn’t do much better at all today. I didn’t even try to work. I think I’m reaching a certain level of fatigue that, if I continue to push it, I’ll end up doing more harm than good. I’ll be out Thursday and Friday, so those will be mandatory break days. I’m wondering if I should just take the rest of the week off as well, once I publish the update tomorrow. 

Speaking of which, I’m not sure why the article is proving so difficult to write all of a sudden. The ideas are all there, even the words, too: and yet, for some reason, I just can’t fit them together in a way that seems to work. It doesn’t make any sense. 

Another day of no work. I ended up not attending the reading after all: it turns out I needed a ticket, obviously I didn’t have one, and by the time we all realised that, they were already sold out and no more exceptions could be made. An unfortunate series of events, to be certain: but in a way I’m also a bit glad I didn’t have to make the commute all the way there and back, it would’ve taken a pretty heavy toll physically. 

I spent the rest of the day sorting the new equipment that arrived. I really should’ve been working on the article, which needs to get done by Monday, or even on the update which I should probably work on tomorrow; but it’s too late to regret anything, now that the day is already gone. I shall endeavour to do better tomorrow.

Although the general temperature has remained pleasant, unfortunately a terrible pall of humidity has set in which does not seem to be clearing anytime soon. It’s already taken a considerable physical toll. I’ve felt fatigued all day, and it was difficult to wake up this morning, like my head was filled with leaden weight overnight. Didn’t get any work done. Gotta finish the article…

I probably won’t be working much tomorrow either. Some friends are reading tomorrow in the city. We’ll see how much time I’ll have.

Today’s meeting went well. A marketing specialist has joined the team. Lots of interesting ideas have emerged. I have a good feeling about the next several months. As long as I’m able to do my part and get the game itself to the point where I need it to be, I think this might just work out into something truly fascinating. 

The weather was exceptionally pleasant today, and all morning, I felt a sense of intense regret that I was just sitting there at my computer trying to maintain a feigned indifference. By mid-noon the feeling became intense enough that I decided that, rather than risk it crystallising into sadness, I would take the rest of the day off and just go outside. I walked about twenty miles today with all my gear. Only now has it dawned on me just how out of shape I am. I’ve spent the bulk of the past three years just sitting at my desk, looking at my monitor. I’ve decided not to mourn the lost time. I shall endeavour to simply live better. 

Had a good session, but I’m gonna call it early today. I realised after waking up this morning that the past several days have taken a heavy toll on me. It’s not just that I struggle to stay awake at times, but that at all times, I feel vaguely disoriented and slightly out-of-touch, like the various streams of information that need to be running parallel for things to get done have become just slightly desynced. 

Instead of trying to push through the rest of the night at such poor efficiency, it’s most likely best if I just rest now, wake up earlier tomorrow, and get things done right.

First two CPBE questions done.

Not much to say, I’ve just been continuing my work on the CPBE. It’s going a lot slower than I anticipated, although realistically that’s far more due to my total inability to focus for any period longer than five minutes at a time (and that’s if I’m lucky) than any real difficulty in terms of the work itself. I finished the grading scheme for the cognitive assessment section, although it won’t be implemented until the questions themselves are all in. I still need to build the timer feature too, although that should be pretty straightforward work. Just gotta keep at it…

Hopefully session this week doesn’t fuck up the pacing of things again. If it does, well, my ability to make any kind of progress whatsoever for the next few days is gone.

Implemented loading screen and timer for CPBE, a few structural changes to scripts.

A long day of work, with only a handful of forward-facing changes to show for it. In terms of the few that did end up getting done: the CPBE now has a loading screen to load into the test itself, as well as the starting prompt of the test. The rest of the work was backend stuff: a huge chunk was writing the actual questions, and figuring out the best way to structure them so that they’d serve a dual purpose of actually tutorialising. The other part was figuring out the best way to handle the questions (and more specifically, the answers) with the current input and save/load functionality of the game. I ended up going with a CSV to load in the questions (and creating a template for loading in multiple CPBEs, based on the current in-game day) as well as the response times for each question. I’ve yet to build the questions themselves – that’s work for tomorrow – but hopefully it shouldn’t be too much of a struggle…

I also went and condensed a whole bunch of free-floating, miscellaneous scripts into unified scripts with many individual functions. I’m not sure yet the effect of it, which is to say whether this was even worth it at all, or if there’ll be any unintended side effects; but the overall folder structure is a bit “neater”, at least notionally. I actually somewhat preferred having all the functions listed as separate script assets, as it made browsing them (especially when sorted alphabetically) a lot easier, but we’ll see. If anything, it’ll be a learning lesson for how to go about the question of asset organisation in future projects.

Took the past two days off. The way I’ve been working is very apparently unsustainable. While it helps getting things done in the short-term, working in these kinds of shifts always invariably takes a hit upon my ability to work for days, sometimes even entire weeks afterwards. It’s not just my motivation, either: I think I’ve begun to feel it in my body, too. Certainly, it’s a sign that I need to start exercising my body more again (or rather, at this point, I need to resume exercising at all). But perhaps it’s a greater omen too that I’m no longer able to live with such little caution, counting on my body to heal itself overnight the way it did when I was younger.

Burned the midnight oil a little too long there. Took the day off.

Finished the CPBE landing page, renamed satellite audio tracks.

There’s still the “Prior History” section left to do, but that’s entirely extraneous and I’m just gonna leave it for another day. I’ve been awake for a while now. I still feel pretty bad but not as bad as I did yesterday, I think. Against my better reservations, I purchased a bunch of alcohol for the first time in almost a month yesterday (or perhaps it was today, which is now tomorrow’s yesterday – whatever). After my meeting I think I’m just going to go to sleep.

Created the landing page for the CPBE.

I felt deeply unwell after today’s session. Well, I still feel deeply unwell, that is. My state of newfound peace these past few weeks turned out to be short-lived, after all. I don’t know what it was specifically that caused me to feel such a way but it’s as if I’ve been struck. A sense of profound shame. Maybe even humiliation. A dull, persistent heaviness has settled deep within my chest. It clouds my senses and makes tasks as simple as eating and concentrating difficult. All of a sudden the weight of my body in space feels acutely unwieldy. It’s been this way all night. What I want to do more than anything is to simply go to sleep and wake up in several days once this has passed.

Nonetheless, I’ve somehow endured long enough to produce the landing page of the CPBE. I don’t have much to say about it right now, other than the fact that some time later today I will wake up and continue working on it. Nothing much to do except just get things done at this point.

Finished writing the CPBE.

I ended up spending a bit more time away from work over the weekend than I’d initially anticipated. By no means do I regret it, but it has put me at a bit of a deficit in terms of schedule. I was supposed to have the CPBE completely written and implemented by the middle of today so that I could submit it, but that counted on me having worked continuously through Saturday and Sunday which obviously did not happen. 

Well, I’ve made up the work of writing it today, but it still leaves the issue of getting it in the game. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that done between tomorrow and Wednesday, although I’m not terribly optimistic about how much time/energy I’ll have after session tomorrow. I’m going to go to sleep early tonight and try to wake up as early as possible, get the bulk of the most tedious work done before I head out. Here’s hoping it goes smoothly.

Exit w/o save, restore to default value, and password display options fully implemented.

And with that, the start-up sequence is finally finished! It’s rather late (or early – I need to stop burning my hours so frequently) so I’ll keep my entry very brief. Now, I just have to build the CPBE – or at least the skeleton of it – and clean up the day-one stuff, all before Monday…

Finally finished the config menu. 

Added a bunch of new settings, along with doing a complete overhaul of the naming scheme for saved settings. It’s a lot neater now, both to access and read. The config menu loads, displays, and saves seamlessly. 

I still have to implement a few minor features – exiting without saving, restoring to default values, displaying a general help screen (not sure if I’m actually going to include this), and getting the password display working – but I’m rather pleased with how it turned out and taking the time to clean up all the old save/load/config stuff was much-needed moving forward. I’ll definitely be done with the boot sequence in its entirety by the end of tomorrow (or, I suppose today, seeing it’s already almost daybreak…). 

I’ll be seeing a friend for most of this weekend, but I should have just enough time left to clean up some additional stuff in the outpost itself before I submit the build on Monday.

Created the system config menu today. The visuals are complete, as well as the menu listings. I still need to implement the actual functionality – mapping each option to an actual in-game value, having the toggles and sliders dynamically adjust based on the values, saving and loading them, etc – but I made good progress today.

Working on the new functionality has made me reconsider potentially redoing how I was handling saving/loading my config files before. Previously I’d saved to a single INI, but consolidating most of that to this new system, which uses a ds_grid, seems like a better choice instead of splitting the data into two separate files. I’m gonna work with it a bit more tomorrow and see if I’m able to arrive at anything.

Didn’t get much done today on account of waking up late, and then attending session. I wouldn’t (and to be perfectly honest, don’t) feel too bad about it, except the deadline is approaching rather rapidly. Really gotta burn the oil tomorrow, I guess.

Maybe I should start taking Tuesdays off, instead of the weekend.

Recorded and mixed audio for the boot sequence. I also cleaned up a bunch of functions, improving the overall flow and stability of the sequence. It’s feature-complete now in terms of being able to log in and access the game, although I still need to figure out what options to add to the config menu (which hasn’t been implemented yet, but which I’ve built already in a standalone project file). I’ll get that done tomorrow. That leaves two days to build the entire CPBE. It’s gonna be a hell of a stretch, but I’m gonna get it done. I’m counting on it.

Spent the day outside testing the Geofon. I was able to get a number of interesting recordings which I’m going to start building into the soundscape relatively soon. The weather was exceedingly pleasant today. The light and warmth of the sun filled me with sadness. 

I’ve been slowly making progress on the CPBE. Maybe “progress” is too optimistic. It seems I’ve dramatically overestimated the expediency with which I could get these prompts out. Now, as I’ve come to rather quickly realise, it’s not only a matter of not being able to produce prompts efficaciously; I’ve begun to significantly question my previous design as a whole. It feels gimmicky to me, and cheap. A pretence towards style, without any substance to ground it. I need to rethink my strategy – and quickly. Or else I should just get rid of it altogether for the time being.

Got diverted from building the CPBE by the temptation of redoing the options/config menu. The hardest part is coming up with things to implement. I successfully built in OpenDyslexia Mono as a swappable font, and sketched out a feature that allows the controller mapping to be flipped for left-handed users (ie the face buttons mirror to the directional buttons, and vice-versa). I’m going to finalise the list by the end of tomorrow’s meeting, and have the interface itself implemented within the system menu by the end of the day.

I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do about the CPBE. The major roadblock standing in my way is that I’m not sure what I actually want it to look like this time around. I suppose I have to figure that out soon. I should dedicate this weekend to getting that finalised for now. The end of the month is approaching. I’d like to have the tutorial completely done by then.

Another slow day in terms of progress, although it went by rather quickly otherwise. I saw the doctor again today. It feels like I haven’t seen her in much longer than it’s actually been. I must confess, it made me happy to see her.

Anyways, I implemented the final parts of the boot sequence, which include a very brief animation for transitioning between screens, the shutdown sequence, and a sequence during the login procedure that shuts the game down and wipes all user data after multiple consecutive failed attempts. There is one last thing I need to do, which is deciding if I want to conceal the password, and how I would go about doing that; but it’s entirely a stylistic thing at this point and the functionality is already there.

Tomorrow I’m moving on to building the core of the CPBE.

The weekend wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped it would be, but I’ve made progress regardless. The boot sequence is functionally complete; although I still have to create one more load sequence after the login, and make a decision on whether the password will be concealed on entry (as it actually is in its real-world equivalent), or if I should make a concession to players unfamiliar with the customs of a terminal and just have it display as asterisks. 

I think working on the CPBE is really gonna grind my sense of momentum down, so I’m going to build the framework for it first along with a bunch of fill-in prompts, and then revisit it later. It would do me well to remember that the whole point of all this, at least at this point, is to address the prior lack of a tutorial. As long as this section is able to accomplish the baseline minimum of teaching players how to interact with the game, then I can come back later and revisit it for improvement.

The hardest part at this point is really just maintaining the necessary perspective to stop dragging on details, and start actually laying real foundations for what’s to come. There’ll be time later to make it all prettier; but I can’t improve something that does not yet exist.

Good Friday. Just got back home today. Went to see some old friends. My entire body feels beat. Maybe they’re right, after all. Not so young anymore, after all. 

I’ve gotta get this month’s update written and published tomorrow. Shouldn’t be too difficult on its own, just a matter of getting it done. Because I’ve been out these past two days, I’m planning on working over the weekend instead. There’s more to write about but it’d be best to save it until tomorrow.

I’ve been making slow, but steady progress on the boot sequence. I was able to get everything up until the login section fully functional (with the exception of being able to set the system config, and terminate the game at the boot menu). The work is not difficult by any means, and I find myself actually quite enjoying it. I’ve just been spending a lot of time this past week or so, maybe a bit longer, on non-work-related tasks. For the first time in a while (although I guess I always say that, because my memory of good thing is short), I feel like my life is not so bad, and is actually quite pleasant. I think Ada would be pleased to hear that. I’ve been spending more time with my friends. Maybe it’s just because the weather is getting nicer. Regardless of the reason, though, I find solace in being able to appreciate the fact that I can still feel these kinds of things – neither ecstatic, nor tragic, nor revelatory, but simply pleasant – after all.

Back to work. 

I spent all of today working on the graphic assets for the bootup sequence. it took a bit longer than I predicted, but I think it’ll be worth it: it looks pretty interesting, and will certainly help to set the tone of the game. I’m in the process of implementing it now: the password check, specifically. Once this part is done, the CPBE itself shouldn’t be too much of an issue. I also need to figure out a way to intuitively write control prompts, which will be the most difficult part…

I hope to be able to get the system tutorial + CPBE fully implemented into a build by Tuesday. The timing’s gonna be a bit rough, but I think I can do it.

Solid progress today, I’m pretty pleased with the amount of work I was able to accomplish. I managed to implement all the necessary components in the opening area, including a few bonuses like an animation for interacting with Rebekah’s cairn, and a staggered prompt which allows the player to have different sequential interactions with the cairn. (It’s a very simple “system”, that I’ll most likely start using much more from here on out.)

I also made a few general optimisations, including condensing a lot of the loose FSM scripts into a single master script containing all of the individual functions, which has reduced the visual clutter of the script tree; as well as compressing a number of the ambient tracks, resulting in a significantly lower file size.

A bit of a slow day, although I’m satisfied with today’s work overall. I worked on finishing up the remaining item descriptions within the outpost, and imposing the proper restrictions on when they’re available to view based on Avery’s location. I was also able to implement a somewhat-interesting feature that allows the player to view the outpost’s system clock while indoors, which saves me some time from having to work on the security camera footage as a means of checking the time outside for right now.

I’ve come to realise that there’s a lot of work left in the tutorial which I failed to account for. All sorts of systems that need to be introduced to the player. I’ve created a new document with a list of all the things that need to be taken into mind, as well as a revised timeline that spaces the more complex functions out and gives the player a bit of agency in between learning new systems.

I don’t think it’ll be difficult work, but it certainly pushes the schedule a bit. Mostly, that’s my own fault for procrastinating so pointlessly last month. But in a way, I feel like it’s given me room to figure things out and approach them more carefully, which is why I was able to determine that my previous outline had been insufficient in the first place. I dunno. I feel okay about the pacing, but I’ll have to talk to my producer about it. I’m sure they’ll be expecting a build soon as well… I’m not sure what I’m going to send in yet, but worst-case scenario, I’ll just package what I have now as is and send it in tomorrow.

I’ve been feeling pretty out of it this past week. But the worst part of it is that I don’t even mean that in a bad way: what I am “out of” is the familiar thrum of my usual malaise, and instead I’ve been possessed by something that, if I were more naive, I might have confused for happiness. It feels like a vigorous, thrashing mode of joyousness, not entirely distinct in some moments from outright mania. It almost feels as if I’ve fallen in love, this dizzying, hurtling sensation; although lacking an obvious subject, I’ve simply found myself tumbling headlong through the darkness of my own interiority, fumbling uselessly for a semblance of direction. I have no idea how this came about. What caused it, or when it even started. The abject loneliness of my work has become apparent to me in the midst of all this.

Completely rebuilt the object inspection framework to draw item descriptions and names from a CSV file, rather than being hardcoded into macros. The actual in-game behaviour when inspecting objects has been changed as well: previously, simply hovering over the object would immediately display the text in the lower letterbox, which would dynamically adjust its height to accommodate the length of the text.

However, this approach inherently limited the amount of text that could be displayed by the height of the letterbox itself, which also meant that more text had to be squeezed in by reducing the font size. This made legibility difficult for longer passages.

Objects now display a prompt when hovered over (ie “Examine box”), and now require the item to be clicked on in order to open up a popup box which fills the screen. This allows for a lot more text to be displayed at once with a larger and more legible typeface, as well as being a lot more accommodating to paragraph breaks. I think this approach is a lot better, and it also forces people to move through and look at the environment more slowly and conscientiously. I might repurpose the old system for something else, maybe have it display special messages specifically when hovering over Avery herself. We’ll see.

I’ve also changed the primary font to Monofonto, from Fixedsys. It’s a lot more visually appealing and easy-to-read for general usage. However, I have changed the way that fonts are loaded so that switching between them should be fairly effortless, and will likely be built into a menu option somewhere down the line. Combined with the aforementioned change to the observation prompts, this opens up the possibility of adopting accessibility-specific typefaces like OpenDyslexic.

More productive this weekend. Implemented a “dynamic” sky. There’s a special sunset one for the introduction section, and another generic one for the rest of the game. I’ll probably end up creating at least one more. 

I’ve also made some significant revisions (I would consider them improvements) upon the opening section. It features a much more extensive onboarding section via the CPBE interface, which helps the player get acquainted with the texture of the game. I’ve also, per the excellent suggestion of my producer, moved the game’s start to take place at sunset, rather than early morning. It puts a lot more natural incentive upon the player to get back to the outpost in an expedient manner, by sensibly limiting the player’s interactions and movements to the amount of visible daylight.

At this rate of progress, I might actually be able to get this month’s work done on time!

I’ve been trying to work on the tutorial. Something’s just been crushing me. Constantly filling my head with garbage signals. Haven’t been able to work on anything that requires any degree of conscious thought in days. Probably longer than that, to be honest. I got one more week to catch up on what feels like an entire month’s worth of wasted time. My emotions have become an active annoyance. This constant, ambient buzz. Like a psychic mosquito. Makes it impossible to focus on anything to begin with, let alone stay focused. I wish I could reach inside my skull and tear out the infected lobes. Inflamed with confusion and petty longing. Conspiring against my better nature.