Felt a bit weird today, ended up taking the day off. Went with Haolun to the reservation, we took a long walk and came across a lake I hadn’t seen before. It was quite pleasant, and improved my mood a lot. I’m not sure if I’m gonna work tomorrow but I’m feeling I could probably use a few more days off, just to clear my head again… we’ll see though.
Had a weird session today, not that productive. It left me in a bit of an imbalanced mood for the rest of the day: not exactly bad, but not as good as I usually feel afterwards either. Well, I suppose it’s all part of the process. Some days you get lucky, other days you don’t. Back to work tomorrow.
Finished the plot outline today, with steps. Depending on how I feel after I see the doctor tomorrow, I’m ready to start working on implementation. Whenever I do end up getting to it, I’m gonna start with Estelle’s arc. Nothing more from here on out but keeping my priorities straight and getting the work done.
Finished my work for Jacob today, just gotta remember to send him the audio files tomorrow. I also need to finalise the plot outline as well – basically, just a few ending points, and separating all the steps into discrete numerical order so that I can arrange them more directly in-game – so that’s probably gonna be the bulk of my work. Hopefully I’ll be able to just get right to it come Monday.
My brother came back from school today. After writing up the update for this month, I spent the rest of the afternoon working through the project with Jacob. Ended up getting a lot more done than I’d initially anticipated.
Finally back to work. Solid progress tonight, added in the EMF reader including full animation and sprite support, complete functionality, a script for setting ambient magnetic field strength, and even differing audio for the various EMF levels. I still have to tweak the latter setting a bit to strike a better balance between the visual display (in reality, the bar is calculated logarithmically I believe instead of linearly, which is gonna be an issue for me to implement accurately), but surprisingly, it’s basically already done! Not bad. Gonna write the update tomorrow – a short one this time – and then spend the rest of the day working with Jacob to finish my work on his project.
I’ve been completely distracted these past two days, my mind’s just been totally scattered by all sorts of pointless bullshit with which I have no practical cause to concern myself. Haven’t been able to concentrate at all, which means that I haven’t been able to get anything of worth done at all either. I think I’ve maybe made two paragraphs of progress since Tuesday…
Worked a bit more on the plot draft, almost finished with it. I think I’ll be done with it tomorrow. On Friday I think I’m gonna switch over to building the EMF meter so I have something to publish with this month’s update Saturday. Then this weekend, I have to finish up work for Jacob…
I should be ready to start working on integrating all the plot points starting next week. I think that’ll really help to build back some momentum. I sure hope so.
Really inconsistent entries these past couple of days, nothing in bad in particular though. I’ve just been taking a bit of a break lately from work, trying to work on other things and gain a bit of distance and perspective from the project for now so I can return with hopefully clearer insight.
I feel like it’s actually been working a bit: both yesterday and today, I’ve been working on an extensive plot document charting each step of the first act of the game across every plot. It’s really helped clarify my work moving forward, by breaking down my priorities into what is essentially a list of precise steps and prerequisites. Shouldn’t be more than a day’s worth of work at this point before it’s finished… after which, it’s just a matter of executing them one by one until there’s nothing left.
I’ve also come up tonight with a pretty interesting way to finally address the split between the first and second acts of the game… it’s probably a bit too bold but I think it’s worth trying and even if it doesn’t end up working for effect, at least it’ll work to help me segregate my priorities and clean up my folders.
Another empty day. Spent almost all of it playing Metal Gear Survive with Martin. We ended up burning out on the weekly and just calling it. We’re gonna work together tomorrow. A good opportunity for me to finally get something done, or at least get started on getting something done. There’s too much work ahead of me now… I should plan some stuff out a bit tonight before going to bed.
Nothing new to report today. Feeling a bit worse than I did yesterday. I have to get back to work next week or I feel like something bad is gonna happen to me.
Yesterday’s post was a bit pessimistic in hindsight. I’m still technically “on break” but looking back at my output these past few days, I’ve actually gotten quite a bit done in areas that I usually neglect because of work.
Over the weekend I managed to finally get that essay written and released that I’ve been putting off for almost an entire year now; and yesterday I was able to sit down and write a new song, the first one I’ve written in almost an entire month. I think it’s honestly the best song I’ve written to date, although it’s also probably the most pathetic one in terms of subject matter (I hope she never listens to it, although I find it difficult to imagine any circumstances in which she’d somehow stumble across it by happenstance.) I quite like the essay as well, it’s certainly better and more interesting than whatever stupid shit I wrote last time. At the very least, I think it turned out about 70% the way I hoped it would, which, given the way I write, is a good enough percentage most days.
I think I’m too hard on myself when it comes to work. Well, maybe other things as well. But work especially is where I feel it the most, and most often. Some days the pressure is good and helps to motivate me to get things done. But most days – especially these days – it just wears me out and leaves me feeling even worse about everything.
Took the past couple of days off. I’ve been feeling pretty off these past few days honestly… just totally drained and distracted. I haven’t been able to work in over a week, and it’s been even longer since I’ve actually accomplished anything of worth. The sky’s been filled with rain lately, I hope it passes soon.
Stayed up real late last night for no particularly good reason, ended up sleeping until 1600. It was a truly horrendous way to start the day, if you could even call it that. I spent the evening working on the essay, although I ended up deleting a bunch of it afterwards. Today just felt like a profound waste of time.
Here comes May. Didn’t get anything done today. Felt a vague sense of anxiety all throughout the day. Spent the afternoon trying to work on a new essay, but got too distracted by floating thoughts…
Last day of the month. It was pretty peaceful. Spent the first part of the day working on some stuff with Jacob, and then around 1600, Haolun came over and we hung out a bit, went to Burger King. It was a real nice day today, clear and bright and windy.
If my work was going a bit better in general, I might even say that I’ve been feeling pretty good these past few weeks overall. I think some part of it is probably just a seasonal thing, but also I think that my ability to view the world and more importantly myself clearly has been improving over time. Being able to talk with the doctor every week has really helped. I’ve grown to like her a lot. (Maybe a bit too much, if I’m being perfectly honest…)
In general though I’ve just felt more stable and optimistic in general, or at the very least more willing to exercise good faith in terms of how I see and conduct myself within the world. I haven’t felt unreasonable anger or resentment in a while now it feels like. Just a general sense of calm, maybe even occasional joy.
It was terribly humid today, the first of the year. I woke up with a wretched headache, like a hangover. Not a great sign of the days to come…
Stepped out of engine today, spent the day planning out work for the next section of the game. I have to start working on it at some point or I’m never gonna build enough momentum to start wrapping things up. I’m taking this weekend off to work on a contract for a friend of mine, but once I return I plan on splitting my days between working on entirely new content, and revisiting old stuff (including finishing up the sensors, as well as other interfaces around the outpost). I really need to organise my priorities, start shifting towards an end…
Got a bit of work done today, finished the animation for replacing the batteries in such a way that I feel can be applied universally moving forward, which saves me a lot of work down the line. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how I want to handle the internal system functions for it – namely, navigating the menus and whatnot – and I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe it’s best if I didn’t. Looking over the actual functionality of the product upon which it’s based, there’s very little actual troubleshooting involved (the mechanism of the device is pretty singular and uninvolved) and what can be troubleshooted in reality would simply be either unfeasible or inconvenient for me to implement properly. I think I’ll just leave it to the batteries for this one, and focus on more involved solutions elsewhere.
Another dead day, hardly touched the project. I had a good session though with the doctor that left me feeling a lot better afterwards. Had I not seen her I would’ve undoubtedly felt a lot worse about my lack of progress today in terms of my work; but instead, while I do feel a bit of frustration at myself, I feel more motivated to get things done properly tomorrow. I know I always say that, but these times, I really do mean it.
Felt awful today for no particular reason, barely got any work done. I managed to make the sounds for flipping the switches on and off, and that’s about it. So much for starting the week off on a good note…
Finally got around to doing a bit of work. Recorded and mixed some audio for opening and closing the sensor panel, and the battery cover. The sounds are a bit… flat, I guess, I’m not sure how else to put it, but they’ll do for now. I’d like to get the rest of the sounds recorded by tomorrow as well as the animation for removing and replacing each battery. After that, the only thing left to do with the motion camera is implementing the reset test function, which shouldn’t take more than a day: it’s some very minor graphics work in the form of lettering, and then just a bunch of fairly straightforward code.
At the end of this week I’d like to get the camera done, and start working on the microphone. I’d also like to sit down some time this week and figure out properly how to begin taking the next concrete steps towards beginning work on the second half of the game. I’ve deliberated way too long, and much of that is because of how insubstantial my plans have been heretofore. I need to figure out something solid and just commit to it.
Took the day off again. Felt vaguely sick all throughout the day for some reason, a kind of mild nausea almost indistinguishable from anxiety, although my thoughts were still. A bit like motion sickness actually now that I’m focusing in on it… I should try to get something done tomorrow. At the very least, some audio for the batteries, maybe even the animation if I’m feeling better. Progress is too slow these days…
Took the day off. Woke up remarkably early around 0700 after a vaguely unpleasant dream and realised almost immediately that I would not be able to accomplish anything today. I honestly don’t remember what I did after that but at 1500 I met with Haolun and we drove around for a while, went to the lake, looked at the sky. It was nice seeing him again. The sky today was remarkably clear, completely devoid of clouds and expression. Just a flat, hard blue from end to end.
Implemented a functional multimeter to the battery display, and changed the way battery capacities are measured as well. Instead of just having a strict binary capacity – charged or not charged – each battery now has an individual voltage capped at 1.5V, that’s displayed on the multimeter UI. Any batteries under 0.5V should be replaced; Avery will not replace batteries with a charge higher than that. It’s a much more elegant solution than the one that I was planning previously. All I need now is to make an animation for switching out the batteries and it should be good to go.
Another day of minor work. I finally managed to finish the UI text display for the auto-ping feature, which properly adapts to different levels and responses of sweeps now: when there is no sensor present in the cell, the detector will launch three attempted sweeps before returning avoid, and when there is one present, the detector will ping first instead of immediately displaying the sensor metadata. I also added sound effects for opening and closing the detector. I feel pretty satisfied with it now and can safely say that I’m finished working on it for the time being. On to other things then…
Didn’t get much work done today, but I did finally end up getting the active ping that I mentioned in yesterday’s entry working just now. The device now begins sending out an active sweep automatically as soon as it’s brought up, and as long as a sensor is in the room, it’ll continue pinging until the device is closed, using a frequency-based sweep to measure proximity. The interface itself could be improved a bit in terms of appearance, which I hope I’ll be able to get done tomorrow (or, well, later today). I also fixed an issue today with the standing animation that for whatever reason had broken during the initial conversion to 2.3.
Had a weird session with the doctor today. It wasn’t at all bad per se, she just brought up a few subjects I wasn’t quite expecting, which caught me off-guard and resulted in me giving a few responses that I found (both at the time, and in retrospect) to be unsatisfactory. I’m not too worried about it, but it is something to consider for next time.
Felt like shit today for some reason, but I was able to get some work done tonight regardless. I started off by improving the interface for the detector a bit, changing the font and adding in an additional screen for cells with no sensors active. I then implemented the sweep that allows the player to detect sensors by sending out a ping. When the sweep encounters the sensor in that room, it beeps, and terminates the wave, allowing the player to approximate its location by the amount of time in between the initial XMIT and the RECV.
Tomorrow, I’d like to tweak the functionality a bit so that players must first send out an initial ping per cell to determine if there are any sensors in it, starting with a blank screen (or, if I can get the persistence working, the screen from the previous ping). Currently it immediately displays whether the room has any active sensors in it, which I feel is a bit too easy.
Took today and yesterday off in an attempt to recover some stamina before this work week. I hope to get the handheld detector done by the end of tomorrow, so that I can get back to working on the camera. Hopefully by Thursday I’ll be able to implement full functionality for the camera. If I can get those two things finished by the weekend, I’ll meet baseline expectations. The next step after that will be to link the camera with the outpost sensor and the global timeline, and get a functioning trigger system set up. After that… well, I’ll discuss that once I get there, best to just collect myself and get this shit done in the immediate first.
Easing back into a regular schedule. Minor adjustments today: created a new block state that allows the player to move but blocks interaction (previously blocking the latter could not be done without also blocking the former), specifically designed to work with the handheld detector. I also changed the appearance of the detector screen a bit, and drafted out the interface and functionality for it, which I hope to get implemented tomorrow.
Another late night (or, well, I suppose it’s dawn now by the time I’m writing this). I ended up effectively just taking the day off since I burned myself out a bit the previous night. I still feel like the momentum is strong though, and I think I’ll be able to get back into it again tomorrow.