spncryn/log

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. 

It’s been a strange week. I didn’t realise so much time had passed since my last entry. My sense of time has been completely thrown off. It feels like I’ve spent more time this past week asleep or on the edge of exhaustion than actually awake and conscious of my actions. I can barely manage the energy to sit upright at my desk, let alone to work, or even just recount the day’s progress (or lack thereof). I’ve fallen behind schedule. These next several days until the end of the month are gonna be hell, I think. I can probably get things done on time if I work on an accelerated pace, but it’s gonna take me out for at least the entire first week of next month. Maybe it’s a price worth paying. I don’t know. It’s all catching up to me at once, it feels like. The consequences of how I’ve been living these past few years. All at once.

Made a lot of progress these past few days. Too much to really properly account for, but broadly, I’ve made a few new interfaces, recorded the first transmission as well as the general baseline frequencies, and started work on the new area, both visually and in terms of the soundscape. By the end of this weekend, I’d like to get the sensors completely implemented with proper audio.

Feeling a bit more clear-headed today. The past few nights, I’ve been troubled by a series of intensely vivid and melancholic dreams, whose sobering effects linger long past the hour of waking. They’re the kinds of dreams which I suspect, were I still capable of crying, might move me to the verge of tears should I reflect too intensely upon their meaning or nature. 

Ironically, it seems to be precisely this effect which has managed to finally shake me out of the stupour which has seized my progress this past week (and probably longer, upon reflection). I’ve been making progress, slowly but surely, on the visual assets for the new sensor types. With my head more or less completely voided of the dark noise which previously wrought havoc upon my attention, I feel I’ve gained a much clearer insight into what I’m trying to do with this project at this current moment, and how to go about doing it. I think tomorrow’s meeting will be productive.

Minor progress today. Started working on the sprites for the small variant of the microphone. I’m not sure if I’m going to include the larger variant, but for now it remains an option. I’ve come to realise that I may not actually need as many variants of sensors in terms of the breadth of diversity; but rather, I may benefit more from building a few (perhaps three, maybe even four base models) and then iterating upon them with variations based on things like damage levels. I’ll discuss it with production this week. I’d like to have all the spritework done by the end of tomorrow so I begin implementing later.

Plans for the weekend ended up completely falling through, due to factors both within and outside of my control. (Although, admittedly, mostly the former.) I have a creeping suspicion that my life has taken a turn for the worse, although the most troubling part is that I don’t think I’m all too concerned about it on a moment-to-moment basis. Outside of work, it feels like things are starting to slip away from me, one by one. Like the world’s getting smaller and smaller by the day.

Finally managed to get something done. Started working on the field antenna. I think I’m going to add in the ability to upgrade its effectiveness with the attenuator. Fortunately the additional sprite-work necessary for that is very easy to accommodate. I won’t be able to have the functionality implemented by tomorrow, but maybe by the end of the weekend, with a placeholder for the tuning signal.

To no one’s surprise, perhaps, I got nothing done today, either. I fell asleep almost immediately after writing yesterday’s post and experienced a series of deeply troubling and troubled dreams, before awaking nearly eighteen hours later in a stupour. I don’t really have much to say for myself, other than that I hope tomorrow will go a bit better.

New month. Had session today. I don’t feel like I’m getting as much out of them as I was before, although I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem in the long run, but it’s definitely something I would like to address moving forward. I just don’t know how yet. 

I was supposed to get started today on the new task list but I didn’t do anything. Going to have to get that sorted out tomorrow. I just need to get something done, to build up the initial momentum. Need to correct my sleep schedule too.

Another productive meeting. Was able to arrive at a tentative schedule for the rest of development, although it turns out there was a typo that somehow got overlooked by both parties in the contract regarding a date for delivery, so that’ll have to be revised and resigned at some point hopefully soon.

I spent the rest of the day drafting a task list for the next several months. I have  a pretty good idea of my priorities moving forward, as well as the pacing of content to be created, which was something I’ve been struggling a lot with these past few months. With the arrival of March, my progress from here on should be certain, and fixed firmly within something material.

Had a strange session today. Came away from it feeling vaguely troubled, although not necessarily in a bad way. I think I just need more time to figure some things out. I think I need to take a break. An actual one this time. Get my head straight and all that.

Somehow there’s only one week left in the month. Been feeling real disoriented these past couple of days. A lot of random bursts of rage. Must be the weather. Gonna focus on cleaning up the final draft for this week’s meeting. Ideally I’d like to get it done by tomorrow so that I can get it submitted a day early, but rarely does reality ever abide by my ideals, it seems…

Somehow slept through the entire day. By the time I woke up the sun had already set. I think I’ve slipped into a depressive state. I’d like to get some work done either tonight, or tomorrow. I think I’ll start implementing the field receiver.

Today’s meeting was very productive. I came away from it with a much clearer sense of things to focus on in terms of wrapping up the plots and rebuilding a number of mechanical systems around them. The plan is to get the full outline completely finished by the end of this month, so that come March, I can immediately begin the process of implementation. One plot a month, and then two for clean-up and testing… The path forward grows clearer by the day.

Felt a bit better today after speaking with the doctor. Gonna finish up Avery’s plot tomorrow and get it submitted. I decided to let go of this month’s update after all. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not like anyone really reads them anyways, or that there was much I could really report to begin with. Hopefully next month I’ll have something more substantial.

Woke up terribly late again. Not a great way to start off the week. I think I’ve been feeling rather angry lately, although in a more subdued and concentrated form, resembling something like hatred. Obviously I didn’t get any work done, including anything involving this month’s update. I was supposed to have a meeting this morning but it ended up falling through. I’ll have to get the update written tomorrow before session.

Been feeling pretty fucked up these past two days. I don’t know why, but my head’s filled up with noise again all of a sudden. I wanted to spend the weekend working on stuff for the update, but I wasn’t able to get anything done. Fortunately I have a meeting tomorrow morning to pull me through the beginning of the week, and hopefully give me enough of an impetus to get the update done and out by tomorrow.

Fucking Valentine’s Day…

Woke up real late today, my head felt too mixed up to get anything done. I spent some time looking at floor plans and going over the extant work, but wasn’t able to make any meaningful progress.

Today’s meeting was very productive. I came away from it with a much clearer sense of what I’m going to do with both the plotting and pacing. The part I was struggling with the most – how to onboard the player in a way that simultaneously feels seamless within the fiction, while also serving as an effective introduction to the game itself – has seemingly been resolved almost completely in a way that, in retrospect, feels deceptively obvious.

I’m going to spend tomorrow developing some new content for this month’s update.

Spent the entire day writing, and blocking out environments. It’s starting to come together in a way that I feel could be genuinely interesting, for the first time in a while. Just gotta get through this last bit here. Then things can really get going.

Been a while since I’ve made an update. It’s not that my head isn’t in the “right place” or anything, so to speak; I just haven’t really been making any progress that’s directly quantifiable, I think. Need to start working on something that is pretty soon, for the sake of this month’s update: but overall I’ve slowed down a bit, and am just taking time to really figure things out in terms of the plot and pacing.

And here we are, in February. I’ve spent way much time thinking, I have to get something written and submitted by the end of tomorrow. I don’t know why I always find myself in these kinds of situations, where I leave both myself and others to whose time I’ve been held accountable with such little breathing room to think things through properly. Gotta get better at this…

Spent the past couple of days in a general malaise. Didn’t do any sit-down work, mostly just spent a bunch of time thinking about the revisions and problems I went over last week’s meeting, and tried to figure out better solutions. Back to work tomorrow – a month already over, too.

My soul has entered a demented state, I can feel it. Sightless yet untroubled.

Finished up the plot document today, although there’s a number of things I’m definitely not satisfied with and to which I will return soon to probably completely redo. That being said, it’s far easier to build off of something that already exists, so just having this foundation in place will make it a lot less taxing to make the necessary edits down the line. I have a meeting tomorrow to determine initial goals and progress. I’m looking forward to it. I feel pretty motivated right now, just very physically tired. I’ll try to have something to post this weekend.

Been having a terrible time lately.

Beginning to realise that I definitely lost a bit of momentum there with the submission. Not that building for the submission process in itself was the issue, of course; but that having stopped myself, I feel like I more or less drove directly into a wall against which I would not crumple rather than break through. Gotta re-establish it soon. I’ll have the plot document finished by the beginning of the week.

Took a break yesterday, ended up mostly taking a break too, just to get myself back in functioning order. It seems like my body doesn’t heal so quickly anymore. I spoke with some people from the publisher this morning. Set up a schedule for meetings moving forward, a rough outline. This weekend, once I’m back in order, I’ll get to work on finishing up the plot outline so we have something from which to work. I reckon the next several months are gonna be punishing, to put it lightly. But if this is what it costs to get things done, then so be it: it’s far better than just sitting around doing nothing. It’ll get done, come hell or high water.

Got the submission finished and submitted by just after noon. All of the work today was spent on writing item descriptions and blocking UI elements. I actually ended up restoring the original list-based item menu over the radial menu for this one: I’m just not really satisfied with the appearance of the latter currently. I’d like to experiment with switching over to an icon-based format at some point in the near future. I also ended up replacing all the occurrences of IM Fell English with Fixedsys: much more compact, and fits the non-aliased nature of the rest of the visuals better. Lastly, I removed the Chromium browser: as interesting as it is, it’s completely unusable outside of Windows, and right now, causes a major memory leak as well which I can’t be bothered to figure out.

I kinda feel like shit, to be honest, but only physically: otherwise, I actually feel pretty satisfied with my work for once. I have very little faith in the build itself but at least I got it done and in – and now I most certainly have a much better idea of exactly where I’m at with development, and what I need to target for an actual demo release.

I think I’m going to take tomorrow off, at least partially. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet but at the very least, I need to reorient myself physically.

Final day of double-time before submission. Working solely on disabling shit, and writing descriptive text. I’m gonna be burning the oil real late tonight, I can already feel it. Whatever, I actually kinda welcome it. It keeps the days from feeling too long. 

Had a pretty terrible session today. I think I’ve rather foolishly overestimated how much I can trust the doctor with certain subjects. No matter: I just have to be a bit more careful in the future. It’s not like it’s her fault, anyways, or any particular indictment of her abilities or character. This one’s squarely on me, and my own inability to manage my expectations. It’s a shame though. I had a lot of faith in her, for whatever reason. What a disappointment.

I’ve been wearing myself pretty thin these past few days on this work schedule, but by tomorrow it’ll be over (or at least I’ll no longer be able to claim it as an excuse). To be honest, I think there’s a very low chance I’ll even pass selection at all. But it’s still something to work towards, regardless.

Spent almost the entire day going over UI stuff. Both the computer and PDA interfaces have seen some general QoL improvements which include a fully revamped built-in “error reporting”, a new (still pretty shitty-looking) dynamic nine-slice solution for popup windows, and macro-based string fetching, which aims to consolidate text-heavy elements into a single area so that I don’t tempt myself with suicide somewhere down the line if localisation ever comes into question.

I’ve kinda resigned myself to the fate that this submission is gonna fall completely short of my overall ambitions with the title – although at this point, I think it’s time to really start asking myself why it’s taken me two years to get to a point where I still can’t even produce a single releasable version of my work that I feel CAN effectively articulate my intentions – but nonetheless, tomorrow, I’m gonna spend as much of the day as I can tolerate adding in item descriptions and brief narrative elements wherever I can, if only just to maintain the illusion that all of this is currently building towards something and that I have a plan.

A bunch of miscellaneous work, mostly focused around the backend for the Log application. I uploaded the first twenty or so entries and added support for reading them from a CSV file, which makes importing them (and eventually handling translations) far easier. There’s a bunch of things I’d like to work on and perhaps completely redo in terms of the in-game computer’s UI: it just doesn’t look good at all right now, and is barely any more functional. There’s a lot more to be written about here but it’s pretty late and I’m pretty tired.

I also removed the cross from Avery’s shirt in the outpost. It ended up contributing too much visual noise when trying to draw animations for using the watch indoors, and felt a bit too on-the-nose, anyways.

Continued working on improving the bivouac animations. I added a new variant of the tarp which is camouflaged, and blends in well with the environment. I’m not sure yet which tarp I’m going to set as the default one, but it should be pretty straightforward to allow the player to choose between the solid-tone, and the camouflaged variants. 

I still have two sets of animations to go for the bivouac: putting the backpack into the tent (and taking it back out), and the entire disassembly process, which is going to involve some concerted effort. I’m most likely going to work on the former tomorrow, hopefully get it done by mid-day: and then, Monday and Tuesday are going to be dedicated exclusively to developing towards the publisher target I mentioned yesterday. Lots of work ahead, but it’s nice: for the first time in a while I feel like I’m actually doing something useful with my time.

Late post, but technically the work day only just now ended, so I suppose this still qualifies. Spent the entire day working on almost completely redoing all the animations for deploying the bivouac. It looks far better now: the perspective has been adjusted appropriately, and the tarp now actually resembles a tarp instead of an ambiguously rectangular tube. Just realised that tomorrow (or technically, today) is the fifteen, which means that the first update of the year is already due… 

Another major shift in priorities as well for the forthcoming days once this update is finished and published. The publisher’s set up a new objective with a deadline for the middle of the next week, which is gonna have to take precedence over everything else until I’m able to get that done. A bit uncertain about the ultimate prospects of it but I suppose it’s worth a try if they think it’s worth a try.

Decided to shift focus today to diversify. Started working on touching up the animations and interaction flow for deploying the bivouac. I was able to successfully improve the animation for retrieving the tarp from the pack, but had to go into the city to attend to something, so was unable to get any other work done. However I nonetheless feel like I’ll be able to make decent progress tomorrow. 

I would like to have the bivouac be directly deployable from the action menu as long as the pack is equipped. With this initial animation out of the way, the most daunting part of that is now complete. Now it’s just a matter of setting the necessary restrictions, and continuing to work on the animations and audio.

Finished up the foley today, but not much else. I got too distracted throughout the day, and on top of that, my attempt at resetting my sleep schedule completely backfired and I ended up going back to sleep until late in the afternoon once again. I still have two more days to produce new content so there’s still time, but I really should be making better use of my time. Supposedly the people at the publishing company will free up next week to talk; I hope that’ll be able to secure me a better sense of direction and motivation. Until then my objectives remain the same.

No work accomplished, or even attempted today. Woke up just before session and by the time I returned it was getting dark and I felt too tired to do anything. Going to sleep now. Hopefully it’s able to reset my sleep schedule so that I can work more during the day. 

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to get the foley done for the partition curtain, and Avery entering bed. I also would like to improve the animation for her getting into bed. In the afternoon I would like to finish the sprites for the transceiver interface and implement basic functionality for it, including receiving the signal based on the hour of the day (synchronised to the global surges).

Less productive today, felt terribly tired all throughout. I spent the afternoon adding dirt and wear decals to the interior of the outpost. I’m satisfied with the overall appearance of it now. Tomorrow I’m gonna start working on building out appliances and adding interactivity, including hover-over prompts.

Took the day off today. Woke up late into the afternoon, overcome by a strange exhaustion. Reorganised my desk a bit. Tomorrow I’d like to finish up the furniture/furnishings in the outpost and begin working on adding individual functions. I also need to improve the sleep animation, it looks terribly stiff right now. Lastly, I need to assemble and/or record foley for both the sheet partition into the bedroom, and Avery undressing and getting into bed, which will be contingent upon what I’m able to accomplish in terms of the animation. I might also investigate the feasibility of adding a shadow mask over the bedroom, independent of the rest of the interior as well. 

Spent the day adding a significant amount of clutter to the interior of the outpost, with the intent of making it feel a bit more lived-in., and visually interesting. I want to spend the next few days continuing to add to it, and expand/introduce various functions to everything. Given how much time the player will likely spend in it, I’d like it to be able to remain as interesting as long as possible. I plan on starting work on the bunker some time in the middle of next week most likely as well.

Stayed up too late last night, felt completely wiped today and wasn’t able to get anything done. Going to sleep early tonight, gonna try to wake up early tomorrow and make up for the lost work.

Spent the day going through the project fixing a bunch of glaring issues that I apparently had introduced some months ago but never noticed. It was taxing, but certainly necessary – and funnily, it’s restored my motivation to get things done too, which is really what I’ve been needing. I’m going to spend the next couple of days decorating the outpost interior, adding more detail to the environment. I hope to have something to post this Saturday. Next week, if they haven’t reached out already, I’ll contact the publisher and see what’s going on.

The doctor got COVID some time in the past week, so I didn’t see her today. I’ve been trying to get back to work these past several days, although “trying” is really the imperative word here: not much success to be found, all things considered. Well, the only thing I can do is continue trying, I guess. The publisher sent over the money, but haven’t said anything yet. I know it’s likely not a matter to be concerned about but it doesn’t bode well for my motivation.

New year, new start, I guess. Strange feeling, for it to start on a Saturday. I guess in two days I’m officially back to work, on a new schedule. I should spend some time tomorrow and figure out what I’m actually going to be doing. Need to talk to the publisher some time soon, too: figure out expectations, timelines. All of this is coming up on me remarkably, uncomfortably quickly. I should’ve planned it out a bit more…

Met with an old friend tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from her and… we didn’t exactly part on the best terms. But it was nice seeing her today. I don’t know about time healing wounds or any of that but at the very least, I’ve come to fully appreciate now that, if nothing else, it offers the benefit of some much-needed perspective, and the necessary distance to look back and realise that actually, yeah, I was a real fucking dumbass back then.

It’s an interesting and rather unexpected way to end the year. Appropriate though, I suppose, that this year should end with me having to reckon with the past in this way. 

Well, in any case, it was nice seeing her again. 

Just kinda drifted through the day. Tried to pass some time playing video games, but I don’t know, something about them no longer appeals to me in the slightest anymore. There are better things in life now, I’ve felt them. What a tragedy.