spncryn/log

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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