spncryn/log

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Added an additional confirm screen before printing a recipe.

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

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

A bunch of miscellaneous work on the printer UI.

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

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

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

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

Redid the printer UI.

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

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

Some updates to the inventory system.

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

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

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

Fortunately, my mood remains constant, and clear.

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

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

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

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

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

Either way, I get back to work proper tomorrow.

Continued working on the exterior of the dorms. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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