한국어 버전: https://itch.io/blog/755599/-2024

Hello! It's been quite a while since I got to you in an (in)formal update for my current projects.

I've been holding off on writing this post for a while, mostly because I found it very difficult getting myself to focus. I would often get distracted off juggling my IRL life & job, alongside working on my various bite-sized projects and guilt in general.

I'd like to apologize about my radio silence regarding the updates, I should've written this much earlier.

But today is Sunday. At least at the time I started writing this post. And I (finally) figured I can't hold on things forever while staying near radio silent about it. Plus, there is (hopefully) no urgent notices coming up on my Teams chat now so I can focus to my hearts content...

So in this post I'll get myself to share what's going on regarding me & my projects right now.
Starting with my 'main' game(s) and their status.

A] BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR - On hold

Originally, my plan was to *somehow* get the whole game ready by end of 2024, and get it shipped on Steam around that time after I end my fulltime job's contract and have a "break period".
Back then I thought it would be an easy feat while taking care of daytime job, utilizing those 'off-the-clock times' and weekends where I can do things like 'toy projects' in a relatively free manner.

I was aware that as my free time has been spaced out more by the time I spent at my workplace, I had to plan my free time accordingly.

So in my free time (i.e. times I would spend on commuting & taking shower after I got home), I was constantly thinking about the ways to improve the game so I could start implementing them once the plans were laid down. Things like the ways I could conclude this game's story with a satisfying end, while preserving all the craziness of the demo. (although most of my attempts ended up with the story "too somber" for what it is... oops. so I'm still iterating on it)

Alongside that, in my free time (i.e. after I got home from work and on weekends), I was also developing better tools (and custom formats) in hopes of making working on the game easier. As the game was originally written in a month-long sprint for a collaboration entry, it had many "tech debts" that I had to take care of. At the moment adding new content was quite an awful experience with progress getting roadblocked by them.

Back then, I had written the game in a relatively early version of GameMaker 2 and its scripting language. And since then, a lot of new functionalities have been added to this language that this game could use. So I decided to incorporate those as well, while we're at it.

In retrospect, I kept up with this routine for quite a bit. Though keeping up with those (relatively) "sardine-packed" schedules had been slowly affecting me. I eventually gave in to the ever-growing fatigue & health issues as a side effect and the routine had been broken for a long while.

At the same time, switching back and forth between programming for work and personal projects did not work well for me. I had problems picking up from whatever I did last time and continuing from there. I would find myself forgetting about the details of what I was doing last night -- fiddling around with making no real progress, until eventually picking up my pace and getting into the flow.

I'm still working (and will work) on some of the "side" parts that can be used (but not exclusively) for this project, but in general, I'm afraid to say that there has been no real progress made since my last update.

I was too optimistic about my initial goal. And I'll be elaborating more about this part later... But with my current pace, I've ultimately decided that I wouldn't be able to finish the project in my proposed time. So until I return from working full-time to resuming my University, I'm (with regret) officially pausing the game for a short while... I estimate that I will mainly focus on my IRL job and my life until around the end of 2024. Which is not too long, but also not too short to not just announce it at all.

B] CRIKEYMAS - On hold

Thankfully/sadly I didn't forgot about this game. And yet its project files hadn't been booted up in a while.

Some of you might have remembered me showing the build I have originally made when I was still in my university days around the various local game developer meetups and likes. And I felt like this project could also use some status reports too.

The year the first demo came out, I ended up losing the license key to the GameMaker Studio 1. I couldn't recover it as my old mail containing the receipt/key that I can recover the license was lost as they got deleted alonside my old mail account.

Still, thankfully, I was able to port the game over the new GameMaker Studio 2 with it's surprisingly robust "auto-port" feature. I've used it as a quick fix to the point where I could boot it up without it exploding.

But ultimately, the auto-port is not truly perfect. And it shows its  weakness as theres a good amount of features written for compatibility between the old and new version of the engine. And it's not exactly fast & stable for the new engine, from what I've experienced.

So, a new clear goal were set: I must re-write the game from scratch in GameMaker Studio 2, if I wanted to add more contents and finish the  game.

There has been a few attempts to do so in my free time, but then they too met the same fate as BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR, sadly. (and I think trying to do both at the same time, while my only free time is practically after-job hours and weekend was one of the culprits.)

So, I'll also be officially suspending the development, until I can take a firm grasp on my ability to finish my projects.

LIFE AND MISCELLANEOUS

Now, you might (and probably will) think, "Wow, that's a bit of a sudden announcement for pausing projects. What's going on?".
My excuse here is that with my current situation, I've found out that it's not viable for me to work on multiple projects with bigger scale, that may take a year or so of continuous development. Especially for the deadlines that I have set up myself for those. And it took me so long to figure it out unfortunately.

I'm still figuring out a lot about myself as a human (& as a fragile meat machine that thinks) as my age continues to rack up.
And if there's one thing that I have discovered, then it's the fact that I need to build up some momentum before I get into the flow of doing things at a moderate pace.
Unfortunately with a full-time job on my plate, working on my project on short bursts of after-work hours proved to be not meshing well with the way I work.

And I can't deny about my health as well, when it comes to long term projects. My sudden change of routines have taken some amount of toll on my health -- I'd often end up sleeping through the weekends, or fall asleep too early after arriving home. I would simply be too tired to do anything, including eating a meal. And that lead me to feel more lethargic, which then continues this cycle of fatigue.

But even then after putting my body on a grinding stone to get things done, I ultimately found out that my productivity had been lower than ever. I'd find myself sitting in front of my monitor, doing nothing but getting distracted; Watching videos or laying down in my bed after arriving home.

Overally, judging from my current state of productivity, and with what I have on my plate right now, I had to accept that it's nearly impossible for me to handle huge, multiple projects and finish them in time.

And yet, to this very moment, I still yearn to get my imagination out of my head into something that exists. And ultimately, I myself know for sure that I will keep attempting finish something. Which is really conflicting with my current ability and situation, and very though to work with.

With my recent posts online, some of you might have already noticed this; But my current plan that I'm trying to follow is that I'll be pausing my main projects, and at least lower the amount of projects that I'm "working on" until I take care of my fulltime job. Which would be around from at least the end of the 2024 to very early 2025. Then I would reassess my capability, then maybe I could set up more plausible goals from there.

I've been kinda already doing that ever since I got employed, but I thought it'd be better to clarify than to have things in this undetermined state.

That being said. I'm officially stating this: I can't gurantee you that I'll be working on something big, like BÅÅBÖSÅÅNGJÅÅR or CRIKEYMAS for a short while. But in the meantime, I will still keep working on a smaller 'toy projects' of mine, such as (really) short games or artworks. Which would be more or less same as my current status quo.

Now, I'll have to admit as of writing this, I felt pretty bad and regretful; Mainly because it took me so long to write an update, and the fact that I'm making a new post with nothing but a bad news, without having a reasonable progress to show. I felt like I was betraying you. The people who actually believed in my project, genuienly invested to it.

I'm still trying my best to overcome my faults when it comes to keeping the project running. And while I believe I'll eventually figure the way out, it still feels bad to get into the same old conclusion of stopping to work on something one way or another.

Hopefully after this period I can get back to working on my personal projects full time and break that cycle, at least for a while.

Thanks for hanging around even though I tend to stay silent for the most of time.
And until next time I get back with more updates, please take care.

- ZIK