What's the plan, Stan?

Let's put aside the inanity of the world for today, and let's just indulge the wonderful frustrations of our project!

For the past couple months i've been so spread thin. I have reached the point of development that I have always dreamt of. The bonus system is working. ITEMS ARE WORKING! Enemies are working! Spawns are working!

EVERYTHING IS WORKING!

And now EVERYTHING needs to be put into the game and made fun AT THE SAME TIME!

In this moment it is very hard to be a solo developer, because more than ever I just want to wake up and see that cool thing that someone else got into the project to motivate me to push forward. I miss that feeling so much.

No point harpin' on it though. That's the thing, there are so many things that can drag us down if we let them, it's almost impossible to get in the state of mind where I allow myself to focus on one singular element of the project and work on that. If I had the discipline to do that, we'd have been done long ago, spending a lot of time of late in the belly of the whale. I resist at every turn hunkering down and just getting things donw.

But that's what we're gonna do darn it!

I always tell myself to work on the most annoying and frustrating thing first, that will clear our head. And in this instance I wanted to get more tutorial type elements teaching the player about form swapping and the sort of level assets that could communicate to the player which buttons to press, and making it dynamic based on which input device you are using because it's all dependent on that.

I don't get to do just one tutorial, I have to do 4, then I get to make more systems that cycle those systems based on which input you're using at a given time. And because I'm spread thin those tutorial elements look and play like shit so i end up taking them out and redoing the whole process multiple times.

As players we don't think about the fact it takes time to put those learning elements in the game, it has to live in the scene, it needs proper naming conventions and to live in well organized folders, and it will inflate build size and maybe most importantly, it will drain us of our fighting spirit to work on the darned game.

So you know what, maybe we've grown as a dev, i've decided we're just going to double down on making the game fun, not sweat this tertiary bullshit, and if the players think it's a worthy game, they'll figure this stuff out, that's half the fun!

So we're totally gutting that bullshit from the todo list, it's no longer something we will be doing.

Instead the plan for today will be to add a few items, get a few fish spawning in the game, and maybe a bit of world building. Truthfully, I'm not even sure, and that's driving me crazy.

OK! SEAT OF OUR PANTS EXECUTIVE DECISION WE WILL BE RETURNING TO DAILIES! I JUST SPENT AN ENTIRE BLOG WALKING IN A DAMNED CIRCLE AND DECIDING TO DO WHAT WE DECIDED WE WOULD DO A MONTH AGO!

Overall, at least in terms of the project I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I pushed myself a little hard exercising earlier, but I'm feeling a bit better now, so health could be better, but it could be worse. Builds are working in Unity 6 so that's good to know.

There's no magic bullet. All that's going to help us make a great game is hard work. And the only thing that's going to lead to hard work is optimism and a can do attitude. 

Might I be so bold as to say I think we've grown into a true gamedev, someone able to mix and match animations and sounds and mechanics to produce something polished and fun. All we need now are the ebbing and flowing ingredients of patience and elbow grease.

AND THAR BE THE RUB!

Deep breath as usual. Maybe the world sucks. Maybe everyone's gone spiteful and hateful and people think we're some evil demon. We are their icon of hate. We don't join their circle jerks, we don't affirm their notions of grandeur, filate their egos, play their petty politics, affirm their rancid notions about specific genders, races and religions. 

I'm not going to let that bring me down, it's done enough damage to us over the past decade as these smarm fucks scratched each others backs. In fact, I'm dedicating today's dev to all the bullshit otherings that christened this project so long ago.

An entire self obsessed machine of smarm and self congratulation formed by a throng weak, bend over backwards mother fuckers, and up their ass hacks and liars came together to shutter a lot of good, hard working people from this industry. And while it is STILL hard as shit to eek it out in this world of scum suckers... maybe we're finally on the up and up after all those wretched years.

And we're going to be ready when that change happens with our little SeaCrit bit of game we've toiled over for so, so long with nothing but an idiot dream.

I cannot tell you how much I would give for it to not be this way. To have to have suffered all these years, to be kicked into the dirt by people we thought were friends, to be left behind so many times and left wondering if we were even sane. 

Wish it wasn't like this, wish we weren't forced into this damned cave, wish we weren't so bitter and angry.

But what choice did we have? How are we supposed to feel?

I wanted nothing more than to be part of a proud, strong, and inclusive industry making great games celebrating all of our unique strengths as we trailblazed new horizons and uplifted each other through the hard times. And every step of the way hacks, brown nosers, and jokers stomped many of us to dirt.

Oh well, guess we'll finish up the game in the muck. Another night developing in SeaCrit, in the cold dark of this cave.

Better angry than helpless