PERSONAL

7

2,046

Slump

5 years ago630 words

I've spent the past few days in bed feeling abysmal, getting nothing done. So that's not great! It's because of several different things all piled on at once...

The quarantine's one that's affecting us all.

∞ The website thing ∞ was a terrible way to start the week.

I mentioned that I contacted some people I felt I'd burned bridges with. That was a mixed bag; some important relief that fears were unfounded, but also some disappointment that one of them didn't reply (which essentially confirms my fears instead), and life comparison with another which makes me happy for them, but aware of how poorly I'm doing myself. Maybe the Divine Dreams thing will work out in the end, but it might not, so I'm not on solid ground at all. I never have been.

(Yes, I know not to compare my life to others'. It's why I avoid social media. It's unavoidable if you want to reconnect with someone though.)

Also, working on the MARDEK Re-release is an absolute nightmare, and I've been getting sickening headaches trying. It's nothing to do with the game on a creative level - I'm eager to get it on Steam for people to play - and everything to do with the technical hurdles, trying to figure out how to work with terrible old code in languages I've forgotten how to write in. I can't wait to get that out of the way.

If saving wasn't such an issue, I could just call it done since I've got a working exe version I think would work on Steam, but I know people will complain if I just keep the unreliable .sol saving system... I wonder whether ∞ a description of how to preserve fragile saves like this one ∞ would be enough, but I know a save system rewrite would be preferable...

Hmm, based on what Matt Roszak's said, I'm assuming the EBF ports probably saved more solidly (though was the change obvious from anything in the game itself, like different save UI or slower saving?), but if you've ever played any other Steam-ported Flash games, do you know what they did with regards to saving?

The re-release shouldn't have taken as long as it has; I thought it'd take a few days, but it's been two weeks without a huge amount of progress. Hopefully next week will go better.

I talked last time about how I meant to revise my Patreon this week, but feeling like this, that's not really been possible.

I'm hoping that if I get the next week off to a good start, the rest will flow better and I'll be able to make some meaningful progress.

Also, I got Octopath Traveller on Steam a while back, but haven't started it yet because I've not been in the mood to dive into a long RPG at my PC. I did however get Animal Crossing: New Horizons, despite its price, because a lot of people seemed to be enjoying it, saying it's stress-relieving, and it seemed more pick-up-and-play, more of a mindless distraction I don't have to commit very much to. Plus I already had a Switch, so I can play it away from my computer. I was also curious to give the series a proper go since I've regretted never having played one before. I'm only on day three, so I'm still getting used to it and haven't unlocked much yet. I like it so far, though. (I'm also paying attention to graphical things, like how the procedural tile-based maps are modelled.)

Anyway, bleh. This has been the biggest mental slump I've experienced in months. But like the weather, these dark periods never last.

I hope you're all doing well.