Alora Fane

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.

7 COMMENTS

Ampersand68~5Y

Hang in there! We're all rooting for you!

codyfun12329~5Y

The Steam version of EBF5 forgoes the .sol save system in favor of keeping text files (base64 encoding of save data) in the install directory. I don't know how that works behind the scenes; it's transparent to the player. The game also offers a feature to export your save data to a user-selected directory, for creating backups or transferring saves.

Anyways, I wish you well in overcoming this slump.

Tobias 1115~5Y

I assumed that was what the newer EBFs did, but what I'm more curious about is how the older ones that were written in AS2 do it, and whether their save systems have been altered from the original release. The text files thing is what I've been stressing over trying to achieve, but MARDEK was written in a different language to EBF5 (AS2 vs AS3), so it's a lot trickier.

Dingding32167~5Y

I haven't played Animal Crossing myself, but it does seem like something you'd enjoy, given the relaxing and positive gameplay. Some people are taking advantage of the social interaction as well, though I always find that weird with strangers myself. Everyone has their own path, and your commitment will pay off in the end! I don't know how accurate this is, but it's a nice thing to keep in mind: [LINK]

Tobias 1115~5Y

Annoyingly, I don't think you can play with other people unless you pay for some Nintendo subscription or something? It was the same with Pokemon Sword and Shield too. I'd probably be open to the idea if it were possible!

That's definitely an interesting article, thanks for sharing! It's something I've essentially known for a while - it's hard to do what I'm doing for as long as I have without coming across a bunch of such things - but it's useful to get a refresher every so often to get back on track.

When I made MARDEK, I'd been practising all my creative skills - and none of them deliberately - for much less than ten years! I think I started on the creative path around age 15 (which was already quite late), and released MARDEK 1 when I was 19. I spent years deliberately developing skills after MARDEK 3, which is what I'm thinking of when I talk about how I hope to use those refined skills in Divine Dreams!

Dingding32167~5Y

You're definitely due for a big break, and the output you have is showing how you've developed and pulled together all the different skills you've honed over the years! I remember how much you focused on drawing a couple years back, and now you have the technical skill to pull off character/monster design easily (to outsider perception)! On another completely different note, you mentioned making sound effects at some point (couldn't remember which post it was) but I came across this again after a good while of trying to find it, probably not what exactly you were looking for but hope this helps: [LINK]

Tobias 1115~5Y

I definitely have improved, and a lot of things are easier now! It's just a neverending mountain climb though; there's always a higher point to strive for.

I'm sure I've heard of Incompetech before, but I can't place my finger on it... Maybe the music from Braid was from there? Either way, it seems to be for music rather than sound effects from what I can tell? Or am I missing something?

Speaking of Braid, that's interesting in that it used stock music rather than music specifically composed for it, but the music is my favourite part about it... I've always felt weird about that, like the admiration should go to the composers - who knew nothing about the game when they wrote their music - rather than the game itself, and I wonder how those composers feel knowing that their work has received the exposure it has from being included in something like that. HMM.