Progress update- Back to work, tooling, and prototyping (Patreon)

I have overcome the burnout. Oh god, it was hard. It took a lot of delving into the depths of self-improvement.

Anyway! I'm back to consistent work on the game! Holy crap, my mental capacity is immensely increased after some proper recuperation.

I've been closing lots of lingering technical tasks that intimidated me in the past. Bite-sized issues that I didn't know how to even begin to address. So far it's going at a really good pace as I've been finding my way back into a consistent (but actually healthy) work schedule.

The single most impactful thing so far has been improving the tools I use to make the game. My data editor, CastleDB, is weak at handling the kind of complexity I need it to. So I sat down with its source code for a day and upgraded its ability to display and manipulate game objects with lots of data. The changes are janky but it's a serious upgrade for my workflow. I always discount how big of a deal tool improvements are for productivity.

Otherwise, I'm working on prototyping how the player sees what places on the npc can be interacted with. This ought to help with usability for the game.

Lastly, I'm clearing the way for the next step of the plan- character responsiveness.

This also marks the return of a consistent posting schedule on here. I've been thinking of whether weekly posts are still useful, and I think they are? It just depends on what's happening development-wise. For now I'll shoot for one post every weekend.

I want to find ways to improve what and how I post. As we ramp into the next stage of development, the changes will be more visual and interactive, so I'll need to think about how properly show more of what the game is capable of.

... and that's all for now!

Thank y'all so much for sticking with me through a period of recovery. It feels weird to ask others to wait and support me while I learn how to relax, but damn it's made such a difference. I swear my brain was working at half capacity and I didn't even realize it. Basing your personal worth on arbitrary productivity goals is, it turns out, a poor strategy for long-term health.

I'm glad to be back <3