I’ve noticed something. Whenever I end up being busier than I thought, or more tired than I thought, or time otherwise gets away from me and I don’t get as much done as I wanted to, it’s generally whatever daily task I’m having the least fun with that I end up leaving undone. And, for the past few weeks, that’s most consistently been EverEnding.
Well, I don’t think it’s the game itself that’s the problem, but the specific tasks I find myself doing. Don’t get me wrong, animation can be interesting, but it feels like I’ve already done the funnest part, finding the weight and motion, and what’s left is mostly just filling in the pixels, just paint-by-numbers. But what can I do about that? Those numbers need painting.
Oh well, that’s why it’s a good time to have side projects. I’m certainly getting a kick out of the kind of problem-solving programming I’m getting to do on this new thing – though EverEnding still certainly has some big programming problems left to solve, the process of building a new prototype is notably different from trying to slot some new specialist class into a functioning game engine, and generally a bit more rewarding – or, at least, less finicky.
So anyway here’s the upshot. EverEnding work will continue, but I’m resigned to that being slow for at least a month or two while I power through these animations as quickly as I’m able and willing. Meanwhile I keep working on this side project which I’ll talk more about when I have a working prototype, which I probably will by the next update – not least because, as I mentioned in my last post, these devblog updates are going from weekly to monthly, so the next DevBlog will be June 30th. Of course, because it’s covering more time I’ll try to make it commensurately longer and more detailed, and hopefully this means that each individual update will be more interesting to read, more full of neat things like finished animations and working programs rather than just vague summaries of time spent working on x and y and z. That’s the idea, anyway. This is desirable because, among other things, as I get closer and closer to the actual completion of the game, the dev blog will begin to become one of the prime promotional tools at my disposal, chock full of screenshots and animations and concept art and who knows what else. Well, again, that’s the idea at least.
I guess numbering-wise I’ll just start over. It’s kind of weird, but I suppose I’ll just call it EverEnding Monthly DevBlog 1, 2, 3, etc. I guess if you like you can just add the appropriate number of months, which for 181 weeks would be… like 43 months? Jeez. Okay.
More regular updates go to the Titan Seed work log. I’m going to make a sincere effort to write an update for this blog every day, and even days when I get no work done on the games, or even no work done at all, I will have updates noting that lack of work. More than anything else, the Titan Seed work log will be for me, a tool to keep me honest and productive: If anyone else happens to find it interesting or helpful, that’s purely icing as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway here’s the left-facing run animation.
