Join the Madness DevBlog, June 2022 – Worries
It feels like progress has really slowed down recently. I think that has a lot to do with what sorts of work on the project feel like progress and which don’t. A lot of the last week or so has…
Category Life in the Machine
Pause
You may have noticed I’ve fallen progressively further behind on posting updates here. I mentioned some time back that this was because some of the essays were getting too big and detailed – that is still true, I have a…
The Flow Between
In animation “tweening” refers to creating the frames that smooth out the action and make it read as a single motion. Traditionally, the frames which define a motion – the “key” frames – would be drawn be the lead animator,…
Made to Order
Solving a problem is one of the most satisfying sensations in the world. Often this satisfaction is preceded by hours, days, months, or years of tedium and frustration as we struggle to understand the problem, collect the tools and skills…
Tangled, Intangible
One of the most valuable skills I’ve been developing, mostly without realizing I was developing it, is an understanding of what my limitations are and of accepting those limitations. This is not an understanding I readily relinquished myself to: My…
Join the Madness DevBlog, March 2022: Anniversary
March is over, marking the one-year mark since I started working on this project – a project which was originally meant to last one month. I’m not sure how to feel! Obviously I didn’t expect this game to take this…
Presence Tension
I don’t deal well with scheduling. Any time I try to schedule myself, to block out what I’m going to be doing and when, days or weeks ahead of time, I get frustrated. I can’t help but rattle against the…
A Frayed Knot
There is much to be said in favor of creative systems-oriented thinking. Many problems can be solved by breaking them down into sets of mutually influential factors, many occurrences can be understood by tracing the thread of causality from one…
Between the Bones
We educate ourselves in the arts trying to learn how to create better art, but the process of improvement is a strange and unsteady one and the paths we take don’t always lead where they seem to. The main thing…
Woven Wave
You can visualize every human who has ever existed as a node in space and time. We exist here and now, one in a vast array of faceted gems shining through space. We occupy orbital patterns, gravitate towards and away…