Saturday Update! (Patreon)

Comin to you groggy and dumb on this fine Saturday morning! I haven't been sleeping great, so this one might be written kinda janky, my apologies.

I ended up not needing to take care of 2 cats cuz schedules got shuffled around but I still struggled quite a bit last week. I could write out the individual excuses but I think the major issue is that I'm just burnt out, and have been for weeks. I kept thinking that the weekend would be enough to rest up and get back in, but it hasn't been cutting it.

So, I'm gonna be having a spontaneous staycation and taking the next week off. I'll still find something to do for the next Saturday update of course, but I'm afraid I really need to take a longer break.

In that same vein, I didn't get very far in the script last week, but I think that was also because I needed a new sprite for basically every line of dialogue, and many of the sprites are double height [ twice the height of the game screen, so I can move the camera over them up and down ] and just challenging to draw because of perspectives.

Here's an example sprite in my drawing program. The blue lines show the size of the game screen, so in-game, you'd only be seeing the content of one square at a time.

This way I can move things around and do more with the camera, like this:

Which takes a lot of work to draw and program but at least it looks cool 🙈

Most of the game has less action than this, but this section does need more camera fiddling. I think, in general, this game [ compared to Strade's ] just has a bit more varied art but less text and choices. That's just down to the difference in personality between Strade and Lawrence [ Lawrence doesn't listen to the player as much, and doesn't talk as much either, so more of the story needs to be conveyed through sprites ]

It's all part of the plans and schemes. 'It's just an experiment' as my fav yoga youtuber likes to say.

I have to remind myself over and over that my goal isn't making the game as fast as possible, or even to make it perfect. It's always just been an experiment, to challenge myself, to see how far I can go and to play with new concepts.

There is no machine to perform a green tea ceremony, because the ritual is the point. There is no machine to lifts weights for you, because the challenge is the point. I remind myself. This work is my ritual, my challenge, and composed of my precious failures.

I do need to rest, for now, but I'll be back at it, always.

I got some extras here, before I go. For download I have another folder of pokopia pics [ I made big tree, this is literally all I do when I'm not working ] and a very special video of Willow- it was warm for a couple days and she stepped outside by herself for the very first time [ and immediately ran back inside the second the recording ended LMAO but it was amazing progress! ] I'm trying to introduce her to the idea of going outside for supervised fresh air cuz I think it would be good for both of us [ plus, it's good for her to have new and strange experiences so she can gain confidence ]

It is now snowing again but I'll be resuming the 'training' with her when it gets warm again.

Also thank you guys for your support and understanding with me needing to take time off. I know it's a huge privilege to be able to just unilaterally decide I need a break with no notice, and I appreciate it a lot, so thank you.

Stay safe and see you next week, I will still post! Something!