The past month has actually been pretty great. I've been having stretches of dev with solid progress and I feel like I'm on the verge of sending the game off for feedback and inching towards the first true demo release in a long time.

I often pride myself on not needing a "todo" list, I know all the crap that needs iteration. I can open the project, and slam out 7 hour work days making adjustments and progress day after day, but sometimes you just work and work and work, and you kinda enter a fog, and you don't realize how far you've come and you don't have that satisfaction of that "to do" list with all those red squares turned green in your spreadsheet giving you that sense of "pride and accomplishment".  But really quick I want to speak to the strength of not having a "to do" list and lack of corporate structure. I can go on a tangents knowing that the "forest for the trees" demands it, over what would normally be artificially prioritized by some mad, monetized entity with little vision. 

Having that "milestone" can be very motivating, and help you stay focused on what needs doing without endlessly falling into the weeds.

So today I'm just making a very tiny to do list, and coming to terms that I'm just about ready to finally get a little feedback on the game which is always kinda terrifying, being many years deep and still not knowing if it's "good enough" or if I've squandered so much time that will never come back. I haven't really thought about milestones in too long, so I've kinda been confused what the end goal is and where I'm going with dev as of late, every day has just been "Add items, make the game!".

I DO NOT have the second or final zone ready, so I have  a little ways still to go, among populating shops and polishing things across the board. But it would be stupid to develop that far into the future without getting vital feedback about zone 1 and the initial set of items and play, as if I need to make radical changes or add new things, you want to revamp a minimal viable product over a big chunk of content you stupidly made without outside feedback.

So my big milestone plan that i'm hoping to slam out in 1 day, but maybe to will be this:

Set up test setups to very quickly test all item types. This will allow me to explode a huge # of items on screen at a time, and get a feel for the types of item mods, paired with unique items and at a glance tweak and tune item mods and unique items and feel out %'s for unique modifiers and such.

Migrate away from random item drops for rare and very rare items, and instead add rare and very rare fish that drop these item types. I think it'll be more fun if instead of "trash mobs" dropping random items, it'll be more of a "YAY I SEE A RARE FISH" type moment where the fish themselves are rare and have a cool aura around them or something to denote that they drop really good loot, and they'll be holding a sword, or a rifle, or a hat.

And... holy crap I think that might be it. Just an item pass on mods and a bit of ad hoc testing.

Part of my brain is excited to send it off and see if the game is finally good, the other half is bracing for unending failure. It is what it is. Best to focus on the satisfaction of getting work done, and not ponder the absolutes of judgement and the ongoing decline.

Almost there...