(Oh cool, I just found out I can embed the web build in these blog posts, I'm going to have to figure out how to get the seacrit music to not interfere with my daily music choices)

I needed a break, my last dev session was phenomenal, i got tons done, got the game on track, and I think there is still POTENTIAL for this to be a fun game. Still lots to do.

My mind started fogging up though, I've never experienced anything like it. It felt like early onset dementia. I couldn't do math in my head like I used to and it was pretty alarming, let alone think over the complex logics polluting Seacrit. Is this how it ends? I hit the home stretch and my brain literally falls apart and I'm not able to wrangle the complexities of the project to finally show it's potential?

I got REALLY sick a few days ago could barely stand, body pains, 103 fever, but i recovered fast... I can do the math in my head again. I am not quite yet in my great final decline, there is hope for things to go north. I feel semi sharp again like a nice  mild cheddar, at least about 80% of what I'm used to and I hope that's good enough to get to work soon. I feel like I have a reverse hangover, that for the past two days I felt absolutely shit, and as the day goes on today I feel awesome. I REALLY REALLY hope this lasts and my life isn't forfeit. /overlydramatic

What lame posts I make... same rambles every time. We'll see if I get to work soon. It's damned time I do, but I can't simply flip a switch on my brain to take on this massive endeavor year after year.

Whew, I have completely and utterly let this project slip from my mind the past few months, lots of real life shit going down that was preventing me from working on the ,project let alone the brain fog.

I hope the stars align and I feel the mojo to get to work soon, I pray whatever is beyond the stars align and I'm able to come up with a competent plan of action to make this game fun, and as I foolheartedly try to mish mash this monstrosity together. Most of all I hope this early onset dementia is gone and my future as a game creator... or just a sentient being isn't over.

I will say this though. I do feel as though this time off has given me a good vantage point moving forward. When you're years into dev, when you're desperately trying to make your game the best thing ever, you tend to go a little crazy, and you start conjuring up giant whales to hunt. Not quite feature creep per say, not some big feature to distract you. But you start to fantasize about one big problem, or thing that is going to bring everything together and and your torment. I am no longer utterly burned out on the game. I do not foresee having to solve some grand mystery to fix SeaCrit. I think there are simply a billion and one tiny little things I need to improve. I'm going to simplify the world, stop trying to build up a full game and focus on a tight, bite sized demo that screams quality and replayability. I can build up more areas when they are warranted and the initial areas are compelling. It sounds so fucking obvious now, but it's been a long crazy rollercoaster doing world building. I've learned a lot, created a lot of working pipelines almost none of it is needed for what seacrit is now. Sometimes forward progress is slapping yourself in your head and going "Oh wow, this stuff I spent months on is not needed".

The biggest most important thing I've learned in gamedev. Is that if you keep great things, even really great things, and things that have great potential. You will never make a great game, because all of it will suck away from that potential brilliant arrangement of features that hit that perfect chord of what your game is.

This is potential for beautiful vistas and expansive oceans in the future. But for what I'm doing now, I need to feel out the core gameplay loop, and doing that while trying to lock in environments is friggin dumb. If I could do it all again, I would just use cubes and spheres. Attack level design with reckless abandon and find the fun rather than wasting countless hours trying to make a prototype look pretty. But hindsight is 20/20, I had hoped by now the game could have garnered at least some level of success by some metric. C'est la vie.

I've been wanting to do a dev video with commentary as opposed to the usual boring no audio straight up dev session. I thought it'd be cool to have at least one clip of me interacting with the game and actually talking about it rather than just typing ominous, neckbeard things in code comments. Maybe I'll do a playthrough where I make a todo list and go over what I think of the state of the game and maybe implement a thing or two. But I overthink this stuff, get stage fright, start thinking it has to be perfect or no one will ever want anything to do with the project and that's putting me off getting to work again.

As always, perfection is the enemy of progress.

Oh gosh, what song to link today...

I've really let prior blogposts go off the rails, I'm going to try to stop with this childish blurbs and actually keep my composure so this project has some kind of chance in this crazy world.

YOU MADE IT TO THE END FUCKER! 

DON'T WANNA TOUCH YA BUT YOUR SPINES ARE UNDER MY SKIN. I WANNA HOLD YOU BUT YOU'RE A VENOMOUS SPIKED PUFFER FISH. 

YOU'RE POISON RUNNING THROUGH MAH VAINS

(Speaking of following to the end: I always fucking lose it at the end of this video when you're thinking the hot blonde is the ultra lethal venomous sex machine killer, but deep down, we all knew it was Alice Cooper all along. 54 second mark, "Au contrair, baby, I think you can't resist me.)

I'm glad I decided to make this blog, felt good to make something today, good sign I'll get back to the grind soon. Holy shit I'm able to type fast right now. I'm able to read without losing train of thought. Good signs.

Late Night Edit that's going to ruin the positive vibe: I was eating cold peperoni as I took a walk around my kitchen, as one does when they've been up for at least 24 hours becaue they just hibernated god knows how long the other day, and I started thinking about things and something felt "off", and it kinda hit me. We don't try to do fucking anything cool anymore in this bland, sanitized, world any more. No space race, no rush to cure cancer, no moon base, no fuckin' console wars or technical revolution on the horizon. Seems like everyone's secretly in a race to be the first to commit mass genocide with supergenious robots. Anyway, I feel this lacking sense of urgency, this lacking competition to make SeaCrit the best damned game ever. Not in the sense of "Hey dumb fuck, if you don't finish the game you'll live in a cave forever withering away, but more a missing sense of, "Hey let's kick some ass and show those other teams working on cool games!"

This used to be a thing, it used to be great. Ford vs. Ferrari. Nintendo vs. Sega, BOB DOLE vs. ROSS PEROT MOTHER FUCKERS. There used to be stakes, there used to be healthy competition for hte greater good.

Every market is closed, the marketing is dead, the fan faith is dead, the online communities are toxic as hell, the marketing is disgusting pandering, and the joy of emarking on this journey has been snuffed out in so many ways. This terrible machine is taking all the oxegen out of the air and blowing it straight up it's ass.

It's like we've all lost faith in ourselves and each other as this medium became monetized and corporatized by a bunch of phonies. Day after day taking a slightly lower blow than the last to the pound everyone is just laying haymakers directly into each other's ballsacks and the sad thing is, is we ALL ABSOLUTELY DESERVE IT.

I don't know if things will get better, seems this smarmy toxicity is the new norm now. And that's all the negativity I'm alloting for myself today. Gotta get some exercise and get to work soon!