I've talked before about the illusion of progress that plagues most dev teams. You create a list, at the bottom of that list is a finished fun game. That's what people think. But they're just arbitrary tasks some people came up with to busy themselves. And year after year all manner of "work" is done in service to random notions of what will make a game, with many cooks in the kitchen.

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But today, after burning out for weeks on end doing core work to core systems, I really just want that illusion of progress, so i'll just be doing random odds and ends from off my TODO list. I just need a nice easy day of doing random tasks. I'll also be tying up a few loose ends on the movement systems. At some point your brain just so damned tired of massive stress of the entire project hanging in the balance. A few poorly named variables, a single poor line of logic, can bring your entire project to its knees. A singular mistake, if it's clever, can upend everything, you can spend hours or days or even weeks hunter down elusive bugs and issues wondering what the hell happened, as your passion and forward progress evaporates into nothing.

Luckily, all the hard work has been paying off as of late, systems are cleaner, and starting to work. All the cobwebs are gone and if I have a quick idea to improve the game, I can implement it with great precision in a way that is clear and is least likely to destroy the forward momentum. Isolated, waterproof code that does exactly what it needs to do, and makes sense at a glance. It's so obvious in hindsight, but at the time just getting things working as such a thrill.

Anyhow, in this limbo. I'm excited to massage these overarching core mechanics together and start bringing the game online. On the other hand. I'm so god damned burned out. I don't get breaks from this cave though, every day is a fight to get out of this madness, so it's axe to the grind. Could probably afford myself some time to shave though...

Overall in a good place, burned out, but positive progress is keeping me going, and that's the best you can &($ing hope for in this stupid (&*#$ing world.