There are 2 modes you have to slip in and out of while creating a game and you're a solo developer.

Content creation, and tool creation.

Early on, you're RARIN' to get to making stuff. The moment you have the right exposed variables you want to jump in and just make all the stuff. You're excited by all the gameplay that's going to come online.

Years later, now that you've set the same values hundreds of times, and you're tried of wondering why you're doing the same things over and over and over again. You start to realize that you need more powerful tools that aren't going to fall apart over time so you can go the distance. I've been spending so much time compartmentalizing and organizing variables, and changing how various systems are tuned.

No longer do I define a very stun resistant creature by giving it's stun resistance of ".7", what does that even mean? How many creatures have a value of .7 to stun restist? Maybe it means that they only take 30% total stun. Well what' if that's too much? What if we need fish that are stun resistant to only take 50% stun duration? Where do we tune this? Where do we interface with that data and which fish are affected by it? It becomes very tedious managing endless amounts of various float values, this is 2.5, this is 84.3, WHAT DO THESE MEAN!? Are these values still relevant when systems are tweaked? How do we know existing values are properly set and tuned?

This is why i've been refactoring systems one by one to no longer rely on worthless, innocuous float values. Now I rely on enums, where I can set a fish's resistance to "weak, normal, strong, very strong, and immune." I can set projectiles to "slow, normal, fast, very fast". And now, from now on, these settings will NEVER break. I may want to redefine how strong "strong" is, I may change the math and revamp the balance of systems, but so long as these values are updated in a small handful of value assignments, all the endless content creation remain relevant, it never requires endless recalibrations and reassignments.

I've really been investing into cleaning things up to allow for design to be meaningful. But there comes a point where I start wo wonder... have I become afraid of creating content? Have we reached a point where I'm doing cleanups and revisions in an effort to avoid making the actual game?

I may have become too risk averse. I could spend years creating the perfect systems, I wish I could go back in time and change all the wasted time creating crappy content, crappy values, crappy systems, crappy level design. But this was the only way, the only way to arrive at improved pipelines is to do things the wrong way.

Feeling a little foggy today, so going to take a breather, but when we get back to it. No more revisions, no more endless tunings and dilly dallying away from getting this demo online. No more creating thousands of upgrades for a game that doesn't exist.

It's time to start tuning the enemies, getting assets into the game.

ENOUGH BUILDING TOOLS, IT'S TIME TO USE THE DAMNED THINGS!

We have revised NPC's that are easily tuned, we have revised abilities and settings that are now easily accessed and revised work setups that will allow us to quickly play the game, decide on revisions, and execute those revisions in a fast environment.

For so long we've been looking forward to FINALLY being able to add the stuff, make it fun, and make the game a game. And now that we're finally at the door, we're dilly dallying trying to do ANYTHIGN other than make the game.

Maybe I'm fearful the game won't be great, maybe i'm just really burned out and can barely look at the tuning rollouts for AI and Abilities, and bonuses any more. Maybe I'm just trying to delay an inevitable failure. Maybe it's all these things. Or maybe I'm just feeling under the weather and haven't been able to focus on the game.

At the very least, finally got some decent sleep today, but just feeling a little bleh, just writing this blog post i'm finding I'm not mentally able to invest into greater thoughts or editing to the level I can usually do. Oh well, hopefully feeling better soon. Have a few nagging things I don't want to do but once they're done they're done. Need to get revised shops in and in level chunks, need to figure out how going to level 2 works in an optimized manner, need to start getting debug tools set up to make testing the ACTUAL game and not just little test scenarios. It never ends. But  everything is coming online. EVERYTHING needs tuning, EVERYTHING feels kinda meh right now. The wave swimming, enemy HP, enemy timings, out of water jumping, player damage, charge rates, heading values. Everything is still weighing the game down, everything makes the game a little worse because they're not tuned properly to be a truly positive element and I'm so damned tired of working with each and every system and all the values and dials, are scattered in code and prefabs and it's a never-ending mess. But it's gotta be done. Easy to feel overwhelmed to think, "ugh, if only we had more help on this huge undertaking", but if you want something done right, you do it yourself! (if the quality of this project from the past several years is any indication, we have our work cut out for ourselves)

I was thinking about the state of the world, and I'm always trying to articulate or wrap my head around where all this rot stems from. Like when did this Twilight episode start? How did things start getting so bad? Am I crazy?

We grew up in this grand world of purpose and competency. And we just kinda took for granted, "Oh teachers are people who are good with kids and a passion for sharing knowledge. Doctors are analytical minded people who very much want people to feel better. Rocket engineers are very good at math and they will do tests and learn things so we can go to Mars some day."

We have this dethatched notion that some force is in charge of society ensuring all the important positions are staffed by people who care about the outcomes of industry, of corporations, that there are guiding principles outside of our petty BS.

I look back on my life at all the inanity, the favors among friends, the teachers pet getting special treatment, the accolades given to lesser candidates because it made people feel better. And I always thought to myself, "well this is just grade school, as I get older systems will be taken more seriously, I'd better just mind my business and work hard, because important work needs doing." And then I went to high school, and I went to community college... and nothing ever mattered, never had a great teacher, never was exposed to a discipline that demanded excellence or came across some thread of purpose to lead me to anything of meaning.

It was all a lie. There is no group of insiders controlling things, no secret agency full of super intelligent spies controlling everything. It's just a massive legion of lazy, entitled people, all blowing smoke up one another's' asses. All snide, all defensive, all gatekeeping, all working to entrench themselves more and more as each year that follows degrades under their self fulfilling and incompetent stewardships.

A legion of smarmf*cks controls the entire world, the sum total of all our greed, lies, and petty politics is now the driving force. We're all coddled and worthless, having it beaten into our heads time and again, don't call anyone out, don't rock the boat, don't try to outshine the bullshit, they are in total control and it will destroy you.

And what really gets me is how everyone in this machine of BS looks down from their tower, covered in their own shit, at everyone else, like they're scum. It's so f*cking stupid. Their greed, their laziness, their collusions, they are so much better than everyone else's. Societal decay with a smile from the legion of smarm f*cks.

I remember moments of horror when I saw this trend taking off, that you don't want to hire nerds who live in caves to make games. I watched this "developer" prattle on about how it's important to take world trips and go out into the world and not sit in a cave so you can make more worldly games that appeal to more people. I mean, did you really have to steal away from cave dwellers one of the few things they enjoyed? There is so much delusion to the new age agendas that sh*t on everyone else, and enrich themselves. Everything is always everyone else's fault. Everything needs to be repaid 1000x over and they are always the sole benefactors, they are always so assured that they are the ones who must be entrusted with all prosperity for the greater good of all. And it's like... they treat everyone with such disdain and everyone just takes it and takes it and you really have to question every notion these jerks espouse.

Nothing makes sense. Money doesn't make sense. The hiring processes don't make sense. Our education doesn't make sense. Everything is full of preconceived notions of stupidity which echoes into every facet of our lives as everything dissolves from order to chaos. And everyone seems just PEACHY about it! Guess they're getting theirs. Why don't you just smile and nod as the reactor goes thermonuclear you ableist worry wart f*ck?

We're taught that it's these idiologies written by dudes who died hundreds of years ago that define the world, whether it's this ism, or that ism. As if it's some sort of mind virus that springs out of a book, that it can be contained. And it just seems like we're utterly incompetent of viewing reality for what it is. No u f*cking dip sh*ts, we're all just inherently f*cking lazy and stupid and want to believe things that benefits ourselves, and we will divide the world by any stupid bullsh*t necessary so that we can sleep at night. And no one wants to be called out for their own bullsh*t, and there are entire gravy trains of worthless sh*tbags destroying the entire world.

We could be so much more if we just held ourselves to some level of accountability and standard, and got out of our own damned way. But people are so f*cking fast to play into this game of self fulfilling madness. The world can go to hell, up can be down, left can be right, and everything can go to sh*t so long as they get theirs. It's such f*cking bullshit. But  don't call it out! You don't want to look like an ungrateful loser! F*ck the whole f*cking world.

Sigh.

Hope I feel better soon. There's a lot that needs doing. To this point I just look like a dumb f*ck who's kneecapped himself in order to put together an embarrassment of a children's video game about fish. It really does feel like some kind of terrible, terrible twilight zone episode that never, ever ends. 

Have put the hours in so maybe someday this won't be a massive embarrassment. Gotta try to reverse some of this rot before the future is beyond saving. SeaCrit must stand against the ever encroaching madness, that is the goal.