Didn't get any work done today. Just don't have the energy and didn't sleep well. It's coming up on several weeks now of being burned out and not being able to get work done. Think i'm going to spend a bit of time just thinking.

How do we push forward? What's the smart way to attack this project moving forward?

I THINK what we're going to do is create a tiny and distilled representation of the game, we'll get one shop in, we'll get 1 big tanky fish, and we'll have a ranged enemy and a regular baby shark, and we'll kinda figure out what the "Flow" for the game feels right.

How powerful should the first wave of bonues be? How much more powerful should the enemies be as you advance forward?

And I can use this time to think of the internal systems that dictate raising difficulty for fish, should difficulty set in over time? Should it disproportionalty set in the further right you go and the early area only gets hard after a much longer period of time?

I think i'm leaning towards a system where the later parts of the game become more difficult at maybe the 15 minute mark, and after some time the shallows become corrupted by difficulty too, so the player kinda pokes their way into the depths, and will have to retreat back to the shallows as the game gets more and more difficult. TRUE RUBBER BANDING DIFFICULTY!

But who knows, maybe in the future we create bosses that the player can try to defeat in various areas in the ocean for fat loots or permanent bonuses that will result in a "Win" condition where they aren't driven back to the shallows.

But I'm probably getting ahead of myself.

Truth be told, we just have crazy stage fright right now. So many damned years working on this project, more than I care to admit, and I've built it up in my head that this is when the game will show its promise or it won't. And I can't get it out of my head how little buzz or following we have been able to generate over the years.

I know there are a few of you out there that follow this blog, and thank you so much for that! But it can really wear on you to after all this time wonder if your game is good at all. 

I mean... I THINK it's good, I think the controls are awesome, and I think the combat has potential and I think we have some really sick innovative runtime features that distill so much of the menus and bloat that exist in other games. And I think our movement systems are pretty revolutionary and pick up and play.

But if the game was any good, why the heck are we still low on the radar?

And then I get conspiratorial... it's all those damned gatekeepers! The world is just evil and trying to keep me down. And then I question my very sanity. The world doesn't give a single shit about us, what kind of stupidity is this? But the world IS crazy, the world IS horribly fickle and judgemental.

And then we wind right back to square one. IT DOESN'T MATTER! WE JUST HAVE TO PUT OUR HEAD DOWN AND GET GOOD WORK DONE!

Bleh.

8 fucking years in this cave. 8 fucking years convincing myself it doesn't matter.

They say insanity is doing the same thing again expecting different results.

I must be totally batshit bonkers, because I'm going to wake up tomorrow and try to force myself to get back to work on this stupid f*cking project, in this dumb f*cking world, for ungrateful m*ther fuckers, most of whom want to watch you fail.

That's what's so gross about this world any more.

So many damned crabs in the buckets. It's disgusting. Everyone wanting everyone else to fail, everyone picking some arbitrary side and putting their fingers on the scales in a billion different ways.

And now everything sucks. And now every system is rigged, every fandom is toxic, every conversation is everyone talking mad shit and putting other people down. It's so fucking tired.

That's not what I want at all. I wish this world could grow the fuck up. I wish people could stop being so polarized and judge people for their individual abilities and principles. Any more anyone sees is if they're on their team or not. And this has gotten worse and worse over all these dreadful years and people are so invested into their hates and the bridges they've burned and the investments they've made into the madness that it's not getting any better. 

Too much money invested, too much pride, too much built up momentum to let go of the hate, to extend the olive branches. We've shown too much hate to too many people to for a moment question if we're the baddies. And who's dumb enough to throw themselves to the ravenous wolves around them? Everyone's pinned to the wall in their straight jackets any more.

Wish I could just end this blog post like we used to, "FUCK THE WORLD, TO WAR!"

In this moment, I just don't have it in my right now. We have bled so fucking much over all these years, we have pushed so fucking hard through this endless fucking drought.

Honestly, I think the game is pretty fucking cool. I think if we weren't on any shit lists we'd be on the up and up. Have some investments, have some form of support.

But then again, the game is so fucking incomplete, we have so much left to do. Why would anyone take a chance on some dumb fuck like us with just a sliver of a game?

Here's the truth: No one knows WTF they are doing any more. No one knows what to bet on, no one knows which way the wind is blowing, no one knows WTF the next action should be.

Everyone is waiting for the dust to settle. Everyone is waiting for some other dumb son of a bitch to make the next big move that makes it big so they can copy it.

Everyone is is waiting for some other dumb m*ther fucker to put their neck out, succeed and then push them out of that space so they can claim victory.

This world is so fucked.

Well, this is a real roundabout way to say the inevitable.

We don't have a choice but to put our head down. We don't have a choice but to be that sacrificial dumb son of a bitch that's going to blaze a trail for the freeloaders in the back,  and bum rush right into that fucking wall again. When our guts are spilled, our our skull is split open, others will tread over our lifeless body to victory.

This is the only life I know, hard work, busting my ass, and trying to make cool shit. And it pisses me the fuck off that we're having to handle all the hard parts, busting our ass, taking the risks, trying to convince others to stop being such fucking pussies and try to help shoulder some of this load.

So fuck it, since no one else has any fucking elbow grease in 'em, since no one else has any fucking stones to carry up this damned mountain. Since everyone else is waiting in their luxury homes,  their gated communities, with so much social statures and power, and propserity to lose.

I guess the fate of this industry lands on dip shits like yours truly.

That's the unspoken rule.

Us plebs just have to bust our ass, waiting for the stars above to align and when it's socially acceptable for rich, coddled assholes to take a chance on us, THEN maybe we'll be "lucky enough" to have a few crumbs.

The American Dream is fucking dead.

Oh well, fuck it.

Rain or shine tomorrow it's back to work. Just because everyone else is self serving back scratchers who will vilify anyone and anyone that's attempting to save this fucking industry unless it saves their own asses.

Back to developing our game on ultra fucking, nightmare hardcore mode.

We just have to make the game THAT MUCH BETTER since we're willing to tell it like it is, and see things for what they are.

The irony here, is that you need to be honest and analytical to produce quality games. And anyone with the principle and analytical mind to make great games is going to know how FUCKED this industry is.

I always sit down thinking to myself, "Ok IllTemperedTuna, we've come this far, you've suffered enough being an insufferable loud mouth FUCKTARD, can you just cool it this one fucking time?", and then the words just spill out and I'm like, "but look at how much of a BANGER this shit is!".

Ugh, we are fucking cursed.

I'll never know if our game was shit, or if we were just a dumb fuck who threw away what success they could have had if they could just STFU XD

Oh well. What option do we have? We can crawl into a hole, surrender to the fact the world blows, that we're fucked, that the odds are against us.

OR! We wake up tomorrow, convince ourselves that SOMEHOW our dumb ass is going to make the BEST FUCKING MURDER DEATH FISH SIMULATOR EVER, we shoot the fucking moon, and we sail to fucking victory.

We don't really have a choice do we?

One dip shit retard, armed with nothing but an spare chromosome against the legions of smarm fuck hordes.

Know what's silly? I'm kind of liking my odds. 

You candy asses even trying?

So our blogs may be unhinged, we may be publisher kryptonite. We are  C-Suit AIDs, but in this moment,.. 

Better angry than helpless. And I never wanted to make a safe game. I want to make a good game, and not sell our soul to do it.