Dev Log: November 21, 2024
I’m home from my trip and I’ve begun my work on Systems.
Actually, I started it on my 7-hour flight because I couldn’t wait. After months of story and visual work, I’m hungry to code. Finally, some cold hard numbers in a world where nothing is ever objectively true or correct!
Not so fast, of course… These numbers need to be fun. As I’m coding I’m also spending plenty of time on the UI and how it feels to move around. I need to make sure the player actually wants to use all these systems I’m creating.
And truthfully, the numbers won’t mean much on their own. A while back I spoke to Tony Howard-Arias about keeping systems opaque in our games and allowing for numbers to roughly represent feelings, vibes… human stuff. It almost seemed devilish to admit that out loud, like I was lying to the player. But the things I’m looking to convey are not statistical, and the lie is my way of translating to the player the true meaning behind those numbers. I am converting integers to strings in a highly complex way that a computer can not do!!
The main thing is that it all needs to seem fair. The player should be able to read their outcome and more or less understand how they got there. I haven’t always been good at this. But I’m trying to be more honest.
Okay, so I wrote that a few days ago but didn’t get around to posting it. First of all, say goodbye to this bitch above me. Systems have taken their toll on me. I am not the woman my loved ones remember. I’m a hideous thing. I spent three days wiring the book exchange UI, pushing my build last night with a nasty crashing bug. I walk through the house agitated, puzzling over code that quickly becomes meaningless. I end up editing lines without remembering how I got to them.
This is not the easy work. Story is the easy work. Whatever I’m not doing now is the easy work. When I’m doing this kind of work the evil questions start to enter, questions like “Will this be the impassable thing?” and of course it won’t be, but the work put the fear in me, so congrats to the work.
Anyway I hopped out of bed at 6am and fixed the bug. On to what’s next.
News Roundup November 2024
I’ve been busy, but lots of non-internal things are going on in dev world and beyond.
Perfect Tides is now Steam Deck verified! The game was already working pretty well, but I’ve gotten it up to Steam’s standards and now it’s playing great on its own exclusive build. You can get it here.
I was recently on Flat Art Show hosted by my friend Evan Dahm, who came up alongside me in the 2000s/2010s webcomic age. We discussed our long lives in comics and art, I went off somewhat on the Octopus Pie days, making sense of those stories today, and transitioning into game work. It was a fun and lively show, and you can check it out here:
During AdventureX last week, I recorded a live playthrough of the Perfect Tides: Station to Station demo, adding context and commentary. You can view it here:
That’s all for now - back to the game grind.
Dev Log: November 12, 2024
I turned 40 on Sunday. I have no complaints about my life thus far - none that I feel are necessary to air at least - at this tender and toughened age.
I’m on vacation with my family and friends, but still spending time on the game. I just finished a big promotional push for PT2 and some compatibility work on PT1. I’m overdue to round up all the latest news on this front, but suffice to say the result has been good, and I’m looking forward to (eventually) getting home and putting my head down for the next big development sprint.
Matt is editing the game’s ending, and Daniel is working on the last handful of tracks, which means I’m spending a lot of time clarifying where this story has taken us. It feels as if we’re seeing it end together, even though there’s so much left to do. With Matt’s help I’m about to take a long hard look at how these thousands of details, often written in heightened states that can not be revisited, are working together.
I know it’s all going to work. I’m anticipating this part will be fun, if a little disorienting. I sometimes think that adeptly connecting the dots of seemingly unrelated thoughts is both an illness and a gift. But the goal is to get this into playable shape for testing, so all the connections, all the pleasure and anger and despair that have bubbled up internally, will have to make sense.
My family’s awake now, and I don’t really have a fine point to put on all this. Not yet… but it’s coming, faster all the time.