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06.10.2022
I’m taking tomorrow off from Producer. Primarily to get another commitment wrapped up, but also because I just need a break from Producer.
I’ve been writing relentlessly, focusing completely on the largest area of Act 2. It’s done now. This will ship. Not because it’s great, but because there is simply no time for any more changes.
The game feels strange and hollow again. The kind of vapid exercise in self-referentiality that I wouldn’t want to read myself. I can’t really think too much about that though. The themes, entangled and messy as they are, should shine through more clearly than in qomp.
Writing is just incredibly hard. I should have finished a large amount of prose before attempting to make a big piece of interactive fiction. Welp. At least tepid writing sells better on steam than it does in bookstores.
The talk at the local meetup went great (it has not been recorded, thanks for asking) and it’s been very motivating to hang out with other devs again.
I really need to focus now though. The way in which I’ve written this week is not sustainable. It just takes too long. I’m going to try and find ways to deal with this problem, but I suspect it’ll involve something in the direction of:
Less accuracy in the writing, more reliance on context and options
Less text, more connections
Less sandbox gameplay, more linear sequences
I’ve been trying to move into those directions anyways, but now I simply don’t have time to waste at all and need to make the switch.
That being said, having wrapped this huge chunk of content in Act 2 is a huge relief and should lead to a wave of positive knock-on effects. I’ve also cleaned up the last strange systems and created more “function-style” gameplay that can be called from any location in Act 2. I also finally managed to get a nice text-log implemented! I’ve been trying for a literal year and now it works! Yay!
Was this a good start into October? Maybe. Could I have done any more? Nope. Did I push myself too much? Yep.
And so, off I go, into an early semi-weekend!
cheers,
josh