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Weekly update: Revival
🕑 Added 2021-05-22 21:00:51 +0000 UTCOkay, I'm back! Sorry for the lapse in communication. So I was sick, then got my final vaccine shot, which wiped me out all over again. That was the initial problem, but the rest... well...
>.<'
Personal update
In the past year or so, I've managed to become quite productive and well-balanced despite being ADHD and a total social hermit. It has come down to developing a strict daily routine that keeps me focused without burning me out. It's been great, and I've managed to construct a 40+ hour work week that suits my personal needs.
What I didn't quite realize was how the whole thing is a house of cards, ready to collapse at any moment. Being sick disrupted the routine and essentially sent me back to the stone age. I've been clawing my way back to the routine, which is giving me the ability to be productive and social(ish) again.
Clearly, I need to work on making my routine more resilient to disruptions, cause fuck me this was devastating.
SHF 3
I'm now doing everything I can to blast through the loose ends and any remaining errors. A lot of decisions are happening right now about what to finish vs what to put off until the next update. Some things were just too ambitious to do all at once, so it's better to just have it WORK for now.
Decision paralysis can be pretty crippling with that stuff, so in general I tend to make snap decisions to avoid that paralysis. Sometimes that means I end up biting off more than I can chew, which happened here. So, I'm adopting a mixed approach for things like automating parts of the rigs, toy creation, and animation.
Those new systems are awesome, and will save a lot of development time in the long run, but I can't waste time perfecting them while everyone's waiting for the update to come out. So they'll be partially implemented for now, and finished one at a time instead of all at once.
I'm not gonna make predictions about what'll be done when, but I'm fixin' stuff like a madman, I tell you.
Future games
SHF3 is my full-time focus right now. This is all stuff that comes after the current update is finished.
I've been learning the HARD way about the importance of making a vertical slice when developing a game or a feature.
Love Collector was my first major game, and it suffered a lot from lack of clarity in what I wanted gameplay-wise. The gameplay changed drastically over the course of development, based on player feedback. In the final version, it still didn't live up to my own vague expectations.
SHF3 is just a sandbox game, but the intended gameplay was pretty much there from the start: I wanted a mouse-controlled bsdm game like the game "Rack" by Fek. Boom, clarity. But as it grows, I find it suffers more and more from a lack of foresight when it comes to features. For example, we've been talking in the streams about a time-skipping feature, in which you can fast-forward hours of game time and see how exhausted/horny/destroyed your ponies are. It's an awesome idea, and I never thought I'd need to think about how to program that in the beginning. (I'll talk more about this feature later btw)
I'm now looking at the idea for Factory and am anxious about whether I'll be able to properly use what I've learned. I have the clarity sorted out- I wrote a full game design doc with all aspects of gameplay covered. I have the foresight- all needed features are listed, ready for prototyping. But am I really able to deliver on the idea? The last thing I want is to be stuck for 6 months on Factory with nothing to post.
I'm considering putting my energy into some smaller projects, especially if I can use the SHF3 code as a game engine to make little one-shot games. There's also a narrative game idea I have that would require relatively little code to put together. The purpose of these would be to practice the whole process of game-making, from concept to completion, without spending years of dev time. I haven't decided on anything yet, but I wanted everyone to know where my head is at when it comes to the future of my content.
This'll be something I want feedback on from the community, so we'll talk more about it in-depth after this SHF3 update drops.
That's all for now! <3
Comments
Jon Hayes
Hey if you have too, part it out! If you don't think it will be a good Idea to put it out all at once then do it in steps!
Nice
marenoodles
Ooh also, listen to your body and your subconscious, and work with them. Write down what works and doesn't work for you. Talk to someone else about these things and bounce ideas off of them. Then plan accordingly. For example, I learned that exercise GREATLY improves my mood and resilience, so now I've added a daily workout routine. I also learned I'm more of a morning person, so I do all my weekend obligations in the morning because that's when I'm at my peak, and that way I don't have stuff "looming" over my head the rest of the day. (I also do my workouts during the evening because that's when I need a boost of awakeness the most.) Stuff like that. It takes me a bit to recognize each thing, and I only recognize them when I track correlations. If I get noticeably stressed, tired, happy, motivated, etc., I write down the time, things that happened recently, etc. Over time, I notice trends, and I can start anticipating things. "Oh, when I feel this way, it's usually because I didn't eat enough food or drink enough water. I should probably go do that now," etc.
marenoodles
I think I know exactly what you mean about the house of cards aspect. I struggled with consistent motivation and habits (one of which was a programming side project) for a while. It all seemed to fall apart very easily when I was first starting to commit to them. What helped me was 1) having an accountability buddy where we would check in with each other every day over text to report whether we did our daily tasks or not, 2) getting happier in general so I can handle more discomfort resiliently, and 3) honestly giving it the habit a long time to sink in subconsciously. I had to essentially unlearn a bunch of bad, lazy behaviors I had accrued throughout my life, and that process has moved at a glacial speed over the years -- much slower than I was willing to accept early on. I wanted a "get motivated quick scheme", and there wasn't one. I just needed to treat myself right and keep at it for a while. Thankfully, I get better and better over time. It's just been very slow, and there are always bumps on the way that make me feel like I lost all my progress. But I haven't. Nowadays, not only does my house of cards stay up for longer, but when it does fall, I know myself well enough to know that I will rebuild the house again (and more quickly than last time), because I've proven that I can do it time and time again. My emotions about the situation have become much less... short-sighted in that way. Don't get discouraged. You're almost definitely improving -- it's just hard to notice the transformation when you live with yourself every day. Play the long game. :)
Glad to see that you're feeling better. I can attest to how the 2nd shot can wipe you out. It did me.
ItsDaKoolaidDude
I know the same feeling with writing and it does honestly suck having to be stuck trying to get things to work out. I share your pain bro. Just keep at it and know we love your work!
Austin Hanson
When you first announced the 3 different games that we voted on, they were all good choices to do. You even stated that Factory was going to be the most intensive complex out of the 3. Maybe you could work on one of the other choices since they are still good ideas and probably less difficult compared to Factory. I think I remember that the first one was a purely text-based adventure and then the second option was I think it was a text base adventure with animated scenes? Maybe try one of the smaller projects along Your main one that you’re still working on and then also maybe do small work on factory on the side?
pountach
You’re the best! We love what you’re making and the delay is always worth it! People who complain are just impatient and don’t understand what it takes to make a game especially one as in depth and interactive as yours. Keep up the amazing work!!! 💖♥️❤️💖♥️❤️♥️❤️💖💚
