August 2017

Me and the dark always

I drafted a game called Me and the dark always that tries to go against the general practice / consequence of current designs that the “looking” action in games is free. It ended up being a slice-of-life game concept which deals with tiredness through a few aspects.

I’ve got most of the mechanics drawn up, some basic art sketches, the story elements for a limited demo, and some vision down. I have a rough idea of the high-level implementation. I’m aiming to continue developing the idea on paper until Yule, then trying for a first playable in early 2018.

Naema

In early July, I got inspiration for writing some of the chapters that were missing from the first draft. In mid-July I rewrote the entire outline and added a lot more details, revealing that for consistency and pacing I had at least a bunch more chapters of material to write, and a bunch more things to add in existing chapters.

I continued adding to and revising the outline throughout the month and even amended it today, and this week, and last week. It’s a much more living document, now.

In early August, the outline and its detailed timeline let me catch a profound anachronicity in a reference to future characters I had thought so clever to include but had actually messed up by fifteen years, so it’s definitely helping!

Before, I estimated this work to go for about 20-25k words. It looks like it’s going more for the 50k mark. But it’s a much better work than I ever imagined, so that’s ok.

Writing pace has picked up, and my goal (which I think is generous) is to start publishing in December at the latest. I’ll probably spend NaNoWriMo doing final revisions and polish, if that’s the case. If I finish earlier, who knows?

I published the prologue (and first bit of Naema I’d written) on AO3.

Job

New job is going good. Got my first “boring” project this week, a refactor with little in the way of exciting parts. It’s a bit tedious, but it’s also nice and calm and methodical work. DT and SB provide good distractions and liven up the place. Not a dull day passes, with these two!

Nþ

I accidentally used “þ” instead of “th” in a tweet, but I like it! I think I’ll use it more, and not accidentally.

Cogitare

I started on a redesign of the plotbot for NaNoWriMo. More news next month!