Who wants to rant about how their game is beating them up and they’re not sure if they’re going to make the deadline?
Be careful to blur spoilers of course.
I’ll start:
Arg I’m so tired and I have so long to go and the game is probably crap! It was so perfect in my head, dammit!
T-T yeah… I made a bunch of notecards, each with a significant portion of the game that needs writing/implementing/fixing, and rather than throwing up my hands in despair when I think too much about the timeline, I draw a card. We should all get two weeks paid vacation after August…
I’m so close to done, I just need to send it out for the next round of beta testing and I should have no problem finishing by the end of August…
…but real life stuff has been destroying me lately, and I haven’t written a word.
Yeah, I’m becoming increasingly convinced there’s a malevolent cosmic force trying to stop me. Thinking this is making a lot of sense. Things that were definitely 100% solid are randomly breaking. You know, stuff that’s been working flawlessly for months. It’s so bad that I’ve invented a word for it - FPFs. Front page failures. things not working or blatantly wrong on the very first page, or the very first command the player does.
Oh, man - those are the bane of my WIP’s existence…
My wife says a key part needs extensive changes, yet I can’t bring myself to work on it. She’s probably right, too.
I’ve been half-tempted to start a thread called “Today’s wild goose chase”, but it would be a bit negative. Instead this “support” thread is better.
Anyway, yesterday’s wild goose chase was “stack overflow”. The real one. I haven’t had this for years and it’s the sort of thing you only see nowadays working on embedded systems. Stack overflow. out of the blue. bit me on the butt. Random code unconnected crashes everywhere. Guh!
This is my coding life. If it’s not a problem with the code that takes a lot of time to figure out, it’s something I took a long time to code that then I didn’t like when it was done. It’s Sisyphean.
I’m definitely not making the deadline, though. Which is kind of a relief.
For us, too (we won’t have to compete with you 
)
I’m excited to see it when it’s ready!!
Well, this thread motivated me to actually get it sent out for a new round of testing!
What I decided was the best use of my time was to improve my build pipeline (which was working fine already), rather than actually working on the game.
That said, it is done, and shinier, and back to crunching to get the game done by the 28th!
School starts on the 21st and I haven’t finished my syllabi. IFComp deadline is the 28th and I still need to rework a key scene. This kind of stress is very triggering to me.
Today’s Wild Goose Chase stopping me; my neighbour cut through my internet cable AGAIN. So there’s me trying to re-use a one-shot Cabelcon compression F-connector in the dark. Arg!
Basically what I came here to write. I think it’s closer to done than I’m feeling right now, but @EJoyce and I just got back from vacation, she has other important commitments this week, and I just got a minor medical procedure done. Finishing things up and incorporating feedback from our first round of playtesting currently feels like A Lot.
(This is not a knock on our playtesters, to be clear! You’re all perfect 
)
This game has been kicking me in the head so bad.
I got super ambitious and it’s enormous with loads of boolean variables. WHY DID I DO THAT??
As I do my first major debug, I’m finding that 90% of the errors are because I forgot the names of my own stats and/or the basics of how ChoiceScript works (eg needing brackets sometimes). This is what happens when you write super amazingly fast (as I do, then collapse for months). That and a handful of mental breakdowns. I called in sick to work Wednesday because I wasn’t mentally competent to drive. Since my job is casual, that’s $250 gone.
Still don’t know if I’m going to get this beast over the line.
Or if it completely sucks.
I stopped trying to get my beast over the finishing line for this year, but I will definitely try and get it up in shape for next year. Soo many things I still need to tackle, the list seems to be growing each time I tick off something on the list, because by then several other things pop up. I try to plan things out, but it does not always work out that way… Oh it would be cool if I allow to use that mechanic elsewhere … (alfa testing)… SPROINK … okay, maybe I need to revise the mechanics just a lil bit… (more testing)… INFORM COUGHING UP BLOOD AND DYING … hmmm. I better hold off on this for now and work on something else.
On a more positive note, I do feel like the game is getting more streamlined? natural? looking for the word here to indicate the game is getting more closely to the vibes generated by its setting…
Most important of all: I still enjoy tinkering with it, and I won’t stop with tinkering until I am satisfied. If it becomes a chore then I better focus my energies elsewhere.
Everyone, remember that EctoComp is at the end of October! If your game is close to done, and if you can throw a pumpkin or a vampire or a dead body in it, you can submit it to EctoComp, which is a really fun comp and a lot less stressful than IFComp.
Adding in a skeletal pumpkinhead with fangs… hmmm… nah sorry, does not really mesh well, although I do have some similar elements planned.
With IFComp moved forward this year specifically to deconflict with Ectocomp this is a great point!
That said, our game has been planned for IFComp since we first had the idea in 2020 so it’s going into IFComp no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears it takes. Am I a hypocrite? … Maybe.
Well, technically all you need is anything even remotely scary or bloody or supernatural to qualify. So I think a bad guy in an orange shirt would be enough.