Hey everyone. It’s been a while. Part of that was unavoidable and part of that has been a series of failures on my part. There’s nothing particularly comforting to admit when a problem becomes insurmountable, but it’s worse when you have to admit to yourself that it never was, and only seemed that way because internally you made it into an imagined monster instead of facing whatever reality happened to be. I better roll things back before I get too philosophical.
I wanted to take Space Time from one place to another very different place. That had extra layers beyond what I had previously shown publicly, but to do that I had to make things internally far more complicated, and structure things around that central idea of layering. I’m also still making some continuously failed attempts to keep updating the Xbox version of The Living Dungeon in order to try and keep up with the ever changing technical relationship between the Xbox and Unity. I’ll go into that if I manage to accomplish something, but for now it’s just been an emotional and motivational drain.
This affected progress on Space Time far more than I was originally willing to admit to myself. Not only was I demotivated by my multiple failed attempts at updating The Living Dungeon, but I had also got it into my head that rather than going straight to building what I wanted, I somehow had to build a bridge from where I was, to where I wanted to be.
You might think that sounds sensible, but it was stupid, and cowardly. I didn’t need to be here anymore. I needed to be there, and the truth was that as complex as the journey between here and there was, I could jump that distance! Building a bridge was a waste of time because I never needed to come back, nor did I want to. I was just too scared to leap.
Ok, so I’m still mumbling on in a vague and somewhat philosophical manner I’ll admit, but hopefully by doing so the concept can be more relatable and, just maybe, help someone else deal with whatever challenge it is they are currently facing, whether it’s life changing on trivial.
In an attempt to push myself I agreed to take the game to a local event even though it was currently in pieces and I was making very little real progress. I still had a fall back of my old build, but I tried to put that out of my mind. I didn’t want to give up or fall back on what was easy. I didn’t want to procrastinate, or sit around dealing with little distractions whether my own or other people’s… but I did, again and again. If I hadn’t I might have been able to build something better than this atrocity of a temporary front end.
Although one particularly nice person did describe this little person running around to get on the ship as “Adorable”. Another said they really liked the idea of the menu being so physical. I choose to take these as compliments. Firstly because I really need all the encouragement I can get, and secondly because there was no way to practically portray the menu system in a two dimensional way when the data for every player was three dimensional. I won’t bother explaining that unless someone asks, because you won’t notice since it worked.
So you may still be wondering… Did I jump in the end?
Hell Yeah!
Sure. It was a messy landing, and I still have some way to go, but the first part of the next stage of Space time is underway. People are on the ships. You can walk up and man the pilot controls, the co-pilot controls, and the drone controls. You currently can’t tell if you are using it but that’s just because I haven’t added all the indicative visuals to make it all clear. Baby steps. Motivationally, I’m not completely out of the woods yet, but I’m really hoping I can gather some more momentum and get back to just loving every minute of what I’ve been doing. That has to start with cleaning out some old code that still has it’s tendrils connected where it shouldn’t, and then cleaning up some visuals so that actions and possible actions are clear and inviting.
Only after that can I get back to adding some more fun functionality that I’m really looking forward to.
Will you ever get that post about Ben learning to use 3D coat a little and making asteroids? Honestly no idea, but he has made some asteroids. He just refuses to record himself making them because, well, he has some hang ups and could do with a little more encouragement… as well as a little more acceptance of the fact that his first attempts will not be perfect, nor will his one millionth attempt. That’s just what life is like and as long as the trend is “getting better” what more can we really ask for from our efforts.
Apologies If this post is a little bit of a downer. I just felt like being reflective today, and today is when I right this. Tomorrow is a different day and most likely contains a lot more sillyness, and maybe some cycling. Basically, what I’m saying is, when I write a blog you get whatever drivel happens to be on my mind at the time. If that’s cool with you, or you want to complain, just show your modern outrage through the usual channels. i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Bye for now.