Dev Journal: Chill Until Solid

Well, I let this one slide away for a while under various excuses because I wasn't satisfied with how things were going. I finally got Project Wild One to a playable state, which meant I could put a pause on programming and heavy duty back engine game design at long last, and... the transition has been a lot harder than I expected. The more I've pushed myself to get back into the swing with writing on MVOL, the less I've gotten done with it.

I talked about this some in the recent Side-Write, but there were a lot of conflicting issues with getting any new content written up for MVOL. I finally got it to a place I feel happy with it, and it's been difficult to get back into that mindset after "putting it away." The question of what exactly to add has also been harder than expected. I finally decided on adding some more jello content, as it feels like that should be the most practical to add in a shorter development time and after I've been out of practice and such, rather than developing some whole new section from scratch, but... well, it still hasn't been working.

I rambled a lot about the trouble with jello content already, so I'll skip over that. I did realize that part of this is probably just that I'm effectively putting a lot of pressure on this content. I feel like I left people pretty frustrated after taking so long developing Project Wild One, and it isn't the most charming project in this early state despite all that work, so I need to "make up for it" with something charming to give folks the sort of content they miss getting from me, both for fans in general and especially for all of you that support me.

So after falling out of practice writing Lith content for months, I'm suddenly trying to get it done in a much tighter window than usual and with more pressure to perform, and well, and... I think it's messed with me a little. I keep adding constraints and expectations to this content as well, trying to push to make it "only stuff that could only happen with the jello" and so on, and this has all turned into an absolute wall of different "outside factors" trying to interfere with writing this content... when usually I do best when I literally forget I'm writing for anyone but myself, and focus wholly on trying to write what I believe "would really happen" without worrying about what the game or the story or the fans or even what I myself "need."

A week ago was when I really got serious about it, shaping my whole schedule around getting back in the groove and writing as much as I could, but barely anything has come of it so far. I finally sent out a batch of preview content to the Die-Hard Fan tier recently, but I'm not really happy with what I've come up with so far. It's felt strange, and artificial, and it's only as I'm sitting here frustrated, halfway through what used to be a traditional two-week "primary writing phase" with almost nothing to show for it, that I realize maybe I've set myself up to fail a little here.

I have faith in myself, that if I can set up the right conditions, the right starting point, I can still bust out a heaping helping of content that both I and others can be happy with, to hit my goal for a one-month release. But these aren't the right conditions, and I think I need to step back, clear out the worries and the extra concerns and just try to write something fun again.

I'm not where I'd like to be right now, but I think taking a second to really reflect on what I've been doing has helped maybe get me moving in a better direction. I guess that's just about the best thing you can hope for with these dev journals, right? Hopefully I'll have better news for you guys soon.

Thanks for reading.