Happy holidays! I hope the final month of this… whopper of a year has gone relatively well for you. I’m sorry to say it wasn’t the best for me. I had some pretty bleak stretches where I just didn’t feel like I had any control over my life, largely thanks to some… surreal family issues. It was really hard to get anything done, and it didn’t help that I was starting to feel burnt out on building all this code in one giant marathon. But things are looking better now!
Overall, I’d say things are going well right now! I do wish I was getting things done faster, but that’s always going to be true. The important thing is that I’ve kept working pretty steadily, and I’ve been getting better at minimizing downtime, making sure to take care of myself emotionally and not try to overwork myself. Development for the prototype of Project Wild One has been immensely challenging, but it’s mainly been challenges I expected, and most of it I’ve enjoyed, even when it brought things grinding to halt for a day or two.
The more I’ve been working on the math behind Project Wild One, and the harder it’s gotten to get things just right, the more I can’t help but imagine that if I tried to explain what I was working on to anyone else, they’d just ask, “why are you even bothering to go to all that trouble for that?” And… in a way, that’d be a fair question? But it’s also one that I think is pretty important to the whole “point” of this Project, so the more I thought about it, the more I felt like this would actually be a good time to explain some of that.
You know, it was a funny thing. I’ve been letting these journals slide over to the long side of “one to two weeks apart” between the public and supporter alternations, but after I updated everyone on the Patreon and SubStar last week, I actually felt like writing another one only two days later! I finally had what I felt like was some pretty good news and I wanted to share it. But I figured it’d be a little silly to just jump out with it on the spot, it’d be better to give it some time and let more things accrue so I’m pacing them out at least a bit.
Well, shoot. I’ve definitely let these journals space out more than I’d intended. I’ve put it on my to-do list to update with you guys maybe a dozen times now, but… well, it went the same way as a lot of things on my to-do list from day to day. Often I’d tell myself, “today’s the day I’ll get back into it properly, and once I have some good news, once things are back on track, I’ll post a dev journal about it!” And… instead of jumping back into it, I’ve kinda been crawling back into it.
Alright! I’ve pledged to keep more in touch with you guys to talk about how development is going, and the…