It has been a very unproductive month for me. Life has been rather hectic. I won’t go into details but needless to say, it’s been rough to sit down and focus on Skettle especially after a long day of work and running errands. However, I did make a commitment to get at least something done each month and write a dev blog so here I am.
I’ve worked on blocking out the first “level”, the tutorial. It’s technically the first combat encounter despite very little combat being planned for it. Right now, I’ve got more placeholder assets to make such as cave walls, water terrain, boxes, crates, tents, and fences. It’s not a lot but it seems so much larger when I don’t feel like doing this hobby. I’ve left a picture of my level sketch despite being rather cramped.
As for the rest of what I want to write about this month, burn out. It’s only been three months since I’ve started work on this game and I feel like I’ve burnt out despite not actually putting in much effort. This is one of the issues with having a day job that’s similar to your hobby. One way I’ve found to help alleviate this is to sit down and force myself to work for 10 minutes at a time. It requires a lot of self discipline initially but as I start to get back into the groove of working on my game, I find that after 10 minutes when I ask if I can go for another 10, I can almost always say yes unless some other life obligation requires my attention. The way I get into work with those initial 10 minutes is by looking for either low hanging fruit or getting crazy with it. With low hanging fruit, I look for minor fixes that I might have left in the project from the previous session like misplaced objects, lazy-uncommented code, or just block out some simple environment pieces. It usually helps to leave the project on a cliff-hanger as weird as that sounds. As an example, let’s say I’m working on laying out some ground textures and know what I need to do to finish. If I’m close to stopping for the day, I’ll just leave it unfinished. I know how I want to layout the tiles already so next time I load up the project I can get right back into it. With getting crazy with it, I look to just bust out of the mold I set for myself. Have I already set up an environment the way I want it? Let’s add some more or rearrange. Been working on some guns? Make some weird gun design and effects that would never fit in the game. I probably won’t keep any of it, but it helps to get my mind working and engaged with the project.
I hope this helps those out there that are struggling with a project that isn’t their day job. No new build this month. Sorry.
Nice of you to drop by and I hope you enjoy the game!
I'll be back next month.
