Heya friendos! I’ve been hard at work on Rumorweaver these past weeks. Today, I’ve officially finished all programming work on the planning. Let’s take a look at productivity and how I swing from technically minded work to creatively minded work every few weeks.
How Am I Doing?
I’m faring pretty well. Once again, I’ve been working a lot but also managed to do my sports and social calls properly. I’ve also been savoring my morning routine: making coffee in my pyjamas and sending good morning GIFs to the discord, before starting work. I log about 30 to 40-hour workweeks now, getting in between 4 and 6 hours every day.
It’s curious to see how easily I was able to flip the switch to “get things done”-mode, because historically I’ve had terrible discipline. I’ve always been easily distracted, either by cool new project ideas or just by slacking off. It used to frustrate me because I didn’t want to do dishes for a living while I had the skill to make games instead, but somehow I couldn’t get myself to work towards that goal at a steady pace.
These days, however, I’ve been more productive than ever. I’m making solid progress, don’t display symptoms of burnout at all, and can keep my eyes focused on the finish line. Even last year, I had trouble with shiny object syndrome. Now, somehow the sentiment of finishing something and getting it out there trumps any other barrier.
I like to chalk it up to that whole last year of creative freedom and experimentation. I’ve explored so much of my own process and ideas, I feel saturated with energy to get stuff done. Also, my steady daily routine creates a solid structure to work uninterrupted.
What Am I Doing?
These past few weeks, I’ve finished up ALL programming that was on the planning for Rumorweaver. The last bits were about controller support, user input remapping and the gifting system. So now (hopefully, I haven’t tested it with a wide range of controls yet) you can play with your preferred gamepad, arcade stick, keyboard or mouse. It’s super nice to have this all figured out in Godot now, so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel for whatever next game I’m going to make.
Funny enough, I was actually supposed to write a bunch of new content so I could launch a playtest where you can play the game from start to finish. But ever since I re-scoped the game to be standalone, I had a bit of writer’s block. I need to write a whole third act to the game, as well as some escalating events as the game progresses. It’s quite a daunting task.
Usually, when I’m stuck on something creative, my technical instincts kick in, so I can swap to something technically oriented instead. But now, after these weeks of programming only, there’s nowhere left to run. Which is good, because I’m so bored with programming right now, that I really want to do something creative again instead.
Why Am I Doing? (this)
I always swing back and forth between this creatively and technically oriented mindset every few weeks. It feels very left brain juice finished, right brain juice refilled. I’m pretty sure the whole left/right brain-oriented thing has been debunked by now, but we still hang onto it because it illustrates this kind of stuff so beautifully.
For me at least, I really enjoy the variety that these different moods can bring me. Luckily, game development seems the perfect medium to indulge in it.