forgetting

by the value of the conceived date at the top of this post, you can probably tell that this digest was written a little bit last minute. oh well, i'm a busy posey. though, this seems like a good opportunity to talk about forgetting to use external tools.

lots of the game design work i do happens completely inside of my own head. i intuit and iterate through floaty, plasma-like concepts, imagining the experience of play i want to impart to the player with my game. this manner of thinking extends to most things in my life.

this, combined with the fact that i have rather recently started trying serious, start-to-finish work on games, makes it hard for me to pick and stick with external tools that help me record and organise thoughts. (i also noted in my last post that i struggle with adhd, which does compound the issue.)

and recording and organising thoughts is really important! otherwise, you forget what is necessary for the project, what you've already thought about, what you've written and crystallised. you retread the same paths over and over. you walk in circles.

actually, idk why i'm saying you do, you're just reading. i'm the one doing all of that.

ugh, you're just lazy

well, it definitely feels that way. it's strange, because i do like working on the things i love. the work is extremely, dauntingly hard (a future digest topic :3) but i love doing it and do do it.

the issue is that... the forgetting makes it hard to know what's most useful to do, and to make sure that what i'm doing is useful.

how do you mean, wdbros?

your sentence structure is very interesting. anyway, the to-do list for jerrygame currently lists concept art and models as a top priority. i want to implement some animation, simply to see the project take more of its future material shape. to do this, i need to make a model of Jerry.

but this week, every time i've gone to do some work specifically on jerrygame, i have ended up restructuring code and in-engine parts of the project. some of this is due to inertia -- i worked on code and i feel warmed up, so i want to continue working on it. better than having to scrub the grime built up on my little "drawing" tool or, worse yet, having to learn things about 3d modelling. a lot of it is definitely force of habit, specifically of not using these tools. gotta change that.

what is one to do?!??!

i will note that i'm getting better at using external "thought-tracking" tools than before. my Obsidian vault is looking rather organised, actually.

that little red node just off the middle is jerrygame!

all i really can do about this is... to try and force myself to draw, so i can finally make some concepts. and, i can...

...promise to put a little part of a drawing in the next digest. yay!

now get out of my house, weirdo.