This is probably one of the more difficult weeks I've had.

Over the holidays my aim was to draw up all the tilemaps for the game, so I could begin to shrink the city in order for better accessibility for players. I did that, I drew all the tilemaps for walls and floors. It's likely as I begin to put in objects, I'll see things that are missing, but the bulk is done so that's fine.

For this week, my aim was to draw up all the buildings in order to continue the condensing of the town, again, for better movement. And I did all those things. It was fine. It was a bit difficult to sit down and do repetitive clicks to draw a building, but I did it. There's no major difference across other weeks in terms of how much I did, I did about the same amount just in art as opposed to code. And yet here I sit, tired, and stressed, and arguably not even from this project but because of personal stuff. That's where it becomes hard to manage productivity on a project, when there are other things bumming you out.

If it was the project itself that was stressing me, there are things I could do to manage it. Take a little bit of time off, focus on something else in the project a bit more interesting, or conduct some playtests to work on a different aspect of the project. But it's not disillusionment with the project, in fact, if I was in a better mood I'd probably be really excited about all the work I've done on the project. But the external factors of my life are beginning to bleed into this project, and I'm really hoping that it's just a temporary lapse in mood. Because I really have done a lot on this project, and want to better feel the excitement of seeing it all come together as paced as it is.

Going back to the things I've done, I did manage to finish all the buildings of the town. I changed the entire layout of the town, too. All the rooms are smaller too, and from brief playtests I've done in the past week, there feedback I'm getting is that it is much easier to navigate the world. It was actually the first time I've given the game to someone and they reached the very end. That's amazing, that was such a big thing to find. I received a message that said, 'Where's the puzzle? I did all the things but I can't do the puzzle.' Yeah, because the puzzle hasn't actually been put in because no one has gone that far! Amazing!

I've just finished the Ghost's animations too, all the walking and idles. And then, I added some soundscapes as a cathartic exercise. And then I also did a brief test in lighting to see the extent of difficulty in implementation. Turns out I don't need normal maps, just a diffuse material on all the sprites.

See, I'm typing all this out, and it turns out I've done a lot of work and been extremely productive. All the things I've mentioned are definitely going to need some fine tuning (the Church building, honestly, needs some edits babe) but the fact is the bulk is done, and any time I'm procrastinating what I'm actually doing is setting myself up for future tasks, i.e. testing the lighting. I think part of this mood funk was the break itself, not going to uni for a week is a bit of a warp in routine, I think it threw me off a bit. I'm really hoping that is the case, it hasn't been a particularly pleasant week.

To recap:

• I was feelin all angsty and shit
• Drew Tilemaps
• Drew all the buildings
• Finishing up Ghost animations
• Fixed building layouts
• Started soundscapes
• Tested lighting

And what's on for the future?

Though there's still a bit of priority adjustments that have yet to be thought of, here's what I'm looking at in the near future:

• Quest NPC animations
• NPC Portraits in chat
• Outside objects
• Interior design

And then those other details, such as lighting, and minor NPC animations will follow.

   I'm just putting in more lights at this moment because it's fun, and then it wasn't because they're all flickering, so I've decided Unity is trash.

I have a hematite ring that's supposed to like, stop drama in your life and fix broken bones or some shit, so, wish me luck.

Fucking sick.