Game Update
Finally secured an artist to work on the capsule art to really push it over the top and make it pop. I’m excited to have that done and I’m doing my best to buckle down and adjust fire into polishing other parts of the game now.
I should probably focus my attention on swapping the first and second stage now. This will take a bit more than just swapping the position they fill on the map. I will also have to re-work the dialogue a bit. That reminds me that I need to fix the water reflection as we made changes to the sky box and it doesn’t look quite right now.
Balancing the spreadsheets is also important as some stats are to far off base like the paladin tree. Often it feels like we aren’t doing enough damage so that troops die quickly enough. I’m not sure if I want to make an assassination skill that takes troops to 1HP or kills them outright. That always felt a little cheesy and counter to the other systems in the game. Maybe upping the critical damage could help a bit here.
Creating a trailer will also be something I should jump on. It’s been so long since I have done any streaming or made/edited video. I guess that was a different era in my life. I do miss it, but I’m not sure I will be able to go back to it.
Personal Update
I’m glad I got rid of all my swipe apps although for a while I was going through withdrawals. I’ve always been a believer in “video game addiction” due to anything that has a random reveal mechanic becoming addictive. To that end I would say social media can also become pretty toxic feeding into that Skinner Box of dopamine hits we all love. I plainly remember my phone being on vibrate upstairs in my bedroom in a house I used to live in. I could hear it vibrating from downstairs because I was so tuned into the feedback. I should probably set “no phone hours”.
I know it’s not Thanksgiving yet, but I should probably say it now as I’m not sure if I will be on time with my blog entry next week or if I might skip it all together. I’m hosting Thanksgiving which should be a good time, but it’s also a fair amount of work. I have come a long way to get here from my tumultuous military retirement in 2020 to now. I am so blessed to be here.
Still spending time with a couple of the girls I met on dating apps to see where it leads me. It’s kind of nice to just calm down and date without feeling like I need to get on an app to see who I’m missing out on. Just enjoy the time dating to see where it goes. Lately our phones have been programming us to always be dissatisfied with “the now” by forcing our thoughts into the future. It’s a bad thing for society in general to have one more thing to take away our sense of being present to the moment.
I had a chance to start working with an elite coach, and so I spent a lot of time thinking about it this past weekend. I talked to a lot of my friends in that field and it really helped to get their insight. Ultimately it came down to the value proposition. I felt that if I did work with this coach the money spent (which is high) would not have been returned for the value I could have received from it to upgrade more things around the house or do a number of other things. It also felt like if I decided to do this it would have been more about my own vanity than wanting to get better. I decided to pass on it for now as I’m simply not ready, nor do I have enough motivation to really follow through with it as the game is becoming such a priority for me to finish and get to early access. I’m also looking to release in February of 2022 but we will see what I can get done between now and the end of December so I can make that decision with as much information as I can.