STARBAGE

Valentine's day happened. I thought it would be a pretty sad day, for a few reasons... I had to close at work that day, which is a shift I don't really enjoy working. I feel like I can never get anything done on days where I close, LOL. I can't get any task inertia knowing I will go in later you know. It was slow due to a storm in the area which was pleasant, but what wasn't pleasant was the power flickering and breaking the alarm in the last two hours of my shift, so I had to deal with headache-induced beeping since there was no way to fix it immediately.

On a less surface-level note, my late mom always celebrated valentine's day in some way so I couldn't help but think about it. She didn't really come across as a "valentine's day" type person at a glance, but she would always buy me and my sister little gift baskets or blankets or other treats to make that day special. I suppose I kind of took it for granted and assumed everyone's parents did things like that, but I never hear anyone mention it. Furthermore, it was around this time a year ago that she was diagnosed and things spiraled out of control, so it was kind of just a melancholic time if I let my mind wander. Being at work kind of helped with that part, actually, even if I would've rather not been there. My sister also went out that night, so I really would have just been alone with my thoughts after my shift was over.

Luckily, me and my girlfriend decided to watch a movie together on a whim. It was "The Night is Short, Walk on Girl", directed my Masaaki Yuasa. I've watched a few films of his before and they are always delightful-- This one was on my list for a long time but for some reason I have a strong aversion to watching movies very often.

It was a very wonderful film. Yuasa's work always has an almost frantic energy in its pacing from what I've seen so far, but its so heartfelt and silly and really sticks the landing for me. It felt like it was a million years long but it was going a mile a minute during that entire time. Idk how he does it. 

There was a lot of discussion of social isolation, reaching out to others... The recurring theme of having an effect on other people's lives whether you want to or not. It got me emotional. Loneliness feels so insurmountable sometimes, but this movie found me at the right time... Movie that makes me feel like it is going to be okay. Part of me is glad I waited years and years to watch it just so i could with Cygnus instead, it was really great. 

it is kind of late right now but i've been telling myself i need to write ablog post for a bit so here we are ^_^ first post of the year too.. i think we are past saying "wow, a lot of things have happened between entries!"

currently, i am working on some projects... I have posted about both of them on social media, but not on this website.. one of them is a collab with my dear friend mala and peer basicbean, in which i got to do the music and UI for a visual novel. oh i did some drawings too but i was not the main artist.

i can't say i have ever gotten to do a real collab before. Every attempt i ever got close to fizzled out pretty quickly, or it was just classwork if you count that brief period i was making games in college. I wouldn't, though. Being able to depend on other people is nice. I would love to do more collaborations, i think. the idea of working with other people intrigues me. unfortunately, my control freak-isms and anxiety make it pretty hard.. but i dream about it often, so working on this project is nice. It's also great to not have to draw everything myself for once, admittedly. I think being a singular indie dev is overrated and people shouldn't do it, no matter how much passion they have.

i say that, and yet here i am indie devving my next project...

Noise Jam 2 and Mixed Media Jam ended up overlapping, so I decided I would try to make a project for both.

I decided to try out the MV3D plugin again, since I still don't feel like I've reached my limits with it. It's fun! It is jank as fuck but I like it.

You may remember that my larger project, Beneath the Teal Symphony, is made in this plugin... you might also wonder why I am not working on that instead. Well, I got stuck. Admittedly, I wonder if BtTS will ever get made at this point. But it has a story I want to tell, so I think it will happen eventually. Maybe not in this form, though...

Back to the jam game though, I decided to do something unthinkable and try to add battle mechanics to a game of mine.

the title is SUBTRACTIVE RUNEMIXER. I say it has battles, but I'm thinking they'll be more like simple puzzles... Um. you'll see. hehe. I'm a little worried they won't be fun, but it's a jam game so maybe I shouldn't worry too much.. Plus a lot of RPGMaker games have simple battles used to convey story beats so... yeah.

I've been playing 3D exploration games lately, which inspired me a lot. Specifically, Automaton Lung really inspired the look of the protagonist (and other characters you'll see later). I love big wire going into someone's arm

Another aspect of these games I am taking to heart (since I'm making an rpgmaker game and not, you know, a platformer) is trying to convey a feeling in a 3D space and not worrying too much about the narrative... Basically just trying to make cool vibes. LOL. I do have a story though, and it involves some robot girls being evil towards each other... I hope you enjoy it.

I thought I had more to say, but i guess a lot of this will end up being a "just wait and see" type thing. 

On a similar note of projects and stuff, I replayed my first VN Saturn's Rising Temperature some weeks ago. Wow, it is Decidedly Not Good. I still love it as work from past me, but I think it adds to my anxiety as a creator that only gets larger and larger... I feel like a lot of my current portfolio isn't actually representative of the current me or what I can do. But at what point does my work stop being "me"? perhaps with every piece of art I make, a version of myself is frozen within it, and the real me will never match up.. I think about this type of thing way too much since I released HalOPE, lol. I don't want to fade away into obscurity just yet... That's silly, right?

Well, that's my brief update for February. zzzz