After much deliberation, and with legally binding copyright in hand, I have decided to make this cute little book publicly available to ALL, through Gumroad!
This will be going out through all social media platforms, so that anyone and everyone can look at it, whether they love me, hate me, or love to hate me. (And there's plenty of each.)
I won't spoil anything other than, on the Heroic Timeline, this DOES happen after "The Way of the Badass".
You can just put in a 0 for the price point, or whatever you think it's worth, as it's "pay what you want". I'm not planning on making money off this, I'm just super happy to finally share it with people, especially as I've waited well past any tiny hype I may have built from months ago. (We're talking half a year; I had a lot else on my mind during that time.)
So what HAVE I been doing? Short of it involves job search, and just trying to survive the ordeals of reality. You know, all the stresses that normal people go through, I'm not above such mortal woes.
OH YEAH, and I was writing a DIFFERENT Short Bus story, formatted very similarly, which focuses on the very teacher of the Special Ed class. No spoilers, but I really like how that one is shaping up, and I think it's "almost done", but no telling when (or IF) that'll see the light of day. After all, it took me HALF A YEAR of sitting on Scarlet's story before putting it on the publicly visible web. Feel free to comment and criticize.
Semper Bellum! Jay
SITREP
As usual, this is going to be a long one, but for those who don't have the attention span, time, or patience for reading a whole chapter in a novel, that's what the "Summary" is for, It's not my fault if peoples' brains experience catastrophic failure from attempting to process more than a single paragraph!
What brought me back to writing this was an impulse that told me to check the store page. Wouldn't you know it, 13 reviews are in, and the rating is MIXED! Given what I have to work with (Zero dollar budget, zero experience, "team" of nobody except me by my lonesome, zero obligations and motivation, and practically constrained by circumstances ranging from threadbare to outright NAUGHT), I'll take that mixed review and wear it like a badge of merit! It's like I'm trying to create something out of nothing, and distribute it FOR FREE just to help with my clout and exposure! And if that's not as close as realistically possible to "magic", conjuring something out of nothing, please tell me what is.
"Jay! Where have you BEEN?!"
First and most importantly, there's a theme of illness - be it physical, mental, or some odd overlap of the two. I don't want to get into unabridged detail on that, just know that even as I type this, I'm not feeling well...but I'm working on it. Meaning, please excuse me if I'm limping (figuratively and/or literally), and be grateful if anything comes from me AT ALL! Plus, while the world has said COVID is no longer an emergency (at the time I'm writing this at May 15, 2023), that does not mean the germ I dubbed "The Shadow Dictator" is going bye-bye. Figuratively going against the grain, I personally respect the word of COVID, and I choose to obey the tenants it is attempting to impart! The impacts, both direct and indirect, will be felt for years (or even decades) to come!
"SQUISHY!"
Second, more vigilant fans might've noticed I've been splaying my thoughts at various locations on social media, from "hot takes" to other creative impulses not related to this game here. There were even a couple of scumbags who thought it'd be fun to slander/libel my name or "Dox" me. Not cool, you guys.
Third, there is no shortage of video games to fixate on! Many of those are proudly shown right here on my Steam profile! Others are various MMOs that may or may not have been designed to be as addictive as possible for as bland of gameplay as possible. As of this writing, the most recent game to dominate my agenda was Stellaris and the "Galactic Paragons" expansion. I was glowing with "Under One Rule" and I learned a lot about myself in the process, including the need to take a break if I focus TOO intensely. To set the mood, I learned that the soundtrack for "Warhammer 40K Dawn of War 2" is so epic, that it's been absolutely burned into every layer of my waking conscious! Yet that's what it took to set the scene for Stellaris doing its closest approximation of simulating The Scarlet Empire!
Lastly, life is "99% Void". The absolute nothingness is par for the course, and all I can do is sort of float around in this modernized interpretation of Dante's First Circle of Hell:
That's all the bad news, so let's shift to some GOOD NEWS! I've been writing HEAPS OF LORE for future ideas where Scarlet forms the Global Empire and becomes an indomitable force who can go toe-to-toe with a certain God-Emperor of Mankind! There's also a TINY comic I wrote, titled "Sic Semper Tyrannis" which I'm holding off on publicly showing until it gets legally registered at the U.S. Copyright office! The story is about Scarlet advocating for "Freedom of Education and Freedom from School", which takes place in the year 2046, one year AFTER the events in "The Way of the Badass" (this game right here)! On top of all that, I enjoyed toying with a thought experiment about what Y3K would look like on this timeline, and with Empress Scarlet the Immortal running Earth and various factions flung around the Sol-based sphere, it's a blend of Battletech/Mechwarrior, Elite Dangerous, and Warhammer 40K; but with the twist that this timeline presumes the real-world "exponential growth" of real-world technology remains true all the way to that point, and Scarlet is wise enough to anticipate all its implications.
I WILL share one page that DOES relate to "THE LORE" of the game, because 1) it's canon, and 2) it's proof that I HAVE been creative at times while I was away for the past several months.
COVID's relation with Scarlet is the same as Merlin with King Arthur!
This chemistry and relationship IS going to be in "The Way of the Badass" (if I ever get that far), just that it's been planned for a later chapter, when we get to "The Third Holocaust" which is RIGHT AFTER the midway point, the boss fight against the puppet "Vice President" and the part of the game where Scarlet is supposed to unlock Violet as a companion, sans-cheats. "The Third Holocaust" is when the player is canonically intended to unlock COVID as a weapon, in the context of Scarlet experimenting on various captured enemies - and with it would have the secret achievement "The Reincarnation of Joseph Mengele". I wasn't joking when I warned that this game is intentionally aiming for that AO rating, ala "South Park meets Hatred"! It's my counterculture middle finger to all the censorship crybabies dominating mainstream culture, and that's the vision which set me down this journey to begin with.
So with all that said, looking to the near future, unlike the crybaby saps who retreat into their "echo chambers" they call "safe spaces", I on the other hand do heed the critics. And with that in mind, the top priorities should be under polish and controls. Specifically, I am fully aware of the way Scarlet gets stuck on the walls (and invisible walls). This is a known quirk that has to do with the way behind-the-scenes "WALL" objects act upon collision checks and it's a super simple "If colliding, then stop" or just making the WALL into what's called a "solid" object. As we have observed, it's a quick-and-dirty "good enough" for proof-of-concept purposes, but now that we're shifting less towards "initializing groundwork" and more towards "improvement", it's fair to demand this mechanism be revised.
For NOW, all you need to know is I am aware of the feedback, and I'm putting it at top of the to-do list when (OR IF) I'm back in the saddle! I'll need to look up a way to make this smoother, like the wall should stop her but she shouldn't get snagged in it. (I wanted to incorporate jumping and/or dodge rolling, which is painfully rudimentary now, and that's very much a "secondary objective" I can live without. Like even in the CHALLENGE mode currently on Steam, I downloaded it today and found Scarlet stuck on an invisible wall there! How embarrassing!!)
In terms of polish, it'd be slick to give Scarlet 5 frames of animation instead of the 3 she has now (unless improved smoothness would sacrifice some of the "charm"), yet I've got a more impactful goal higher on the priority list. I've learned that speed in the game engine works on what's described as "Flying Sword Physics", and that's something nobody would understand without reading "Myth of the Epic Force!" For context, I'll share the very specific pages where Jamie Forerunner clarifies:
Yes, there is a canonical "Doctor Mario" with "a Ph.D. in Phase Physics" and "The Backwards Long Jump" is legit science in the Epic Force universe! (Also Young Guardian's by extension, since they're on the same timeline! But that's a rabbit wormhole for another article! For now, if you want a summary of Doctor Mario's Thesis, as well as material which qualifies for a course on "Intro to Phase Physics", and why Jamie Forerunner herself imitates and references Mario, there's a great video about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0 )
You see how the bullet will skip spaces? Keep a keen eye on the way the bullet works and how it jumps from spot A to spot B and never touches anything in between. That's not how a real bullet should work, but it's how the game engine (and maybe computers IN GENERAL) handle speed calculations if the variable gets big enough. (Doctor Mario's thesis video visualizes that this phenomenon is not an isolated event only found in my particular game, once it gets to talking about "quarter steps") At small values, it creates the illusion of normal movement, but fast enough, you see it jump.
This is exactly the way the "Flying Sword" works in my story "Myth of the Epic Force", which is why I call it "Flying Sword Physics". (Unrelated lore detail, but the "Flying Sword" is basically what happens when you blend the SR-71 Blackbird with Colonial Power Tech! It's not a recon plane, it's actually billed as a Strategic Bomber that can swoop in, drop the fission payload, and swoop out before radar even has a chance to ping it - roughly equal to 3 or so frames of animation!)
The super-super short "TLDR" to Flying Sword physics and how it translates to the game is a rapid firing jump drive which makes "Ludicrous Speed" of Spaceballs look as obsolete as a Commodore 64 computer trying to run Windows 11. (And we're not even talking about "molecular inversion", because that's another facet which does not relate to this particular topic. In A.D.D. short, it involves turning mass into negative mass in order to invert the cosmic speed limit of light speed. Wondrous things happen when stacking "inversion" with Flying Sword physics.)
...
Let's wrap this up, because having a summarized to-do list can help me focus. Despite numerous adversities and hardships, if I intend to attempt to refocus on this game project, I should prioritize the gameplay and smoothing that out over any additional art assets or contents (new levels, bad guys, and even cleaning the placeholder art across Steam's store page). This is organized by priority, so it is literally "the top of the to-do list" as far as the scope of this game is concerned.
#1: Improve wall collision detection so Scarlet does not get stuck. #2: Find a way so that collision of bullets can be detected not just at Point A and B, but all space in between. #3: Attempt to improve and replace the store's placeholder art.
One more thing: I want to give a very subtle shoutout to anyone who appreciates the Metal Gear Solid reference in the subtitle of this journal entry! I thought it was cute. For those of you who do NOT get the reference, here's your answer key:
Vaccine Time
Hi guys,
I wanted to let you know I got my 2 booster vaccines yesterday; COVID in the left arm, Flu in the right. Immediate reaction was mild nervousness/anxiety, making the chest tense up and focus on breathing. The next 24 hours (including the writing and posting of this announcement) have shown mild but greater-than-negligible aches and loss of energy. It's not insignificant, but it's nothing I can't tough out, either. For the immediate future, once again, let's just say I'm on sick leave.
Besides, considering this is a hobby on a zero-dollar budget with seemingly negligible return on the time and effort spent creating it, that's OK! I don't need to push myself to work on this week after week if I simply "don't feel like it", and I'm going to be 110% transparent, I honestly don't feel like it.
There are a slew of other games, shows, and social media, so I don't blame you if your attention is elsewhere. Also, I saw the events announcements for the create a bulletin thing here on Steam, and I absolutely like the idea of their AMA or their game stream events, like showing me playing the game and revealing some of my favorite secrets - or, keep that secret because I REALLY want it to be SECRET!
That all said, what DO I feel like? Let's just say there are some unrelated creative side bits here and there, unrelated to this game but still not completely wasting my time either.
Based off https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaqThISdu2E&t=328s
Plus various other fan arts of OTHER franchises. Why am I talking about all that? Because 1) I want to do other things with my life, 2) who cares.
So, that all said, I think I'm going to play some video games, or go to bed early...clear my head some, and as always, trust those impulses. Right now, all impulses are saying excessively clearly, "Take it easy!"
If you ARE reading this, and you're NOT a robot, please, GET VACCINATED!!!
Semper Bellum! Jay
Scarlet Dev Diary Day 99
Day 99
Happy Labor Day! Yeah, I'm starting this on Monday, September 5, at 12:47 AM. The Battlegroup Conquest mode is more of a "Sandbox" mode, after some talking with the game's one developer. I'm not angry, just disappointed. What this means is that there's no point in playing it like an ACTUAL "Conquest", since there's no real sense of "winning". NOR does it impact the game's narrative or lore, so...again, I no longer see a point in fixating so fanatically on that particular game. Though, I *DID* enjoy roleplaying as The Emperor; problem is, it was just that: "roleplay".
Back on track. Someone gave me a nudged priority to tweak the knife's range, or at least so that it can attack without also receiving damage at the same time. (Special thanks to that new friend from Twitter and Discord! You've helped me more than just about everybody else out there, including my own flesh-and-blood!) With this in mind, I've actually WIDENED the "collision mask" (a.k.a. "hitbox") of Spr_Knife to compensate for limited hitbox. Since the other option would be more mathematically complicated (that is, make a formula for how far it jumps when spawned relative to the distance from mouse to Scarlet). I admit it's not flawless in comparison, but I think it'd be easier to implement.
So, F4 spawns Slave to test it out on, and F10 spawns Harpie
1 AM, this definitely allows the player to attack without guaranteed retaliation from bad guys. So now there's a bit more skill, and since the knife is the "default" weapon, I think it's fair since I DO want it to have SOME usefulness in the game after you've gotten guns, chemical weapons, and various other toys of sadistic delight. About 10 to 15 minutes, and I go back to my other games.
Though, during Labor Day (wait, it's 12:12 AM, Labor Day is OVER), I thought about more dialogue with Amanda, like she'd be doting on Scarlet even more intensely between Chapters 1 and 2.
(Tuesday...) 9 AM, I was thinking about having the knife sound effects timed to the gory kill of the slave, so you'd hear the rapid attacking that we get on-screen.
Also, I've thought a lot more about Amanda, and thought it'd just be ADORABLE to have her SHOWERING Scarlet with affection! Even if that's just bonus content between Chapters 1 and 2 (for those doing a cheat run), but still, it'd help build character. Also, with all reasonable mature warnings, this cartoon I discovered has the soul of Amanda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paAn111VE4U It's said to be made in France, but even though it's a parody of Hello Kitty for mature audiences, I totally see this happening to Amanda in a more realistic alternate timeline where she's real, Super Soldiers are not, and she (like me) is left to drown in despair. (Yeah, in the grim darkness of a semi-perfect replica of reality, I would not be surprised if she were a 39 year old virgin who's as frustrated as I am.) But back to dreamland fantasy, it's actually part of Amanda's design to be both cute AND hot. After all, the best guideline for "perfect girlfriend" is someone who's "smart, cute, and tough." I also like their parody of Yu-Gi-Oh, with lines of "Shouldn't you get a girlfriend?" "IMPOSSIBLE!" (ONE more distraction before I go back to drawing Amanda being cute, if you want HARDCORE BADASS, let me show you a very graphic favorite of mine: https://youtu.be/sb12TOu6Vd0?t=45 )
There's just one *other* problem, however. I must sleep, and shower. To any young-ish ladies, you're welcome to jill off to that. Yeah, I know, huge what-if, but hey, let me wish, OK? It's all part of "making the best of it".
(Wednesday...) I've been getting distracted a lot by social media, it's hard to focus on drawing since I've got any number of other matters on my mind. There's simply too much for the human brain to fully deal with. And before I know it, my body's telling me to shut down and go to bed. It's also hard to get most of my to-do list done when I'm sleeping through nearly all of the office hours, and the upmost opening times is when I truly start feeling drowsy.
(Thursday...) Today I really wanted to focus on my game, but it's another birthday for someone I know in the real world. Yay. It's just past midnight, so no voicing or guitar. And the clock keeps on ticking while I argue amongst myself what I want to tackle next.
I guess the alien timeline is next. 12:30 AM, drawing start. Gonna need Scarlet to ask a couple questions when she comes across that specific room, so there's dialogue as well. (I had it, then I lost it.)
12:50 AM, if I were to do what "feels right", I wouldn't push so hard and I'd just go get comfy with any of the other video games ready for me to play. I guess that's what I'm going to do, since staring at the screen isn't helping my pace. 1 AM, tiny break over, now let's figure out the lore of the aliens.
1:20 AM, I need that metal music like most adults need their morning coffee. Because NOW I can start feeling myself getting into the groove. And it is great.
1:45 AM, when I'm done with these dialogue boxes, I absolutely want to get back to Amanda's bonus dialogue. WHY? Because there's something adorable about AMANDA getting that same thousand-yard-stare! What do I mean? You'll see, but in short, it has to do with "The Peace to End All Peace" when COVID ruled the world.
2 PM, that's 4 boxes done, so now let's do that bonus bit with Amanda being an adorable, doting Mommy. Can I get an "Awwww" from the crowd? (And maybe when I'm done here, I'll add another NPC to Chapter 2, Austin. He'd be at the main STOP SIGN from where the main four were first shown.)
2:20 PM, trying to put together the bonus dialogue for Queen Amanda between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2...and for this in particular, I want to crank the cuteness up to 11! :D (Like, how to draw mommy pinching her girl's cheek?)
3 AM, losing momentum again, because I want to weave in that way for Scarlet to probe about "The Great Peace", and it's another count of "I had it then I lost it." But hey, a couple hours in, and I think I can go for a snack break.
4 AM, that was less of a snack and more...involved. At least I got chicken. Anyway, back to puzzling over how mommy's gonna chit-chat with little Scarlet. :3
4:50 AM, I think that's enough writing for this bonus dialogue between Scarlet and Amanda. Yeah, almost an hour, and I drew about 3 boxes, and wrote an additional 11, for 14 in total. Yeah, that'll keep me busy for today. Put the metal back on, and let's get to drawing!
5:05 AM, quick introspection, Amanda saying "Maybe I can help" is something I never, *EVER* hear in Real Life. Nobody out there is like, "I can help you" or even "I know a guy who can help". Reality always leaves me with, AT BEST, unfulfilled but good intentions. Similarly, I never hear anybody say, "There IS a way". So, Amanda talking so optimistically in this game is 110% pure fantasy. (Doubly with how Amanda always seems so calm and "in control".) OK, now back to drawing.
6:10 AM, I had a handful of other distractions (including a short and sobering discussion of why Battlegroup lost my interest, with shattering the illusion of purpose - like, as with talking about the eager newcomer, I feel like Andrew Ryan spilling the disappointing secrets and where the only reason the newcomer wins is that the master lets 'em...referencing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG25S51qJQQ and, if you DO look that reference up, there are spoilers for a 15 year old game - FUCK, that's HALF MY LIFETIME ago!), but now let's try to get the few more dialogue boxes done for Amanda. Also even if you subtract breaks and inefficiency, I calculate about 4 hours of work today, and that's the more stingy estimate of mine. Seriously, 12:30 AM to 6:10 AM, the GROSS time is nearly 6 hours, and subtracting some for breaks and distractions, leaving a NET of about 4 or 5 hours.
Either way, I'm taking *another* break, with the above calculations still frozen.
6:55 AM, back on the clock...or at least I'm trying to be.
7:15 AM, I wanted to write a song that sounds like something Dragonforce would make. Why? You'll see...When V1.0 launches!
7:30 AM, I just LOVE that PTSD look that Amanda has when reminded what she's been through in World Peace One. Not that she necessarily answers it HERE specifically, but there's a half-finished Hero Team episode that goes into detail about it. Basically, when COVID ruled the world and the world went under GUNPOINT LOCKDOWN, the solitary quarantine broke poor Amanda, as isolation is her kryptonite and so Scarlet's innocent inquiry is like asking a Jewish survivor about what it was like living in the Holocaust. (Yeah, those are spoilers for a story that may potentially NEVER see the light of day. But it's IMPORTANT her for lore and context reasons, even if - again - it's not apparent from the game directly.) Like, if you were to ask how'd she do on a deserted island, her answer would be, "I don't care HOW PLEASANT the beach is, that sounds like a WORST NIGHTMARE!" See, I told you I wanted to play to my strengths as a writer and I wanted character and lore to be a core selling point. Similarly, remember how I said that playing with all companions unlocked from the start would totally rewrite the story? Well, this very specific dialogue helps explain why Scarlet's still fighting the bad guys even though her whole family is safe and sound. She wants that rules monolith to go away, so in-character she still wants "Revolutionary War Two", hence we still follow the path of "Freedom Fighters"! (I still want to add more achievements, but not until their unlock conditions become legitimately possible, which may take a few month-long steps to get there. Just know it's on the to-do list, even if it's a long ways down.)
8:20 AM, I honestly struggle to draw a giant hugging squeeze. I need to bring this up because I don't want any...intentional misinterpretations.
8:30 AM, and looks like I'm on track for this to be another full-time day, even though I've got 2 more boxes to draw and then implementing into the game engine. So far, all I've really done are dialogue boxes.
8:40 AM, I got an idea for Chapter 3. MAYBE, the brain probing goes BOTH WAYS, so the alien then learns how to speak English and can use that to 1) give more lore more easily, and 2) psych out the heroes (maybe even the PLAYER if I use it cleverly enough). Though yeah, we've already established some of them can speak English in Chapter 1, so...not sure about that. Either way, I think it'd be a neat twist to have it where the alien probes Scarlet's brain as much as she probes it.
8:50 AM, all the boxes are drawn now. I'm tempted to take a break, but I also want to keep going until I can finish and call it a day. SO, today we've got not one but TWO dialogue chains to add. First one is 4 boxes, in Chapter 3, so we'll get to that one. And we also have a new room in the alien brain, for the SUPER BROAD TIMELINE! It'll hopefully get refined with more granular detail later, but for now, it's a start. ...AND, game engine's gotta update. Might as well get a drink.
9 AM, break's over, back to checking on game engine. Drawing's done for today. 9:05 AM, game engine finally stopped choking, so I can get to work adding the sprites and objects as applicable. Again, no voicing because everybody's asleep but me. As for the brain of Chapter 3? This is where the labyrinth begins. But that'll be in a future Dev Diary. Because Duke saying "Prepare for deeper probing" basically means there are SEVERAL LAYERS to work through, like some kind of 3-dimensional maze. And somewhere in there, by the release of V0.3, there will be a nude drawing on a sticky note. ;) OOH LA LA! But for now, while this Chapter 3 dialogue is going to need another variable check, that is not necessary until the deeper layers of the brain are built and implemented, so that can wait for later. We've got more character development to feed to Amanda.
9:25 AM, basic dialogue coding looks good, implemented doors for the new room (and exit), so now it's testing time. 9:30 AM, the "change instance" command doesn't seem to work for such a collision event, so let's go with the create-and-delete approach. The engine update corrupted the old save, but that's OK, with dev knowledge and cheats, it only takes a couple minutes to go from new game to Chapter 3. ...Still not working, so make it visible for debugging. (OH, I realized that in my copy-paste haste, I made ALL the dialogue chain INVISIBLE. Duh.)
Now it works, and another odd thing I saw was, "Hey, how come Scarlet's not changing direction when she's moving?" Because, in another "DUH" moment, I was using the arrow keys when I should be using WASD. SO, for another small quality-of-life update, I'm copying the code from WASD to their appropriate arrow keys. Control for WASD should remain unchanged, assuming the computer does not decide to ignore the code now. Arrow keys move, but don't change the sprite, even though the code is the EXACT SAME! And it works fine for WASD. Ugh. (Never mind, the "If key down" check changed because copy-paste. Again, duh.) So now that small quality-of-life addition seems to be functioning as intended. I imagine any hypothetical "southpaw" players would be thankful now. NORMALLY, the right hand is on the mouse, and the left does the movement of WASD; an inverted "leftie" setup is arrow keys for right hand, and the mouse in the left hand. (No option to invert right-click and left-click, but that's in the "nice to have" pile for now, although I think it'd be as easy as a new toggle in "Gameplay" settings and 1 new variable check.)
9:50 AM, good news is that the one dialogue chain is working now. So, time to get Amanda loaded in, and honestly, I don't even know what the "net" time is now, just that going at it since nearly midnight means I've been at it just about ALL MORNING (though that's also counting breaks). And that's as good a point as any to prepare wrapping up for the day. That out of the way, this is another conversation that DOES need to get saved. Back to all those start/continue buttons, we go.
10 AM, I just realized that F9 was NOT checking for every single dialogue check. With those couple of variables now (hopefully) accounted for, now we get to implementing the 17 dialogue boxes for Amanda's chain between Chapters 1 and 2.
10:25 AM, OK, I think it mostly looks good. Doing all that code chaining is time-consuming and tedious even WITH all my keyboard wizardry! so now let's test Amanda. Gonna need another new game, since this takes place between Chapters 1 and 2.
WHY is the global variable not being created for AmandaChapter1Dialogue ?! I guess I just needed to tell it in a different way (sometimes global.[variable] works, and sometimes just [variable] works...consistently inconsistent computers!)
That aside, first glance seems to say that things are MOSTLY working now. Just needed to add the "IF press F, THEN start conversation" as opposed to it starting the moment Scarlet collides with her mom. But, with checkpoint saved in the bunker right after Chapter 1, I'm in a great spot for testing, and once this is done, recording video.
10:35 AM, I don't know if it's a game engine thing or just my goofing around, but some of the dialogue boxes feel like they repeat, or get skipped over. But at least it's 90% working. Checking and double-checking, the code chain looks good through all 17 or so boxes. I think part of the beginning has to do with Scarlet colliding with Amanda, that brings the repeating box at the start. 10:40 AM, that first box is still repeating. I think I now know why I had the hidden "starter" objects for chat. And the game engine froze. Joy.
10:55 AM, with the starter in tow (and after some confusion with chapter numbering since these dialogues happen BETWEEN Chapters, so for this one in particular, calling it "Chapter 1" or "Chapter 2" feels equally valid), let's test it again. And, the start object is visible for debug purposes.
Dialogue chain is mostly working, but no starter is showing up visible. Variable checks work, but no spawning of starter. Moving code from Amanda to behind-the-scenes object. And now it works.
OK, here's hoping I learn that lesson: ALL dialogue inside the bunker, initialize with the behind-the-scenes asset. Still doesn't fix the double dialogue box problem, however. Very strange. And the third box gets skipped to go to the fourth. That got fixed, because now the computer's gaslighting me. I was SUPER METICULOUS in making sure all the sprites matched their objects, so the computer changed that on me to make one of those repeat.
Oh my God, the engine got a new bug from the update. It's changing all the sprites down a notch through the whole god damn chain.
F5 crashed.
11:20 AM, now that I solved that gaslighting problem, the dialogue chain just kills itself. With one moving of a check around, now we're back at square one, with the first dialogue box repeating itself twice. New variable check, a "midway" variant that's somewhat temporary, since it 1) won't get saved, and 2) gets flipped back to 0 once the conversation ends. (And why does the engine keep saying "Error Code 126"?) For some reason, the engine REALLY wants to repeat that first one twice, so commands to kill the redundant one just ends the chain altogether. Let's try the "create-and-destroy" approach instead.
11:30 AM, again...it's MOSTLY working. Seems to be going fine when I'm taking it slow, though in the middle I found one box skip, which is particularly hair-pulling since I have each object open in the "Workspace" and I can SEE the sprites match the objects! I still think the computer's trying to gaslight me, particularly with the recent update to blame.
11:35 AM, let me just restart my computer, clean everything up, and maybe that'll knock something loose with the engine. Cold shut-down!
Doing that made a few sprites fail to load for some reason. This engine, and the people building it, it's asinine. Of course, I know I can't build a better one when I'm such a novice, but still, it shouldn't make you feel like you're going insane. Then, back to "home" and reload the game engine, those failed assets are looking normal again. I'm telling you, it feels like the game engine is trying to gaslight me! Because now that I'm going through the chain with a FINE TOOTH COMB, I found a second, unnecessary "create instance" command.
11:45 AM, NOW everything works! Assuming it's not just a fluke, it's time to record stuff and package this Dev Diary to send out to you. Even the recording software has updates. So, before getting the Dev Diary out, I'm going to do some backing up, and some CCleaner protocol. As predicted, the update made the recording software forget that there's a headset for output that it's supposed to be listening to.
THIS is why I keep MY updates to you at a minimum! I don't want to drive you insane with loads of downloads and each one breaking new stuff. Let me quarantine the breaking to my end, at least as much as I am humanly capable of.
11:50 AM, and a crash? Seriously?! But at least it was a good test of the recording software, and THAT check passes all tests.
11:55 AM, good video capture, so I'm calling it done here. Time for backup and computer cleaning.
12 PM, NOON, everything's looking good as far as I can tell, so now it's time to do some logins and get ready to send this out to you. It's going to be a little tricky to ignore any hypothetical emails until AFTER I'm off the clock, though, but I can do it.
12:15 PM, I don't think today's video has anything particularly offensive, and if it does, that's very quickly jumped through - it's mostly just Scarlet and Amanda being adorable, with a pinch of brain probing to complete the first layer of the onion that will become Chapter 3. Youtube video is here: https://youtu.be/d7dbFXKx55U
Tune in next time for a SPECIAL milestone: Dev Diary Day 100! So, what do I want to do to celebrate? I have a few ideas, but the problem is they all require greater than zero input on YOUR end! I was thinking things like a Q&A, with the characters of Scarlet and company (a very "in-character" sort of event). Or maybe streaming for 8 hours of effort and inefficiency. How about GUITAR WARRIOR, watching me work on a song in real time?
I bet it's all moot, because viewership is very minimal (like somewhere in the teens), but either way, I'm just trying to make the best of this void that God dealt me. So, see you next time.
Semper Bellum! Jay
Scarlet Dev Diary Day 98
Day 98
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." - Jean-Luc Picard, played by Sir Patrick Stewart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TCX90yALsI
That sums things up extremely well. Back when I was in high school, at the time I had the ideal where all you need to succeed was hard work and effort. With my enthusiasm at the time, it felt like an ascension to greatness was inevitable. Now, reality hit *HARD!* For a what-if, say Amanda were real, in this depressing timeline...with that hypothetical, she'd probably be one of those 4.0 students who still couldn't get into medical school, so she'd be as broken in spirit as I am.
So now, with rejection at every turn, all I've got are my video games, including this baby I'm crafting with my own two hands and all the free time I can wield.
(Friday...) Talk about a day of rest; I truly meant it when I say it's getting harder and harder to get out of bed. And the backwards thinking at home isn't helping. I find rejection at every turn, as though merely functioning is hopeless. Everyone else is just as helpless, with the unending excuses. I just wish there were someone in my trusted sphere who'd go "Here, I'll help you" then actually do the things I can't bring myself to.
(Saturday...) I've been kept on my ear for days now. No idea why, it's not from medicine and I haven't had any vertigo. Maybe it's just all the sadness. I really don't know. All I know is, it's like a nonstop drowsiness where all I can be bothered to do is crawl into bed and go to sleep. But today, I want to at least try and focus on getting something done, even if I have to crawl the whole way there.
5:30 PM, I am slowly starting to get my brain back into the right gear for working on this. I know it's a holiday weekend, but that doesn't matter when you're unemployable. (And I just realized that for the new enemies, that means new Codex pages are back on the to-do list!) 5:45 PM, started drawing the first bad guy, a tiny "Brain Bug" as it's known. I wanted a visual sputtering effect. Just remember, when animating, inconsistency is a GOOD thing because that makes the characters seem less rigid.
When I say school is "incredibly powerful", that means, "HOW powerful?" Honestly, in this very specific chapter, the knife won't do the gory kills, because that's school's job. THAT is how powerful it is. And I want the death sound to be a distinctly chilling cry of alien pain! Now remember, I'm still at a CRAWLING pace, so if things take a while, you know why.
6:15 PM, got 4 frames of animation for a hexagon with a bunch of moving triangles. That's 1 new bad guy. Took about half an hour just to make a bunch of TRIANGLES?! Yeah, like I said, I'm CRAWLING. Next is the Codex entry, and later we need 2 different deaths (one normal, and the "gory kill" from school).
6:40 PM, the CODEX page is done. And we are at about 1 hour on the clock, particularly after subtracting a couple toilet breaks.
Although...staring at the Harpie is giving me ideas for THAT "gory kill" as well, and it involves Scarlet chopping the wings and carving out that god-forsaken tattoo in the arm.
7:15 PM, file conversion and time to implement in-game. 7:45 PM, got distracted, but I'm starting the code for these little guys. There's no Duke check, so that makes damaging simpler.
8:15 PM, I got distracted, and I'm "almost done" putting this little guy into the game, after which point I'll take a lunch break (after dark) and see how I feel when I come back. So it looks like 1) they're a PINCH too fast, and 2) I forgot to make them hurt Scarlet. Oh and 3) the test sound effects don't stop when they die. I also notice that weapons don't disappear when hitting them, like the COVID needle, and honestly, I'm tempted to keep that as a feature to show how "differently" things behave inside this strange new dimension.
8:25 PM, either way, I'm going for a meal break. Still need to actually implement the Codex page, now that it's been drawn out.
8:50 PM, after a small meal, I hope you don't mind the sound of Donald Trump's voice, because you'd be hearing that noticeably often around the house. If you ask me, none of those old men can care about my game, so I have no reason to care about them.
9:10 PM, considering "gory kills" are supposed to heal Scarlet while she's out in the field and the implementation of healing items are extremely limited at this time, I added one such event at the "Create" phase of the "cruelty dead" for the new enemy to add more health to Scarlet, and if it goes over 100, then set it to 100.
All I know is, I really can't focus. Back to Youtube and other video games.
9:30 PM, My brain is trying to tell me to make something bigger, stronger, and scarier inside the alien's brain. Or, just make more backgrounds and enlarge the maze that is the alien brain ITSELF! Because either way, I'm not feeling all "THE POWER" this weekend, but I still want to have SOMETHING to show for the time.
11:20 PM, while going for my extended break by enjoying Youtube videos discussing video games, I got another idea for an abstract bad guy: "phantoms". Now, I know what you're thinking, "Jay, that's such a generic name for a minion." Just, hear me out. I want some kind of visual distortion, its telling audio being creepy heavy breathing, it's the sort of thing that would add another layer of "unnerving" to the already surreal premise. Maybe that could be a boss design, having several phases with each one getting weirder or creepier, up to like 3 or 5 different iterations until the brain finally capitulates.
If the whole Chapter 3 is off-putting, that's by design. Given how xenophobic the Kingdom of Badass narratively seems to be, how much farther outside of "comfort zone" can you go than "LITERALLY inside your enemy's MIND"?! I said a few Dev Diaries back that Chapter 3 was going to be a trip, and boy did I mean it. Short of it, it's another layer of horror, albeit with the caveat that a savvy player should understand, "*I'M* the badass here, not this stupid alien scum! *THEY* should be afraid of *ME!*" And if possible, I want dialogue and/or even cutscenes to reaffirm that.
(Sunday...)
12:15 AM, then an idea hit me. Have one of the alien rooms just be a giant background that's effectively a mural which doubles as explaining its "memories". Scarlet: "If I had to guess, this looks like one of the memory banks." Duke: "That means we're on the right track! Try to find something useful, like where the important dudes are."
Then for one of the optional ones (or just a glorified way of telling the player "wrong way"), there's a comment on, "Look at this, we've got some kind of weird timeline." "Dude, that's their LORE! It's no jackpot, but still, we've got ourselves a bonus."
And a specific portion of a specific room would have a collision check so when Scarlet gets there, she'd be like "I found it", and the plot can continue. OR, she could comment on said LORE from the bad guys' point of view.
So while I have the cool ideas, the hard part is actually putting that down onto digital paper, and seeing it through to the game engine. And that's where the momentum stops: how SPECIFICALLY am I going to pull this off! I only super vaguely see it in my head, but nothing's crystalized enough to draw it out.
6:10 PM, then I got the perfect idea. Thinking about how Chapter 3 is all about probing an alien's brain, Amanda's bonus dialogue between Chapters 2 and 3 would consist of explaining the benefits and dangers of the "intrusive psychoanalysis", which makes a lot of sense in the context that Amanda's a certified psychiatrist. I also want to try and highlight the fact that Amanda IS Scarlet's MOM. (It's something you won't see without the "All Companions" cheat since Amanda does not narratively join the party until after Violet, and Violet's in the midway point. Speaking of Violet, I can always do more sisterly bonding for bonus dialogue, too.) All I know is, I usually describe Amanda as having orange armor, but in her older form, that armor lost its shine and thus became more of a dull bronze color. It's still no less awesome than it functioned back in World War 3, however. But, like I did with the cColonel, for Amanda both her body and her armor, I wanted to visibly show the AGE. This is a middle-aged woman who's had a decade of combat and a good decade or so focused on practicing her medical trade. (That's canon, in the timeline, she stopped being a true combatant at 2023, with the end of the 10-year contract, but stayed in the armed forces in the non-combat role of doctor.)
6:45 PM, after a lot of sputtering around in my own ideas and distractions, and I'm starting to try and draw those dialogue boxes now.
7:55 PM, this is definitely a crawling pace. It shouldn't take a whole hour just to do 4 or 5 dialogue boxes! But if you wanted efficiency, you'd be paying me for my time and effort here. Because when left to my own devices with nothing to push me but my own enthusiasm, all that "inefficiency" and "distraction" is simply "part of the creative process". (Speaking of inefficiency, I wanted to try and at least show a piece of what the family lifes are like for the main Special Ed students. We see plenty of that through Scarlet's eyes, with everyone smart, cute, and tough. Tom's is the saddest, since his parents DO care, they're just powerless to fix Down Syndrome. Earnest has a super overbearing perfectionist household, so stress is through the roof. And Austin is the opposite, where his Uncle Rob can be summed up by the rapper catchphrase, "SMOKE WEED EVERY DAY!" Which leaves the boy to fend for himself as the closest thing to a caregiver is too busy getting high off "pot brownies" to be bothered. What these four collectively show is a decent contrast between "common" and "noble" classes of society in this phase of the fictional, alternate timeline. You'll notice that "common" folk tend to be a lot more "flawed" and "limited" than anyone "noble", though SOME of the "nobles" can be a bit snobbish or uppity, which is fair given their higher expectations for the human race - and the correlation for disappointment with the shortcomings of the rest of the species that reality consistently demonstrates. I'm mentiong this here and now because I wish that sometime in the future I can better show these nuances in the game, because lore is important. Like, the phrase "Get a job" is only spoken by the last of the Baby Boomers, a fossil of a bygone mindset that only fits in a museum touted by the few that did not yet die of old age or COVID. With that in mind, digressions lead to digressions where I could write a whole episode titled "OK, Boomer" to point out all the different points of how the "old world" simply does not fit in the 2040s inherited by "The Short Bus Generation". Basically, the bodies, the minds, the attitudes, they are all complete DINOSAURS! Again, creative process, it's not so easy to draw those boxes when my brain wants to spew these kinds of background details.)
9 PM, Scarlet's just too cute. I made a waving image into a Discord exclusive emote. Go there to use it, or just enjoy this one-time feature in the Dev Diary. Because if you ask me, this is peak cuteness.
One other writing note, when I looked up the word "Psychonaut", what I learned according to rudimentary search engine is that the word actually originated with hippie drug contexts, based on their hallucinations. The word's meaning morphed when it was used for the cult classic video game titled "Psychonauts", and that direction is furthered in Short Bus lore to refer to anyone using the machine of "intrusive psychoanalysis" since you're almost literally inside someone's mind (similar to the old video game, but with technology instead of magic or psychic power). Thus, the term "psychonaut" is actually - in lore terms - a branch from the study of psychiatry, particularly in the context to diagnose more intensively and decisively, which once the right consent is given, cuts a lot of the "bullshit" with a doctor interviewing a patient (and getting potentially misleading results from the old-fashioned Q&A approach). IN THEORY, this can be used to treat (or even CURE) mental illness, but sadly, such stories are merely "myths and legends"...not "myth" as in a falsehood, but "myth" as in mythology, meaning you'd have to be GOD-tier levels of badass to make it real.
9:40 PM, finally done drawing. And I almost forgot, the Codex page is not actually implemented; we just put the sprite into the engine, but didn't weave it into the book yet. All I know is, I'm done drawing for this weekend, so now it's time to give instructions for the computer to OBEY!
10:05 PM, got the rudimentary variables checked, for 1 codex page plus a dialogue string of 6 boxes. I even got a debug key if I wanted to repeatedly try this out; it's F7. Time for testing.
And once again, the chain is broken, and loading with F9 doesn't seem to fix that. The song's familiar, but I don't remember all the steps by rote yet. (Why does it take TWO presses of F to move dialogue along and NOT one?! And why is it skipping all of Scarlet's lines?!) 10:15 PM, so NOW it works as intended. Instead of the "Create and Delete" structure I had for previous dialogue chains in recent memory (Super Hobo, I believe), NOW it behaves as intended with the "Change Instance". Computers, they are so consistently inconsistent, but as long as it works the way you want it to, it's all good in the end.
I've also shrunk the Rifle Start so that it won't occur when she's halfway across the Armory. QUALITY OF LIFE! :P On that note, I've shrunken the "start" dialogue objects to try and lessen the risk of overlap, in the preparation for a hypothetical where Scarlet would try to talk to BOTH parents at the same time in a way the script had not intended. Computers are so absolute with their rules, which would be great for a dictator like myself if they weren't so inconsistent about them. Computers are absolute when they're functioning properly, is all I know. There are advanced tricks (like "machine learning") that aim to make such rigid mechanisms more "flexible", but that's well beyond my education level.
10:25 PM, it still feels like the variable check for the dialogue is being saved too hard, like F9 right after conversation should set it to 0, but it's staying at 1. The debug key flips the variable, but I shouldn't need a debug. Let's see what happens when we make the last dialogue box talk to the .ini file everything gets saved into. ...Wait, the way I have it set up specifically prevents the repeat no matter what, instantly saving the conversation. So there's no repeating past that point. That's another thing for the debug key to do, write 0 to the location in the .ini file.
At least the Codex mostly works.
10:30 PM, with hours of work and days of crawling (plus struggling to just get out of bed and stop playing games when I *DO* get out of bed), at this point, with the enemy and Amanda's tiny chat, I just can't take it anymore. I have GOT to push SOMETHING out to you guys!
10:40 PM, everything looks good with the video. Time to go to the online backend to present the video and the written Dev Diary.
The 1 year milestone still holds the Steam Record for most views of all my entries there, at 56.
For later, I want to build more lore for the ALIENS and PUSSIES! Plus, maybe have a multi-stage "phantom" that "persists" between brain rooms.
Semper Bellum! Jay
1 Year Milestone Metrics
To my friends, family, and fans, It's been 1 year since I first set out to create a video game. At that time, around the evening of this day in 2021, I drew about 2 or so images of Scarlet, and composed a rough but workable animation for her. At that moment, I remember yelling, "It's ALIVE!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuoKNZjr8_U
Before I get started with today's main purpose of writing, I need to emphasize that I'm still technically on sick leave (even if, best-case, at the tail-end of that). A week ago, I've had an absolutely nightmarish storm of dizziness / vertigo that left me bed-bound for a day. It gave me flashbacks to 2020, when I was bed-bound for a whole week! I am not exaggerating! Meaning, even though right now I am doing consistently better (even if with the help from over-the-counter medicine), I remain paranoid that another episode could start at any time! It is an episodic ailment, meaning just because I'm doing mostly alright for a day or 2 does not mean the problem is gone for good.
Excitement agitates my symptoms, and the whole essence of my creativity is excitement, so you can understand where blending the two is like fighting fire with oil. So, that's why I've taken the mantra of "Stay Calm; Stay Safe; Stay Home!" Grinding away at an MMO game is fine, but getting engaged with metal music is not. In fact, I've felt slowed enough where it's not safe for me to drive myself. Best I can do is ride it out. (As a matter of fact, even me writing this article to you has given me subtle discomfort with my head's balance, absolutely a warning sign that I'm not 110% A-OK at the time of writing!)
Now that I got all that addressed, this will be my most inoffensive update to my offensive video game hobby. Today, I wanted to give you some numbers for my video game The Way of the Badass! Meaning, if you get offended by numbers, then I have no sympathy for you.
There have been 89 Dev Diaries (Maybe 87 if Days 1 and 2 got lost to time, though those were barely any preamble if anything - the oldest known surviving Diary is Day 3, and that can be found on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYr4decTE3Q ), translating to approximately 1/4 of the whole year having a greater-than-negligible amount of time dedicated to this project.The longest-known Dev Diary (not in terms of how big the entry is, but how many days it spanned) was Day 85, when waiting for Steam.There have been 2 major milestones, and 1 minor milestone. The minor milestone was release on Steam. 2 small promo videos have been created, with at least 2 or 3 additional ones in the "ideas" phase. The game engine clocks at 10 Days 22 Hours 6 Minutes 8 Seconds for how long it's been open with the project, though that also unintentionally counts a few lunch breaks. Meaning if I could work like a real machine (extremely unrealistic...whether hilariously or depressingly, that depends on who you ask), the game would already be done now. Though there is no precise clock for how long drawing takes (without digging through every nook and cranny of all Dev Diaries), but a shot-in-the-dark guess is an average of 2 to 4 hours of human effort per drawing. There are 68 different recorded voice lines just for Scarlet alone, though some of them may be redundant or unused. That's just the folder I have in my official work area. There are 7 different weapons implemented. 2 story chapters plus 1 super slim tutorial, plus 1 challenge mode are all ready. There are 10 songs made and available in-game, not counting rough editions or "raw resources" (like jamming just for fun). According to the game engine, there are 162 different sounds grand total. That is counting all music, voice lines, sound effects, and any redundant or unused sound assets in the game engine. According to the game engine, there are 575 different images grand total. This does count unused placeholders or images used for more than one object. According to the game engine, there are 485 different objects grand total. In this context, an "object" is defined as any in-game, well, OBJECT, that has some coding properties to it - even if there is 0 code within said object or pointing to it. They're what make the computer obey the programmer's commands to tell the story of a bunch of sentient plush dolls and their adventures. There are 44 different "rooms", which is each of the areas that has its own background and various features. This counts the main menu and various other menus, as well as the parts in-game. One or two of those may be depreciated, or have been created but are not yet accessible (like being meant for Chapter 6 when I've barely finished work on Chapter 2). 6 Companions are ready to go (or at least mostly finished, with some needing a bit of polish): Colonel, Violet, Earnest, Karl, Super Hobo, and Duke. Of those, half of them have not been narratively implemented yet, and so can only be accessed through the cheats menu. The game has been out in the wilderness for almost 1 month, not counting other efforts to distribute the word through emails like this one. I've gone roughly $250 over budget. That's for game engine license, my sound recording equipment to make a metal soundtrack, the fee for getting onto Steam, and $10 marketing
So now you have a rough idea of just how much went into creating this game, all distilled into a series of metrics and measurements. Now, what does all that get me?
There have been 3 contacts of organizations to discuss this game, though so far, 0 of them followed through to my knowledge. My Youtube channel has 60 subscribers, and approximately 10 new ones over that whole year. This does count inactive channels or spam robots. Also, of those who joined, they may not have done so for my game specifically. My Twitter account has 62 followers, and I believe approximately 40 new ones over that whole year. This does count inactive channels or spam robots. Also, of those who joined, they may not have done so for my game specifically. Of all my communique, only 1 person consistently engages with me, and that is literally exceptional. I'll give you a hint: it's the figurative free space on my Bingo card, but life events taught me that not even that can be taken for granted. My email inbox generally sees 0 queries regarding my game, and not counting robots, a single-digit number of traffic just in general. (About 20 messages through all June, and about one or two regarding my video game - which, funny enough, nearly ALL of those are the Dev Diaries themselves, since I send a copy of that to myself.)
Source cited: https://steamdb.info/app/1998760/subs/ https://steamdb.info/app/1998760/graphs/ There have been 5 reviews on Steam, 2 positive and 3 negative. Yeowch. All-time peak for concurrent players has been 2. Generally, it sees 0 people play.
I think that's enough data. What does all this say for me? I'll have to digest the reviews when I'm 110% free from sick leave (right now, I just don't have the stomach, but it's clearly high on my priority list). But, first impression tells me that I'm sure not knocking it out of the park. Most likely, there will be a time where most people will quietly forget this exists, all 5 or 10 of them. And you can absolutely see where no money-driven corporation would want to continue down such a path of sunk cost of time.
"The numbers, what do they mean?" I'll tell you what they mean. They mean, no matter how you slice it, I am NOT receiving a sufficient return on my investment! Truly, if there's no fun, then there's no point. Because at this rate, that's all I can hope to get out of creating this.
Right now, I'm going back to playing other video games...wash the taste of medicine and disappointment out of my mouth.
Semper Bellum! Jay
Sick Leave
I'll try to shorten the detail here (COMPARATIVELY short), but I still want to give you some idea that I'm not just goofing off behind-the-behind-the-scenes (though I confess there's some of that as well).
As I've said, at this time it's no major life-threatening event in my life, so don't get TOO worried. But, that said...
Physically, there's been a case of vertigo. It felt like 2020 all over again! Looking ahead, there's no telling when or if that'll strike again. And I'm just happy I could get to my computer again, even if only for long enough to write this message.
Mentally, there's a lot of sadness. Most of it is the same-old, where it feels like nobody cares about everything I do...except for the robot "web crawlers", a bully or 2, and the figurative free space on my bingo card. As I was piecing together Monday night, if you don't notice me when I'm here, then you won't notice me when I'm gone. Feels like no matter how hard I try, all roads lead to no-win situations. When all roads lead to no-win situations, do you embrace despair, or pursue an illusion of hope? Personally, I swing back and forth between those two. Either way, I'll be a starving artist before I know it. These truly are grim, dark times, and it feels like anything remotely positive is too good to be true. Absolute silence is par for the course, and very rarely maybe I'd find some bully shenanigans. But the absolute best-case is unfulfilled but good intentions. (For example, I haven't heard back from that curator, who only talked to me once, around my birthday half a month ago. Came and went as fast as a dream.) Don't go thinking this is Major Depressive Disorder, you armchair psychiatrists. No, it's not where the brain is hardwired shutting down and can't process anything. It's a reasonable (albeit severe) level of sadness as a result of the circumstances life has dealt me. Though, with that in mind, this isn't a mood or a phase...it's a crisis. And with no sustainable roads for both myself personally and the whole human race across the globe, the whole world is in crisis. (Nowhere near as cool as "Crysis" with the Y in it, because video game reference. And that's part of where the sadness comes from: there's nothing COOL or AWESOME about reality right now, except the physical computer I'm writing this from.)
I won't even touch on the various world events, since 99% to 100% of them won't change my day-to-day life in the slightest, and therefore are not applicable. So to both the right and the left, please, keep your conspiracy theories to yourself. I seriously don't care.
Let's pretend I'm wrong. How can you help? Leave some comments, play the game, review it, get me noticed (ideally in a good way, but honesty is more important than kindness). And compel as many other people as possible to do the same.
With all this stacked against me right now, I can clearly feel the shift in my mentality from "creative mode" to "survival mode". What this obviously means is that I can't pull myself to work on my game now, or in the short-term future.
If there's any good news, at least the latest article (Dev Diary Day 89) hit 10 reads, so...not sure how much the statistic robots count me refreshing my own page to double-check for grammatical errors and/or to admire my work. Still, for the hours upon hours I've invested, I sure haven't seen any return...at all. Imagine any of your favorite mainstream corporations, with their millions of dollars and armies of human resources, if they had magically been dealt the exact same hand I have of a (best-case) single-digit audience. That'd be fun.
Semper Bellum! Jay
Scarlet Dev Diary Day 89
Day 89
Behind-the-behind-the-scenes, I started looking into jobs with the government. Broadly speaking, all I really found are clerks, nurses and doctors, and the sort that would make me go, "Woah...no way I am qualified to do *THAT!*" Plus, how does DARPA have a tab for GAMES?!
But yeah, looking that direction, they're realistically more interested in artificial intelligence than Super Soldiers. Understandable, but saddening to me personally. Though, through implicit reasoning, they ARE correct about one point: full automation IS the future! And if you're looking for work, my presumption is that unless you're Scarlet tier of smart, you're going to need a full blown PhD in Computer Science just to merely ATTEMPT a job with these guys! Anyone who knows me personally would know that I'd rather have a life sentence of solitary confinement than go back to school, and since I'm already somewhat living that way as-is, it's not much of a stretch.
Just reading some of their PDFs instills a couple of key impressions: 1) the PDFs ALONE are teaching me, and 2) the main theme of emphasis is artificial intelligence, machine learning, and all that (with my psychic powers) potentially leading to the "zero-man-army" decades down the line. Regardless of when you choose to skim their "Opportunities" page for yourself, you're extremely likely to come across the same themes I'm mentioning here.
Why is this important for a video game Dev Diary? 1) It is "research" to help shape my narrative mindset; 2) I am trying to figure out what I can do with my seemingly worthless life; and 3) as this video game is set in a fictional alternate timeline, it's best to be as thorough as possible with understanding the real-world timeline so we can compare-and-contrast the deviations that my fictional timeline take, or where the two timelines do actually align. DARPA is a major player in my world's lore (In the lore, they actually created Hero Team), so it's only fair to at least glance at what the REAL DARPA is like!
Short of it, I do not feel qualified to partake in any of these real-world opportunities, though it is still fascinating if not fun to learn about those that do exist in the real world. I mean hell, when they want research into clocks, they don't mean the normal stopwatch for hours and minutes; they mean actual microseconds. It's very humbling, and I doubt I can do that on a zero-dollar budget.
To quote Hero Team (the Book), Volume I Chapter 3: This is what I mean when I say it juxtaposes the typical image you think of when you hear the words "military training" or "boot camp". This wasn't boot camp, this was modern-day sorcery. Not all heroes wear capes, and not all sorcerers wear cloaks. Some of them wear power armor or lab coats.
Took a break for a bit (specifically to go through Starship Troopers: the Book, and to adapt my graphic novel trilogy into "Hero Team: the Book"), but looking ahead, I see that schedules are aligning for voicing. So I hope to get that done real soon.
Also I noticed that the missiles aren't spawning in Challenge for some reason. Then another had double barrage. Very confusing for now.
OH, and I tried a little marketing on Wednesday. While at the time I felt it was worth a try, it went about as well as you'd expect.
7:30 PM, Wednesday evening, I suppose I'll check on certain basic needs, and see if I can prepare for voicing. I'm not in the mood for any heavy exertion right now, so ease in with something fun like Scarlet's iconic high-pitched tone. 8:15 PM, that was a bad idea with all the distractions almost lulling me to sleep more frequently than I would like. Plus, the thunder is a bit worrying because I don't want a lightning bolt to spontaneously detonate every active electronic device - including microphone, monitor, and elite gaming rig. Maybe I'm worrying too much about that. But still, all the yammering behind-the-behind-the-scenes is going to take some metal music to wash away, best-case. Worst-case, I'll just have to ride out the thunder and lightning.
9:25 PM, finally I'm just starting to get on track. The thunder has seemingly passed, and there's a couple hours till people start going to bed. If I want this done tonight, I have to make it count. 9:30 PM, decent start. Got a couple lines for Scarlet down...at least good enough. I don't need it perfect, I only need it good enough. And Scarlet is definitely super adorable. With that in mind, the irony is not lost on me that Scarlet would be teasing about someone having a plushie...when the two girls themselves look like sentient plushies. Again, it's adorable! Though, I'm going to be honest,sometimes it's a strain and struggle for Scarlet to say some specific words (like emphasizing the "always" in "Are you ALWAYS like this" and that's especially hard for the "AI-EE" squeal). 9:45 PM, got done with most of Scarlet's lines. Still got Violet, and the Colonel. Making good time, now that I have *FINALLY* gotten on track! I'm telling you, between the nonstop ways of distracting myself, real=world circumstances, and demoralizing metrics, there are all kinds of slow-downs going on. And the more I "get into character", with the more I envision them as sentient plush dolls...the more I feel like a little boy playing with his action figures. It's fun, and also adorable. 10 PM, oddly I think I NAILED the "AI-EE" of Scarlet. The cuteness is perfection. If there were a way, I'd attach that for all to enjoy. Or plop it onto Google Drive and drop the link here.
People on Discord can download it at their leisure. ALSO, I almost forgot there's one dialogue box left for Duke right now. 10:15 PM, clock is ticking and I got all of Scarlet done for now. I know, loads more voicing for Chapter 3 and beyond, but that is hopefully for another time. For NOW, I'm catching up with the recently added dialogue boxes. 10:30 PM, eh crap...thunder's back. And I was almost done voicing the Colonel here, too. 11 PM, I really like Duke's voice (at least when I do it well), though my throat is truly irritated from having done Scarlet, Violet, Colonel, and now Duke all back-to-back-to-back. But, at least that's all of them, and I'm caught up with dialogue boxes. So, assuming the voices are good enough, let's get them into the game engine (and double-check it for updates while we're at it). And, if the dialogue recordings are all good enough so I don't need to do another take, that means I can do the rest of today's effort all quiet, and thus squeezed through the window of time I had for the night. Also, by the way, the thunder left as fast as it came, which is good since I can't work during a power outage, and heaven forbid my electronics get struck by lightning...if that's even a legitimate risk anymore. 11:30 PM, got all the files in the engine. Now code blocks, open up those dialogue boxes and insert the audio commands. Also, add the mute and unmute options for the settings menu! I still need to do the Colonel Reloading animation, but that's not on tonight's to-do list. So, about 2 hours of work just for this voicing and stuff. And I have absolutely lost my voice, so I can't really do any retakes now, even if I needed or wanted to. More specifically, I've lost my capability to do Scarlet's ultra-high-pitch voice. 11:45 PM, most of it is implemented, and just one tiny error so far...a human error, telling the computer to stop audio once, where it should've said play audio. Easily fixed. There's a tiny lag in-game, but other than that, it's working. Gonna need to double-check Duke's dialogue, since he went the default path even after loading the save for all companions; but back to cheats, and double-checking that it was active corrected the matter. Not tonight, but still, known bug. And, other than that one tiny detail with Duke, everything works! Lunch break (LOL, "lunch" at near midnight), then I'll record, check email, and send the Dev Diary out to you. 12:35 AM, about 50 minutes, and the break's over. Settling back in, and let's see if I can fix that one small bug with Duke's alternate dialogue. Check if the Colonel is present also. Only problem with that, it played both alternate dialogue sounds at the same time, and that's not cool. Let's see if one extra if check does the trick. And, that fixed it. One bug now purged harder than the bugs in Starship Troopers! I'm doing my part!
So we are almost at the 1 year mark! That's just another week and a half, right around the start of July.
