I do this too. I recently used ‘upgrade to 6L38’ as an excuse to get reacquainted with ALL my [i7] code, and ended up deciding that the game that I had left unfinished a couple of years ago is much closer to completion than the one I’ve been working on which I really don’t want to release prematurely. The second one ‘felt’ like the right focus because I was recently familiar with the code, but once I had both sets of code in recent memory, I realised that the second project is in fact more complex (even though it’s still only 4 rooms) and will take longer to do justice than just finishing what I had started before, which I had brought it pretty close to completion before I put it down. After all I had already run it through a (disastrous) playtesting round and everything. Now that I’ve had distance from it I see that I need to scrap the tiresome storyline that interested no one, keep the actual game environment and just release that for its own sake, building a new fairly light, mostly demonstrative plotline on top of that, which will not be a lot of implementation work: just a bit of creativity. It is definitely close to release. I just got discouraged earlier and put it down for too long. Now, because of the upgrade task, it’s back up.
So sometimes those drudge tasks — and upgrading past 6G60 can be quite the drudge task — can teach us things, or just plain keep us acquainted with every part of our code, so that it’s easier to see the challenges accurately and decisions don’t get made in quite the same way, so it’s more important than it seems.
Oh great I have a negative reputation which is damaged by progress. I should have guessed! LOL.
BTW the blogging is definitely back on. After seeing what gets retweeted by the IFcomp organiser, the plans and outlines I made to write about what happened when IntFic intersected GamerGate don’t seem so pointless anymore. These posts just need to be written so I guess I’ll just do whatever it takes.
Oops sorry I should’ve mentioned–I was talking to Vaporware. About not living up to his name because he’s actually converting his vaporware to something real.
So I should’ve quoted him.
Whatever you need to do to get back to blogging is a good idea. I like dissent, even if I don’t agree with it. Personality cults/golden calves in any form, big or small, worry me greatly. Even–or especially–among smart people who are very good at rationalization, or who say “Your special case from your own life probably doesn’t matter etc in the scheme of things” but then go on about individuality.
Don’t be too hard on yourself about blogging. I go in waves as inspiration hits. Sometimes months in between. I find it hard to play new stuff when I’m writing my own game.
Thanks Hanon. Current status is that everything is on hold for my job search. When I have a job, I’ll try to pick up my indignation and resulting motivation from where this thread left, but I"m not making any promises. Anyway, when I do get some relaxed spare time again, finishing my WIP games will take priority. I don’t know if I’ll even have any time to blog. I may be too busy being super-frustrated that I don’t have enough time to code. Reality frequently supersedes my goals. Sucks, that.
The fine thing about this blog is that it displays what goes on your mind while playing. We have several IF-related blogs that are reviews picking apart games under scrutinity, about events in IF and about old digital stuff one of them being text-adventures. But a comprehensive log about the player expectations while fiddling away through the game, that’s quite novel.