So, yeah... there's been a storm of ludicrious numbers on the heatmap. I did try to avoid that from happening, but... I think I'll just not care from now on? To make things short: Basecamp activity is still limited, so we won't be seeing 100+ activies per day when I decide to clean up old notes, or something. But my GITEA server is going to report raw numbers -- on top of whatever Basecamp reports. I've added several new repos to my server, and I've been diligent on keeping them up to date, even though I do only small changes to documentation. So I've gotten some pretty damn big numbers. Honestly, that was an accident. I wanted to keep the heatmap simmering instead of screaming.

So to speak.

But I forgot that each additional repo will add "noise". At this point, I'm thinking I might even add my Obsidian vaults to my Git, since we're already such damn high numbers. I forget what the top number is but we're well over 30 activities per day already. So that's probably half Basecamp and half Git activity, if I had to guess. I have no way to tell them apart after the fact.

Okay, ALLEGEDLY, I should find out THIS week what's my future at the company looking like. We're done with Wednesday, so I am... not skeptical, but it is a bit late in coming. Anyway, as you all know -- if I stay full-time employee, then I will have to "downsize" the Patreon into a tip-jar, because there is no way I can meet any schedule worth paying for. On the other hand, I can't close the Patreon because I am grandfathered into the lower fees, so closing the Patreon will just mean if I start it again, I'll lose bigger chunk of the money to Patreon. So, tip-jar.

ALSO, you might have noticed the crazy growth in the activity of the heatmap. Don't get too excited, I just plugged Basecamp into it, although it does have a limit how much it contributes. Otherwise I'd have some insane numbers there for every time I write a note to Basecamp. This is just so that you can tell I am still alive and working on things, even if it might not be code or art.

That said, cross your fingers that I find out what my employment looks like in near future. Then we can actually plan things.

Working finally on some new code. Now, I am the first to admit that I am not much of a coder. I am far more interested in the end-product than the actual process of coding. But I do love myself some systems design and rule work. I think I am finally getting used to the new job? I mean, I am not quite so totally blank after I come home from work. It's been a real struggle to work on the game, and the systems after work. I have NOT written anything, because I've felt like I have zero creativity to give. So... yeah, it's been a real struggle. I still don't know how this work pans out, but I can safely say that if it becomes regular 9 to 5, I will absolutely have to rework my Patreon as I have no idea what I can even feasibly push out.

Of course, I still have no idea how it all works out. So, painting devils on the walls, as we say in Finland. But, at least this weekend has gone well so far, so that's positive sign for the game.

This week/weekend went a bit haphazard as far as working on the game went. My partner had her last week of vacation time, so I felt obliged to spend as much time with her as possible -- especially in light of her partially crippling injury that she received at the start of the summer. So I didn't have a whole lot of time to spare for the game. But I did occasionally di some minror things, but probably nothing that shows on the heatmap. That said, August is now done, and I'll see if I can actually work on the game a bit more now. The job is still stealing all the hours in the day, or that is how it feels sometimes, but I'll do my best.

A bit late, but that one empty week there? For some reason this whole system that automatically builds the heatmap died. In addition, I don't know why. The error handling was robust enough not to do anything bad -- but not robust enough to give me useful error information. I might have not have noticed unless one of you Patrons told me that this was happening. I don't really look at this page too often -- it's pretty set it and forget it. That said, soon after that I got sick. Snot. Cough. Fever. All the fun stuff. So this week has been a bit of a disappointment.

Anyway, I am working on the travel system. If you squint, it is done. Ignore the missing content, missing combat and social encounters. I am now mostly working on the social encounter system, then the minimal combat, and then I'll work on the content and the encounters. Once THAT is done... I need to create the locations where the player can even travel into. So, yeah, it's still a lot of stuff to be done.

That said, then ... I think we only have the "level editor" to be added to the game and all the "big" features should be in the game. I'll have to get back to you on whether that's actuall an factual statement, or wishful thinking. But... the end is nigh? Or something like that.

Okay, now CTRL-Skip related bugs (panels not showing, backgrounds not loading, music possibly not playing, etc) should be fixed and guarded against. This was quite the thing to do, because by initial design my dialogue system is "stateless". It runs independently of the game, the idea was that I can essentially show any dialogue anywhere and as far as game thinks: nothing happened. This is useful, for example for cutscenes. But, as it happens, I organically decided to add the control flow of the game (what music plays, what poses characters have, what background is on the screen, etc) into dialogue files... suddenly, skipping dialogue became a bit fraught with danger. It should all be fixed now, I think. Hope. Pray. I'm thinking I can probably push out the next version during the weekend. Friday might have been possible otherwise, but Fridays are baaad days for me to do any work on the game.

Fixed some minor bugs, made entering Locations more intuitive. Now all "hotspots" highlight when pressing down ALT and also when mouse hovering over them, so you don't need to "pixel hunt" anything. Although to be honest, that was not really a thing in the game. Next, I'll probably see if I can address some bugs that can happen when CTRL-skipping text. I've already implemented several fixes on that end, but it has some fundamental issues that I might want to address first. Basically, trying to reduce jank.

Well... great. Saturday a storm hit, and knocked out the power. There's trees down everywhere on the property, fences broken, the whole village is broken. So, yeah... I have power -- for now -- but it's intermitted. So, I am off to trying to fix the yard, fences, and that one tree that fell on one of the buildings. Christ.

Someone turn on the AC outside. It's way too hot. Lucky that I don't have to do any GPU bound stuff, or I'd be melting in this office. This room has no central AC. So GPU running full-tilt will just straight up heat this room.

I think I got the "location" system simplified and working much better. It's teh system where you click on a spot on the diorama in the room, and you get the VN panel display. It's now much simpler and better system, just need to roll it out every room. It's for now only in bathroom, donna's room, and living room. The reason for working on this? It simplifies the future "level editor" that I'll use to quickly create new rooms.

So, just as a general informational. Because of the new job, I won't be able to work on the game basically at all during mon/wed/fri. This should be reflected pretty well on the heatmap, but just letting everyone know. I'll still work when I can, but right now it looks like bulk of the work will happen during weekends.

So, minor delays. I need to go to a job interview on Monday, since I am starting to run out of money and actually need to work on something else than the game for a living. Depending on how it goes, we'll see if there are any further delays. Otherwise things are going well. Sonja's nude sprite set is done and in the game. I am now writing a scene with her nude set in play. Once that's done, I'll add what systems I can. I have added the "SWAY" system in the game -- but it's ugly as sin. After the writing is done, doing proper art for that system is next on the line.

Today, no progress report. I'll be making them bi-weekly, to save on time. It's not that they take THAT long, but let's say it takes an hour to write, then I have to post it to both Patreon and Subscribe Stars, and all that, plus add screenshots. It's a problem, because I can't start a job I can't stop -- I always know that at latest on Wednesday I need to write it up. So it quite often 'interrupts' my flow. Let's see if this is any help. Writing these microblogs is much less work. Like, it's just throwing dirt in Twatter or something.