NOMORECOCAINE · Blog

What's Up Doc?

2026-10-21T00:00:00+03:00

So, what have I been up to? Well, to make this simple:

Coding is fast and easy to do, even if I am working.
Art is almost impossible to do.
Writing is between those two, but depends a lot more on my levels of energy.

So... the reason why the Activity tab is lighting up like crazy is because it picks now Basecamp activity as well, although I have limited the numbers so that Basecamp is capped and never pushes it over 16 activities per day. Otherwise we'd be looking at a heatmap that is just few bright spots where I did a lot of basecamp stuff, and everything else is dark green.

Anyway. Because coding is easy to do even when I don't really have time... I have been working on my second game, which I call Kurmu. It's another lovecraftian story, although sort of a life-sim. Basically, it is about 10x more complicated that Unfor could ever hope to be. Or should be, rather.

I also started as a side-project that I wanted to sketch down, a third project Kytö.

But that's non-existent, just a rough idea and some basecamp work on it, no actual gameplay or code yet.

I've also spent a lot of time learning Rust, as I want to use it in future projects. GDScript, I am fine with. It's pretty expressive and easy to comprehend, but a lot of stuff that I am interested in is actually rather "simulationist", and GDScript is not really meant for speed. Even though I absolutely hate algol languages. I learned on CL (common lisp) and used Clojure a long time... so this whole { and ; line ends is driving me insane, never mind the absolute REAMS of syntax that Rust has.

But Rust has opinions.

I like languages that have opinions. Zig, for example, only has some vague opinions on such ideas as transparency and explicitness. It does not care how I structure my code or what I do with it.

Whereas, Clojure or Rust, have very strong ideas about certain code quality things and how you approach problems. Clojure: Everything is immutable, data over objects, and state changes are explicit and managed. Rust: Everything has only one owner, and if it doesn't won't even compile.

At first glance, Rust sounds like it's not that "opinionated". Until you try coding it and nothing compiles at first try.

Anyway... just letting you know what the "high activity" means. It means that I am writing down a lot of ideas and plans for games, designs, etc. And I am coding multiple projects and trying to learn a coding language by tackling a hilariously complicated project that is way beyond my capabilities. But that's how I learn.

A Straight Job

2026-09-27T00:00:00+03:00

SO! I got a new regular job! Woo!

Boo!

Yeah. That means my game projects now are back to being just hobby projects that I will work on "whenever I got time". Which sucks... because I got a TON of stuff done last year. It was great. But... it paid pennies, as you'd expect for a hobby project that I did for fun.

But now I've got a full-time job, once again, I will have to adjust this Patreon thing. The unfortunate thing is that Patreon has been shifting their fees upwards as time goes by. I am grandfathered in to the older (cheaper) fees, but I can only stay on those if my Patreon stays up. So... yeah, my Patreon is now a tip-jar. I can't promise any regular releases or anything. I'll post when I do something worth seeing, and if it's adult only, it'll be only available to paying Patrons (Patreon Policy dictates that).

Other than that... I've been working a lot on the various game projects. I am working on an TTRPG (I have been, for years), a ... uh, sort of Pathologic style simulation game, with RPG features, and which is at all nothing like Pathologic. Yeah. That thing. I call it KURMU. If it ever becomes a real game, I you will be the first to know.

I am of course still working on UNFOR, but my one bottleneck on it is the graphics. Ironically. For ex-illustrator. The style & workflow I chose was fine for someone who worked on it 8 hours a day, minimum. It's way less manageable if I have 16 hours or less per week to spend on the game.

One solution would be to go 3D. Then, I do all the work ahead of time and keep reusing the work. Instead of how it works now: I do ALL the work again and again for everything, I can't reuse anything.

That would have slowed the game down a lot, though. I am not sure the first version would have even come out when it did, over year ago, if I had done 3D. All the goddamn work at first would have just slowed me down so much.

Well, nothing to be done about it now. I have to think about this.

I'll see you later,

A Temporary Job

2026-06-27T00:00:00+03:00

To tell anyone who reads this page, but not the Patreon/SS Progress Reports: I was running low on funds. I have been working on this game as a "full time" worker, because I have been unemployed. Naturally, due to the laws here, I have also been actively looking for a job. But honestly, you can't spend the whole day on that, it's not how the job market works here in modern days. You just send a lot of applications via websites and hope for the best.

Anyway... short story shorter: I got a job. It's a full day job, so it takes a hefty 11 to 12 hours of my day, if you include travel. So, the game progress will slow the fuck down. Not by choice, but because I need to eat. So there won't be (average) 3 week release cycle anymore, and I won't even guarantee monthly updates.

That said: It's only for several months. So if I am shit out of luck, I will be working on the game "full time" again when winter approaches, and looking for another job. But, regardless the game development won't stop. It just slows down a lot.

Luckily the game engine is mostly done, so that's a positive. I can't imagine trying to build the whole engine when fully employed, but apparently it's possible since some people have done it. Anyway, I only have few big things to build, and after that we're in the "Demo" phase where 90% of the work is "content" and not the engine. Right now it's the other way around. So we're in a good spot, although I do wish I had managed to finish those last few things (Travel & Level Editor) before this. Oh well.