Hey all, I am just gonna give you a heads up that this production update is gonna get more into the rant type territory, and it might get somewhat heavy for some readers, as this entry will discuss a bit briefly of whats been going on in my personal life. And while I usually dont like getting SUPER PERSONAL, even if Im doing it quickly and frantically reader discretion is advised. But first, let me begin with what I have been wanting to say for a while.
Stating this right away: I am not scrapping Stramedia: Injury Plateau. I am not some dude whod get the game page up on Steam only to cancel it a whopping year later. ...Its been much longer than that. LMAO. Okay, but lets be serious though. I am not gonna over-exaggerate the technical situation Im facing, but I am still gonna say it just the way it really is. So, long story short, starting this September, I will be migrating back to Construct 3. Ive had more luck with it throughout the games development, it has gotten a bit more features I can see myself utilizing in the game, and not to mention, if I were to give any more money, its to a small group of British fellas who know what theyre doing and providing something thats actually stable than paying off whatever runtime fee Unity is still having for versions 2023.X, Unity 6 and from these points onwards. And I am yet to reference certain unnecessary bloat feats Unity is focusing on instead of... you know, something more stable, as of late. Do note that this will revert the visual direction from 2.5D/semi-3D visuals back to full 2D, but at this point, Id rather focus on finishing the game by keeping it simple. I could have gone for Godot, but I am thinking of saving it for another game project. I do have the C3 project file of Stramedia from 2021-2022 I can redo its code into something cleaner and more useable, so the re-transition will be quicker. Plus, this will mean that Ill have no reason to attempt to dual boot back into Windows on my Linux-transitioning journey I have going on on the side, because... While Im sure everyone knows what Microsoft has been doing, so that aside, after all the multiple en mass layoffs at Unity, I honestly doubt there are any Linux programmers left to maintain the Linux versions of the Unity Editor, cos I keep facing crashes when 1)I try to change the game resolution on the Game window during Play mode, 2)I try to change it AFTER Play mode, 3)I open the specific file/object inspector menu for the variable I wanna change, 4)Sometimes it crashes when I finish opening the game project, 5)Even when the engine is only halfway through opening the game project. 6)Bonus: Its so not well maintained, that it even crashes on Wayland (with X11 backwards compatibility enabled) after the project is open. Ive done all I could do to try fix it all, I followed the installation guide too, and I even ran it on the GNOME Desktop Environment that was recommended [strike](even though I am more of a KDE Plasma freak, cos GNOME DE is not for me, but I am not yucking your yum here)[/strike], but sadly, at least on my end, I couldnt get Unity to work properly. Before you try suggesting anything for me to try, allow me to leave a note that I also did some of the following: [olist]

as well as considering reinstalling Windows on a different disk drive for dualbooting, which isnt ideal with all the considerable recent shenanigans Microsoft has been up to for a while; [/olist] Besides, after awhile, the project got locked up by some stupid artifact file. Deleting it would not let the loading process make any progress at all, and it just gets stuck there. So, currently, the Unity iteration of the game is in a SOL state. And I can only blame Unity Technologies for that, as well as Microsoft for so many reasons. [hr][/hr] Side-note: This whole section is just purely for me to talk about MY experience with that stuff, if not, then its for transparency sake, and again I am not gonna tell you to switch to something else if you find your current OS or program tolerable enough to use for what you normally use it for, or at least have some reasons to stick to it. If your current OS or program works for you, then thats great! More power and patience to you! Literally to each their own! :P Personally, I have honestly been having a good time using Linux, as outside of game development and gaming (for gaming, I have a Steam Deck for that, hurhurhur), I only really use my PC to surf the web, draw stuff - as well as risqu and questionable stuff, especially for my Patreon -, and it does a pretty good job at all of that stuff with a bonus courtesy of Microsoft staying out of my private space and me being able to continue doing my stuff while my system updates in the background (which is pretty cool that I dont have to stare at the updating screen for hours when I instead could have used those hours to watch Despicable Me 4 or something).
I also hire-for-purchased a laptop and installed Fedora Linux ontop of it for quicker day-job office work, as well as drafting up other stuff like this updates draft purely out of boredom, cos the office equipment here has slower specs, and to top it all off they run Windows 10 maximum, one of them has one of those optimizer bloatware programs running that ironically slows the system down even more as well as slowing down the boot up process. In short: nearly unusable office tech has driven me crazy enough to start paying bimonthly debts for the next six months from now on to own a more powerful laptop. And keep Linux on that. Speaking of my day-job...
I had a pretty good discussion about it with my boss, and we even took notes of some stuff that we will be resolving, so I am able to actually do something at work, all while having even more time to work on the game, as well as other stuff on the side. Because, I will be honest? While I am okay with how much it pays me, I have been feeling like I dont really deserve to have a salary of a category-VI crane rigger for often being on standby mode throughout my shifts, as my partner described it once. And I usually perform office related assignments, sometimes deliver documents from one building to another. I often get exhausted in anticipation for a task that ends up not being assigned to me for one reason or another, and at times it even makes my work schedule completely inconsistent. And the fact that I still have to go home by train then by foot from work is not helping in the slightest, cos by the time I would return home and I have been meaning to work on the game and other stuff? I often find myself deciding Id rather lie down on the couch, mindlessly browse YouTube until I decide to fall asleep at 7 PM and wake up at 2:30 AM. And that is not good in the slightest! Not just for the game, also not just for my day-job, but just in general. So, after discussing all that with my boss, him and I will be trying out a different workflow for me that will hopefully solve the scheduling problem, as well as helping me feel less like dead weight, and being able to work more on my stuff after doing actual important stuff that my boss usually would need to do, while its been taking him away from even more important stuff. So, really, were gonna be helping each other out. By the time this update is published, I may be already trying this out or finally have taken that workflow route, but either way, I feel like this is gonna be a step in the right direction.
[quote]This specific section mentions the following: near-death experiences, varying kinds of abuse, pet death, notes that may or may not be implying potential intentions of self-harm. If you wish to skip it due to aforementioned contents, I am giving you an opportunity to unroll it, because I understand.[/quote] [expand type=details expanded=true] Overall, Ive still been struggling to mentally recover after my sudden return back in February, and as if that wasnt bad enough already, my family and I faced some other problems that were equally mentally taxing. The past 12 months overall have been but a stressful shitstorm. Imagine this: you get a job, you also get the analysis results that youre eligible for mandatory [REDACTED] that puts you in a mental breakdown, you also need to retake a few tests cos some results somehow become outdated in less than a month, get food poisoned that you also vomit blood and you need to be immediately rushed into ER, and despite the poorer health condition you get conscripted into [REDACTED], all the medicine prescripted to you get confiscated from you on the spot for weeks, and you lose your personal space, endure verbal and mental abuse, threats of violence and sexual abuse (which is one of the last things youd want to go through, especially after recently, at the age of 21, finally cutting contact with someone that same year whos been grooming you for over five years since you were 13 years old), including death threats over not meeting some perfection standards, wind up in the infirmary from being forced into doing things during the bad weather that you know is hazardous to your health that there is a huge disregard of, try to survive your time in said (freezing) infirmary (with molding windows) in anticipation of being hospitalized due to suspected Adjustment Disorder, which turns out to be a confirmed diagnosis and youre immediately transferred back home with a lower health category, but youre still traumatized. You werent compensated for all the moral damage you received, either, but honestly, you would still tell them to shove their apology money up their filthy asses. But no, it doesnt stop there: you try to return to your job only to soon be surprised to learn that if you dont transfer to another workspace youll get laid off, cos you werent informed earlier that you were taking someone elses position this whole time while they were on maternal leave, which also makes you feel like an asshole for taking that spot in the first place! And after a rough transition with issues caused by people not giving proper directions for what to do and where to go next, your new employers sometimes have no idea what to do with you, because they werent expecting you, they had no available vacancies for you at the time either, but they had to accept you in anyway because the leadership from other departments told them to, just keeping you listed in a different place for the time being. Then your pet is put down, since his lymph cancer was discovered way too late - it potentially was progressing aggressively fast as well - and the cat was already in so much pain and there was nothing else anyone could do to help the poor animal at that point, and then one of your older family members in another city had a health scare... but right now theyre doing fine and the medics didnt find any signs of it being a heart infarction, and while two of the family members you live with are visiting them while one of them is given full vacation days, theyve been discussing setting up a surveillance system so if the older family member is to have another health scare, a more swift action could be taken... Thats how my past 12 months have been. I really wish I was fine, but I am not. Im not fine. I cant even work on the project to take my mind off of those events, because to be honest, I really need a fucking break, and I am still yet to earn my vacation days. I would honestly rather just lie down in bed and sleep through the rest of the year listening to Jack Staubers music on loop and do nothing else. But as much as I would want that, I still find myself doing some activities to ease my mind a little, even going outside when I have free time, exercising every once in a bit, so I dont end up doing something extremely drastic to myself. And maybe I should take my mind off from working on Stramedia for a long time, and maybe work on something more lighthearted on the side until I feel like I am back in the right state of mind. Perhaps I could also end up releasing something made in Construct 3 while I re-learn how to use it again before moving onto something else like Godot? Who knows, really? If I end up doing any of that, Ill be sure to update you all on that, assuming you are still watching this space. Because while I wish I was joking, these series of events have been seriously impairing this games development flow that much on a personal level, all the technical bullshit addressed earlier aside. And I really need to find a healthy way to cope and recover from... just about everything, really! [/expand] [quote]In brief summary: It's gonna take a very long time to recover from what I've endured, and more recent events certainly haven't been helping in the slightest. But I still find things to distract myself from specific thoughts.[/quote]
So, for now, I am just in the state of working and figuring things out, and probably will still continue doing so for the foreseeable future. And that also applies to the way I wanna make the game, cos I am still getting more ideas, realizing that some of the present ones, including certain key promises, to be something I really dont feel like fits the game anymore, that I might as well save them for another one. The games already been in development for so long, I really should sort all things out and finally get the game out, as well as flipping feature creep off, cos... thats a whole other can of worms to discuss, but if I were to start talking about that now, Id be stuck here for all eternity, keeping this update log in the drafts indefinitely. Now, because of me finally changing some things up, I can definitely see myself finally starting getting productive again with better tools on a newer OS environment (outside of drawing stuff that no one under the age of 18 should be seeing), so I can definitely have something more to share with all of you! Not just secret devlogs for those eager to chip in a few bucks per month, but I am also talking about finally having something PLAYABLE for those eager to be chipping a few bucks per month, because frankly, its about time I finally did something like this, and I dont know why it has been taking me that long to do that, but... soon enough that wont be a problem anymore! Maybe at some point Ill even have something good to share to the public! Who knows! (And I should also renovate my Patreon page in some areas and work on offering better tiers depending on where people are coming from and what specifically are they looking for, whenever its the simple stuff, higher quality pics of more risque contents that should not be viewed by the kiddos that should be STAYING IN SCHOOL INSTEAD, secret production updates, or a bit of... everything, I guess?) But yeah, when I do sort all that out, youll learn of that exactly right... here! Exactly where youre reading this production update!
So, yeah! Despite all the doom and gloom Ive been through, I feel like things are starting to look up much brighter now! As always, I want to give you my genuine thanks for following me along on this bizarre journey and especially bigger thanks to some good folks dropping by to support me on Patreon (at patreon.com/polyvishap ~ WARNING: FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE CAPABLE OF BEING FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AND AGED 18+ ONLY due to mixed contents), And this train aint stopping any time soon, so, You will be hearing from me again! Take good care of yourselves! [hr][/hr]