Refining gameplay since last week, but progress is slower than expected. The list of tasks to fix grows a bit faster than it can be reduced. Behind the psychological shield of “posting for the sake of documentation” or “to find glitches,” a weekly dev log gets uploaded that hardly anyone sees. Yet, it’s still disheartening when posting seems to actually reduce the already few followers on social media—even behind that shield, it’s hard not to feel affected. After enduring a series of devastating failures and doubts—to the point of questioning whether this work is pursued simply because it’s the only thing I know, or if it’s a matter of being dragged along in self-deception—I thought I had come to understand that acceptance by the world doesn’t correlate with effort, but it’s still difficult. The saying “effort never betrays” should be changed to “effort promises nothing.” Efforts continue to avoid getting too caught up, whether it’s in social media or in the thought of bringing the world inside my head into reality, or in effort itself.
A bit of a tangent, but about one of my “shields”—the idea of “posting to find glitches”: while creating, I often can’t notice any issues, but after capturing gameplay videos for the dev log and uploading them, glitches suddenly become apparent a day later. I think it’s because during testing, my focus is too narrow, fixed only on what I intend to check. Even right after uploading, I still see only that, but rewatching a day later without any specific expectations makes the glitches stand out. Since I rarely have opportunities to show the game to others or get advice during development, this kind of self-review is incredibly helpful.
Anyway, the show must go on. I aim to finish the list of tasks by next week and start some test runs with a friend. One friend, who even helps with free character modeling work, is assisting with testing, recording full gameplay videos to highlight any issues along the way. I’m truly grateful for this friend’s support, which makes a huge difference on this journey. I’m a bit anxious, wondering how demanding this round of testing will be, as the results are always so different from what I imagine. Sometimes, I also find myself hoping that someday, I too might be able to help someone in my field.