Still here

Back when I started this blog, the game in mind was:

• survival
• crafting
• simulation (game of life, self-balancing)
• medieval fairytale world
• prioritize usable content/assets, very little static for the sake of just decoration

I chose Rust as the development language because it competes with C++. Back in 2016 when I was going to school for game development, C++ was the hot thang. I'm sure it still is but I wanted something with a convenient package manager and something a bit more turn-key while maintaining performance. Well, about two years into it, my medium-sized code base was no longer "RAD". It was taking 50 seconds for the borrow-checker to do its job before I could test single line of code changes. My former enterprise employer was calling me back to work part time and I decided it was the end of letting the sunk cost fallacy keep me pinned to it. That game was put on the shelf.

Fast forward a few years , part time employment became full time and I worked out a situation where I could hire a developer overseas while working my daytime job. He's great. The idea was simple - start with a POC in a mainstream game engine, build a small game to get something under our belt and eventually, pick that original game back up. 

The POC took ~4 months for us to learn that Unity ECS (entity component system) was just too new-fangled to work with typical rendering/networking code. Our architecture was to remain basic. We'd split up our content into an engine, game and assets set of repos. Our simple game took about two years of development. My brother doing 90% of the art. A couple outside consultants helping here and there.

We're at the precipice of release announcement. Many unknowns in the immediate future. My personal life, beyond this release has never been busier. I recognize the tone of this quick update is a bit drab. While not a place to linger long-term, I think eking out bits of progress to maintain a baseline dopamine level becomes necessary as some point. Have you heard of this triangle? A truthful, joyless tyrant it is.

I'm blessed. I'm excited for what's coming very shortly (days). I'm honored to share the work of others and to conjure just a tiny bit of magic for friends and strangers alike.