Hello, how is everyone doing?
Oh?

...Oh.

Huh.

I see, sorry to hear that. I guess I can only hope things get better for you from there.


So anyway, where was I?... Oh yeah.

So, I just wanted to write a quick follow-up to the previous public production update, because I have quickly found some things out for myself that’s quite ridiculous enough for me that it’s impossible to ignore, so, here it goes:

Funny name for this section, right?

So, remember how I mentioned I’ve been having problems with the Linux version of the Unity Engine Editor?

So, turns out all this time the constant crashes I faced happened because Unity is allergic to any Linux distro that isn’t explicitly Ubuntu or any of it’s spins.

I mean, I know that Ubuntu was listed as a requirement, but god damn, really dawg?! What if I don’t like using Ubuntu? What repositories are you even using that Fedora, Pop!_OS and other distros are missing?!? LOL how do you fumble it up so hard i don’t understand

Also, not even three weeks later after I posted the public update, I get this message from Unity in my email inbox.
lol
lmao even

Right, so let me say what I make of this.

Honestly, good on Unity for disposing of the thing that made a lot of game developers like myself leave their engine en masse, but I am still not gonna use it as my solely primary game engine, or at least while I don’t find using it extremely necessary. I am still gonna toy around with Construct trying to make something while I am taking a break from Stramedia, all while also sorting out plans for it’s development, so I get a clearer concrete direction of what I want of it and how I am gonna handle it.

I can definitely say that I will still use both Construct and Unity, though I am not gonna mark either as a primary engine of choice - it will depend on what kind of stuff I would like to make. Plus, variety is always nice.

But what I can’t exactly say if Stramedia will still be developed using Unity. I guess it will now depend on either of the several - hypothetical - factors:

1 – I would do it if I would like to do things that aren’t possible within Construct’s technical limits;
2 – I won’t be able to figure out a fix crucial to the game’s functionality;
3 – I can figure out a proper configuration and workflow to playtest the game while ensuring the compiled builds don’t stink, both technically and visually, AND the playtesting window isn’t all stuttery;
4 – Having to pull “The Escapists” when it will come to develop console versions of Stramedia, but it will depend if I’ll be able to afford being able to pull something off like that. (to understand the reference: the original PC version of The Escapists was developed in Clickteam Fusion, meanwhile the console and mobile ports were co-developed using Unity.)
5&6 – Mostly what I’ll decide based on player feedback or actually feel like using Unity again, granted, which won’t be very often.

As a bonus to factors numbered 3-6, if I would want to develop console versions of the game and compile Windows builds translated to C++ while developing in Unity, and I have jumped over to Linux as my primary operating system, I would have to install Windows on a separate hard drive, because the tools necessary for C++ Windows builds are... well... locked within Windows. And I also would want to be able to easily remove said hard drive if I decide that I am done with Windows’ shenanigans.

So, it will take some time before I make a big final decision.

So, until then, here’s a header image shaped hyperlink leading you to other places where you can be notified of smaller news. If you wish to continue watching this space, that's fine, too.
[stramediagame.neocities.org]See ya' eventually!

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 what’s been going on in my personal life. And while I usually don’t like getting SUPER PERSONAL, even if I’m 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 who’d get the game page up on Steam only to cancel it a whopping year later.

...It’s been much longer than that. LMAO.

Okay, but let’s be serious though. I am not gonna over-exaggerate the technical situation I’m 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. I’ve had more luck with it throughout the game’s 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, it’s to a small group of British fellas who know what they’re doing and providing something that’s 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, I’d 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 it’s code into something cleaner and more useable, so the re-transition will be quicker.

Plus, this will mean that I’ll 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 I’m sure everyone knows what Microsoft has been doing, so that aside, after all the multiple en massé 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: It’s so not well maintained, that it even crashes on Wayland (with X11 backwards compatibility enabled) after the project is open.
I’ve 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 (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), but sadly, at least on my end, I couldn’t 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:

1. try running the Windows version of Unity through Bottles, but the only roadblock I got stuck on is literally the Unity Hub login process that returns an error if it receives a request from a web browser that is not running on Windows, as it would normally expect (or at least I assume so) – I wanted to trick it into thinking exactly that by trying to set up a Windows web browser on Bottles, but assuming I may be missing some dependencies necessary for it and other browsers to work, I couldn’t get it to launch. I could try this again with a different approach, but at this point it wouldn’t be for developing Stramedia;
   
2. running Unity in a virtual machine;
   
3. as well as considering reinstalling Windows on a different disk drive for dualbooting, which isn’t ideal with all the considerable recent shenanigans Microsoft has been up to for a while;

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.

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Side-note: This whole section is just purely for me to talk about MY experience with that stuff, if not, then it’s 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 that’s 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 risqué 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 don’t 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 update’s 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 don’t 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 I’d 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 it’s been taking him away from even more important stuff. So, really, we’re 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.

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.

[expand type=details expanded=true]
Overall, I’ve still been struggling to mentally recover after my sudden return back in February, and as if that wasn’t 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 you’re 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 you’d want to go through, especially after recently, at the age of 21, finally cutting contact with someone that same year who’s 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 you’re immediately transferred back home with a lower health category, but you’re still traumatized. You weren’t 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 doesn’t stop there: you try to return to your job only to soon be surprised to learn that if you don’t transfer to another workspace – you’ll get laid off, cos you weren’t informed earlier that you were taking someone else’s 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 weren’t 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 they’re doing fine and the medics didn’t 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, they’ve 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...

That’s how my past 12 months have been. I really wish I was fine, but I am not. I’m not fine. I can’t 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 Stauber’s 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 don’t 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, I’ll 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 game’s 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]

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.

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 don’t feel like fits the game anymore, that I might as well save them for another one. The game’s 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... that’s a whole other can of worms to discuss, but if I were to start talking about that now, I’d 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, it’s about time I finally did something like this, and I don’t know why it has been taking me that long to do that, but... soon enough that won’t be a problem anymore! Maybe at some point I’ll 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 it’s 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, you’ll learn of that exactly right... here! Exactly where you’re reading this production update!

So, yeah! Despite all the doom and gloom I’ve 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 https://patreon.com/polyvishap ~ WARNING: FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE CAPABLE OF BEING FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE AND AGED 18+ ONLY due to mixed contents),

And this train ain’t stopping any time soon, so,

You will be hearing from me again!

Take good care of yourselves!

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