Dev Log Ep4 Week 4: Let's Address the Unicorn in the Room

What's good Bat Fam it's ya boy. Let's dig into a new therapy session with my favorite anthropomorphised chicken man.

Let's get the bad news out the way. The numbers aren't good this week. 45 renders is not really an improvement on last week, but I've been a busy Bat. I know what you're gonna be thinking. You're out here releasing bloody apps now, your attention is split and that's why you're not getting the numbers.

Look, I hear you and I would think the same too, but I'm not like most people. I don't play video games, I don't watch TV. I work my day job, shake that shit off, and I work on the game. Whilst working on the game, us devs encounter problems or things that could be better. That's where Big Bat Library Manager and another tool I have plans to make available come from. My incessant need to fix things and not just tolerate the standard pipeline because it's poor but it works. No. I like to make improvements and, in the process of doing that, I create my own tools. It was only when I shared some of those tools with other developer friends that they asked why I was keeping them to myself. The tools I'll release don't impact my dev time, but they will help Moonlight, which is kind of poetic in a way.

Right, now I have that shit off my chest, let's justify what the fuck I've been up to this last week.

Those 45 renders finished up the end of Scene 3, but it wasn't the finishing touch on the scene. This became the first of three real time sinks this week. Put me on ice and call me Walt because ya boy just busted his nut on the first animation of the update and damn it felt good to shake those cobwebs off.

"Ok, so you made some cartoons. Who gives a shit?"

Damn Dad, just say you're proud of me once, for fuck's sake.

Next was an unexpected time sink. I said last week that I was going to go through what I had written so far for the update and decide where the voiced cut scenes would go. Well, there's going to be four so far and fuck me one of them is wild. I can't wait, I'm so excited.

It wasn't a case of simply copying the text and sending it to the voice actors. I spent one whole evening writing the subtext and synopsis for each scene to give the voice actors context on where the characters are, what their internal thoughts are, and what they really mean when they say "fuck me like one of your French girls."

Then, okay, Scene 3 done, scripts sent, animation done. That all brings me to last night, and this was the part I was dreading most.

This next scene is huge. Getting it wrong undermines the final stages of Episode 3, so that was never going to be an option for me. The scene itself is split into three environments with two animations acting as bookends. When I say I genuinely don't know how I am going to achieve my vision for this scene, I am not bullshitting. But if I can pull it off, if I can deliver 80% of what I see in my head, I'll be one happy little Bat.

So last night I started making one of the environments and it's already looking spot on, getting me so happy I think I might need Maya to hop in his VW Polo and take me back to Toys "R" Us to get another unicorn. I know they are gone, but I'm not ready to accept it yet.

Then I wake up this morning eager to write my dev log before work and I think, hold up, let me take another look at that scene. Then the great idea strikes me to rewrite the whole fucking thing because what I had on the page didn't do the visuals justice. What I have now is even better.

So last week I had shit numbers. This week I have dog-shit numbers. But I did some things that will drive the game forward. I worked damn fucking hard this week.

I hope you all had a great week. Don't forget to join Maya's Patreon for free or hop on his Discord and tell him Bat sent you.

"Why should I fucking do that?"

Look, I hear you. It's petty, but it will make me smile if just one person does it. I'm not asking you to leave a horse's head in his bed or anything.

That covers me legally, right?

Okay, apparently I have to explicitly state be nice to Maya, otherwise the internet police will come for me, and I ain't going back to Guacamole Bay.

Okay, I'm spent.

Somebody get me a glass of milk.

Bat