A Story About Me

Hello everyone! I’ll be dropping the usual greeting since this post isn’t going to be “in-character” like a normal blog post, this one’s gonna be a bit more personal. I want to fill everyone in on the stuff that’s been happening behind the scenes these past few months. Some of it is happy, some of it is sad. If you just want to skip to where this affects TUSSLE and what’s coming in the future, please feel free to skip to the bolded stuff later on.

I’ve been intentionally vague with the things happening lately because I don’t want to feel like I’m trying to milk sympathy points or make excuses for slow progress. I’ll own up to the fact that I’m not particularly good at time management, and have spent way too much time on Runescape and Smash Bros lately, so I don’t want this to be seen as excuses, just explanations.

First, the good distractions. Those of you who follow me on Twitter might know that my wife is an artist and we were working a booth at SabotenCon last weekend (If you didn’t know, check her out! She’s really good!). We had a great time at the convention, but I haven’t been able to get any work done between packing, working the convention, and cleanup, but that’s all over with for a few more months until our next convention.

Next, the sad distractions. While we were out at SabotenCon in Arizona, my Mother, in New Mexico, passed away. She had been dealing with a long-standing illness and it was not sudden. We’ve known for quite some time and I’ve had time to process it and I’m okay. This is partially responsible for the depressive slump I was in about a month or so ago when progress ground to a halt. Although I was not there with her in her final moments, due to the medicine, and the degenerative effects of the disease, she was not conscious or cognizant for several weeks, and I was able to spend most of her last truly aware days with her. There are still many affairs that need to be put in order, and other family members who I need to be there for, so I haven’t even looked at TUSSLE code since I got back in town. I’m actually finding myself thinking about work as a sort of distraction lately, so I don’t expect to be out of the zone for long.

Now, onto the relevant bits for people who don’t want to deal with my personal baggage: what’s gonna happen next?

Let me start by again, apologizing for my slow progress. I’m self-teaching myself every step of the way, and I know I’m doing a lot of it the worst, slowest way possible. And I haven’t gotten much help because, put bluntly, I’m a much worse manager than I am game developer. My code is a mess and I don’t really want to subject other developers to it.

But I will if I have to.

I’ve made a decision and I’m going to stick to it. TUSSLE will be finished by the end of the year. I’m reaching out to artists, programmers, and other incredibly talented individuals to try to help me hurry this along. Once I’ve assembled this A Team of assistants, I’ll introduce everyone, and with their help, I think completing this game by year’s end will be a real possibility. Additionally, I’m a lot less likely to goof off if other people are working alongside me.

I’m glad to everyone who has stuck with me through all of this, and given me something I feel like I can work towards. I hope you’ll stick with me as I kick this puppy into overdrive and work as hard as I’ve ever done to get this project wrapped up once and for all.

Thank you.

-digi