What's up gamers, here is this month's update!

This month has been really good for development despite the fact that I spent the last week bedridden from COVID. Prior to that I was making huge progress towards full game completion now that I'm happy with where the demo is at. I feel strongly oriented in the right direction.

Major accomplishments:

• Built the next 2 point-and-click scenes
• Discovered & fixed a bunch of bugs (edge cases not present in the demo)
• New job that will hopefully be a good long-term fit to support work on Amadeus
• Perhaps most importantly: started reworking how I manage this project.

A little more on some of these points follows, and some announcements/communications updates at the very end!

TL;DR: I've figured out how to set goals for myself in a way that motivates me without getting in my own way. Also, expect fewer miscellaneous posts, because I'm going to focus more on development than marketing until the game is nearly complete.

(Monthly devlogs will stay. They keep me accountable and motivated; I enjoy looking back on what I've done each month.)

Development Progress & Bug Fixes

Dartmaure now has a downtown you can actually walk around in! ...See if you can spot the placeholder asset.

It was while coding the interaction with said placeholder that I found one of many new bugs—this one to do with having the first speaking sprite in a conversation on the right instead of the left. This scene also had issues with loading a save that has to handle a screen transition. Neither of these were problems in the demo because the demo had neither initial speakers on the right, nor save progression flags that involved a screen transition.

Good news is these known problems have been addressed now, and it's all working properly!

I expect I'll discover more things that need fixing as I continue to build out further scenes. This month has taught me that every new scene contains potential new untested edge cases. That said, I've kind of impressed myself with how easily I seem to be fixing new bugs.

I made my life difficult by coding all of the game's mechanics myself, but because of that I am intimately familiar with how it works (and where I've applied band-aids). It also turns out that building out this janky engine for 2 years has made me much better at Unity C#! By the time I finish I might almost be competent at it.

I've already caught myself having some goalpost-moving thoughts ("what if I worked on controller support?" - my useless brain) but so far I've successfully pushed them aside and focused on finishing what I've already laid the foundation to build. I would love to make controller support a reality for Episode 2; maybe I'll add an Episode 1 patch for that once it's built. Maybe. But I'm very firm that any new functionality is a matter for the future, after Episode 1's initial release.

Now that I've finalized the core mechanics for Episode 1, building two scenes went pretty smoothly. I was unable to finish more than that due to losing over a week from COVID... but having two more already feels really good.

I'll be working on building the next ones in February. We'll see how that goes in the next devlog!

On Micromanaging

I've started rethinking how I manage this project, because with the new job I will have less free time and energy than I did before. I do still think that I can make it happen. The new job will give me free mornings (it's an afternoon shift) and a 3-day weekend (it's a 4-day work week) along with benefits, and it's work I hope to find personally fulfilling. The arrangement will be more stable long-term than what I was doing last year.

However, I will be losing about 12 hours of personal time a week.

Consistently carving out time for Amadeus without burning out on this new schedule is going to require active and thoughtful adjustment.

The truth is that for the past several months, I have been micromanaging myself too much. Micromanaging can help in the final stages of development: in that case, the reward of meeting a major benchmark is enough to justify the stress getting there. But now that I am back in a "long to-do list" phase of development, it's simply counterproductive. If I'm not motivated on the overly specific task(s) I've assigned myself, then I either don't do anything, or I do the "wrong" thing instead and don't feel rewarded for what I did accomplish.

So, for the next couple months—while getting the game closer to completion, but not yet in the "game built, now for final polish" stage—I'm moving to a different strategy. I've set big-picture goals to aim for for each month, but on any specific day, I simply block out an hour and a half and say "this is Amadeus Time." January's goal was to get the next 4* scenes fully built out. Every day, I just opened up the next unfinished scene and worked on it until the clock said I was done.

Those scenes got done fast.

*(Note: the 4 scene goal was way too optimistic; without COVID, I still think I would have only been able to do 3. I'll be adjusting my timeline to better reflect this more reasonable expectation.)

It's kind of nuts how much I can get done in an hour and a half if I just let myself work instead of worrying about what I'm working on, keeping in mind the big-picture monthly goals as a general directional compass. The removed stress of whether or not I am accomplishing the specific things I am "supposed" to accomplish has freed so much mental space for me to just work on stuff, and the only box I have to check off for the day is a box that says "did today's Amadeus Time."

February's goals are similar to January's: get the next handful of scenes built out. I'm aiming for 3 more, with the caveat that I may be set back by adjusting to the new job. This "build the next 3-ish scenes" monthly format will be the norm until the full and complete game is technically playable and functionally all-in.

Then, it will be time for final assets, polish, playtesting, script revisions, finding a billion bugs, fixing those and finding some more bugs, marketing, more marketing, more marketing, and shipping this baby!

Comms Updates

Speaking of marketing~ there is something pretty cool coming up soon. Look out for a bonus announcement around the end of February!

Also speaking of marketing, because I am about to have less free time after the job switch, you will likely be hearing less from me outside of these monthly devlogs and the occasional bonus announcement. In fact, you might have already noticed a drop in regularity on the Tumblr blog posts and other social media.

("What Tumblr blog," you ask? I'm so glad you asked. All Amadeus resources can be found at linktr.ee/amadeusgame!)

(The most important feature of the Tumblr blog is that it now has a fanart page.)

This drop in activity is because, given the choice between spending my time working on the game or spending my time posting about it, I'd rather work on it. I can direct more energy to marketing once the game is done or close to it. I am very aware of how valuable spare time is, and I want to prioritize mine according to what matters to me.

This does not mean that I'm disappearing off of the internet—I will make posts in all of the relevant spaces when there are specific items I'd like to share. I will continue to put out these monthly devlogs with major updates. It's just keeping up with the more regular, smaller stuff that is no longer a priority.

So please don't take a lack of consistent posting to mean the game isn't being worked on. It's the opposite! I'm prioritizing working on it over everything else until the game is near complete.

If you'd like to stay somewhat connected in the meantime, you are welcome and encouraged to join our tiny Discord server or send an ask on the Tumblr blog. If you have any questions about how the game is coming along, please reach out! I check these often and would love to hear from you. This mini-announcement is just meant to be reassurance that less posting is a good thing, for where I am currently at. I'm spending my time and energy wisely.

Finishing this game is the most important thing to me in the world. I will see it through.

Thank you for your trust and continued interest!

Other Gaming News

• Note for indie developers: I cannot overstate the importance of playing some stupid video games every now and then. Earlier this month I played through Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) and somehow that directly translated to getting 800% more Amadeus work done after the fact. That game is a masterpiece.
• This month I also had the incredible opportunity to record cello for the music in ENDYSIS's collaborative fairy tale VN, Trail of Stars. The game came out absolutely stunning. Please check it out!