Weeknotes 165

Blimey, February doesn’t last long, does it?

Almost fully recovered, again, from a cold. No more colds for a bit please.

I couldn’t find the time or energy for streaming this week.

I’m a little anxious about the risk of dropping the ball entirely on this project. I often have odd moments when I’m in the mood to hack on the code for a bit, but not in the mood to stream myself doing it since that’s obviously more of an imposition.

If/when the streaming dries up entirely I’ll give myself permission to tinker with it in private instead. I don’t want to surrender prematurely though.

I’m still really enjoying The Last of Us and appreciating their adaptation decisions. I hope it doesn’t become rushed now there are only two episodes left to tell the rest of the first game’s story.

I tried the first three episodes of Hello Tomorrow! but it was pretty dull and empty so I think I’ve given up on it.

I finished Double Fine PsychOdyssey and feel sad that it’s over. It’s a remarkably detailed document of a single creative project, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who’s ever worked on a thing.

I found it fascinating to watch meetings without participating in them. It provides complete freedom to analyse the situation and be judgemental about everyone’s behaviour without having to actually pay attention, which is ideal.

It’s hard to say much without spoiling it, but basically I think Tim Schafer comes across as the ultimate source of the various problems that plagued the game’s production, even though nobody who works at Double Fine seems willing or able to blame him because they all think the sun shines out of his bum.

Emily and Gigi are unimpeachable imo.

My curiosity got the better of me and I started playing Psychonauts 2.

In an earlier draft of these notes I wrote several paragraphs of detailed complaints, but I don’t want to be pointlessly negative, so let’s delete those and just say it wasn’t to my taste. If you want a delivery mechanism for more of Tim’s whimsical dialogue, it definitely succeeds at that; if you want a polished 3D platformer with satisfying controls and combat, it falls almost amateurishly short of the mark.

The documentary shows that the development process was meandering and scattershot, and I think that comes across clearly in the game. It’s stuffed with creative ideas but I didn’t find them coherent or satisfying, and it would need a lot more polish before I’d be able to straightforwardly enjoy it without getting distracted by all the problems. Still, it’s a miracle they shipped anything at all under the circumstances, and I do appreciate it as an artistic achievement of a group of talented people.

On Tuesday I met Chris for some rejuvenating conversation and Erlenmeyer flasks of coffee. It might have been a bit optimistic to sit outside but it woke me up.

I went to Brighton on Friday to see Alice. We chatted and laughed and wandered down to the sea and ate bao and doughnuts. Perfect.