Update Status System

Lately I’ve been pretty terrible about keeping up with status reports. This is partly because I’m bad at evaluating how much I actually have left, partly because I hate spending the time it takes trying to figure out a quantifiable amount and reporting it.

Is it total scenes? Is it what aspect I’m currently working on, like writing, visuals or coding? I’m typically jumping around between all of these, and I often don’t have an idea of how long the update itself will be until I can look at it and say, “that’s it!” without feeling like it’s missing something.

But that’s not fair to you, the patrons. You’re supporting the game, and it may not be fully about knowing every detail of the process, but you deserve to at least know how much longer to expect until the next update.

So when I say something like, “I’m over 80% done!” and yet it’s still several more months before even a testing update, you deserve better. Especially when I get deep into things and disappear on here for a month.

I realize that little feature I thought could be finished up in a weekend actually took three weeks. I get stuck on the visuals I thought I had figured out. I edit a scene and realize the reason it’s feeling so familiar is because it basically already happened two episodes ago. And, worst of all from a time perspective, I think, “hey, this is the perfect opportunity for…” and end up adding and extending scenes far more than the original outline.

I try to do the “safe” estimate thing, but taking whatever I think it’ll be an adding 50%, but that hasn’t come close to covering it. 

So, do I have a new solution? Actually, yeah!

It’s a simple one. There’s a site designed for game devs to track their work with a system of cards. You create a bunch of cards for all sorts of categories, put those cards in a deck, and finish them one at a time before adding more cards to your hand.

My original appeal is that it posts directly to Discord, so it gives an idea of what exactly I’m working on at the moment.

I also plan to use it as a way of tracking the progress made by listing off the cards completed in monthly posts on here. Going back to check my finished cards helps remind me everything accomplished.

I’ve been using this for about a month now, and it’s helped with my organization quite a bit. Taking the time to simplify my goals with categories containing all the steps necessary makes it all feel more attainable, and it gives a better picture of what each step will take. 

Organization is great, but motivation can be just as important. I tend to have the bad habit of not celebrating my successes the way I should, as I typically only erase things off my to-do list. Marking them as “done” and seeing a little notification sent to Discord feels like something worth celebrating, and it gives the little happy brain chemicals to make me want to keep going.

Not everything in life has to be a game, but it sure can help sometimes.

So you can track what I'm working on directly with these links for the Hypnosis deck and the Endowed deck, which looks like this.

The links are also in the pinned Links and Resources post for future reference, and the cards post automatically in the status-updates thread in Discord.

This won't necessarily tell you how far along I am, but at least offers you the chance to peak into the back to see what I'm working on at the moment. I plan to use it as a better way of tracking my accomplishments which I can then report here.

Thanks, everyone!