Dev Diary: PANPC 2.0.12 (dev-6)

“The answer seems to be that we make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. With the endless inventiveness of humankind, we grasp the very elements which are so divisive and destructive and try to turn them into tools—to dismantle themselves.”
- Stephen King, "Danse Macabre" (1981)

Every so often, I stop and find myself forced to reflect on why any of us do any of this. Coding, writing, going to work, drinking coffee, watching TV. Any of it.

Meaning in life is so dependent on where you're standing, where you've been, where you happen to be looking at the time. There are no truly privileged positions in the universe, no true high ground where you may stand forever and see everything. We're all part of the picture itself, players in the drama, and that means the view we see is never complete. We're in the frame.

And that's hard to deal with sometimes. Because things happen, things that are too big, cover too much ground, defy any ready context. The real horrors make their appearances. And all you can do then is try to build new contexts and outlets and stories, and try to keep marching forward, living with the knowledge of that monster's cold immediate reality for the rest of your life.

A few years ago - I think this was late 2018 - I took a nine-month break from PANPC because I was burned out. I also had begun to worry, in an abstract kind of way, if I was actively contributing to the world's problems, encouraging modes of thought that I disagreed with while washing my hands of responsibility. When I came back to begin the 1.8 series, I approached PANPC from different design directions and with different long term priorities.

All along, I had that Stephen King quote in my head. I remembered reading Danse Macabre in high school in the late 1980s, and thinking that I understood what he meant. I didn't understand a goddamned thing. I was a kid; I hadn't yet met the real horrors. I only imagined that I had.

About two weeks ago, I sat chatting on GG with the fine folks in the private mod authors channel, shooting the shit about how hard it is to navigate around Papyrus script lag in a real time shooter video game. We were all batting things back and forth, as we do, and I suddenly had a thought - huh - check the CK wiki - confirm - huh - wait one second I need to go test something. Huh. I can't believe that worked.

I realized, in that moment, that I had the solution to real time reactions in PANPC. It would work. We would do this slow, incrementally, maybe over the next handful of versions, as I got the time to test things out. I had plenty of time; no rush. But this would be cool. It'd be fun.

And then, last Tuesday afternoon, I was stopped at a traffic light, and was hit head on by a 5,000 pound sport pickup, a death machine going fast enough through a 25 mph school zone to flip itself vertically, end over end, three times after it hit me.

And I somehow walked away, my car totaled, virtually uninjured.

So you could say that I've been dealing with stuff. I'm still dealing with stuff. I'll probably be dealing with stuff for a long time. 

And one of the ways I've dealt with stuff over the last week has been in code: brutal optimization, ruthless redesigns, repeatedly telling my 2018 self to go to hell while the grown up works. Testing and testing and testing. Knocking things off the list. Ripping it all apart and putting it all back together again.

Angry, in shock, inspired, depressed, scattered, focused, cold, hot, crying, screaming.

I couldn't fix anything else, but by God I could fix this.

Nope, not taking our time anymore. Getting this done now.

There's no time left to put off anything.

And now I think we really have something special here. I have a few last things to finish and some final polishes, but 2.0.12 is on track for a release on Friday. I'm hearing good things from the test and prerelease teams. You can see it all at work in the above video by Cryss.

The new grenade dodges are certainly eliciting player reactions. Oh yes.

But over the last week, I've really come to understand what King meant, about why we indulge ourselves in invented terrors and fictional horrors. It's how we moderns sit around the campfire, sharing our tales of life and death with the rest of the village, before setting down our burdens for the day and going to bed. 

It's how we cope with real things, things that are too big to cope with.

It's what we humans do, why we humans are still around: we have the ability to meet the monster, live with it, and prepare our loved ones for the day when they inevitably will meet it, too. Sometimes you do that with words, sometimes with paint or music, and sometimes you do it with code. I'm just grateful for having something to do it with, good people to do it for, and to have a bit more time in which to do it.

Stay safe, wherever you are. Appreciate the time you have.

Best,

- G.