Kept you waiting, huh?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Ok, sorry. It's been two WEEKS since my last update, my bad, my bad. Life has been full of outings, excursions, doings, comings AND goings. I'm not gonna do little subdivders and headers this week, so just sit back and enjoy my droning.

The main exciting news is I'm going to be moving soon. Same city, just different location. I've spent a considerable amount of the past weeks packing up my things and getting them ready. Luckily, I don't own too many things, so moving shouldn't be that much of a hassle. I've still got quite a bit of work to do, though... so that's gonna have to take priority over working on Negative Reverie until it's done.

Also, ya boy went camping. How fun.
You'd think, what with being out in the grand splendor of nature, I would have taken some pictures, but no... the only picture I took was of my friends foot with his dang toes out. Opportunity squandered successfully.

Breaking up my ranting with some screenshots of new content. :)

Since we last spoke, I beat Corpse Party and played through Anthology of the Killer. I was REALLY expecting to like Corpse Party and I did like it... a little bit... but it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth and I ended up resenting it a little bit.
Anthology of the Killer, on the other hand, was like discovering a new favorite flavor. One of my favorite things that I have played in the past few years, for sure. I think it got me interested in poetry.

I wrote some backlogged reviews of them, if you want more of my opinions:
Corpse Party: https://backloggd.com/u/TwirlinCurtis/review/4767195/
Anthology of the Killer: https://backloggd.com/u/TwirlinCurtis/review/4773571/

This room is a nod to a scene in a famous horror movie. A shiny penny to anyone who can guess what the movie is.

For now, I'm back to playing a little bit of the Lunar remaster before bed time every night in Japanese and it's going pretty well. What I'm REALLY excited for is that Tales of Eternia Remaster coming out in October. I was PRAYIN' that Bamco was gonna redo the classic Tales games, since they've been re-releasing the modern ones for all systems, and my prayers may have been answered! I feel a little silly about looking forward to them, seeing as I purchased physical copies of most of the classic ones on PS1, but whatever. Just let me have this one.

I saw Obsession and Backrooms on the same trip out. What a one-two punch of good films. I don't have to much to say about them other than that I do recommend them.

Ok, Negative Reverie stuff.

I'm still grinding away at locations. It isn't glamorous, but it has to be done. The good news is that the completion percentage just keeps rising, baby!

FORTY PERCENT. WOO WOO WOO!

At this pace, I might be done with the locations sooner than I thought and I can finally move on to cutscene scripting!

....and then after that....

...I have to make... ya know... the "game" part of the game. Yeesh! So much work.

You know.... *this* part.

That's just the cost of doing business, baby! You know what they say, "Shoot for the moon and be damned to working on your project for a whole DECADE."

Typing that last sentence has me in the mood to share some ruminations with y'all. I've been thinking a lot about the value of making games and art and the like. I've never been fully convinced that making little personal art projects is "the most important thing" or anything... if anything, it seems a little frivolous. Perhaps some kind of grassroots political action would be a better use of my time...
Not that I'm quitting, mind you. I'm DEDICATED to making this game HAPPEN! I just wonder about what I will do next, once the process is over.
Iirc, I think one of the things that inspired me the most to make a video game was just the appreciation of how some artists put their SOUL and SWEAT into a project. I've never been the most focused or disciplined person, so the challenge of putting your whole ass into a massive project has always seemed like the stuff of legend. Even now, I have YouTube on in the background to provide a nice audio distraction from having to be totally locked in. I wonder why I'm so uncomfortable with focusing 100% on something... who can say! Much to consider.

ANYWAY, that wasn't exactly a fully formed thought or anything. Just a quick peek into what kinds of nighttime thoughts I regularly have. Do they mean anything? Who knows.

You tell em, Scaltra!

WELL! All things considered, I'm feeling pretty inspired at this moment in time, so no worries. I have the DRIVE and at least some time to dedicate to Negative Reverie, so I'm gonna keep blasting away at it! Thanks for tolerating 2 missing weeks of devlogs and sticking it out!

Be safe out there and I'll see you back here next Sunday for more updates and ruminations! WAHOO! MUAH!