Rush is quite a drug.

You've put it off long enough. There is a stack of work to do and the deadline is fast approaching. Past self has played and laughed and it's time for future self to pay up. In a fit of panic you get started and do three days worth of work in a single night. The quality is fair, the efforts exhausting, and there is little time to rest. At least you had fun until then.

Usually this can be avoided if you just start small and work your way up, but it was my favorite way to work. That strung-out feeling is adrenaline, a chemical your brain produces in response to threats. I'd agree that a deadline is a threat, but it was made that way through the magic of procrastination. While I enjoy rush jobs, I have a problem.

The adrenaline my body produces causes chest pains. Sometimes it's discomfort when I slow down, other times it's terrible pain a day or two after. Here are the two major problems. Little one has about a week and change to be completed, and I'll be trying to build a bigger game within the space of a month. Add to that the last bits of planning for my next project has to be done this month.

Little one doesn't have too much more. The NPCs are done, player seems solid, critters are coming along. I'll have to finish up the critters, add some props, add the parts, and program the upgrades and part fabricators. Most of the programming is already done, I just have to make a ton of assets to add.

Textures and animations will take the most time. I might drop some features and add them later. Beasts and difficulty levels seem like the first to be dropped. The parts needed may be dropped to 20. Simple upgrades will include inventory cells, energy and health boosts. This week is going to be hard.

My next project was to make a game in two months; one bigger than little one. I wish I had spent more time planning, but I should have plenty of resources. Some of the things made for it will be added to Little One and vice-versa.  The map needs added detail and grid separation. For brevity, I'll put together the endings and work backward from there. This game's current design is just a list of notes.

The final two days of this month will be used to flesh out Little One a bit. I'm hoping I can get the opening and ending scenes together, but they'll probably just be vector images. New year's and the day after will be filled with numerous tests and final planning to get my next project up. Once done, I'll furiously prep the player and several resources, mostly from other resources I have. My collection of failures will help this next project succeed.

Everything is burnt.

The wired mouse I normally take with me is failing. It could only be used on flat surfaces, but now it keeps disconnecting. I'm currently using a wireless mouse, but its middle button doesn't really click with me. There is another wired mouse at home, but I don't want it to fail. Either I'll have to acquire a new mouse, or deal with the wireless one when I'm in town.

I haven't been doing much on Little One these past two days, mostly my fault. Pushing myself too hard in any endeavor causes chest pains and burns me out. A health-protecting system my subconscious uses to prevent this pain is just to use burnout and depression against me. Sure, the pain isn't good, but I want to finish Little One this month.

The NPC accessories, animations, and textures are mostly done. Importing and assembling won't take long, but the dialog should still be written. Saturday I'll rest a bit, but I'm just going to ignore my body's protests and slowly pick up speed. The real problem is getting started, once I get momentum, I'm near-unstoppable.When my coding reaches 88 lines per hour, you're going to see some serious bugs.

I'll probably do a ton of planning on my two-month project this weekend. I'll have to get the planning done on that by month's end as well. Normally that would add more work and stress, but zero-sort is another stress reduction method.

Zero-sort operates on high-low impact balancing. If something causes higher stress than benefits, ignore it or break it down. Low-impact (result) options can also be chucked. When the value isn't worth the effort, postpone or chuck the idea. Bundle many smaller tasks into a relaxing time of fixing things. This is the low-stress low-value tasks that seem too small until enough pile up; it's like dusting off crumbs.Blog posts are low-stress but can have a nice impact. Rushing a few features to get a timely release is high-stress. If you have been regular with your updates, skipping one isn't a big deal.

This method is useful in decisions or cleaning/sorting items. Mainly, make any indecision into a specific answer, like yes or no. If I'm undecided, I almost always choose NO. When cleaning/sorting keep the things you want and get rid of the rest. If you just get rid of the things you don't want, you'll have a lot of maybe items that take up space. If it's clearly useful, keep it. If someone else can use it, pass it on.

I may be my own worst enemy, but I'm one of the few people I can fully depend upon, even if I cant always understand myself.

To Kill an Indie Game Dev

For those of you who don't know, I have a heart condition; two actually. I was born with a congenital heart defect called Tricuspid Atresia. This means the tricuspid heart valve is missing or abnormally developed. The defect blocks blood flow from the right atrium to the right ventricle. A couple surgeries, when I was a few months old and again at two years, "fixed" the problem. I was on medicaid until I was about thirteen, or maybe a little younger. I was living with a guardian who felt it wasn't worth it to pursue my medicaid. My God bless his special heart. That's a southern insult/curse.

At around 16 I moved back with my mother, who had remarried (my father died from cancer when I was about eleven). I got my G.E.D. and mostly did physical labor to earn enough for what I wanted. Went to college, the second time I got degrees in networking and web design. This was a community college and it was almost a decade ago. Then, around early 2017 I noticed my heart didn't feel right.

It felt like someone squeezing my heart. I was out of breath, tingly everywhere, lightheaded, and I felt pressure in my chest. After a week or two of this, I went to the doctor. The EKG machine look about as old as me, but the doctor was skilled and nice. She diagnosed me with Atrial Flutter, a type of abnormal heart rhythm. Atrial Flutter is similar to AFib, but the beats are more regular. Basically, the top chambers of the heart beats 2-3x faster than the bottom chambers. I was originally prescribed aspirin and metoprolol.Later I was taken off aspirin and put on xarelto, another blood thinner.

Let's put this into stark relief for those that don't quite get it. I naturally have a fast heart rate and low blood pressure. The Atrial Flutter is triggered by an increase in my heart rate. The medicines I take lower blood pressure and thin my blood. Even standing can trigger my Atrial Flutter if I don't take my medicine. Most physical activity reduces the effect of my medicine. 

I live in the United States.

It is a shame that I need disability to get medicaid. I just want proper medical treatment for my heart, without being slaughtered by debt. This could have been fixed years ago, but the government is dragging this out, hoping I'll die or get discouraged. Thus, I'll be trying to do what I can to get support, but nobody seems to care. Attempted negligent homicide, and I'm not allowed to properly defend myself..

The symptoms are getting worse. Stress now causes near-debilitating chest pains, and my left arm has gone numb twice in two months. My new years resolution is to remove the threats to my health and well-being; permanently.

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