The frog that leaps half the distance of its preceding hop.

Time is one of those things that... passes painfully but inevitably.

And the passing of one second feels a lot like the passing of one hour, which in turn feels a lot like the passing of one day - and the whole thing curls into an enormous ball of dead time.

And here we are; and almost three weeks have passed.

The whiteboard in this image actually contains the To-Do list from my real whiteboard. How is that for detail?	I played a few games - which is something I've not done enough of in the past few years. This self-portrait is of your humble narrator playing Fez. Although he could easily be playing Proteus or Bit.Trip: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. That's my veiled way of telling you that these are the games I've been playing. I also played Starseed Pilgrim - which is mind-blowingly excellent - and on the whole, the cumulative effect of all of this game-playing has been a broader understanding of what I want to make, as a developer.
And then I meditated. And these sketches are part of that, I suppose. Pondering those fundamental, ever-present questions: "What am I even doing?" "Why am I even doing it?" And then the universe arranged itself around me nicely - which was convenient - and we enter the actual meat of the blog: the update. The real-life events. Firstly; it's been cold. And I've been tired. So here is a self-portrait as I sit awake at 2am thinking about how good my hot coffee will be in the morning.	The Google Doodle of the day was a dedication to Saul Bass. I'm a fan.
It's almost like a religious rendering. David and Goliath. Michael and Satan. St. George and the Dragon. Beowulf and Grendel. Joshua and the Freezer.	While procrastinating, I defrosted the freezer (which blew out our fusebox thrice within two days). I'm impulsive, so I did it with a steak-knife and fury; as opposed to a saucepan, warm-water and patience. I wouldn't make a good farmer; I'd keep digging up the seeds to see if they'd sprouted. And what does any of this have to do with game development? With Cube and Star (A Love Story) or with Doppler Interactive as a whole? Why - it's the background. It adds color.

Did you read this far?

I actually have news. A good amount of news. Pretty big news, I guess. But I also wanted some reason or context (preferably both) in and by which to post these drawings (I'm trying to improve my drawing skills).

And that kind-of felt more pressing.

So I guess... stay tuned. I'm going to have another coffee and then meditate and then potentially post a follow-up blog.

Will I artificially date this blog in order to make it look like I posted more regularly?

I don't know. Tastes a bit off.

-Joshua McGrath

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The Cast of Ball of Woe

I'm currently working on a feverish update to Ball of Woe - introducing the "Depression Mode / Self-hating Mode" feature.

This will replace all dialogue with secrets and lamentations from my personal life. Dark, grimy things from my murky childhood. Lamentations as I near thirty years of age.

Because I thought that would be kind of funny.

And man - I've got no filter. I have no secrets.

And to celebrate this fact - I thought I would expand a bit upon the characters in Ball of Woe.

You see - they're all metaphors, the citizens of Nicetown. They're different components of your personality.

I tried to write some summaries here - but as I re-read them, they're pretty vague. I think I'm a pretty vague guy. Oh I know. I'll add subtitles.

I think Kurt Vonnegut suggested that you not be vague when you write. Don't make people guess.
(Which is funny, because Slaughterhouse-5 was a little vague)

You should try being my accountant. I give them a very hard time.

	The Ability to function in Reality The Mayor is the sticky glue that keeps your twitching little bits together. They look at the very real, very pressing needs of that oily sack of skin through which you interact with the world - and attempt to address them. They pay your rent. Sometimes. They pay your bills. Sometimes. They cook your eggs. Sometimes. And overall - they bear the weight of the real, boring, grey world. Because somebody has to do it. Or you would be dead.
	The Social Facade The Deer is the grizzly facade to this whole disgusting affair. They are your social interface to the world. They translate gestures and emotions. They match your sneakers to your branded three-quarter-sleeve shirt. They (attempt) to say the right thing at the right time. They do things that make you feel dirty. Or sleazy. Or downright dishonest. But they keep the mob and their flaming torches from your figurative manor gates.
	The Desire for Sensory Delights The Pig is the bag of chemicals that keeps you aflame and hurtling toward certain genetic distribution (and demise). They prick your skin with delight. They massage your tongue with flavor. They pour buckets of hot blood through your thighs. They too make you feel dirty. And sleazy. But it's a sleazy that you can live with.
	The Logic and Moral Center The Panda is the choke-chain around The Pig's throat. They are the nagging voice in The Deer's ears. They are well-read. They are skeptical. They border on the cruel. They are often frighteningly close to evil. But they are your moral compass. They process everything that you see, you hear and otherwise experience and turn it into cold, hard Greenlight / Redlight propositions. And they enjoy Ayn Rand. Because they went to college before it became fashionable to hate her.
	The Desire to Express Yourself The Squirrel guiltily tinkers and attempts to leave some sort of indicator that you did, in fact, exist. When allied with The Pig and The Panda they are a powerful, paranoid, destructive creative force. When left to their own devices? They are bitter. Fearful. Unhappy. Brooding. And every day cursing the gradual greying of your hair... having achieved exactly nothing.
	The World at Large The Monk is everybody else in the world. Because how are we to know that anybody else is sentient, let alone self-determining, intelligent or in any way as alive as we are? We aren't to know that. So we treat them as black boxes. And sometimes we apply empathy. But deep down their behaviour is baffling at best. Infuriating at worst.
	The People Who Threaten Your Ideals The Woeful are the breeders. The desk-jockeys. The mortgage-holders. The [anything that offends your particular moral compass]. They have long since abandoned [whatever you like and feel is valuable] and instead while away their hours in sad, jealous, bitter emptiness. You hope. You assume. You pray. Because if not... what has this all meant?

And that's that, huh?

Look at this colorful blog-post!

-Joshua McGrath

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Cling to them furiously

 

 Before I get heavy on you - I'll open by saying: You can go ahead and play an early demo build of Cube and Star (A Love Story) in your browser, right now, if you're so inclined.

I have mixed feelings about that fact, it's not my style - but I guess new experiences become more and more rare as we get older, so we have to cling to them furiously when they do come along.

And now - a mid-morning-meditation, executed largely with hypothetical questions:

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Do you paint the pictures that people want to see, or do you paint the pictures that you want to paint?

And when the answer is inevitably: "A bit of both" - where exactly do you fit along the scale?

I guess you could be super on-topic and label the former "Art" and the latter "Design".

And taking that a little further:

Do you know what pictures people want to see? (That's the million-dollar question)

And even more importantly:

Are you sure you know what pictures you want to paint? (That question is priceless)

This is the line of thought I'm indulging in as I sit on the balcony racing the shrinking shade / growing sunlight.

I think they're all fairly important questions that we have to ask ourselves.

There's no correct place to be, on the scale; and I think that knowing and being open about where you sit on said scale might be a valuable exercise. It could help a little with the apples-to-oranges issues that crop up in any creative pursuit. (I would argue that you couldn't compare something on the [metaphorical] right with something on the [metaphorical] left).

So I guess - the big question that should be meditated upon and subsequently etched into stone is:

Where do you sit on the scale?

(Leave a comment, if you come to a conclusion. Link your blog or Twitter).

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Anyway. That's my mid-morning-meditation. I try to steer clear of opinion blogs. I just thought it could be an illuminating thought experiment for you - the silent reader.

On to more tangible things:

The Edge Online (Get into Games) contest closed a few days ago; and for those of you following this glacial train-wreck, you'll know that I was developing Cube and Star (A Love Story) for entry into this very competition.

So... that happened. It was a little bit of a sprint in the hours leading up to submission, but I got it done. And now there's some half-baked version of my little cube world floating around in the internet.

I'm a "write with the door closed, edit with the door open" kind-of guy. I don't so much dig public development builds, or alphas, or out-in-the-public pre-beta-play-testing. That's just a personal preference, it's not a jab at people who do like those things - I understand they're super-valuable for one thing or another. But I guess that's just a function of my "position on the scale". (Look at that - self-referential!).

I've found that this early submission of Cube and Star has had appalling effects on my work ethic.
It's like... when you walk out of a final exam at University, and your brain scrubs itself clean of the knowledge that you hoarded in order to take the exam.

Still - there's a way to go before I consider Cube and Star to be complete (or at least - complete-to-the-point-of-initial-release) so we have to buckle up and do it.

I'm going to start adding the "fun" things in there. "Fun" in that they're the things that I want to add - and consider the process of adding them to be "fun". This will be... things like fishing and butterfly-catching.

On a more practical level - I'm considering releasing super-early to iOS and (maybe) Android. Like... within the next week or so. As opposed to waiting for the entire world to be ready as a whole - I'm considering releasing with the foundations of the world (as they exist) - and updating as I progress.

So I guess... releasable in this case would be a function of stability as opposed to a function of world completeness.

Cling to new experiences, right?

Anyway. Text-heavy blog, text-heavy blog.

Soak your eyeballs in ice-water. You've earned it.

-Joshua McGrath

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