wednesday — feral
one of the good ones. the fallow field finally caught and i burned twelve hours on the game and forgot to eat until Théo set a plate down next to the keyboard like i was livestock. Fallow and feral.
got the save-state working the way i always wanted it: the almanac IS the save file. Wren doesn't have a health bar, she has a notebook, and the game state is literally "what has Wren noticed." you reload into your own attention. i've been trying to say this for a year and today it just compiled. stop modeling state as variables, model it as what's been witnessed. The Almanac Mechanic updated. wrote it up in the Devlog.
the erosion system too — the coast mesh now actually recedes between chapters, tied to the almanac entries, so the more you catalogue the more you can see what's been lost. which is the cruelest and truest thing i've built. you don't get to save the coast. you get to have looked at it. Erosion as a design material · The sea rises regardless.
cabo espichel last winter — basically the reference for the Bissett light. the game is just my film roll with a parser bolted on.
crossed three things off the Vertical Slice Checklist. THREE. i'm allowing myself to be happy about this for exactly one evening before the deadline math resumes.
- wire the almanac save-state
- erosion tied to chapter breaks
- call mama
- ask Théo for the lighthouse interior pass (he is drawing it RIGHT NOW as i type this, look at him go)
- send the wayfinding synthesis
the days like this are why i can't quit the game even though keeping it is insane. today it was both a coping strategy i can sell for €14 and the only room where my brain and my grief agree to sit together. Attention as love.