Sundays are currently for leisurely work, but today this maxim was put to the extreme (and I actually enjoyed it). I had a particular sound in mind for a part of the game, and most of the morning was spent getting it right. Garage band got me to the effect quickly enough, but to get things working I needed it to be able to fade in, fade out and loop.
There are some libraries that do this, but since it was Sunday I could afford to squander time. Web audio is something I have never touched, and some anxiety is felt when I don’t understand what is happening underneath the library that I’m using, so I put some time towards implementing these features. It worked quite well in the end.
Then, in the evening I took a sweet long time implementing a single stage which I wanted to get right. I’ve been implementing stages haphazardly, more to test the limits of the interface that I’m creating, rather than optimizing for gameplay, so I came across the biohazard symbol which is a perfect use case, and I tried some different starting points to understand when it becomes a chore.
Finally I understood: deliberate complication in the name of challenge is a boring. The entire symbol can be completed with just two shapes, but it is obvious how to make the ring, so it’s better to provide it completed rather than to make the user complete it. This is an example of an intermediate level of difficulty.
After work I hung out with René at the gym again, and we reached an agreement on how to exchange a gym membership in ways that would be of benefit to both. For the first time in weeks I feel rather than think the project will be successful, and enthusiasm renewed on its own. What a pleasure it is to feel the heart becoming alive again!