Hey everyone,
Sorry for the long silence, but you’ll understand why pretty quickly…
Since Christmas, I’ve been pretty sick. It’s not a life-threatening illness (well, as long as it’s treated in time—otherwise, it can lead to fatal kidney failure), so no need to worry. However, it’s been quite debilitating. I’ve had occasional gout attacks for years, but this past Christmas, I had a particularly severe one—one that hurt really,
really bad. Let me explain quickly:
Gout is caused by a buildup of uric acid, which forms crystals in different parts of the body. In my case, it affects my ankles and feet (for now). Basically, my body struggles to eliminate uric acid properly, which comes from foods rich in purines, like meat, cabbage, beer (not an issue for me since I don’t like it), and more. Up until now, my gout attacks were sporadic—once or twice a year.
But in 2024, I’ve already had four. So, with my doctor, I finally decided to start long-term treatment to help my body eliminate uric acid more efficiently and get rid of the deposits already in my body.
However, there’s a side effect: the uric acid being removed has to pass through my bloodstream before being eliminated. Some of it gets flushed out, but the rest can trigger temporary gout attacks.
And since Christmas, I’ve already had
four more. On the bright side, that means the treatment is working. But on the downside, a gout attack is as painful as breaking the affected joint (before getting any pain treatment for the fracture). So yeah, it’s
literally unbearable.
The go-to treatment for a gout attack is Colchimax, a mix of colchicine and opium powder. It’s very effective, but as you can guess, the presence of opium makes it addictive (so I have to be careful not to overuse it). And, well… it makes me delirious and completely unable to focus on anything for more than ten seconds (you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to write this message).
So, it’s a necessary evil, but as long as I have uric acid in my system, it’s going to be rough.
On top of that, as some of you know, I have a 4-year-old kid. And, well, little ones are basically biological weapons of mass infection. He managed to give us both COVID and a nasty case of strep throat.
Add to that the fact that this winter has been unusually cold (at least for this region), and that I’ve had ear problems since childhood (both my eardrums were perforated by ear infections, so I still get them regularly), and you can probably understand why there hasn’t been a single day since Christmas where I
wasn’t dealing with some kind of health issue.
But again, the
good news is that winter is ending, and the gout treatment is working.
Now, about the game:
Despite everything, I’ve kept working on it as best as I could. The upcoming chapter is a bit special. Structurally, it’s similar to a
filler episode in a TV series. However, it lays the groundwork for the final part of this first
book and starts wrapping up some narrative arcs.
This means there’s less action, more dialogue, and a lot of
lore. This chapter will also start showing that the world of
Glowing Stones isn’t as
black and white as it may have seemed at first. Until now, we had a “good people vs. evil megacorps” setup, which was necessary to establish the initial setting. But now that the groundwork is laid, it’s time to take a closer look and realize that the world—and its conflicts—aren’t that simple.
Of course, this isn’t a shift in the story or its themes—this was always planned. Narratively, it was important to introduce things gradually to avoid overwhelming players. Plus, as more characters enter the story, it’s only natural to introduce a wider range of perspectives. With two or three characters, you get two or three opinions. But as the cast expands, so do the nuances.
Some scenes in this chapter are also much more complex to create. For example, I managed to animate a scene with over
12 characters on screen at once. Obviously, this means animating 12 characters individually and optimizing the scene afterward (since Daz3D, my rendering software, normally doesn’t allow that many characters at once).
And one last thing that’s pretty important… I’m adding
sound design to the game. Until now, there was music, but the complete lack of ambient sounds has been frustrating for me. Sound won’t replace the text, but it will complement it. This
isn’t full voice acting (if I ever decide to do that, I’d have to sell a kidney first and wait until the game is completely finished). But now, every cinematic will have not just music, but also sound effects. The game itself will also include more audio to enhance immersion.
Progress Update:
- 600 static renders
- 25 animations
- 2,200 lines of script fully completed
I’ll keep you posted on how things evolve, but for now, I need to go lie down—writing this message already took me an hour…
Thanks to all of you for your support, and see you soon!