I released Room 18, 17, and 16… promised there would be 18 updates total… thanked people for sending bug reports… admitted I’d misscoped the project… said I didn’t want to space rooms more than 3 weeks apart… and now it’s been radio silence for a month.
What’s up with that?
A few things have been going on behind the scenes.
Some of them are simple time sinks, such as my 4th of July family reunion. I’d planned to work on the train, but then I couldn’t focus enough to work or relax enough to sleep. (On the way down, this was related to the exuberant Grateful Dead fan reunion in the seat in front of me. I am so glad you guys found each other, but I wish it had happened in a different car.)
There were also two days when I cancelled my 18 Rooms work, once to enthuse about Obergefell v. Hodges and once for a link-heavy article about the villainization of minorities.
But the primary delay is that that Room 15 is complicated.
This single room has more moving parts than any other single room I've ever written.
— Carolyn VanEseltine (@mossdogmusic) June 25, 2015
Once I get Room 15 out, I am never ever writing another parser room with so many fiddly interactions. Have promised myself.
— Carolyn VanEseltine (@mossdogmusic) June 25, 2015
…and I will probably have broken that promise to myself (repeatedly) by the time Room 1 comes out, but right now, I have hope.
— Carolyn VanEseltine (@mossdogmusic) June 25, 2015
At this point, I’ve rebuilt the code 15 four times, including one go-round in ChoiceScript* to improve my understanding of the design. The current approach involves iterating across four tables and tracking fifteen boolean states above the core Inform world model.
Ironically, if everything goes right, Room 15 won’t look complicated. It will be smooth as butter, and everyone will wonder what I was complaining so heartily about, and whether I always kick up this much of a fuss behind the scenes.
For the meantime, if I should need an epitaph, here’s a good one:
“She Bit Off More Than She Could Chew
And Somehow Chewed It Anyway.”
And now I’m going to get some more work done. Talk to you later!
* Why not Twine? Because in ChoiceScript, I can see my entire source code in a single file, which was helpful here. Still prefer Twine for most prototyping, but ChoiceScript has its merits.↩
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