Sunday Show Out - 2/8/2026

I’m fortunate that I got so much accomplished at the beginning of the week, because I absolutely did not do anything from Wednesday on. What I initially thought was a general “blah” feeling (hello, depression!) was actually the onset of a cold. I’ve spent the past three days vacillating between sleeping and preparing for a Mardi Gras parade/cookout yesterday. Twelve hours of crowds, sun, and eating every ill-advised food known to man was the exact opposite of what my body needed so, when we got home, I slept until 7:00 this morning (look, I get up at 3:45 every morning. I’ve been practically lazy today). If I drank, I imagine it’d have been infinitely worse.

So, I did get stuff done this week, just not in the back half of it.

What did I do?

I managed to get the enemy spawning system working after a series of iterative fixes. First, the enemies would spawn, but they’d head toward the origin coordinates in the Place Just Beneath. Then, they’d patrol correctly, but they wouldn’t respawn if I killed them then teleported to the other side of the map. Then they’d respawn if I teleported but wouldn’t chase. Then they’d respawn, chase, die, and respawn in the right area. No one fix took that long, but there were a lot of them.

I also drew some concept art, but it’s still a series of disjointed sketches and isn’t really presentable yet. I know, I’m being too hard on myself, but I’ve always been the smallest fan of my own art. That has to change.

What did I learn?

But how? How do I be my own biggest fan, when I get so frustrated when drawing? I get that practice, particularly intentional practice, will lead to improvement, which will lead to a higher opinion of my work, which will lead to the motivation to intentionally practice more, much like an artsy ouroboros, but I want to be better now.

I’m very much spurned on by immediacy. I appreciate the long game, and I’m willing to play it, but I feed off the quicker results I see in coding and music. That isn’t an admission that I’m in over my head, and it’s not a white flag of surrender, it’s an honest appraisal of my weaknesses. It’s accepting that I have to continue working even when I don’t see immediate improvement and have some modicum of faith that the improvement will come.

I doubt most of us are that much different in that regard.

In technical news, I’m learning about Godot’s Z-indices and Y-sorting. Those will help me fix the reelshot elevation issue as well as allow Zel to walk both in front of and behind trees. The process reminds me of layers in an art program, and I suppose that, in a fundamental way, they are the same. The teacher in me appreciates the repeating pattern.

What’s next?

I plan to fix the reelshot elevation issue this week. That’s not a lot, but I’m still feeling cruddy and have a busy week before teachers and kids get the entirety of next week off for Mardi Gras. I need time to rest or I’m not going to be of any use in any capacity. I’ll still update tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, of course, and the podcast will continue. I just may be a bit more terse than normal.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow!