Making a game is overwhelming. There are so many moving parts, so much to think about, so much to do. fix. improve. expand.

Especially when you cannot work on your game full-time and you need to do a little extra effort to switch context to your project, it’s easy to start chasing something flashy that just happens to catch your eye.

This morning I only had an hour or so to work on my game. And I wanted to make an impact. To make some visual changes that would give me a good feeling about the project, knowing after that hour I have to step away from it again for a while.

But when I tried to chase that impact I ended up messing about, doing things without thinking, leaving myself frustrated and demotivated. So I took a breath and tried to focus on the voice that had been telling me to stick to the boring, important, incremental task..

Then I opened up Aseprite and continued drawing the 60 tree sprites. Adding a few pixels every day. Now I feel like I’m actually contributing to the game again. Making progress. It’s not flashy, it’s simple, but it’s real.