Aaand we're back.  Feels like I'm still not really on top of everything that I want to be on top of, but I'm making forward progress, at the very least, so I am thankful for that.

Ludum Dare results came out and...we took first place!  I've actually been spending the last few days putting out a super detailed post-mortem writeup of the experience -- you can read that here.  I already said most of what needs to be said in the post-mortem itself, but on a more personal note, it actually does feel really great to have done so well.  I don't think getting 1st place in Ludum Dare was ever really a personal goal of mine -- I was pretty happy with the two second place rankings that I already have (Ripple Runner and Match Girl) -- but I think it's a nice marker, especially for us as a team, that we really know what we are doing.

A lot of my time since then has been put to post-jam improvements on both Goodnight Sheep (now available on iOS and Android!), as well as Samurai Shaver.  I'll be putting out a mobile version of Samurai Shaver as well, but before that I wanted to finish rounding out the game with a few more levels -- I've already done two more since Ludum Dare ended and I'm working on a third one right now, featuring a whoooole lot of shamisen.  This whole soundtrack has actually gotten me super intimately familiar with my shamisen patch, hahaha.  It's been tricky to work around some of the limitations with my sound set, but also really fun at the same time.  Music is great!

The holiday vacation season has passed and it's pretty much back to the daily grind for a lot of us, it seems.  Weird though because I was working on game dev stuff throughout the break anyways.  Well, at least my life is pretty consistent, I guess.  Heh, there are actually some times when I am in a car or train or whatever and I actually feel somewhat appalled at just how fast things are moving, at the distance that people travel, and just in general the way that people and things seem so prone to flight.  How change is in the air, everywhere, and everyone is going everywhere because they are never content with where they are now.  I mean, I get that, and if that's you then all the more power to you, but I think I try to keep my life as insular as possible to avoid that.  Everything I need is already here with me; I don't want or need anything else...in fact, there are already too many different things in my life; I could use a few less...

It's difficult, though, even for me.  To know where to draw the line, and around what.

I've been on an old game kick recently; been downloading a bunch of super old computer games from back in the day.  I actually have quite a number of different games on my bucket list to go through at some point.  Nothing too remarkable at the moment, but maybe soon.

Dance has been neither good nor bad recently, though Jammix tomorrow ought to be fun, probably.  Sometimes it's a bit of a crapshoot, haha.  I kind of detest that about dance, but I feel like that's really just the way it is sometimes.

Hadn't played much melee over the break, but getting back into it now, and I've been grinding out some stuff that I had been meaning to work on.  Falco combos and tech specifically, which has helped a lot, though there's still a lot to work on of course.  If I really did just main Falco (not that I would) I'm sure I would have picked up all of this stuff already but...all these other characters are just so fun!

Work is OK.  Life is mostly "OK" but I have been pretty stressed lately about not having enough time to just get all the things done that I want to.  Like I said, I am making progress though -- on Samurai Shaver, on the post-mortem, etc.  Pretty soon it'll be time to start working on the last level of embroidery on my Journey outfit as well.  But yeah, just mostly hoping to keep working on everything.  I think I really feel the whole "what you do defines who you are" thing because whenever I feel like I am slipping on all of the things that I want to do and keep up with, I feel like I am losing myself and feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

Just continuing to walk forward for now...