Completing the Final Dungeon

I was thinking that my last Dragonfaith update was last year around Memorial Day, but it turns out that was two years ago. The update I was actually thinking about was from February of last year. In any case, I wanted to check in again and report that I've finished mapping out the final dungeon. It was a monumental effort - I'm not sure whether I should be proud or embarrassed that it took me a year to complete, but it's not like I've been working on it every day (this past summer was another busy photography season).

Now all that's left in the mapping department is an even more monumental effort - the world map. I've reconstructed overworld maps from the first six Final Fantasy games in RPG Maker as practice (do you recognize them?), but I still find the mechanics of the process of structuring landmasses (and the terrain they contain) to be intimidatingly inscrutable (oh, if I could pick the brains of the team members who developed these maps). There's just such a large canvas to work with. But I'll keep trying.

And anyway, in the meantime, I just might start working on hammering out the combat elements as a distraction (I'm never so productive as when I'm performing a task in order to avoid working on a different task), and slowly piecing together everything else in this game beyond the maps. I know how the world map is generally going to function, and I know every important element that will be in it, so I don't think I need it to be completed to work on the other stuff. This is where I've really gotta start making decisions and laying out a plan for progression re:items and weapons and growth and things like that.

I'm ruing the day I ever decided to take on this project singlehandedly - although truthfully, I enjoy working on it. I like going into my own little world; it's a pleasant escape from reality. But the pressure of needing to eventually end up with a completed game just builds and builds with every passing year. However, thinking of the alternative - spending all this time and work and never having anything to show for it - is no less dreadful. (And I'd love to show you more of what I have completed, but I'm always torn because I don't want to spoil the experience of playing the game). So I'll keep chugging along.

I can but hope that I'll have something more substantial to report next year on the 10th anniversary of starting this voyage (at least in RPG Maker - I brainstormed it even before that). Don't expect a completed game - but maybe by the 15th anniversary? I don't want to spend the rest of my life working on it, and I want at least someone to be able to test it (at the very least) before we're all resting in our graves...