Dead on Arrival #5
Discover more from Hashtag Survival
This is much later than I usually post the newsletter, but shit happens. (Actually, I'll explain why further down the page.) I first started a draft for DoA5 on Saturday. Unfortunately, I COULDN'T FIND IT when I went to pull the draft up to write. It had been buried down the page in a horde of other drafts, many languishing for weeks.
I'm partially mired in a rut and hobbled by 'analysis paralysis.'
"Analysis paralysis describes an individual or group process where overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become "paralyzed," meaning that no solution or course of action is decided upon within a natural time frame."Wikipedia
Some articles will likely end up spawning sister articles or entire soapbox operas. Some are thoughts or interviews I've lost interest in or have gone in a different direction. But mostly, it's a jumbled pile. I focused- quite successfully- for so long on the website directories and forging a viable, productive routine for that aspect of Hashtag that this part backslid a bit. I'm sure some of my developer pals can empathize with my situation!
I don't know that my brain can commit to performing a set routine each week on a specific day. Sure, I have the newsletter and snippets, but I don't think either requires the effort or attention of an article or review. So right now, my idea is to merge my 'by the seat of my pants' style with some organization. I'm intrigued by the program Rooted uses for its roadmap- I can almost see the kernel of an idea here, but it needs to be fleshed out.
I'll keep you posted!
Onwards to the newsletter.
🏕️ Hashtag Survival Catchup
🎉Becca's at a sit for two weeks- started last week, and she won't be home till the 21st.) This is important because it drastically alters the layout of my free time. In a typical week, I'm off Weds/Sat/Sun- the other 4 days, I work 12 hours. Once you tack on the 20-30 mins each way for travel, my available time to work on Hashtag stuff on work days extends from 7PM to 10PM. And that's not counting food, showering, dealing with life stuff, etc. I have to leave earlier and get back later since we have one car and I have to transport her to and from work/house sit. TLDR is that I know I'm due a Snippets or twenty; I just haven't had the time. SO. Fuck it. I will try and catch up on stuff either Tuesday night or Wednesday.
🖥️ Dee and I revised our thoughts on the Voidtrain demo. I plan on onboarding many games to the website directory - and I'd love to have some central way for folks to send me the names of games that aren't on my radar. Any ideas? I was thinking of a Discord channel, but that needlessly extends the size of the server. Also, not everyone has Discord. I can only pin one thread in Reddit, so that won't work, either.
🎉 Don't forget to be a pal and vote in this poll for me, gathering some info!
❣️Noteworthy Last Week
⌛ State of Decay 2 dropped their major content patch, nicknamed Heart Attack, and Floodland dropped their big ass content rework- Update 1.2, "New Tide."
Occupy Mars and Voidtrain were released to Early Access on Steam. SCUM dropped their Hell's Kitchen update - yay, goodbye shit cooking system! Finally, ko-fi is accepting Venmo now, which is neat.
📅 Upcoming
🔮 Nvidia GeForce Now is running a sale on their mid-tier membership, dunno how long it lasts! State of Decay 2 all day 5th birthday stream Friday, 5/19 - live in their Discord. IT WOULD BE A GREAT TIME TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SOD3; JUST FUCKING SAYING. Rooted has this shiny new roadmap to stare at! The developer of KeepUp Survival dropped the first patch aimed at moving the game to UE5 with the second patch slated for later this week.
💙 This Week!
Music: Does anyone remember Robin Skouteris? Awesome mashups. Just came across this track today, kinda into it.
App: Digging into my Notion and remembering how much I love it.
Book: Pigs Don't Fly - because seriously how can you NOT love a book that begins with "My mother was the village whore and I loved her very much."
Game: The Long Dark
Best Hashtag Moment: A great response to the Voidtrain article!
I'm also being approached by more developers interested in learning about what we're doing here, so that's very cool.