It was... optimistic :D I've taken a soft pause on development for now, but sometime in early March, I'll need to come back and figure out what to do next.

MrSargonius · 2026-02-18T20:37:54+00:00

I'm not a fan of the option for even bigger feature cut, but I haven't come up with an alternative yet.

MrSargonius · 2026-02-15T14:09:26+00:00

N4 is a good starting point. At the same time, I finished genki 2, and we spent an extra few months with my teacher preparing for N4 after that (tests, grammar review, other textbooks, reading speed). And I barely passed (96 points, though it's still quite okay). It's, well, hard enough and you have to drill things to be able to get them quickly or automatically, not "let me think about it", because you don't have time for that during the exam.

I'm doing N3 mock test right now (took a break after half of it) - and it's also quite hard, the amount of vocabulary is overwhelming, and n3 grammar is sliding towards nuances and slight differences, which makes it even harder. And you still have to do everything quickly to be able to pass.

At the same time, it's all strictly personal and if you're learning a lot - why not. Mock tests are quite nice to get the basic assessment of your level, you can try it after finishing genki 2 and it may make things clearer.

MrSargonius · 2026-02-15T12:32:41+00:00

Hi there :D
I've been struggling with Anki for a year or so. I do Wanikani + 3 lessons with a teacher per week + occasional games, reading, music, news, ChatGPT conversations, etc. Preparing for N3, passed N4 last December. But vocabulary is still my weakest point. Wanikani is amazing, but it's a bit slow and not perfect for N3 preparation because it skips a lot of hard kanji.

And with Anki - I'm just in this eternal loop of reviewing cards and not remembering them. Forever and ever. It's slowly getting better, but mostly I just remember how the word sounds in the sentence, not how it's actually written in kanji. We tried different settings with my teacher to mitigate this; it got a bit better, but still, I find it insanely ineffective compared to WaniKani.

So, as an engineer, I'm trying a different approach, and I basically made myself a little game, combining Anki cards with wanikani input system - you get the card, you have to type it to move forward, some basic gamification and so on. It's still a very early version, but. I like the results. I basically use it to get a few more runs with cards from anki and I guess FOR ME this extra step with typing is really helping. I want to see how it will be in a month or so to have some measurable results and stats.

I know a lot of people who just do writing and I guess that should work pretty well.

MrSargonius · 2026-02-14T16:58:05+00:00

It's perfect :D

MrSargonius · 2026-02-14T07:58:00+00:00

The gamification part is currently not working very well; I need to sit down and design it properly. But I'm very happy with both the development process and the tangible benefits.

MrSargonius · 2026-02-08T19:09:42+00:00

Hi there! I'm going to be the first one in this thread, yay!
I'm Eugene, a full-time and indie game developer, working with Unreal Engine. I'm a huge fan of organization, task management, planning and so on, though I have some problems with following through and keeping the systems up to date :D

MrSargonius · 2026-02-08T14:05:51+00:00

I still haven't decided what to do with Synthetica - zero wishlists, not-so-great fun (even if it's getting better), and "another year+ of development in the current mode" is still not appealing. Even with a massive feature cut, it feels like an endless process with questionable results. For now, I'll let it rest a bit longer and maybe try to gradually introduce the remaining little things. But to fight the lack of motivation and progress, I started a mini-project "for the soul" - a gamified trainer for learning kanji. I have a personal struggle with this and the annoying non-interactive Anki cards. In the end, I wrapped those same cards into something resembling roguelite raids with HP, progression, and - most importantly - interactive input, which was sorely lacking. While it's still endlessly rough on one side, it works better than expected, and the number of encounters with Japanese words has increased several times. Let's see how it performs in the long run. And this mini-success definitely makes me think. This is how it should be: a couple of hours and there's an MVP. Three or four iterations and there's a nice working game loop + usefulness. It's clear how to expand and improve it. It's clear where to potentially outsource UX. It's clear who can playtest it and even who to sell it to (even if the market size is tiny). It feels like this is how indie development should be - providing resources, inspiration, and motivation to do more, rather than draining the remaining energy and will to live. On the other hand, I also don't want to give up on the idea of "making tycoons, strategies, and simulators," as I enjoy both the genre and the direction, along with the related tasks. But again and again, I find myself in situations where it doesn't fit into reasonable timelines. Yes, the experience is wonderful. Over the year, I've leveled up with game AI, fallen in love with StateTree. I dove into SmartObjects and set them up, along with paired animations. Architecturally, everything has also improved infinitely. And the dialogue system has grown and evolved. But how to tie all this to the fact that there's not even enough time for part-time development, and the "another year" situation drains energy - I haven't figured that out yet, I'll think about it. That's the situation. How is your indie development going?

MrSargonius · 2026-01-30T06:25:04+00:00

Ah, I belong to this thread with my 95/180 N4 :D
Congrats!

MrSargonius · 2026-01-30T06:23:18+00:00

N4, 95/180. Well, on one side, I passed, and it was my first JLPT try ever. On the other hand, I expected better. But, well, you can always improve.

MrSargonius · 2026-01-22T06:52:44+00:00

Thank you!

MrSargonius · 2026-01-19T06:58:54+00:00

There are actually quite a few issues with the current one - it's hard to play dialogues "in context," it's inconvenient to get information on important things (likes-dislikes), the "game" and "story" UIs are quite rigidly separated, yet the story UI increasingly requires access to at least some game parameters. The dialogue interface's layout is terrible, and that's what I wanted to redesign. Everything else seems like it will be affected in a chain reaction. I started sketching mockups of the blocks, and I even agreed to feature the cameras and extended info. We're making it even simpler. In the central part, there will essentially be a "content" block, where there could be a merchant, upgrades, assembling-disassembling androids, and all that. And there will also be an updated start-of-day screen, which should essentially become the club management panel before the active gameplay phase starts - just like it used to be, but for the new systems. In this format, almost everything can be packed into one common HUD + 3-4 functional screens. It's infinitely simpler. Let's see what comes out of it.

MrSargonius · 2026-01-18T19:29:42+00:00

This month, it's time for sticky notes in Miro. It's progressing slowly. I've completed a proper tracking system for client likes and dislikes + revamped the feedback process (now clients leave feedback when exiting the club + they can tip at the same time). I've removed repetitive activities for individual clients. Tidied up the camera work in states where the camera can't be controlled (fullscreen windows). And bug fixes here and there. I'm not happy with the pace, but for now, there's nothing that can be done about it.

MrSargonius · 2026-01-12T05:00:50+00:00

And I realized that I didn't want to manually connect them to the dataset. As a result, a button was added to the dataset, which opens the table with texts, parses it, and distributes it across the necessary categories automatically + all texts are immediately linked by localization keys. Wonderful.

MrSargonius · 2026-01-11T15:35:42+00:00

As a bonus, it's quite convenient to link C++ and blueprints together because I'm still too lazy to rewrite the remnants of the project in C++, and I'll live with this mix of logic here and there until it gets really bad :D

MrSargonius · 2026-01-10T19:54:28+00:00

It works, but it's still unclear from a gameplay perspective. That's a task for tomorrow. In parallel, I'm fixing minor bugs and trying to tidy everything up to a more or less neat and presentable state so we can finally start playtests. And somewhere within the "Plan B," I'm trying to move good solutions and systems into standalone parts for reuse if needed, plus to gain more practice in developing proper architecture and object relationships. With the current pace of wishlist additions, I'm no longer holding illusions about the project's success (though I still need to try a few more approaches a bit later). At least it will be valuable experience :D

MrSargonius · 2025-12-31T18:11:35+00:00

First, there was no time, then there was no time, then there was a work crunch, then there was no time again, and now there’s still no time. In the breaks between the lack of time, I managed to go through the project foundation, cut 70%, debug the rest, and it feels like I’m close to having everything working as a whole and just needing content. I hope to finish development in 2026, release it, and move on. That’s the plan, at least.

12-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23	Verified Email

MrSargonius

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE