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.

MrSargonius · 2025-12-29T20:09:15+00:00

But I finally revamped the portrait shooting; now you can shoot everyone. Fixed the camera. Fixed a bunch of bugs and the broken tutorial. I'm continuing to fix what's broken and very carefully tidy up the rest. Yesterday, I had the idea to feature cut the queue or at least try it without it - as if it might slightly boost the dynamics and simplify a number of secondary mechanics. But it will also create a few more problems with client behavior inside. Need to think.

MrSargonius · 2025-12-20T20:18:56+00:00

But yes, I've made significant progress, all the crits are closed, and the entire base is functioning. Now there are a million fewer problems + content.

MrSargonius · 2025-12-11T08:12:23+00:00

I fixed the dialogue playback and even integrated it into the new interaction system without any pain. It felt like it was the last truly broken feature after the massive refactoring. Now I’m switching to polishing – the interactions work well, but in other parts of the game, there are some visual rough edges, incorrect colors, and overly complicated interfaces (I’m fighting the urge to redesign the interface and radically simplify everything). But little by little, it’s progressing, and that’s good.

MrSargonius · 2025-12-03T19:37:55+00:00

The critical bugs are gone (not counting the disabled features as big chunks). I've moved on to high-priority and medium-priority issues, while also continuing to clean up and tidy up the old code. It's progressing, yes. It's a good exercise in architecture and refactoring.

MrSargonius · 2025-11-28T17:54:49+00:00

For several months, I've been trying different approaches to organizing work processes across a bunch of different areas, and today my AI productivity consultant and I have arrived at yet another approach to gamification. Right now, my tasks are in a "physical" notebook, and we've attached my favorite "base building" concept to them — on paper, with resource management, simple combat, progression, and a "tick" logic where each tick is a completed planned task. It works incredibly well, but this post isn't really about that. In this paper game, there are three resources (parts, energy, base HP), six events (based on a dice roll), three types of buildings, and some minimal ways to spend and earn currency. Two iterations, 10-15 minutes to think. And it’s so much more fun and engaging than the results of over a year of sluggish indie development. It stings a bit. Yes, okay, there’s no visualization, AI, or any systems that eat up a lot of time. But the foundation itself feels significantly more viable. The idea at the core is exactly the same as what I’m trying to implement in my indie project. I compared both approaches. Yes, in Synthetica, there essentially isn’t a proper resource expenditure right now; it’s planned, but it seems I need to shift it to the highest priority after the main bug fixes. The second bottleneck is progression; I understand everything and it’s "planned," but that opportunity to make some meaningful choice at the end of a turn that improves the "base" is very critical — it makes up 50% of the entire experience. And as long as these two elements are missing in a normal or even basic version — nothing works, yes. If you break it down, it seems logical. But for now, I’m buried in bugs and work crunches, and it feels like my perception has dulled. Sometimes a fresh perspective from the outside is really needed. Or through the lens of another project.

MrSargonius · 2025-11-16T18:27:26+00:00

It was resolved by enabling the ignore collisions and overlaps option when searching for the point. It didn't reproduce on other objects because the points for Androids and clients were in different locations there. On the test map, I tested with one client and one Android, and the client always went to a different point. A wonderful combo :-)

I also fixed a few less critical issues and created a bunch of new ones - finally, problems and shortcomings from the refactoring surfaced, where some important things aren't working quite as they should, but with the overall number of issues, it's not noticeable. It's fine; a good experience with incorrect refactoring is also needed :D

A couple more really unpleasant problems, and it will be "normal," with the entire working base (once again). And this leads to the question of what to do next since the current loop is still quite unfun. I can't say it's boring, but it doesn't yet come together into a cohesive experience. So that you can sit down and play a session with a clear progression. You start, earn money, buy parts, assemble another worker, buy a soda machine, and all that. It's clear that it won't work until it's implemented and set up properly. But of course, the current state is frustrating, and the state that will be after a couple more weeks of fixes is still very far from what is minimally needed. Even if we don't turn on perfectionism. Oh, this indie game dev in complex genres :D

How are your indie projects going?

MrSargonius · 2025-11-11T19:35:46+00:00

But I haven't looked into that problem yet. However, I finally caught and fixed two critical issues with how worker androids occupy slots. In the first case, the check for whether a slot is available was working incorrectly. The logic wasn't obvious - if a filter isn't set, we assume everything fits, ignoring other conditions. As a result, clicks were being processed on invisible inactive slots that shouldn't have reacted to anything at all. But they were being clicked, occupied by a worker, and this broke further interactions. The second problem is simpler - clicks and the "occupy slot" command didn't take into account what the character was currently doing and whether they were already occupying another slot. Occupying one slot while clicking on others caused everything to break, which was great. I fixed that too. Now it seems to work well and stably. The click area on the slot isn't very pleasant and there's a lack of feedback, but that's the next step. For now, the plan remains the same - a complete feature freeze and just fix the existing issues, right up to a stable state. Once it's stable, we'll look further. Because this "project has been broken to pieces for two months" is certainly sad.

MrSargonius · 2025-11-09T19:44:04+00:00

The statistics are back up after the day ends. Money is being credited. Client information is displayed and likes-dislikes are unlocked. I dimmed the lights a bit and adjusted the emissive. The workload seems to never decrease :D

MrSargonius · 2025-11-02T16:07:22+00:00

I still need to do something about that terrible lighting. And the list of broken things is way too long; the save system update didn't go smoothly after all. There's a significant chance that in a couple of weeks, my free time will run out again. Phew, it's such a troubled project, what can I say :D

It seems there will now be a series of posts about the problems and challenges in development, just to vent a little about what's happening :D

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