Vacation arrives, one important second, dev break

Hello everyone! Thank you for joining me again to hear about the latest in my life. What’s new?

The End of an Era…Kind of

Back on July 7th, I outlined the parameters of a 36 day focused effort to improve at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. During each of these 36 days, I challenged myself to either practice Ninja Turtles, or stream live attempts to improve my personal best time. At the outset, I allotted myself 5 days off to use whenever I wanted during the 36 days. I took my birthday, July 8, off for free. My vision was that at the end of these 36 days, I would walk away from Turtles in Time and start learning a new speedrun, following a week-long vacation from all things video games.

We have arrived at the last of these 36 days. I came close to meeting my goals. I took 8 days off in the end - in part because I took days 34, 35 and today, 36 off. The reason for sputtering out rather than finishing strong is due to some self-reflection as the end of this era draws near.

That reflection has to do with the moving on from Ninja Turtles. I am happy with the way that I am aggressively setting time limits on the time I spend playing this one game. I am a social butterfly in some ways. I am looking forward to diving into a new game and meeting the colorful characters that make up its speedrun community.

With that said, now that I am at the end of these 36 days, I can tell that my work here will not feel complete to me until I post a sub 19 minute time. Right now my personal best time is 19:02. There is only one other sub 19 minute time in history, the 18:41 that stands as the world record. I don’t feel motivated to chase the world record time, but it feels like I’m leaving too much meat on the bone if I walk away without putting a sub 19 on the board.

That’s where I’m at. Now, simultaneously, Day 35 of this era was the Friendship Community Yard Sale - a yearly event that my partner and I enjoy participating in. With a new sense of when precisely I will walk away from Ninja Turtles, it didn’t feel worthwhile to miss out on the community yard sale in order to finish my imaginary deadline strong. There’s some balance to following your own made up rules that I think we’re all always trying to fine-tune.

I spent some days in the leadup to the yard sale making extra perlers to sell at the event. Here’s what my setup looked like yesterday:

I wound up selling the Bowser, the Blue Flan, and a few of the small Mario’s from SMB3. The highlight of the yard sale was a young girl begging her father to get her the ‘blue ghost’ (the blue flan perler). They even asked me to sign to back. Community events like these really help me feel connected to my neighborhood.

My partner Erika also had a whole table of her pottery setup for sale, but she got setup several hours after I did, since she sleeps later. I didn’t get a picture of her setup. She sold a ton of pottery though which was nice because we need more cabinet space so she can make even more pottery!

So anyway, it is the end of an era. Erika, Podo and I are leaving for a cabin in the middle of nowhere tomorrow. I will be doing no video game practice or streaming of any sort for the next seven days. It will be a great opportunity to spend time unplugged and to enjoy time outdoors with my family.

This 36 day grind was incredible. When the 36 days started, my personal best time was a 19:51. That was good for #8. Traversing minute 19 takes a lot of practice and determination. With me at 19:51, leaderboard spots 2-8 were scattered across this dramatic 19th minute. Here’s the leaderboard today:

The last time we checked in I was in a tie for 2nd place. I have since improved by the single second required to break the tie. Not bad!

When I return from vacation, I will extend Turtle Time and continue grinding Turtles in Time until I get that sub 19 time. Once that happens, it will be time to start a learning period for a new game. We’ll reconvene before then.

Game Dev Break

I’m frustrated with game dev. I am going on a game dev hiatus until further notice. I have no doubt that I will be back eventually, as I have been working on making games in one form or another, essentially, forever. I am happy to say goodbye for now though. Simply put, I am getting much more out of the hours I spend speedrunning than I am getting out of the hours I spend doing game dev.

Thanks for reading! Have a great day.