Recently I've taken a liking to jam-like substances. 

When I first started learning to draw one of the first things I've been taught is to embrace quick sketching and doodling, just letting the pen flow freely, filling the canvas with your mind. This is analogous to game jams where you let go of your fears and distractions and focus on simply making a game as quickly as possible, but it's not taught as something as fundamental as freeform sketching is. I believe it should be.

The concept of jamming regardless of artistic medium is highly liberating and productive, it is great to embrace those bursts of creativity I otherwise let aside and bury in the depths of my forgetful mind.

Working on the bots and their audio was very fun, they turned out very different from my vague envisionings, I let their personalities and gameplay come out spontaneously instead of trying too hard to follow an idea. There are many ways to beat a BrainBot that I didn't originally plan and I hope to keep embracing that kind of workflow.

HOPE LESS started as a simple inspiration from games I've been playing lately, the most obvious being the Fallout series. I've always been fascinated by survival modes and mods not just in post-apocalyptic games but also adventures such as in the Elder Scroll series. I haven't done remotely as much as I want to do regarding survival for this release but that will be the next focus.

One thing I've learned while making this is that I don't want to work on a game that makes me depressed, and unfortunately post-apocalyptic settings make me depressed, it is ironic considering how much I like survival gameplay and the game's bleak title. So where do I take it from here? My current goal is to set another monthly deadline and work on expanding the longer-term survival gameplay and what happens during the travels between points of interest, and making a tonal shift for the game's setting. I have some ideas but that's a tale for another devlog.