Tonight was all about implementing my track sketch. Unfortunately, I got caught up in the details again—I spent a good deal of time fiddling with the looks of the new buildings I was adding, as well as the highway itself. However, I pushed myself toward just getting the track down, since that was the important part. The buildings and highway can be decorated properly later.

I realized as I was testing that there's no reason to slow down the car for this stretch—you're getting on a larger track, and everything is straight, so why bother? I may end up cutting the two "standard" speed zones, in favor of making the one in the heart of the city be standard speed. Or perhaps they will still play some limited role. Naturally, more testing, and testing from a wider audience, will be helpful.

Speaking of more testing, I want to keep a loose target of having a testable track by the end of these two weeks. That means I'll need to lay down track with purpose, and spend less time feeling aimless. Even if I sometimes feel like my track design is arbitrary, I just need to get something down. I can think about the whys of track placement later, once I've got some test results to think about. That's how you start from scratch, you know? You try something, test it, figure out why your design produced those results, and take that into account in future iterations and projects.

The highway still lacks lighting, since I was thinking about the layout first. However, I did add "warning bulbs" to mark the end of the track as it falls onto the highway. These will likely need tweaking to improve visibility, especially since the track end is a fairly sudden downward slope.

Today, I spent roughly 3 Pomodoros (25-minute blocks) on this track. Tomorrow, if I don't fall asleep in the middle of the day again, I want to spend more, at least 4, possibly more. Tonight's log is a bit terse since I only really gave myself 20 minutes or so to write it; I want to at least try to hit my own deadline, even if I miss it slightly. Ideally, I'll give myself the last hour or two to write, if I follow through on my goal to work earlier in the day.

I hope to bring more insights on track and lighting design in the coming posts. Stay tuned!

Once again, I dropped the ball and didn't get to level design until very late today. That's just my own mangling of my daily schedule, though. That is to say, I just go with the flow and leave necessary tasks until the later hours, when I can still get distracted anyway.

Unlike last night, though, I took the time to sketch out a detailed plan of what I'm going to implement next. No editor work tonight; I'm late enough with this post as it is, and it's more important that I know what I'm doing before I do it. The wait time prior to implementation gives me an extra chance to mull over my choices, too.

Hopefully my sketching skills will improve as I do this more, but I'm pretty proud of what I have so far. Tomorrow you'll get to see how well I interpret this in the editor (I expect interesting building placement to be a challenge).

Along with jumping into design earlier in the day, I want to more consistently use the Pomodoro technique to block out my time, and maybe even start recording how much time I put into this (yay stats!). I've been using the technique loosely, only really obeying the timer part, but even in that form I still find it useful.

Sorry if you were expecting more about the level than the process, but I hope tonight's pages speak for themselves. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below, or contact me however you know me!