august-september eos updates, other things

hey all. as usual, the past month has been loaded with long, rewarding days of work. more testing has been done, and as a result, more work has piled up. namely, a lot of "delete large chunks of maps and simply make them better." i've further developed a lot of skills that has allowed me to push the project that little bit further, and those i've shared the updates with have been really excited for where things are going.

i'm pretty deep into things, so saying too much of anything will be a bit spoilery, but know that these latest changes have been huge for accessibility to players of various skill levels in particular, in an effort to ensure everybody gets a similar experience. it's by far the hardest thing to balance, but i feel like it's getting pretty close to feeling right, and additional difficulty modifiers will always be available. it's still a pretty tough game and can't really account for being somebody's first or most accessible fast-skill-expression-fps-adventure-etc-game, but i do feel good about the progress.

there's still plenty to be done - and my personal goal is still to get this shit done by the end of the year - but i'm going a little easy on myself for the time being. i seem to have developed some kind of panic disorder a couple months on from my mother's passing, which from what i gather isn't an uncommon response, and i'm working through that as well.

i want to continue to work hard on eos, as the project is giving me life, challenge, meaning, etc. at the same time, giving myself a gentler outlook and saying "as long as it gets done eventually" instead of beating myself up over something needing to be done now is going to be important.

thanks for reading. i'll continue doing my best for me, for those around me, and for my work.