Hi, and welcome to this weeks Dev Diary!

Now that my situation is as described in this blog post, it is only natural to write about a topic that fits the situation - when you feel like you are banging your head to a wall (facing an obstacle that burns your mental strength at an alarming rate), depending on your personality type, it might be best for you to just take a step back and concentrate on something else for a change. Since there I haven't found any suitable solution for my heightmap problems, despite trying out several free softwares to convert multiple PNG images to RAW format, so that they are suitable for Unity and thus being able to conserve the ease of management of thousands of tiles within a level, which in turn would improves the scalability of the game. Despite my intention to start with a relatively small area of 4 square kilometers (disclaimer; my relative thinking might be way off of what is considered normal), compared to how huge I intend the map to eventually be. Thus, even though I didn't mention it earlier, taking the scalability into consideration from the start, makes my life easier further on in the development.

The Constructive Rest

When you get stuck with an issue with your project, forcing your self to complete the task you set your self to do at earlier time might not be the best solution for everyone. Often times, when you have a problem that you can't seem to solve no matter how much you try, taking a step back and focusing on some other issues might be the best course of action for you.

Granted, it is best to finish every task you start first, as to keep you on schedule and make your progress easier to follow. Often times creators don't mention taking steps back prior to launching their product, which could be seen as slacking off or raise worries about trustworthiness in some people. But still, many successful authors use this approach, when they feel like they are stuck with something in their project. This is especially true with writers and musical artists, who must think about twists and turns with their story progression - as even music by it self is a story of a kind. Same goes with coders, as there really is several ways to code the same function, but which way is the best for the whole, might not every time be the same, as every bit of code is also a framework or part of a framework for something larger - one of the a canvases of the digital age, you could say.

For me, I haven't decided on what I should be doing instead yet, but most likely I will take another look into music creation, as there has been several self made melodies in my head, which could fit the setting of the RTS game - very similar to some Viking style hymns, but more focused on Finnic cultural aspect, like long and dark winters, bravery in front of a hopeless situation, perseverance when everything seem futile. In short, this could be called Sisu or the spirit of the northerners. As in pre-historic times, child death in northern lands were much higher than what it is today, much worse than in warmer climates. This is one of the aspects that lead to a culture that had many lullabies about death, that were sang to even babies at the time. Some people had sang death oriented lullabies to babies even as recently as early to mid 20th century in Karelia region. This mindset is also where the pre-historic Finnish culture stems from - a culture which originates in the cold hard wilderness of the ancient north. In these times, death was an inseparable companion as even the infant mortality rate (both still-born and death within childhood years) has been estimated to being hovering around 40 - 70% in pre-historic times. It has also been theorized, that the sharp dips in population on the northern hemisphere is due to sudden mini ice ages, as the huge drops in population correlates quite well with the timing of the mini ice ages.

For this reason, singing about death and the ruler of the death, Tuoni, was considered to ensure that if the baby died during their sleep, Tuoni would ensure their baby's spirit would find it's way to the other world, instead of remaining and possibly haunting in the world of the living. As I don't yet know the name of the lullaby that I have heard, I can't give an example at this time.

About Early Historical Northern Wars, In Short.

Most of the mentioned wars among the Finnic tribes, that are mentioned in "The Chronicle of Nestor" (and some other historical sources or folk tales) are fought by Tavastians against Karelians, Votes and Izhorians, as well as against the slavic Novgorodian's. Tavastia has also been the most advanced region in the modern day Finland during the Viking ages, as there is signs that a central government was forming there, but as the Swedish Vikings united under a single King and occupied the Finnish regions couple of centuries later, it remains an uncertainty how far they got before their subjugation. Part of the slowing of this process might be because Tavastians waged almost continual war with the Karelians and Novgorodian's all the way from the year 1042 until at least 1292.

This tension between the finnic tribes, Novgorodian's and the Swedish are something that I would like to depict in some of the music for the game.

Conclusion

Eventually I would like to try and find a way to change the tone of the music depending on which side is winning. I'm not sure if this is feasible to achieve with a minimal or non-existent performance cost, but I will try to find a way.

I also visited an employment official today and gathered some more information on where I can seek more advice on what kinds of support systems there is for start-ups etc. Still going forward, no matter how slowly, but surely.

This is it for today and I thank you for tuning in. See you on the next one!

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