This Is (NOT!) A Car Club - Blog

250402: today starts the weekend project.

250401: i'm the prop master

250331: sorry i forgot yesterday. but it's okay because i am epic (1337). today: some more habitual stuff. adding small details, because the details are what make the whole.

250329: denmark

250328: getting some habit into stuff. Our International Mana-Family(TM) of Happy Customers

250327: art + entertainment = (creativity * productivity) / judgement

250326: minigames? just thinking about it. i want to include super ambitious video games as minigames in my actual game. like GTA V
i think it's more important to be good at visuals, creativity and writing than technology when you make a game. that may explain why people on Neocities appreciate my game more than they do on itch.io, a site specifically built for creative indie games.

250325: stickers, baby!

250324: nothing particular. except my blogpost about things. my manifesto. shit like that bitch

250323: ideas. Anna-Carin joins the gang (story needs to be logical but other than that i don't really care about the story)

250322: taking a break, and starting to slowly think about what to possibly do next, whenever that happens.

250321: continuing to think about how to make productivity and creativity work together. or more, how to make plans and creativity work together. following a plan creates a requirement and an expectation, which goes against creativity. but maybe it doesn't have to? or maybe i overthink this. productivity puts a pressure to put in a lot of effort or create lots of things, and big ambition creates a pressure to reach a certain quality. a plan creates a pressure to do a specific thing. creativity thrives when these pressures aren't there. a positive motivation from ambition could be good though.

250320: my solution right now to make productivity and creativity work together: once every third weekend (approx.), i focus on a project as a "game jam". i separate it from the actual main project to drop all requirements of creating something good. because too much perfectionism paradoxically stops both your creativity AND productivity. the goal of the "game jam" is finish SOMETHING, no matter what. so there is still a pressure to do something, but i'm also free from all ambition. which is, as a said, the optimal environment for creativity (?). if i feel like being ambitious i could be, but i could also make something completely meaningless. the only non-option is to procrastinate. this gives me a recurring schedule for being creative, that actually WORKS. i only follow my gut feeling to create, but i also follow a schedule. and in order for this to not start feeling too much like a schedule (that could kill creativity once again), it can't happen too often. and it can't be EXACTLY every third weekend, at least not for me, because that's too rigid and not fun anymore. the interval and intensity of these weekend projects may vary, but the principle works.

so if i create without ambition, how can i ensure that a great project will come out in the end? the end-goal is after all not to create random things but great things. so far i've trial-and-error:ed myself to a reasonable way to schedule creativity. if you don't schedule it it happens too rarely, and if you schedule too much the creativity will die, but as i've shown, there is a right way to do it. but how do i make sure i don't just create random things that don't turn into something cohesive and interesting? i see two options: to have similar scheduled "weekends" or just moments where i'm the hard-judging project manager who kills ideas, sets the path forward and puts things together. it's hard to be both the creative and the judging at the same time, so these must be separated. but in my gut, something about this feels not fun.

the second option is to just trust that the process of regularly creating things out of pure joy during these "game jam" weekends will automatically turn into something great in the end. i could for example use one of these weekends to put together the results from all the other weekends, also as a fun project without requirements. that feels fun when i think about it, which means the idea could work, and i don't have to turn all serious which feels boring. kbrecordzz is all about creating art & entertainment, it's all about being creative, so why should i put time on anything else than that?

let's see which way wins.

(this way of working also has the benefit of taking long pauses from your work to get perspective (and to not get bored of it. and to actually REST). it also has the productivity benefit of utilizing deep focus during a couple of days - you will do more in these few days than you would during 20 late nights after your day-job during a month where you constantly switch between contexts and never really focus. and you will have more free time too! you get to keep the cake AND eat it up!)

250319: still nothing... i said i would update this blog every day, that doesn't mean i will fill it with valuable content. it probably means the opposite. the power of (daily) habit lets you do the same thing over and over again without feeling anything about it. it's when you feel something that you're able to create something that's interesting to others, but it's harder to achieve this feeling regularly as a habit. it's a tradeoff between efficiency and creativity. which is why a daily blog will lower the quality of the average post. but as i wrote yesterday, i want efficiency and creativity to work together instead of choosing between them. companies like Nintendo and SM Entertainment have found ways to regularly create interesting things. not by chance or random spurts of emotion, but through a system. i think. i guess they just create optimal environments for that feeling to appear, instead of pressuring themselves to come up with new innovative things every day (because that doesn't work because the pressure kills the creativity). or maybe they feel that pressure and enjoy it, i don't know. they at least don't focus most of their time looking at numbers and economics and comparing themselves to others and following trends and trying to be something they aren't and etc etc. maybe it's more about what you don't do than what you do. not doing things leaves time free, and hopefully it will naturally fill itself with the most reasonable and fun tasks (if you're not naturally drawn to scrolling social media). boom! now you've got the optimal environment for regularly creating innovative things. it was there the whole time, you simply couldn't see it for all the other things. aww shit i filled the blog with valuable content!! FUCK!

250318: nothing, once again... or, thinking about things. how to balance productivity and creativity. not choose between them, but make them work together?

250317: nothing

250316: uploaded some stuff to itch.io: LINK. a fragment of what will come

250315: -when you shoot fire, the fire lights up with a red pointlight, at least at night
-there are ads from Manago over the game
-'Epper boat. you can shoot him of course
-Manago stocks, a robot that changes facial expressions depending on how well it is doing
-receptionist at Manago HQ (a pink blob)
-Earth globe with the notacarclub globe
-Anubis
-'Epper has a stream to cross to get to his office. so you can't go there either
-Manago HQ

250314: you can now shoot the swan. it dies peacefully from severe shot wounds. frontlights of some kind

250313: skybox changes to starry night at the right times

250312: more ideas. logo drops down from above the screen. PLAY/CONTINUE button fades i gracefully. swan

250311: a more varied demo screen

250310: Added a Dogert tuktuk to bankrupt game
nothing more, nothing less. life can be so simple sometimes

250309: pause

250308: new background image for bankrupt made by Sachiko Mili.

250307: How To Bankrupt A Racing League - TRANSPARENT version
will attempt a game jam-like project by myself, to come closer to the goal of releasing my two games Jan 1 2026. it's both a crucial step towards a clear goal, and a project just for fun. are these even possible to combine? i think they have to be.

250306: "this page is made of gold. worship the golden god or you will experience deaths" - 'Epper
apart from that, i will try to update this blog every day (approx.) now, to get some automatic follow-up on my two projects for 2025: notacarclub2 and the snowboard game. they together make up the project "kbz.se 2025", and both games will be finished on Jan 1st, 2026. this deadline will NOT change. everything else will change to fit it, be it quality, scope, or anything else. perfectionism is not the answer anymore.

November 2024 - March 2025