Last night marked an important milestone for the project, as we locked down the core of the experience from a design perspective--just in time. Wrapping up late at night, we carried our PCs and monitors out of the room we we'd been hunkered down in back to the desks we'd practically forgotten about, in what felt a lot to me like the aftermaths of E3s from years past. The last couple of weeks were particularly intense, but we budgeted them well and pushed as hard as we could to finish what we started. The result is something we're feeling pretty good about for the moment, in spite of ourselves. Now all that remains--and it's a lot, to be sure--is some rigorous bug-fixing and tying up some other loose ends. This likely means I won't have quite as much work, relatively speaking, and may be able to get back to playing other people's games for a change. For starters, I'm spending this Sunday luxuriantly wondering what the hell to do rather than knowing exactly what needs to be done. Not that I'm complaining.

I have never had this much of a backlog of must-play games in my entire life. That's one thing I'll be fixing.

But I need to figure out my next move. I should get some fresh air and some exercise, for starters.