Welcome to the development blog for Civis Ortus. I'm Prdgi, Civis Ortus' developer. Through this blog series and the Executive Dysfunction Driven Development blog series I intend to capture the development of Civis Ortus and the impact of my executive dysfunction (ADHD) on the development process. Journey with me as I face the challenges of inconsistency, discipline, shame, and impostor syndrome associated with executive dysfunction.
Civis Ortus has been my "dream game" for 15 years. During this time I have made multiple attempts at developing this game, but have faced significant challenges caused both directly and indirectly by executive dysfunction- particularly indecision, emotional regulation, and discipline.
In late 2018 I received an ADHD diagnosis - an explanation for near three decades of questioning my abilities and self-worth. Since that time, I have sought to develop an understanding of ADHD and its unique effects on me - which turned out to be the easiest part. Rebuilding confidence, restoring my self-image, and learning to forgive myself have been some of the hardest things I have done and continue to do. Undoing 3 decades of questioning my abilities, beating myself up, letting people down, and eroding my self-confidence is not an easy task - particularly when I am affected by executive dysfunction.
Throughout this project, I hope that I can capture the impact of executive dysfunction on design and decision making in games development. I hope to gain more insight into myself, and continually improve my management, planning, designing, coding, and decision making skills. I also hope that through public acknowledgement and discussion of the issues I face with executive dysfunction others may be find the strength and support to identify, understand, and overcome their own challenges.
What is Civis Ortus?
Civis Ortus is a grand strategy game. The core gameplay directive is to guide a population group through the process of building a lasting civilisation.
Civis Ortus will be designed to support multiple modes of play ranging from single-player with bots, small-scale multiplayer (2-50), single-player with no bots (god mode), massive-multiplayer (50+), and bot-only.
Civis Ortus will support turn-based, and automatic turn-based gameplay.
Civis Ortus will support multiple operating systems.
Civis Ortus will be open-source with provisions for commercial usage for myself or a company which I may create. I feel the commercial usage caveat may be required in order to implement the massive-multiplayer gameplay mode - though there are certainly other methods of funding server infrastructure.
Technology Stack.
Caffeine. Lots of caffeine.
The tech stack will likely change and evolve over time.
What things will impact development of Civis Ortus?
I struggle with emotional regulation - particularly managing frustration. This is perhaps the biggest contributor to my challenges with discipline. Whilst I can be highly motivated to complete a project, frustrations - and even just anticipating frustrations - along the way can be overwhelming and can cause strong aversion to continuing. I feel its irrational because I can see that my emotional and physiological reactions are not in proportion to the challenge I am facing - which in turn leads to further feelings of frustration, guilt, and shame thereby compounding the effect. Sometimes, it really does feel that the conscious, rational part of my brain is limited to being in "observer mode".
