A lot can be said about racing against mortality and the drive to move forward even when you're normally just the type of person who wants nothing more than to watch the world turn.  

I'll say now that a favorite quote of mine has always been from Bob Ross.  It's a simple phrase really, "There are no mistakes, only happy little accidents." So, I have been able to justify trying to speed up with the logic of haste makes mistakes and mistakes make happy little accidents and to an extent it's true.  For example, Gilbot only has a traffic light head because my hand slipped twice in making the motion for the placeholder, causing it to end up with a very elongated skull.   I remember taking that image and sliding a poorly drawn eye up and down along this skull wondering at what at which point it should lie in the traditional dumber characters are depicted with big jaws and smarter ones are depicted with bigger heads spectrum.  To me, as you can guess, it didn't look good at any point.  So, then I added another eye and when those two would have needed redrawn to fit the space to my satisfaction, I pasted a third in frustration.  Only then did it click with me and now I could never imagine him with anything else.

Then by all merits I appear to gain no benefit from wanting anything but to go faster, correct?

Perhaps but maybe not.

Why?

Desire.

To put it simply why should a person go fast if it is not what they desire?  Haste will make the project love you no less but what of others?  This is the digital era after all and a lot of youtubers do live or die by the simple mantra of "Are you uploading daily?" but I have never been one for haste, so the feeling thus far has been unpleasant.

So, then I must ask myself...  Who am I to create my creations with unpleasant hands?  Can I say I value them with my heart if I cannot give it to them?  Unlikely, I think but on the other hand who am I to say that I value my creations over those who wait for them? 

Perhaps then I am simply a fool? I do often allow the text within the game to become awfully bad on a whim if for no other reason than to amuse myself.  It is entirely not an accident that the intro to the game danced to the tune of a Bulwer-Lytton style opening.

But at the end of the day none of this matters as my fast simply isn't fast.  So why then not go slow?

Life is better when you can take it slow.

Maybe that's just me.

Certainly not a financially smart decision and if you're looking at this wondering how to profit from your efforts I highly suggest to read between the lines and I'm sure there's still useful information for you here somewhere.

For everyone else? Stay with me and watch the world turn.

Above in the thumbnail and then again in a flash, perhaps the only time you will see the last two number on HAL's sign.  What do they mean?  Nothing more than I watched too much Futurama ages ago and now that's all I can think about.

Speaking of Futurama, have a quick fun fact for making it this far.  The game does a lot of parodies but did you know that each character is designed as a parody of multiple characters?  For example Droid P-001 comes from the obvious Dead Pool but could you tell there was a hint of Roberto from Futurama in there?  Perhaps in some cases I hid them too well and in others the character you thought you knew might seem like I'm not staying faithful to the source material when in reality they are two creations vying for the spotlight, hoping to become their own original being.  Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know.  Maybe someone will find fun in guessing the others and maybe someday I'll tell you if you're right. Probably not but won't it be fun to imagine?

Before we go, have a look at the current final draft images for HAL.

The font used is on both sides of his sign is Ostrich Sans by Tyler Finck under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.

This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:

http://scripts.sil.org/OFL

I quite enjoyed it in the placeholder, so opted out of drawing my own and used it again without hesitation in the final image.

Also, it has been brought to my attention that HAL has a sign for a head and signs aren't generally known for their ability to talk.  My fiancé said he should know sign language without realizing what a wonderfully beautiful pun it is.  So, what do you think?  Should HAL's actions be dictated through unspoken dialog, or perhaps we should assume like with the camera that never made it into the end image that sometimes stuff just works and sometimes that's okay.