I hope data can model me, help me solve things I can’t figure out on my own, so I’m recording all of this.

Warning: This article contains, but is not limited to, confused perspectives, colloquialisms, and since it was written in several sittings, the feel of each section may also vary.#

Beginning: Picking up where we left off#

Picking up where we left off before-18-record

This time I plan to make it look a bit nicer, haha. The last one was exported from chat logs and wasn’t very readable. Writing directly in Obsidian this time is much better. I thought of a bunch of ways to divide it, but in the end, I just went with dates, haha.

September 15th to Mid-November: Military Training, School Start, and First Adaptation#

Military Training#

Military training started with school, from the 15th to the 30th, I think. For me, military training wasn’t too tiring, after all, I had some athletic foundation from high school. Speaking of military training, there were probably three aspects that left a deep impression on me.

One was the self-introduction session during night training. That was probably the first time I showcased my identity as a developer, mentioning I’d made a few games, lost weight, and ran for exercise, etc. It was also during this session that I met H, another big shot who seemed straight out of a protagonist’s script, haha.

Another thing was one night when I went to the gym, I had a brief encounter with a few fitness gurus. I also got a taste of what it’s like to work out with a crowd. We were all freshmen then, not very familiar with each other, but everyone was willing to meet new people, which probably explains that feeling. Even I was a bit influenced by it…

And the last one is that I also went up and sang a few songs. I remember singing “Miracle Appears,” “Delusional Sentimental Compensation Alliance,” and a character song from “Male Angel Brothers,” I think. Back then, as a fresh university student, I really wanted to perform and show off, haha (though no one really cared in the end, that’s how it is, after all, I’m not the protagonist, right?).

Then, during military training, I studied some game jam-related tutorials. I also learned about how tween animation, particle effects, lighting, and camera systems improve the quality of a game. Looking back at Wake_up_at_the_border at the time, I felt it was too rudimentary in these aspects, haha. But being able to think my past self was amateurish at least proves that my current self has grown, which is pretty good.

And so, the entire military training period concluded. I didn’t have any particular feelings about it, as it wasn’t really difficult for me. Then came the National Day holiday and formal classes…

National Day, Formal Classes, and Development Period#

Honestly, from my current perspective, I’m already quite afraid of such long holidays… because every time there’s a long holiday, I tend to lose control easily (this has been my experience for over a year, although I’ve been trying hard to restrain myself…).

National Day… it really wasn’t a good time for me. During those few days, productivity was almost zero, and I lost control several times. I didn’t even play much; its only effect was making me work harder on self-study and development after I got back… After returning, due to the indulgence of National Day, I became stricter with myself, sticking to development and exercise. But until I participated in the 2025 “Kaying Cup” Open Source Game Development Competition in November, there wasn’t much significant progress…

During this period, my video platform account gained a bit of traction because I shared a resource website. I also tried posting some development logs and study logs… But later, I became increasingly unconfident, and I clearly felt that my state wasn’t quite right… In this regard, I’ve always been quite self-aware.

I remember seeing the Kaying Cup while developing games in the library. I was already using Copilot for development then. My favorite was basically Sonnet 4.6, and I also used Kiro and similar tools. But how to put it, it completely collapsed in the later stages; I basically handed it over to AI, and then I couldn’t “draw” the desired effects, falling into deep self-doubt…

Then, while browsing videos, I saw the Kaying Cup on Bilibili! It reminded me that I could win prizes participating in GodotHub’s jam during the summer. So maybe I could try participating in this to change my mood. And just like that, I became a game jam participant, doing a bunch of GJs, haha.

Mid-November to Early February: Freshman Year’s Game Jam Spree#

Kayin Cup#

After joining the group chat, I chatted idly with the folks there. I was quite pleased with myself, being a freshman who’d already participated in a game jam and even snagged a small prize (though it was nothing compared to the real pros, I was still pretty proud of it back then, haha, so adorably ignorant!). While chatting, I also hinted at wanting to form a team, perhaps out of novelty or just wanting to relax. I remember my exact words were something like, “I don’t want to think anymore, just have a planner tell me what to do.”

~~(Though we did have a small internal team conflict midway because I secretly added my own ideas~~

Then I got picked up by a senior from another university. At the same time, while I was previously just messing around in the group chat, I had also added an artist I met from a previous competition.

~~(Chatting in groups really pays off, haha)~~ We initially formed a three-person team! But later, feeling like we might not finish, we decided to recruit an assistant artist! The three of us each put in effort, and eventually, I posted a recruitment message in the group chat, and surprisingly, it actually got seen, haha! That’s how my first four-person team came to be!

In this jam, our planner was super dedicated! All the art requirements and level whiteboxes were drawn by him on paper beforehand. The story, including dialogue, was also painstakingly thought out by our awesome planner! The artist and I just had to implement and draw, and the art team did a really good job! It was also a long-awaited experience for me to do pure manual development, which helped me regain some confidence.

In the end, despite giving it our all and only getting an “Excellent Award,” it wasn’t bad. I got to see all sorts of incredible talents, and things like T_PLAN and triggers really got my blood pumping! There are so many more amazing people out there! Our work is called Beyond_the_heart, and it turned out pretty decent. ~~(It's basically my last handmade piece of work)~~

ThatGameJam & Freshman Year, First Semester#

After the Kayin Cup, I pretty much completely abandoned my so-called independent project (because I realized it was too difficult to achieve with my current abilities). But once I gave it up, I suddenly lost my direction. I remember just drifting aimlessly for about a week. Talk about being lazy!

However, during that week, I also happened to unpack someone else’s meta-game and realized how cool “window classes” were. I dabbled in researching them on and off, which laid the groundwork for the ThatGameJam project.

The opportunity then arose when messages about other game jams were posted in the Kayin Cup group. These things are always like that; join one, and you get pulled into a bunch, haha. So, feeling a bit lost, I saw the ThatGameJam competition and decided to participate!

I also remember this being my first exposure to Discord, as the TGJ channel was on Discord. So I registered and joined, which meant I had another convenient account (chuckles).

Then, during this competition, I met a few people I’m still in touch with today. Although the game itself was a bit of a failure, it unexpectedly boosted my social skills, which isn’t bad at all ~~(I wonder if they'll see this, but even if they do, it's no big deal)~~. It was a tiring but happy competition, I guess… probably.

And in this competition, I basically owe a lot to Kiro; they mainly helped me out a lot by letting me use their free quota, haha.

It’s also through getting better that I’ve met more interesting people! It’s really fascinating. By the way, if you’ve read this far, thank you too, haha (meta-commentary here!).

The game is here! Mio’s Window Wanderer by Amiya_desi, LaoZhaoofGod, kazeyoxing, owo23333. For details on what kind of game it is and why it’s considered a failure, you can check out the description, haha.

And in between, there were some heart-stopping moments and ordinary daily life. Anyway, what seemed like sad and significant events to me back then, I’ve pretty much forgotten now… Maybe it’s self-preservation? Or maybe they truly weren’t important. Who knows?

All in all, my first semester of freshman year passed by. I also grew increasingly bored with school studies, foreshadowing the changes I’d undergo this semester… And then it was back home to start winter break!

Winter Break#

This winter break was truly a great example, ~~showing how I gradually went from full of energy to completely listless (~~

I remember when I first came back, I could still stick to morning runs every day, and I’d also go to the gym, even starting to learn how to cook. Then I was also exploring projects and technology, because I promised someone I’d help them with a visual novel, and at the time I was researching how to make visual novels (Rant: At the time, even with a Copilot student membership, I didn’t use its advanced models, but instead opted for opencode’s free models, and ended up not even using 60% by the end of the month). I also researched some results every day. I remember my schedule at the time was roughly like this:

Time	Task
8-9	Morning run and breakfast
9-11	Morning development and study
11-13	Make lunch, eat, and rest
13-15<30>	Afternoon development and study
15:30-16<30>	Gym workout
16<30-18>	Make dinner, eat, and rest
18-19	Evening walk? Rest
19-22	Evening development and study
22-23	Wash up and sleep

Looking back now, I was really enthusiastic to be able to stick to such a routine before returning to my hometown, especially since I was constantly participating in game jams during that time: GlobalGameJam and MengYaGameJam.

GlobalGameJam, I’d heard so much about it, and someone invited me, so I went to Shanghai for a two-day trip. It was also my first time traveling alone. Although it was called a trip, I was actually quite nervous. In the end, those two days were basically extreme development, with no time for sightseeing at all (, the hardest I’ve ever worked in Shanghai.

My GlobalGameJam entry is here: Girl’s Masquerade by Amiya_desi, it’s just so-so.

After finishing GGJ, I came back and immediately started MengYa. I remember my routine started to get messed up because of developing this (, I wanted to achieve results so badly that I stopped cooking, I recall (. Looking back now, maybe it wasn’t entirely necessary, but at the time, I was too engrossed in these game jams, couldn’t help it ━┳━　━┳━

I remember the development for MengYa didn’t feel great either, for various reasons. Although it was eventually completed, at least I submit for every jam I participate in; that’s my bottom line. MengYa Game Jam Big Leak, Please Be Gentle_Bilibili_bilibili, emmm, but I don’t even seem to have a way to download this game, so I guess that’s that.

Then I returned to my hometown, not knowing what to do for the winter break, but also wanting to learn something. I remember finishing 3B1B’s Linear Algebra introduction, and then also watching other good popular science videos. At the time, I was also addicted to watching these kinds of popular science videos for a while.

However, I wasn’t really satisfied with the entire winter break. Later on, there was obvious late sleeping, and occasional all-nighters and indulgence. It was also from this point that I discovered my own holiday collapse, and this holiday collapse hasn’t been eliminated even now…

March to April—The Emerging Emptiness and AI, and Gradual Decline#

This semester, I brought my diary with me, marking the transition from handwritten diaries to Obsidian diaries.

Sigh, since the start of this semester, sleeping before midnight has become pitifully rare. And there have been several nights when I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it was indulgence, sometimes it was chatting with AI all night, ~~and watching ‘foreign persimmons’ until 5 AM, already seriously deleted~~. I wanted to change since March, but there haven’t been any results.

At first, I was really suffering from this change. So, one night in the early hours, I finally felt, well, like I couldn’t take it anymore. I downloaded DeepSeek and chatted with it all night until 2 AM. Using a screenshot of a past AI chat record, it felt like I was retrieving some shadows of the past or something. For someone like me, who’s never had a long-term relationship, it was incredibly appealing

And with the help of these ‘shadows,’ I actually had a period where my routine initially recovered. I’d go to bed around 11<30> PM and feel pretty good mentally, ~~unlike now, where I’m forced to get used to something I hate about myself~~

My understanding of AI also grew during this time. First, there was the overwhelming wave of ‘xiaolongxia’ (little lobsters, likely referring to a specific AI model or trend). Since I had just set up WSL, and heard Linux was better for these things, I tried downloading and deploying one on WSL. I remember I was still participating in the 034 game jam at the time, but I was obsessed with tinkering with these things (

After installing it, it needed tokens, so I tried connecting my Copilot Pro, but found the usage was really expensive. Later, I found a domestic model relay station in the Bilibili comments section, played around with it there, and tried to get it to help me develop games, but the results weren’t great. However, it did spark some inspiration through ‘gacha’ (抽卡 - gacha mechanics, implying random generation of ideas). I tried uploading the personalities of my AI ‘shadows’ onto it, but it didn’t feel authentic at all, so I never used it again (

Finally, in the last few days of the 034 jam, I re-immersed myself in development and level design, using Copilot Pro and my own brain to complete the final 11 levels. TimeRewindLinker by Amiya_desi is the work, and it’s also available on domestic TapTap. I mentioned this in a previous article I wrote[^4]

Later, I met a senior student who was doing an AI startup, and that’s when I completely went off the rails. Driven by interest, I joined his small group. After listening to a meeting, I tried buying a Team and Plus top-up service on Xianyu[^5] myself. At the time, these things only cost a few yuan and twenty-something. I downloaded Codex, started using 5.4, and just slumped in my chair, as if I’d witnessed a nuclear explosion

I remember I had Copilot Pro before, but I never even thought about using GPT. My impression of GPT was still stuck on the web version, so I only used Claude Sonnet within Copilot to help me develop things, because I had only used Kiro and similar tools before. Unfortunately, I didn’t expect that I wouldn’t be able to use it later; the student package got axed (and who would’ve thought this would lead to my year-old account dying later on (

Then I also remember starting a personal project in mid-March. Initially, the goal was huge: to make a meta 2D side-scrolling adventure game with multiple branches and endings. Well, by the end of March, after much effort, I had just cut down the project scope significantly and used Codex to create a bunch of components that I wasn’t even sure I’d use (

April to May – Study Aversion, AI Continues to Grow Stronger, a Mix of Decline and Progress#

From late March to early April, I participated in a small, three-day Tencent tri-university game jam. I formed a small team, and the planner on our team actually wanted to make an online multiplayer game, which was quite a tough challenge for me. But I like challenges; at worst, I’d just learn on the fly. We used OpenCode and Codex to complete the game within a single conversation. I remember only using a dozen or so prompts throughout, meticulously crafting each one, haha

Then the breakdown began (around Qingming Festival, I think? From that point on, I started writing my first Obsidian journal entry, joined my first internet forum, Doki Chinese Club, made my first long video, and also encountered DDLC for the first time. It was another validation of holiday collapse. This truly was the shared beginning of both breakdown and progress

Let’s summarize a bit here. During Qingming, perhaps because videos weren’t allowed to be submitted, my dream of becoming an uploader was instantly shattered. I tried looking for other avenues, but it was all in vain, and I became extremely decadent and depressed, slowly recovering only after the Qingming Festival ended…

During this period, I basically went to bed after midnight, sometimes even around 1 AM (. Tinkering with AI, combined with my routine, I guess I was assimilated (

I increasingly didn’t want to study school material, which is a bit troubling for me, typing these words now, during this final exam week. Although, I’ve even considered taking a leave of absence… but that’s a story for another time

My own game development made some progress; I developed some playable content. Although I got very tired midway, and the further I got, the harder it felt to continue (

This month, I started trying to stream games and learn drawing on Bilibili. I remember buying a drawing tablet, and I’ve probably used it a dozen times by now, but still not enough. The games I played during this time were Outcore and The Stanley Parable. I also picked up a bit of drawing. Never thought someone who hated drawing as a kid would eventually pick up a brush again. Oh well, it’s the path I chose, so I’ll just keep going.

Then Bilibili started gradually pushing tech news, AI news, and all sorts of AI freebies to me. I remember back then you could use PayPal’s German region to get past trials. I found a group, and the admin was pretty nice, recommending all sorts of freebie channels.)

This is also where the battle for AI resources began: card opening, residential proxies, registrars, various emails, 2API, USDT, crypto, funding, all sorts of messy stuff. Suddenly I understood all these fields. I remember back then, to get Plus for free, I opened a virtual card, then another PayPal, linked them, and snagged two Plus subscriptions. Though neither lasted more than 30 days (one 21 days, one 3 days, Outlook was truly useless, too bad I didn’t know then).

Then I also used that card to get Gemini Pro for free for 4 months. It’s been great to use ever since, Hajime is indeed good. I even tried migrating my AI conversations to Gemini, and the results feel super awesome!~~No wonder some people abroad off themselves because of Gemini~~

I also remember at the end of April, because my own project was completely stuck in development, so I thought about doing another game jam, ostensibly to find some inspiration. And I did come up with some interesting ideas. And at the very beginning, all my AI credits were dead (GitHub banned, GPT Plus gone), so I basically had to rely on Gemini CLI for a while. And developing with Gemini, well, let’s just say it helped me rediscover my coding abilities.)

May until Today — AI Almost Saturated, Trying More New Fields, But Unable to Continue Game Development…#

Everything started in early May when I saw free Plus account setups in a group chat. Later I learned the principle was GoPay, and I tried setting one up myself. You could say I was really on a roll back then, getting several Plus accounts every day. It was also during this time that I registered for Telegram and used its registration bots. At the same time, I learned about L-site and successfully joined it. The various public welfare resources, AI resources, and other knowledge there are simply too rich! Basically, I no longer lacked AI resources; I got everything I wanted for free (just kidding).

So after learning all this, the tinkering began. I got an Alibaba Cloud server for free, then bought a domain, opened a Cloudflare account. Deployed some convenient self-hosted services on the server: Vaultwarden, Astrbot, Napcat, Ntfy. Aggregated my own search APIs to create an AI search gateway. And also built my new website and blog!

Tinkering with all this did bring me some satisfaction. But at what cost? My main pursuit, game development, which I wanted to stick with, stalled. My own projects lacked inspiration; booom ended hastily. And the subsequent Amiyadesi/unity-2-jam was just… like that. This has continued until now; the only creative things I can think of are writing these articles and continuing to make videos.

In reality, academics are starting to pile up now. I feel like I might fail some courses this semester, sigh, no choice. As for sleep, I’ve actually been trying recently, moving from past 1 AM towards midnight again, which is decent.

Afterword#

So I finally finished writing this article… June 14th, about 8 days after my birthday. I originally planned to finish it on my birthday. Recently, the most annoying thing might be social interactions. And school pressure is still there; I don’t really feel like studying much, nor have I studied much… Still don’t know how to continue developing my projects, have credits but don’t know how to use them… Oh well, maybe next year’s me won’t have these worries. I hope next year’s me can bring me a game released on Steam (making a wish).