Progress Report 1/6/2023 (Patreon)

Happy First Friday, everyone! Here's what I got done this week:

• Determined the new direction to go with gameplay
• Added selection boxes to all categories
• Gave each sprite a name and made the listed item name change each time a new one is selected
• Made randomize buttons randomize sprites in addition to colors for each category
• Made a button to reset everything to default
• Made a button to randomize everything
• Made "Are you sure?" prompts when the "default all" and "randomize all" buttons are pressed
• Made the Customizer Options Menu (COM)
• COM: Added "Ask before resetting/randomizing" checkboxes that enable/disable the "Are you sure?" prompts accordingly
• COM: Added a "Randomize both sprites and colors" radio checkbox that allows both functions to play out
• COM: Added an "Randomize colors only" radio checkbox that ignores sprite randomization functions
• COM: Added an "Randomize sprites only" radio checkbox that ignores color randomization functions
• Made the giantess transparent when the "Transparent" checkbox is toggled
• Finished cleaning up the customization system of old, unnecessary code

Two beast mode weeks in a row, baby! Let's start from the top!

So, while playing various flash games on Armor Games and Addicting Games (which still work, surprisingly), I jotted down lots of notes -- attached below for your reading pleasure! Note that the ideas will not necessarily be reflected in the final gameplay; they just give some insight into my thought process. I also removed certain parts of my notes in the uploaded version so I don't give away too much. I still have some surprises up my sleeve! >:D

Anyways, I can't even begin to describe how much playing other games helped me here. It's one of the first things I learned in my Game Design classes, yet for some reason it's a step that I just sorta forgot about.

I'm still going to stay relatively quiet about the (literal) game plan since I don't want to generate hype over features that may not make it, but I will say that I'm making sure the giantess remains a priority of focus; I don't want too many things distracting the player from the giant woman trying to stomp them. The entire game is from her POV, after all. Furthermore, if all goes according to plan, the heroes will remain a key part of the gameplay experience. Now then, my lips are sealed until I make tangible progress on it!... After 3D stuff!... Which will happen after the Customizer is done... It may be a bit of a wait. ^^;

Speaking of the Customizer, I got quite a lot done! I'll let the bullet points and the gif above do most of the talking this time.

I will say, however, that working on simple, generic UI like the Customizer Options Menu was a breath of fresh air! For the last several months I've been drowning in connections from this button to that button to all of those sprites -- oh, but not those sprites! Having a menu just sorta... be its own thing for the most part... it was really nice. I miss when buttons just connected to, like, one thing. Those were good days.

Fortunately, I'll only have to deal with this complicated mess of a character creator for a little bit longer! I've got five -- FIVE -- things left on my to do list for this thing. Only two of them are complicated, and of those two, one of them is just about guaranteed to kick my butt. That one's next on the list, so, uh... next week's gonna be fun!

I'm gonna go eat some Taco Bell in preparation for my final battle with the Customizer. In the meantime, you guys try to stay out of the blast radius. I'll see you guys again next week!