Progress Update- Movement code (Patreon)

Back to full HP! And now, some core engine work. Somehow the complex things are all easy and the simple things are hard. My preferred platform is my substar btw!

Also I have a coding stream starting now!

To new patrons: We’re in the middle of an absurdly-long update cycle. Here’s the summary and how to access content.

What's being worked on?

Movement, anchors, and force

So I spent this week puzzling out how the movement of toys and characters is tracked, and tied together, in the game. The thing is- almost all the actual code and design around motion, physics forces, and orifices squeezing/resisting entry is already done. This is just engine design.

I want to strike a balance with these posts. Diving deep on interesting topics, giving useful details for gamedev problems others may struggle with, and letting boring stuff go.

I'm finding the best way to make a unified system of movement in my specific engine, which isn't super applicable to others' projects. 

In short: 

There's simple position tracking, useful for putting fluid emitters at the tips of things that spurt out fluids. That's done. 

Then there's dynamic position tracking, useful for swapping movement patterns of a toy from fully mouse-controlled to sticking into the more limited path an orifice. Done on paper, gonna implement it today.

And last, there's physics forces tracking, which tracks things like the player pushing a toy into an orifice with a mouse, the orifice squeezing it back out, toys rubbing against each other inside the character, machines, etc. Weirdly I think this is the simplest one to implement.

A lesson in looseness.

Not that kind of looseness... yet. We'll get to that mechanic after the movement code. 

I've been experiencing constant reminders that staying loose, and being unafraid to rip up whole sections of the code to redesign it, is far better than being timid. No individual piece of the whole is precious or needs to be perfect. Instead, freely letting messy ideas out seems to result in closer-to-perfect code in the end. It's the same with drawing and language learning, and I suspect any other skill.

It's uncomfortable to do. There's a tendency to want to overthink, overprepare, overplan. I feel silly having spent so much time doing all of that and getting nowhere. There's a feeling that things will be less uncomfortable if I just put more thought into it first. The reality is that growth is necessarily uncomfortable. Pursuing and appreciating that discomfort seems like the best way to keep growing and impressing myself.

Don't take life advice from me btw I'm not that smart >.>;

Q&A

Is Project Maple still alive? Yes!! (This is the kobold game I'm collaborating on with PussPuss). As soon as this engine can do the things Maple needs (movement, p*netration, and expressions), I'll be putting out an early build of it! 

The Trello marks several tasks major features. Will the game be ready to play when those are done? Possibly! It might be playtest-able at that point, and if so, I'll happily release a WIP build.

As a reminder, here's the release checklist to track my progress!

... and that's all for now!

Thank you so much, everyone who supports me. And thanks a ton to those swapping over to Substar! 

Things are going well. I'm finding that healthy working habits are helping me unlock more of my brain. Taking breaks lets me access some higher-level thinking capabilities, and also be more flexible about how and when work gets done. 

Trying to rigidly force myself into certain work hours, or methods, almost always results in unhealthy patterns and slows me down. Striking a balance isn't about "solving" the equation of the perfect routine, but is a constant shifting target. Just part of regular life maintenance.

Also I'm crazy excited to get this stuff working. It'll be a huge step in completing the interactivity portion of this game, which is one of the strongest aspects of its premise IMO. So uh, yeah, incremental progress! Woo!

<3