Dev Log for Sep 2024, Week 39:
Dev Log:
Gotta say the quiet part out loud real quick…
So last week, or at least towards the end of it, I was real freaked out about the re-factor. To add to things, I wasn’t even really aware of how much I was freaked out. I had the fam in from out of town for a wedding, so I was able to distract myself (and talk with them about the best way to roll in a flexible calendar system.), but then Monday rolled through and the nerves hit. This lasted through Tuesday, which saw me logging hours on Vampire Survivors while I “pondered” what I was going to do. I finally had it today and just threw myself into it, I didn’t want to waste any more time.
It took me not even four hours to get all my functionality back.
The lesson for me here is to not get in my own way. I let my imagination trick me into thinking this was going to be some massive undertaking and it wasn’t (and it shouldn’t matter if it is, so long as there’s value in it). And that’s been by design too. I purposefully go back periodically as I’m learning new things to make sure I didn’t do something to shoot myself in the foot earlier.
I mostly needed to say this somewhere so I can remind myself of this in the future: I’m a dumbass.
Getting the re-factor wrapped up and moving on.
It is about 10:30 at night, and the re-factor is pretty much done, with some work on features underway. I’m going to get a quick hit list going here, so I can rubber-duck my game plan for the next few days:
- [x] Finish getting my three primary managers communicating existing info back and forth.
This was the main reason for the re-factor. I had, up to this point, just been putting code all over the place to test basic features. But since I know this will be a networked project, I’m attempting to get closer to a session/player/world segregation that I think will serve that purpose best. This way the player and the world can handle their parts internally, and communicate anything they need from each other through the session. This also had me break down some of my bigger node blocks into smaller scenes, under the assumption that while it will generate more scripts, they will each be cleaner and easier to deal with since they will be more tightly duck-typed. - [x] Update stat blocks.
This stems from the same chunk of conversation I was having with the fam when they ran through. They’ve both been parts of my playtests for when these rules were in a tabletop setting, and my bro Luscious had a hand in helping design the 3rd edition of my rules.
Long story short: I’ve always written crunchy rules, then tried to find elegant ways to simplify them, which led to the stat system I currently use. The rub here is I can make a better game with more crunch now because it’s no longer on the player to keep track of it, they just need to understand it. So what this means is I can merge design chunks from all my different systems, which I’m going to opt for now before I get too deep in. - [ ] Correctly collect experience points.
Speaking of crunch you don’t have to track, this would be one of those elements. I’ve always thought experience was to simple in most TTRPG’s, so I’ve always opted to try and make more interesting ones. At the table, this has had mixed success, mostly because it’s more to track, so I usually end up refining them into something that works, but isn’t what I originally envisioned. So here I’m going to try implementing one of those systems as is. The short version is this is an insight/lesson system, where you get your best growth with a combination of success and failure, enhanced by different types of practice/training. - [ ] Get further in implementing items.
Not gonna lie, this is technically a two-fer. Primarily, I want to get the resource classes built for the different types of equipment, along with the ability to collect them to the main character record. Shit, a three-fer. I’d also like to at least get the basics of tooltips or modals in place to show their info (which I can then use as the base for the rest of the game.)
Okay I’m not going to push my luck too much further. After I do the git merge stuff I’ll get moving on all this and see where I end up, and then I’ll update you again.
Closing Thoughts:
Yeah so, as you’ll notice, I only got through about half of that list. This isn’t due to lack of effort, but lack of foresight. After getting everything mostly up and running, and moving the action bar, I overlooked that TaskResolution was going to need some pretty heavy petting as well, which I’m currently in middle of. Not the biggest deal, but a good lesson for me in terms of learning how to scope myself.
Other than that, I thought it was a generally decent week of getting stuff done. I’ve learned a few things about the practice of development, which is awesome, and some much-needed lessons about how best to respect my own time, or not giving my imagination too much say.
Off to the next one!