I was working on the chargeup speed yesterday, which was deja vu all over again, and i was increasing the speed the player gets the moment they press the charge button for like the 500th time, this time sure that it would be better for some reason (I have recently revamped how the game dampens speed over time away from a very rigid exponent system to a simple linear falloff). It's very frustrating when you add something to your game that SOMETIMES feels really good, and sometimes feels really bad. You can go crazy trying to find the right sets of conditions in order to shut off or stifle this thing in a way that makes logical sense in our brains as a player.

So right now I think it feels really good to get a burst of speed that falls off as you charge an attack, it gives the game a fun rythm I think, your mobility falls off as your damage increases and it makes you vulnerable, but initially it makes you safer as you can speed away from danger. Problem is, it's a bit "stuttery" and the flow of movement feels very start and stop and the player probably isn't going to feel comfortable with this mechanic popping off if they're wanting to do a build that surrounds charged attacks.

I'm considering tying these movement mechanics to itemization and upgrades, items that would give bonus full charge damage at the cost of movement speed when fully charged, but this starts getting convoluted because in SeaCrit you can have several items, and some of those items affect you only in certain forms, so it really starts getting confusing in the mind of the player, and many players are going to be playing without wanting to look over ugprades and what they do. They'll just equip new items, start moving slower and wonder "WTF?".

I am constantly trying to create several games at once, and tuning them all at the same time is not the smartest thing in the world. Instead of polishign one move set, to make it work well against a given set of enemies, I'm tuning an infinite number that all synergize in different ways.

The more I indulge in create interesting item modifiers and upgrades, the more I allow the player to grow in strength that goes against their actual twitch play, and I can very easily break the flow and challenge of the game. SeaCrit is most fun when enemies are relatively hard to kill, and deal at least a bit of damage to the player. Conversly if I balance teh game as if the player is competent at creating their build and itemizing, the players who just pick up random items all over and buy "the wrong" shop upgrades end up being gimped and they get destroyed by challenges designed for their skill level. I am leaning on creating rare weapon varients that have "sporty" feeling movement, i think that will be a good compromise. I will have the common items that don't do anything crazy, and once in a while, if the player wants, they can equip a rare item with lots of glowy stuffa round it that feels better. I'm going to add visually interesting attacks to these weapons to really beat into their heads that these items are the reason why their movement speed feels different, otherwise the game is going to feel like random chaos.

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have tuned the SAEM F*CKING VALUES OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN expecting a different result. I always hated that definition of insanity, because there is a fine line between doing something over and over again because you're crazy, and doing something over and over again because might actually be on to something. What if Rowling had given up writing because she didn't get a hit right away? What if Bukowski did the same? What if the creators of any creative work gave up because time and time again they faced failure. I may be tuning the same values over and over again, but do not feel it is the same, the game is much better today than it was a year ago. Every day I work on it it gets better. Those gains become more and more painful the longer this shit show goes on, but they're still gains, and small as they are, when you add them all up, they are exponential. And this is the rub, we don't know our limit, and the only way to find it is to push, and maybe I find it wont be enough, but all i know is I haven't pushed seacrit all the way yet, I have much balance to do, I have a todo list that magically fills itself up every day as I add tasks pounding out what I believed to be hte final list before this little demo is ready.

I STILL need to do the overarching balances and tweaks to all items, NPC's and abilities before I push out this demo, but I don't believe it will take too long, what's taking an exorbitant amount of time is adding these little bits of features that are required to form the bedrock of all the future polishing's and tunings to sit upon.  Kinda procrastinating getting to work writing this up, I'm so damned burned out. But I'll have some things i've been wanting to get in for a while now. I'm giong to be adding those visual queues to items that let the player know if it does more damage or not/ has more armor, and i'll be adding a chargebar that the player will have to fill before equipping a weapon, I'm hoping this makes the player take a moment to look at the cool stats and bonuses on the weapon, as that is a huge factor of fun for the game, but it may just make equipping items more clunky and annoying. I hate implementing things that have a solid chance of making the game WORSE, but it's important enough that I'm going to take the chance anyway. I will also... damn it, the thought escapes me, it was kinda important and I'm not sure if it's on the to do list or not. I hate when this happens, you've got thoughts flooding in a mile a minute and you're trying to get them done fast enough that you don't lose them, even taking the time to write them down can be counter productive. Ok after checking it's not on the todo list, so hopefully it wasn't a thought that was going to make or break the game, maybe it'll come to me again as I work or test things in the game.

Anyhow! TONS to do, it never ends, but that's also a good thing. Because the more there is to do, the better your game will be in the future! At least that's what my asshole brain tells me.