Sometimes you're working and a notion hits you, "I am going against everything I know to be true about gamedev by doing this." So today I started making a sort of platform area kind of as a white box testing room, but also i was hoping it would come together and I could use it as a level section. Then it dawned on me, this isn't a damned platformer.

I had all these ideas for adding tons of new things, more polished out of water movement, elaborate levels with tons of platforming elements... but something starts to happen when you start connecting your game to these new elements, and trying to bring them up to a high polish as good as the rest of your game. Your core games becomes host to a new parasite of sorts, these new systems attach themselves and weaken the rest of your game. Your code starts to bloat, your To Do lists, your overall quality now becomes 2x harder to polish, and when you're spread thin these new drains become exponential. 

Keep is simple stupid!

So before I get carried away I've decided there will be no massive platformer zones (WTF WAS I THINKING?) instead I'll be adding light platformer elements here and there throughout the game just cuz. Nothing too heavy handed, any area that's platformer i'll add some secret way of getting around it or something.

I've got some spikes you can bounce off now, I think they'll be fun little "rocket jump" type objects where the player can bounce high off spikes into secret areas, and I've got some new waterfalls the player can swim up.

So TLDR I'm taking the absolute core advice of gamedev that everyone parrots, keep your scope small. I'm going to go back to building out the world, I'll probably be adding some interesting trap areas, need to remember to zone off NPC spawns here, and i'll be attacking standing camera points to them which i think will be pretty cool. I'm also going to be designing them in very rigid square playing areas so that it's easy to implement design wise. So often we try to create things in a way such that we don't have to conform to level structures, but honestly having defined areas that are perfect squares just fucking works in so many ways, the camera setups, the design modularity, setting up trigger volumes and being able to add/ remove them without any fuss, the level design just works out of the box and you solve whatever issues are associated with rectangular areas and so long as you adhere to them, you never have to solve edge cases, it's also familiar to the player so they can jump in and figure these things out. It's just works.

It's amazing to me how easily I can convince my mind with zero pushback, "Oh I want this area to be spooky, let me just totally revamp every aspect of my game so it can be that way." It's so easy for us to want something sometimes without thinking over the implications, or even knowing them. It's why so many first time devs want to make an MMO, we simply don't grasp the overall complexity of the world around us and we simply want that thing frivolously. I think this is a major component as to why the world's gone crazy as of late. Lots of untested people in positions of power fighting off any sensible talk about what's possible. People are too obsessed with money and power, then they end up over their head with no one talking any common sense as people fixate on insane possibilities that they are incapable of achieving. This in game making is known as development hell. I'd like to think I'm slowly swimming out that bitch.

So! No singular part of the game to fixate on, just polish to everything and building up the world. I've been tuning tiny things here and there as I go, one example is the self knockback on bites. Yesterday i had a lerp between 2 values based on charge level, so if I wanted a very low charged bite to send you back after you hit the enemy so you could easily bite again i would give a high value, and a 0 value for fully charged, but I don't want to get too damned technical over broken code and crap, so i'll just say the system didn't work. I've added a new value that allows me to say "When this ability is used with nearly no charge, give it a unique self knockback value". And now the charged bites feel a lot better, you can spam it on a single enemy and maintain facing as you pop back between each hit, but if you charge it for any amount you're able to dash through several enemies and combat for the shark just feels a ton better now. It's crazy how much these little tweaks add up over time, it's something I've been fiddling with for a very long time. I feel i've reached the point I've been doing this annoying gameplay system stuff that I can just do whatever the hell I want very easily now with minimal code, and when there is an issue I'm able to find it and sort it pretty damned fast.

When I was newer to gamedev, I used to think being a good coder was about executing perfect code, perfectly maintaining it so nothing breaks, all that code standard stuff. But now I believe entitled neckbeards have this mentality to justify their positions and that this sort of hand holding is absolute poison to creating a good game. Keep things rudimentary, build the logic so it makes as much sense and is as compartmentalized as possible, but keep it fast and loose. You need to get used to working with things that can break, you need to get used to knowing how hard you can throw stones in a glass house without it shattering, or you'll constantly be fighting against the code. When you're developing core systems and prototyping, it needs to be imperfect and messy, so you can violently attack it and revise it without a constant feeling of destroying perfection, because that will punch you in the gut, and cause you to move at a snails pace. 

You might be working in the most horrid code base ever, the slightest sneeze on it might cause it to fall over on itself... So just don't touch it! move on, close it up and never breath on it again. Refactor what needs improving, do so without opening up old edge cases. It's hard to describe to non coders, but sometimes you just hold your nose and work on shit, you add the new thing, then you forget about it. If you're adhering to perfection you will never move forward with enough passion to make a game worth a damn. Making fantastic games is partially about dealing with shit, sloppily thrown together code. That said I hate that so many systems i'm working with were built by others and I can't be bothered to spend a few days to gut the systems and implement my own, it would be a nightmare. It works, I'm able to work around this stuff, I'd probably be developing 2x faster if i built up the code base myself, which I could do now that i have years coding in this cave, but it is what it is. I work with this broken, scattered mess.

With all the power outages, and low hard drive space kinda been iffy on recording lately. It's weird but I'm just all about the recording as of late, it's like having some shred of accountability even though this is a solo project. Might upload a couple of the dev sessions of had later today.

I was going to link the song "don't let us get sick" by Warren Zevon, but truth be told it's just not one of his best, which just kinda makes it noise. Music is kinda like gamedev, only the absolute best, over produced stuff is worth our time with the sheer volume of stuff out there, so I'm just gonna play this classic again, cuz f*ck it we're alone in the universe.

Edit: Something's been bothering me lately. I spent all this time trying to devise a unique charge system so that a single button would be able to execute multiple attacks. And while that sorta works and i use it on the right button charge attacks, buttons A and B currently both do the same exact damned thing. In mario button A allows you to run, or hold turtle shells. Both my core buttons just cause you to do your core combo attack, and that kinda bugs me. It makes me feel like the core play isn't that well thought out, surely there must be some other "thing" the player could have access to with 2 buttons. For now it's just filler, button A does exactly what button B does.

Maybe that's for the best. Truth be told it's not like the punches or kicks in double dragon or street fighter were truly that different... And maybe this is where the answer lies. Maybe I should develop a slightly different attack that's essentially just a different animation so it feels like A and B are different and not just wasting real estate. Or maybe I should play the game and figure out what sort of ability is missing... The thing is though I don't feel as though anything is. Positioning is so important in SeaCrit that I feel it's an entirely new realm of gameplay and all the charge elements, facings, stuns, ranged attacks, all feed into this overarching gameplay such that having some new combo attack or ability just doesn't feel that needed. How many buttons did Galaga need? How many buttons did minecraft need? I think i've been in my own head too much about the controls trying to make something super revolutionary without asking the more pressing question, what sort of control scheme makes SeaCrit shine the best? Ok, i'm glad I had this blather, i feel more confident moving forward with a very simple pick up and play control scheme with a solid amount of depth the more you play. So when you first play you'll just think, wow these buttons all do the same thing! Then you'll find out you can charge the attacks, you'll find if you charge with 2 buttons you can lock your heading, and you'll master subtle accelerations and decelerations associated with charging and ability use (I constantly fight with toning these down and then overcharging them). Then you find you can access multiple charge attacks if you hold multiple buttons. I can always add more items in the future with more advanced ability setups.

Post Edit Edit: I'm getting too damned side tracked, today i'm going to focus on world building and building up items, and maybe filling in some enemies. It's time for me to focus on building the core gameplay loop, not building up content that may or may not fit into this. For far too long I've alowed myself to work on secondary things and modularity, it's time to actually start attacking this like it will be a game, play it through, take notes, improve the actual expereince. Are items working? Are the areas big enough? Are the enemies fun to fight? Is progression actually sane? So much to tune but I need to start somewhere.