BIG NEWS:

Lots of sh*t to do across the board, burning out across the board. Going to adopt a shotgun approach and just get a bit of work done on everything every day moving forward. Make a few new prop arrangements, make a new terrain segment, polish some upgrades, and do a few misc things every single day. If I can keep this up for a week the game should really be taking shape!

Day 5930 of being 2 weeks from everything coming together!

Edit: Feel like blathering like the old days, but not sure how much energy I have this late, 'bout to hit the hey and get ready for a big long day of devin'. 

I want to speak to this recurring nightmare I put myself in. I had this overly complex terrible system that managed attacks and combos. It was big and scary and I wasn't sure how it worked, and I kept working around it. Feature after feature this system became this unwieldly monstracity that I could no longer build on, it could only do what it did, any ideas for new features or polish I simply couldn't do, it was a giant glass hosue and I wasn't going to throw any stones.

More and more I am finding that the best thing to do with overly designed and complex systems is to just blow them the f*(K up. If something is confusing, make a note of what it does and just nuke it. Rebuild it, make it simple. Reavaluate what its supposed to do, and what a simple, ergonomic and elogant solution might be.

I spent a lot of time the past couple days trying to fenagle the system to figure out how fast the player was clicking the attack button. "How do i make a timestamp of when a combo is executed? And how do i sort the different mechanics of some attacks being combo attacks that register by que before the attack executes on top of tons of pitfalls and overly designed crap?

After sleeping on it and taking a step back, I realized the best solution wasn't working within the constraints of the over designed systme at all. All I had to do was figure out how fast the player was clicking independently, then if they were smashing buttons fast enough, increment the combo. SIMPLE!

So often we start to think of answers to simple problems as overly complex, and we become hypnotized by the complexity of these solutions. Am I good enough to pull off the overly complex solution?

TERRIBLE QUESTION!

A better question: How do I do this the right way from the beginning that's stupid simple and easy to work with and makes obvious sense by glancing at the code?

If I could go back in time, I would approach a lot of problems differently. Early on we're so obsessed with just learning how to code, that we often indulge and complex solutions, much like an amateur artist will obsess over perfect detailing throughout the entire piece as they take joy in mastering shading, and form, and various other mechanics of art. But once mastered, the true artistry is in exerting your energy wisely, and combating larger, more overarching creative endeavors beyond the technical medium.

I had success revamping the combo system, I'm tempted to revamp the Fish AI and navigation systems as well. Would likely take a full day, but it would allow for more advanced movement, and any random other ideas would be easier to implement in the future as well, instead of just brushing them off, "Can't do that, can't touch the fragile, complex code". Smarter fish would mean more interesting level design that they could navigate, which would mean more interesting combat scenarios and interesting levels. Something to think about for the future... in the meantime though I kinda just want to get minimum viable setups for levels, make them small, get an assortment of fish up and running that is interesting to fight against, get those all working, then once everything feels fun and the level arrangements are working, then I can quickly baloon the levels up.

HERE"S A THOUGHT! I make keep 2 iterations of the level setups, one small, one larger, and at any time I can pick and choose between the two. Could be a difficulty setting for a bigger world, or just a setting chosen by the player. Or maybe I make the small world just something I run for quick design testing.

RANDOM EPIPHANY! I have a "load/ unload" script that's a little overly complex, it has these extents that needs to be set manually, but what if during the initialization start of the code... it simply found the object with the furthest left, right, top, and bottom transform, and automatically set these up? Padding them a touch with an extra 100 units or so. Imma add this to the todo list, this manual system has already given me lots of grief.

Haven't had a blather like this in a bit. Feels good to be back on task and thinking about gamedev again.

Last thought for tonight... a good game and one doomed to failure look identical. A good game trying new things will be unfun and boring for a long long time. For so long I've wondered if I was crazy, too incompetent to see how faulted the project is, or to overestimate my ability to push the project further, past the line of mediocrity. The more POTENTIAL you see in your game, the more you will go insane hoping others will see it.

The vast majority of projects never realize their potential, potential is often an oasis in the desert, something that exists as a feeling, something you KNOW will be fantastic once it's here, but not something you can quite see as tangible in your mind either. It's a lofty dream, one you hope you can achieve if you push and push and push.

They often say that it's the people who never quit who have a chance at succeeding, but there's a lot of BS in that. Had I at any point realized seacrit was doomed, and this was all leading to disaster as code fell apart, or plans showed themselves to be ill concieved, I would have quit a long time ago. You don't quit, because things are going well, not siimply because you're stubborn or have an undending resolve.

Quitting a diet? Quitting an exercise routine? Sure, that's a lack of resolve. But quitting a doomed project that's smart.

So i'm either absolutely b@tshit crazy, or the project is actually doing pretty alright. It better be both, because I've gone pretty b@tshit as of late. I know I'm repeating myself, and it's not lost on me how pitiful it is to be on this soapbox blathering to an imaginary crowd. But in this crazy world, you gotta fake it till ya make it... or something. Imma just tell msyelf that, remain pumped to work tomorrow, and keep this crazy train chuggin' forward.