I've got a LOT on my mind, there's a lot that needs doing as SeaCrit comes online. I had it all made up in my mind I would do a big blog post how I was going to refactor tuning values. How I was going to migrate them to enums so instead of defining a force as a starting value, an end value, and the duration of the force, it was going to be a "push" or a "nudge" and each of these settings would have a full loadout of values, and if at any time the code changed, I wouldn't have to change every single fish or ability in the game, I could just adjust a few of these premade loadouts. But then I got to thinking... maybe it would just be best to hide away most all values I don't need to see in the inspector and just normalize these values so that a value of 1 is average and move on from there. If I want to copy another ability's "feel" I can just take a look at the values really fast. I don't plan on having hundreds of abilities, just a few and if I need a throng of "lunge" attacks, they should be created as prefab children so they can be tuned off of each other anyway. So no big dev push to revamp how I calculate all force and movement and tuning values. I think i'll just normalize them and hide away unnecessary noise. This in itself will take a little time, maybe an hour, then I gotta apply new modifier to existing fish post normalization as all balance will be blown the f*ck out.

The thing that really got me thinking was the combo system. I don't like how it currently stands, I've put a ton of work into it lately, and i don't think it feels right. Often times when we work really hard on something, just when it sorta works we call it done and move on, "F it i'll fix it later!" This system is too core, I want to fix it in the near future. What doesn't feel right about it, is currently if you spam the button you do the finisher move which is counter intutitive. You'd think if you spammed you would do your fast berserker fast hit moves, but that's the combo you do if you spam really fast. Doesn't feel right.  But here's the problem, the other combo doesn't feel right either, because both feel like they should be what you execute if you spam fast. Having to regulate your button pressing just feels wrong if I'm honest. Maybe the answer is to make finishers soethig that executes if you start a combo and then start spamming the other button... I may have to explore that. DAMN IT I JUST MADE MORE WORK FOR MYSELF BUT I THINK THIS IS THE BEST SOLUTION. It's weird I can think for days on this stuff, but sometimes it's not till I make a blog post that these solutions present themselves. You never know when inspiration will strike. Can't say I haven't thought of alternate buttons before, but this is the first time they've really screamed for implementation. In fact, this may lead me to implementing combo chains with different finisher moves depending on the button sequences.

Also the keep heading values, the knockbacks, the force values, all need tuning, for both the combo and finisher combo chains. What's frustrating is all existing attacks that feel "off" at some point were working fine and felt fine, but then I went and broke the systems fixing some system or expanding it in some way. Honestly, I don't think all the new bells and whistles were worth it, I thought they would add a ton but they didn't, a much simpler system of simply adding a counter force at a specific time would have been way easier to implement and not broken all current design. Oh well, everything is 20/20 in hindsight. Anyhow, going to reverse how the combo system works, instead of executing slam combos for fast presses i'll be setting it up to execute fast combos on fast presses. Seems so obvious to set it up this way, but maybe i'll change it and regret it for some reason.

So tomorrow if I'm feeling up for it after an early appointment I want to get to a little spring cleaning hiding values so only important stuff is shown in the inspector. And now that i've thought about it again, normalizing values is dumb, i'm just going to keep things as is, it's fine. Most everything is kinda tuned now i'm done establishing these values over and over again. What I DO need to do, is stop trying to tune so many fish. I need to do more with less for now. Focus on the first few fish, get them going, get the core movement and attacks going, and then find my groove working on world building again and items and shops and all that other jazz.

Getting WAY too sidetracked,  time to tighten up core things, then move on to core content. These first pushes for some reason are such a road block to me. What if I start piecing together the world and it's not fun? What if I start adding the acual fish and its not fun? Well... then I just gotta bite the bullet and find ways to make it fun! It's not rocket science! I need to stop thinking about the mountain of work that needs being done, and instead think, Hey, I'm going to get a ton of work done, and the game is going to kick arse... at some point... maybe. Fear of not being perfect is the mindkiller. I've adopted long term world building techniques that won't squander time, it's time to start putting them into practice a bit every day.

Every day I work I have this short list of things to do every day, make a little bit of world design, tune up one upgrade ability/ item mod, and some other stuff. What's frustrating is I almost never get to these things because I get sidetracked with some ranodom thing. Been getting sidetracked with random things for weeks now... and for the life of me I can't remember what they are. I think some of them were important, I'm not even sure any more. The work is endless...

This is such a bleh blog entry. No huge ambitions, no big revalations, just trying to stay on target. Do I try to think of some new thing that would make the combo system awesome? My brain is screaming no! Just keep it simple you jackass and stop making this take forever. I had these ideas that maybe the combo finisher would do more damage the bigger you were with heft, but not sure that's a good idea. Perhaps i'm too far deep in the rabbit holes of dev that I can't even see the game any more.

I have enough loose ends as is. I need to dial all these things in and get a working game online with a couple starting areas and some secrets. A few items and some interesting enemies. Once I have those online I can worry about this other stuff. I need to get out of my head and just make the game one step at a time. Doesn't matter where I start, it all needs doin'.

Today was a mulligan. Which I am so glad to say is the rarity these days. Had a little bit of personal stuff going on combined with not feeling so well. As always hoping to get to work hard soon. Well not really! But once I'm over this hump of wrangling everything together I think the game will start to be in a very good spot. Some hard days ahead, but that's gamedev.