I was going to talk about some emergent gameplay that happened recently, but moreso I'm just reminiscing about this entire journey. What a great deal of time has passed in the interim of wanting to make this game.

I want to blather the same tired musings for the thousandth time, but i'll spare myself. Gamedev is hard, it takes a long time, and it takes a lot out of you. Blah blah blah.

All the years leading up to now, it was a bit of wax on wax off. The horrors of code I wrote, the terrible design, the cringe emails I sent to publishers, "PLS HELP ME WITH MY GAME". Most of the development of this game has been a bit silly and amateur. I hope I've grown past that, I hope the project is actually turning into something. I hope I'm not enough of a dmb F*)k that I can tell the difference and not just bleeding out the rest of my days, but what's it matter anyway? Trying to keep a sense of purpose as I make this game. Who knows what the future holds if people start to find it fun. Could be great things, could be a nightmare, but just going to keep pushing and find out.

I find myself in a very strange place now. I've always wanted to be able to come up with cool items that do fun things, and i'm finally standing on this threshold. But instead of ideas flowing through me I feel kind of empty, I don't fell the thrill of wanting to come up with amazing ideas. Maybe I need to start upping the difficulty so i feel a need to add things that make you stronger, I've focused so much on adding things that are fun and easy to beat up that I haven't had anything in the game in a long long time that requires you to get stronger.

I don't know, maybe i'm just a little strung out from the mad dash of the past few weeks. Or maybe I need to just take a breather and have some time to think.

It's been a strange past few years, not sure where up or down is any more, don't really feel connected to anything, who this game is for, why. The world I felt I was working to make a game for seems to have gone. Too far to give up now though, gonna take a bit of time to think of some items and get to it.

I'm going to take inspiration from yesterday. We don't have leaders like we used to. Don't have the same grit and determination to fight for tomorrow. We used to know who we were, what our purpose was. TO PUNCH ALIENS IN  THE F$*(KING FACE. TODAY WE CELEBRATE OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY.

After such a hard sprint, I think the various systems may finally be coming online. I may finally be at the threshold and creating content and bringing it all together. For so long it's felt like just 2 more day, now it may actually be here and I can't really believe it.

F*#$* IT, we'll play some Journey

Better times then, but a reminder that times can be good gain perhaps.

Workin' hard to get my fill. Everyone just wants a thrill. Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time...

Some 'll win some will lose, some are born to sing the bluuuuuuuuuueeess, oh the movie never ends it goes on, and on, and on, and oooooon. 

DON'T STOP BELEVIN', HOLD ON THE THAT FEEEeeeeeeeelayeyayin'.

If it weren't for cheesey power rock, this project would have been dead long ago.

Little terrified to start putting this stuff together, maybe that's why I've doubled down on refactoring everything. But there's a white whale that needs harpoonin' and I'm not gettin' any younger.

Got a decent little nap in just now, hopin' i've got some gas in the tank for a good night of dev.

What do pirates be wearin', to keep 'their sails from deflatin'?  

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmor!

Edit: Amazing what a little coffee and a couple hours to come to can do. I'm remembring what I wanted to do with items. So many games do these things where an item will increase your speed, increase haste, increase damage, do all these things that push systems to be faster and fast and everything sorta falls apart don't they? Eventually you end up with a singular button that causes you to teleport all over the screen instantly and everything just dies at your feet. 

Where's the fun in that? Where is the gameplay?

Here are a few upgrade ideas i'm excited about:

Increase the damage you deliver with charged attacks by 30%. BUT! It slows the rate you charge your attacks by 15%! There's a bit of a tradeoff here. I'm thinking if I can keep upgrades measured, i'll have a lot better chance of keeping the gameplay tight and measured, things won't necessarily go out of control.

Does that mean I won't have a super rare item, that allows you to shoot 50 bajillion AOE projectiles that deal catastrophic damage? Heck no. But I want to try to build a system that isn't designed with the sole purpose of invalidating all of the core mechanics of the game. I want to INCENTUATE them.

It's amazing to me how many games invalidate their core systems with new weapons, new skills, no stuff. It's a constant churn of assets, a constant stream of things to feed the player more things to keep them engaged. Do soccer players need new fields every game? New rules to keep it interesting? Does Dota need a new map for every game? New items?

NO! Good games have a quality rule set, and a singular finely tuned engagement worth experiencing many times.

I've got some tenants in mind for new items, I want them to be fun, I want them to be impactful, I want them to change the way you play the game, I want you to feel like you've changed putting on that magical wonky armor that covers you in bags for some reason (It's hard finding armor for fish on the asset store).  I want most all items to give you a new attack move, or radically alter an existing one. And they need to have a defining stat upgrade that truly changes the play of the game. Maybe you can turn invisible, maybe you can waveswim 30% faster, maybe you can charge up and smash huge opening attacks. These items are going to be fun, they're going to be toys, this game is meant to be enjoyed and rewarding and offer interesting engagements that challenge you to adapt and grow and try new things and experience content again in a new way.

Enough blathering, this coffee's entering my veins, time to get to work.

Post work Edit: Really unrewarding day, so many edge cases and little tiny things just made it a nightmare. Too many days in a row workign long hours, doing tedious things and running in circles. I need to think about how i'm going to go about things more before I do them or I end up having to redo them many times over. So tired of working my ass off, withering away in this damned cave.