Whew, what a long road it's been reaching this point. When you think of a milestone you usually think of some giant feature being added, a demo being released, a set of functionality that brings the game all together... I feel as though we've reached a different kind of milestone, we're kinda sorta opening our mind to what our game is and accepting it that way.

I had always just thought of SeaCrit as Diablo with fish. I thought of a simple beat 'em up as "lesser than", I'm not action gamer, I don't spend late nights playing street fighter. I don't know how to make a laundry list of modern fighter features and mechanics that make them "fun". Many years ago I threw some fighting mechanics into  a fish game, added a few level up mechanics and I slapped a "rogue lite' label on the side.  The game was and still is pretty awful, but we're working on it!

What a wishy washy post this is already turning into.

In adding touch screen controls, and not wanting to dive deep into UI design, I ended up taking SeaCrit in a much more casual direction. There is no interacting with interface, you equip items, and at most you'll look at what a few bonuses do. It's a very light RPG element in terms of managing items. But that said, we have some very inventive new bonuses and they're very interactive and have big impact on how you play the game!

Developing SeaCrit has not been easy, I have tried in so many ways to make this game fun, being my first game, I had to learn a lot of things the hard way, and it's taken far longer than I would have liked, life is passing  by in this crazy world. BUT in recent months certain elements have become far more fun (I hope) than I ever thought they would be, and I have begun adding more platformer type elements with shallow excitebike inspired areas where the player can zoom through collecting pearls and belly flopping their way through the lively environment.

SeaCrit is no longer a gear check simulator. It's not a Diablo clone, there aren't always going to be 50 enemies on the screen that you can either mow down in a second with a single ability, as you look for that singular rare item to enhance your crit chance by an additional 5%.

It's more like Dota meets Ecco the Dolphin. Really free flowing underwater swimming mechanics meets a distilled, actiony RPG romp that lasts maybe an hour. Then you start over again and get to experience the fun and explosive growth again as you build back your damage and your survivability and mobility in a crazy underwater world with inventive RPG mechanics, and actiony 2d play.

I think I finally figured out what terrifies me about taking the next step of embracing all this. It's not at all in my control. I have spent the better part of a decade devoting myself to this project, and it's not what I planned for it to be. I wanted a game you would play for hours and hours and get lost in and could play endlessly wanting to get more and more powerful. But I'm not entirely sure that's what it is any more. It's a light, fun action game. But look at Mario 64, people play that darned game every day, because it's awesome!

I'm not sure what the future holds, I do know that I will be investing far more time into building up fun platforming mechanics than I ever expected to. I'm going to be scaling down the crazy gear checking and huge rises in damage output and regen values and all that jazz, because this game isn't about throwing numbers against the wall and hoping they are bigger than the enemy numbers. If I made this game mostly about getting big numbers, about knowing where to get higher crit rates, crit damage, etc. I don't think it would work.

This gamedev thing is weird. To any outside observer reading this who hasn't made a game I'm sure this would sound silly. "Ok, so your fish game isn't about #'s, big whoop." But it's kind of surreal to have this goal in mind of what you're making, and to have these preconceived notions, and feeling as if you don't have control of the wheel. I've made every major decision, created most all the code and mechanics, set up all the colliders and the timings and the items, and built the DNA of all these enemies to create diablo underwater... but a singular decision about the UI that I made out of being spread thin and not being able to devote myself to a broader itemization system has hugely impacted the course of this project.

And I'm actually really excited about this. Daunted and terrified too, but mostly excited. Because I think it's FINALLY starting to kind of work.

Years back I made a post where I spoke to this notion, that for a LONG LONG TIME, if your game is trying cool new sh*t, it's going to be worse for it. You're going to think in your mind all the neat things all these mechanics have the potential to add, and you'll look through all their blemishes and see that potential, but every other person that tries your game is going to fixate all the weak links, they're going to see shoddy play that isn't cohesive and their mind will rightly file the game away with the throng of others that do not produce a coherent experience.

We have FINALLY reached the point where I feel I know what this game is, all the features are locked in in terms of controls and progression, and nothing is weighing the project down. EVERYTHING needs polish, everything needs more tuning, everything can be better and that is a fantastic thing! Because it means we have not yet hit our ceiling.

We're tired as hell, we're burned out, we've been pushing through this malaise in a mad world that doesn't give a singular f*ck for ages. BUT the game is starting to come together. Going to try to reach down deep today and flip the switch to actually generate level 1. It's actually been there for a bit, I've just been coming up with endless excuses not to press the damned thing.

We will not be working to make the game better today, we will be working to make working to make the game better... better. Notes for how gameplay can be more fun, notes for how we can improve our pipelines for iteration on chunks of level design, notes for making spawn systems better, notes on how to improve the world and make it more fun.

I still find myself pulled in infinite directions for how the game could be more fun. And while it's a constant battle to maintain scope, it is very heartening to know that there's still that naive voice in my head that occasionally whispers, "HEY WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF WE DID THIS!?"

It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. It's easy to think about how much harder this whole ordeal has been than it had to be, how heartless this sphere of gaming has devolved into, a battleground for screeching and screaming at one another over the most petty bullsh*t. I'm certainly no angel. But with a little luck and some elbow grease, maybe this won't all be for naught, we sure as hell could use a win after all these damned years of endless tedium. Can't get too sentimental, there's much to do! There's always more to do...

Thank fucking Christ we still have fantastic works from creatives like Rush to remind us of how good things could be again, if we ever manage to pull our massive heads  our of our asses. If it weren't for good music, this project would have been dead, long, long ago. It cannot be overstated how much this sh*t helps me get through the never-ending tedium as we lurch through this damned cave.

Days past edit: I kinda felt like doing a little blog, but didn't want to make a whole post out of it. Most days I'm all in on the project, even when health problems hit, i'm obsessing about getting back to work. Past few days I started feeling terrible, and I just let go of the project, haven't thought of it in the slightest. It's always debilitating when health takes  a nosedive, drive can plummet to. But feeling better today! 

I think it may be food related. I'm finding fatty foods trigger the problems, red meat with the trimmings. I thought it was bad enough I couldn't eat carbs and sugars, but moving forward no more butter or red meat. Salt is my final refuge of splurging with food. 

It's rough, because i'm a bit of a foodie and I love cookie all manner of awesome food with "soul" (unhealthy as fuck but you can't stop eating it). That said, i know a lot of tricks to make even boring roasted garbonzos to taste good! Some fresh rosemary, bit of garlic, few dashes of fish sauce, a touch of boullion (gotta be careful it has sugar) and this is more than edible. I can survive on this without feeling as  though I'm going to starve to death. Also have a doctors apt. soon, hoping maybe they can finally figure out what's wrong with me, every time I've gone in before has been a total waste of time, but hopefully this time is different. 

Whenever I start feeling better the last thing I want to do is go to the doctor, but if I'm honest, this is something I should really be investing in so that maybe some day I can live to finish this damned game without worrying every day if I'm going to feel as though I'm going to live to see the next month. I keep thinking this game needs to be successful before I'm worth any doctor's time, but if they can figure out what's wrong with me and I can take steps to stave off down time feeling sick as a dog, that ultimately helps the project move forward and maybe that ultimately helps the project become worthwhile down the road.