I feel a little silly speaking on game design with this being my first solo project. We're unproven, haven't seen an ounce of success, and who knows if we're just one of the billion drops in the sea riddled by delusions of grandeur. That notion that maybe it's just the world that is insane is stronger than ever.

It's  so strange to live as part of this society with so many billions. Always took for granted that we were all unique, that we were all freedom fighters, that enough of us would stand for truth, justice and the American way that our future was safeguarded by inherent good natures. 

BOY WAS I WRONG.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

If the past 20 years have taught us anything, it's that people are weak, they're cowards, they bend to the machine, and no one stands for shit once generation after generation things go insane. We're weaponized by tech, form global mobs, with short attention span, weaponized by rage-bait technology, everyone falling over themselves to align to algorithms formulated by self righteous neckbeards at the behest of nepotistic virtue whores.

ANYWAY! Let's get to neckbearding about gamedev for a little bit before we get to work.

I wish I could free myself from the impulse to create the content for this game. To want to build out the fancy looking graphics, arrange environment assets in a pleasing manner that allows for neat compositions, shadows, gameplay environments and fun exploration. This is what draws us to gamedev in the first place and when I started this project I had NO IDEA how hard it was to build the foundations, and i've been learning the hard way for a long while now.

Now that I know better, I have been focusing on the core play over and over and over again.

Sometimes I wonder if the game will ever be done. Just 2 weeks ago I felt I was 2 days away from the demo coming together. Today I'm back to feeling like it's a week away.

The difference is I randomly decided to overhaul the waveswim system.

If I can give any advice to random gamedevs out there, it would be to trust your gut. If your gut tells you, "hey we should redo this system, it can be way better". Fucking do it. I mean that's obvious right? The game has to be fun.

You don't get more fun inch by inch building out your world. The gameplay doesn't snowball based on square footage.

As developers we need to focus on that singular moment, that singular little white box room. Does your movement have a nice poppy transition turn on a dime animation as you change directions rapidly? Can you bounce off the wall? Do you have a neat animation that plays if you run into something too fast? Do your gameplay mechanics give your player enough tight controls to navigate your world in a way that rewards quick movement?

There's a constant struggle between nice blend and windup animations and snappiness in controls. Games like prince of persia feel sluggish but god damn do they have a nice look to them. You gotta find the balance, where can you inject nice transitions without hamstringing the  player as they fight for their lives? Never compromise the gameplay.

Ha, I still fill funny typing with any authority  from this cave. But! The game does feel like it's coming together, I do feel a sense of rising confidence as a developer as the game seemingly becomes fun.

You know... there was a time i wasn't shackled to this cave, worked pretty damned hard in this industry and did a pretty good job. I'm not crazy damn it, I kinda know what i'm talking about I swear!

I guess time will tell. If i'm just a wacko these worlds will be lost to the endless seas anyhow.

Just wanted to do a little blatherin' and a bit of procrastinationing before gettin' to work! Was super tired yesterday so just took a mulligan, back to it! For today's docket i'm gonna start with getting the mechanics of spawning tuned up, maybe make some improved particle effects. I really wish I had the time to indulge in super high end stuff, it would look so nice and really sell the visuals, but i'm just spread too damned thin, gotta throw something together and move on. 

So cleanup to spawn visuals and polish and then FINALLY we get to move on to making things pretty and playing dress up with the oceans.

Twitter is an absolute shithole, but sometimes while shitposting you'll have a realization. And the realization I had today was that the entirety of our modern economy as based on victimhood, and I started to realize why DEI and other social engineering has become so important. It's not so much these people want to help the downtrodden, they want true believers, they need other people who think they are victims who will have the same fervent adherence to their ideologies.

How do you convince pricnipled, hard working people to work towards the common goal of total market domination, how do you ensure they will look the other way at your underhanded financial tactics? How do you know that despite all the corruption festering they will stick with you through the thick and thin?

The moral mandate.

It holds all the power. You need to convince yourself that you are deserving of all the ill gotten power and money, you need to believe the world would have sought to destroy you if you hadn't fought back so callously.

What a terrible world we've created with the self fulfilling lie that nerdy bullies under our command would be an improvement over the bullies of yesterday manhandling societies and economies.

Enough procrastinating, let's get to the grind...