I try not to think how long it's been since we started this project, but I still find it exhilarating and terrifying that this many years in and I'm still tinkering around with absolutely key bits of functionality.

I am so tired of mixing up swap class and swap weapon. It's driven me crazy for forever and I think I have an idea to solve it. Instead of holding the swap button for 1 second to swap class, and tapping it to swap weapon, I'm going to add a second option to swap class. If the player presses both action buttons instantaneously, and then releases both buttons simultaneously, that will cause them to change their form, and no longer will their brain to to associate that swap button with both functionalities that are so similar that it makes it confusing.

Unfortunately, i don't want to simply remove the ability of the player to swap class by holding, because that gives a nice visual and it's much easier to stumble on than randomly pressing both buttons.

This leaves me with one more thing to brainstorm... what makes duel wielding or bite interesting? The shield is so much more superior and fun at this moment that I'm almost considering removing the other two all together, but I don't want to do that. Is this sunk cost fallacy? Am I just dying to keep these features because I spent so much time on them? This really forces me to deep dive and think about what is the nature of a game? I think back on all the RPG's that have endless items and skills that are junk and just sap resources out of the overpowered abilities that everyone uses.

Are we spending extra effort creating extra "junk"?

I don't think so, we just need to add the mechanics and attacks that make these different weapons interesting. I need to make all items and weapons feel broken in their own way. The obvious answer is to simply make these weapons deal more damage... and if i'm being honest, I didn't even really think of this much until now. And I don't like this solution, because it just trivializes so much of the balance and gameplay. Too often games like this become purely about high damage numbers if you allow the player sufficient means of getting lifetap, life and defense to survive with fast damage builds.

HMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I've also been bounding around the idea of feeling out status effects and making them more much core to the game. Things like "wound". What if attacks from swords and bites caused enemies to be wounded and receive damage over time? What if while bleeding lifetaps were enhanced? What if there were bonuses that caused your attacks to deal more damaged to bleeding targets? 

And then I ask myself. Does all this added complexity make the game better? I don't think so. I don't think it's worth sacrficing the wonderful but nuanced simplicity we've developed so far. 

One thing I've never liked about RPG's and these combat mechanic systems, is they feel so superficial. What's the difference between a lightning bolt and a fire bolt? One's red, and one's yellow. And if you have the arbitrary fire resistance you take less from this school than the other. It's all so rock paper scissors. I am not a fan of rock paper scissors.

I want effects to feel a certain way. Ice does a good job of this. We all know what ice spells do to enemies. They slow them, allowing them to be kited, they freeze them allowing for crowd control. And sometimes they allow you to freeze them in place, get behind them, and do a huge shattering critical blast!

That's how I want effects and combat mechanics to be in SeaCrit, I want them to have weight, I want them to have a vibe. Right now all I have is stun. Wounds are in, but I don't really know what I want to do with them. 

HMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Maybe that's the answer right there, I have most all the mechanics for applying and displaying wounds, let's take a minute to figure out what it should do!

I'm going for a walk, gotta think

OK 10 minutes to think and thinking time is over!

It's actually crazy how little time I take to have a moment to really consider the ramfications of future dev, I think i've had so much luck as of late doing fly by the seat actions that I've put off any sort of deep introspection.

Anyhow I had some great revelations just now. I thought about the current gameplay of SeaCrit and what's actually fun. And I've decided that combat in SeaCrit is not fun because of a bunch of arbitrary complex status logics and bonuses and such. What makes SeaCrit fun to play is the viceral nature of everything. Stuns stun, Attacks deal damage, and the complexity and nuance comes from interesting and tangible emerging mechanics that make combat and dealing damage more and more engaging, not because we have heaps and heaps of wound modifiers, charm effects, and poisons.

And I also came to see that we have a really nice set of loadouts between bites, melee weapons, and ranged weapons. The player can decide if they want to go melee or ranged, or a hybrid of both. And the general idea that you swap to bites to heal your life back with charge bite tap just feels good to me. Then you can decide if you want to go with a more damage oriented style with dual weilding axes like a mother fuckin' berserker. Or you can choose the more well rounded shield build that will allow you to go toe to toe with bigger and more dangerous enemies.

Oh I just had an idea! Tapping life causes you to get fat. You're basically "Over eating" what if once you're fat you can't eat more and you tap back a far smaller % of life? I gotta add this to the distant TODO.

"golden child" I had this idea for a new skill that could replace holding down the buttons too long. I used to think about adding NPC armies for the player to raise if they layed eggs. And I used think think back years ago it would take me months to add this functionality, but now I think I could add it in a day or two. So adding that to the distant cool things to add to the game.

That reminds me of another revelation I had. We want to get this damned demo out. And I need to stop thinking the game has to be PERFECT before doing so. It's ok if the game isn't perfect, it's time we start putting out more builds, getting more feedback, and also, you just never know what a build will be good enough to start turning heads. And I TRULY believe we are knocking on the door of SeaCrit showing its true potential. So instead of deep diving large swathes of content, I'm going to focus on just getting a small section of the starting area online, and also polish the absolute shit out of the core mechanics.

I am constantly second guessing right now, "Should I work on building out the world and create more fish and spawn systems" or should I be polishing up  core systems and tuning everything. WE NEED TO POLISH AND TUNE EVERYTHING!

I can't count the number of times I've blathered about how important it is to just make the gameplay PERFECT. Because once you push the fun as far as you absolutely can in the smallest little whitebox area, and you make fighting that boring ass simple area 1 goomba enemy as fun as possible. The rest of the game makes itself. You no longer have those mad dreams of creating content that's good enough to carry your sub par gameplay.

We go all in. All in on the funs. That's where our strength is, that's where we have a chance to shine as a solo dev. Just sheer unbrideled, synchronicity.

You gotta play the fool, you don't wanna shine too bright, you don't want to be a know it all. You don't want to look like an idiot if you state you're going to put out something great and it falls short. But deep down in this blog no one reads, I'm just going to be confident this once. 

SeaCrit is going really fucking well. Every element is improving by leaps and bounds and the way the bonuses interact with items and simple but robust play that works on a myriad of input devices is something I'm really proud of. We're doing a lot more with a lot less in terms of builds complexity and combat depth, and even in these rudimentary test cases you can see something pretty special shining underneath.

It's frustrating the world is cruel, and blind, and stupid. But I remind myself that just because we don't get eyes on the project, just because we have little support either in spirit, or financially, it doesn't mean that SeaCrit can't be a great fucking game all the same. Do we want it more? Are we willing to put more on the line? Are we actually fucking good at this shit? Kicking ass and taking names? It fucking feels like it.

Only time will tell. The sands pour out the hourglass as the world spun mad and whooped and hollered.

It's funny. I always come back to these blogs thinking maybe we can impart some kind of notion that's so  true someone will read it and it will spread like wildfire. Or write a blog so gripping people share it and maybe the game rises from these depths. But after all these years I understand that will never happen. These blogs are more akin to a monk setting himself on fire than they are appeals to a sane world for backing. We just waste away at a slower rate of combustion.

But then part of my brain thinks that's not true. We're making a kick ass video game that's pick up and play in this world of zero attention spans. We do have something to offer, we do have a hook? So maybe with a bit more elbow grease these blog posts can piggyback on the potential success of the upcoming demo.

Did I ever get to the part where I'm ok with dual wielding weapons doing more damage? It just makes sense, and I can certainly make rare builds for other loadouts that meet or exceed this! Ain't nothin' wrong with damage builds! Just gotta be careful to build the game out such that other forms aren't trivialized!

Ok, enough yappin' for one night. A game needs doing!

What a strange time in human history. What a strange time to be a creative. An artist. A craftsman. A game developer or whatever the hell you want to call whatever this is.

Incompetent studios. Incompetent audiences. Ungrateful, hatefull players and developers all fingering one another and placing blame. Everyone is so damned angry and spiteful.

What happened to manning the fuck up and producing cool shit? What happened to respect and giving props to those who work hard? What happened to the shared human experience where we uplifted one another and tried to aspire for more?

Fuck this milquetoast, lowest common denominator fever dream that has soured so many generations. Fuck all these fake ass, pompous virtue whores taking shortcuts to the prestige. Fuck the monopolized storefronts, and rigged systems.

This world safeguards the lazy, entitled, and affluent from those who would dare try to clean up their mess.

"Some mother fuckers always trying to ice skate uphill."

The plan remains the same. Make a fun game. Provide something of value to this world amidst the back stabbers and the jokers.

I have no idea how that final quote ties into the rest of the rant, but I just wanted to put it in there. TO DEV!