So this isn't going to be a blog on the general practices of gamedev, we've kinda gone deep into various processes in recent blogs. It struck me just a few hours ago that I don't know if I've ever come out and said what even this game even is, and frankly for a long time there I didn't really know.

I had vague notions about what it would be. It would be a roguelight, it would have been 'em up action, you would have to navagate the ocean strategically to grow in power. But that's pretty much where all the planning ended. Over all these long years we kinda just threw things together and failed over and over and over again.

And I'm really proud of that. We're not copying some game plan, we aren't just checking things off a list that we know will be easily monetized or get us X demographic, or published in Y store.

We're going old school, just making what we think will be fun at any given moment.

This year has really been about building up 2 systems I never though this game would have and it kinda highlights just how ambitious this project has gotten. On one hand the movement and platforming elements are REALLY starting to come online, It's a little too speedy right now, gotta find ways of toning it down without making it dull, but I'm very happy with how neat it is to just move about the oceans right now! Speaking of gonna jot down a quick todo to make the starting area scene objects a tad larger and more spaced out, because I want the player to be able to just enjoy moving about and learning these new movement mechanics, the jumping and bouncing off the water, zipping around and enhancing speed through waveswimming and how to throttle their trajectories and speed so they don't lose that precious speed and damage they've built up expertly navigating the oceans.

And this is what i'm REALLY excited about is I think we have been building up systems that marry platforming and movement in ways that are really innovative. In most games speed isn't really a resource, time ins't really a resource, you just press that button and kill things, but in SeaCrit there's a bit more nuance to it than it orginally appears, as you charge up attacks, your movement sometimes slows, and sometimes you get interesting facing mechanics, especially with the shield, and each of these nuances open up not just those twitch muscle memory patters that are so enjoyable to learn, but they also start opening up so many avenues of strategy.

Do you bolt away from the next offensive attack? Swim in a curve and come hurtling back at the enmy full spead to crash into them? Or do you swap quickly to your shield and simply tank the volley timing your block at just the right time to mitigate the most damage while charging up your attack to dart in and deliver a big stun so you can position yourself behind for a quick salvo of critical hits?

I'm no where near the point where I'm doing any meaningful balance on these systems, most of these mechanics and bonuses I haven't even had the chance to test yet! Theyr'e just sitting there collecting dust in a folder! But I think today might be the day we finally pull some of those suckers out and start putting them on some gobble fish. Today is the day we start to get this SeaCrit out. And it's a bit terrifying as i've lamented in prior blogs. What if it's not that fun? What if it has potential but it's just going to take forever to realize that while our tank empties each and every day?

Well what will be will be.

So I'm really excited to say I don't even know what we're working on any more. I used to call it a roguelite, but it's just got too much depth now, and the movement mechanics I believe are beyond what would be considered a "light" game.

So I sat down to try to explain what I believe the SeaCrit is at this point, but honestly, the more I think about it, I don't really know! But I sure as hell hope it ends up being fun! SO MUCH of this game happened by random chance, as byproducts of so many failures, of a system gone wrong, and also stubborness refactoring over and over. Movement FINALLY is getting close to what I had always hoped for, I always wanted a system where you felt free like a dolphin oscillating about and navigating the ocean at high speeds smashing into your foes!

Oh that reminds me! I've had crashdash for some time where if you "WAVESWIM" for a bit of time, you go into a powerful waveswim mode and hurtle forward like a rocket, and when you colide with enemies you do big AOE explosions and can take out entire sections of fish. But yesterday I decided, you know what? What if we added a lower level crash attack now that short bursts of dashing is up and running. And I think it feels AWESOME! 

There are so many ways to enjoy the game now. Darting about and exploring, going face to face with enemies and charging up big attacks and getting the most out of all those bonuses and mods you've been gathering in combat. Or

Is it kosher to be proud of your own work any more? Fuck if I know, I know the general expectation that as a dev you're supposed to present things in terms of how hard they were to make, and that gamedev is a slog, but right now, I'm kinda just really content and happy with how all this work is building up over itself. And that's magnified by the fact that we've had absolutey no fucking help, in fact at many times it felt like this entire world was against us.

Which really makes ya wonder, maybe all that suppression, maybe being kicked into the dirt was the best thing that could have happened to us! I feels as though this entire industry has atrophied and SeaCrit is growing STRONG AS SHIT.

I am SO HAPPY with how these quality of life additions have been building on one another. You can now swim close to enemy fish and if you jsut take your hands off the controls your fish kinda goes into a blood thirsty rampage and will just mow down everything on the screen, and you can swim directly into enemies and crush 'em for big dash damage, and once you get some items and crit mods and bonuses like cloak, and various charge stuffs, you'll be smashing enemies for INSANE damage mods like 30x Damage.

It's going to be totally broken, it's going to be satisfying as hell, and I cannot wait to bring it online. It's going to take a bit more bleeding to get there, but as I type this, I truly believe we're starting to move downhill at long last. The sytsems are online, I'm pretty happy with them, this world seems to be becoming less and less hostile towards us with every day, and maybe I'm crazy, but most of all I just believe the game is getting better and better!

I'm actually kinda looking forward to wrapping this blog up so I can get to adding in gobble fish and tuning force values, and getting WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE! I mean, I'm trying to suppress that voice in the back of my head screaming, NOT AGAIN! MAKE THE PAIN STOP FFS! WHEN DO WE TAKE A BREATHER, WHEN DOES THIS GAME NOT TOTALLY SUCK ASS AND ISN'T SOME DIMINUTIVE TECH DEMO WITH SHIT MECHANICS!?

XD

It's a very strange time in the development of SeaCrit! Still only 2 weeks away from this being awesome and for all I know it will be eternally dog shit.

This blog didn't come out nearly as good as I was hoping and we kinda just repeated the usual talking point, but whatever. Time to get to work, these are just hollow words anyhow.

Talk is cheap, time to get to it!