Progress update- back to work! (Patreon)

Short, simple post today. Thursday is progress update day, and I keep missing it. So I'm just writing this out as quickly as possible to make sure it's done, then I'm gonna coordinate with my writer to get a more stable schedule going next week.

I'll answer questions and give y'all a more complete picture of where the update is at, and what's left to be done, in the next post!

If you missed the streams, VODS are here. ('Videos' tab at the top.)

Catching up:

Fluid stuff! I put a lot of work into the fluid systems before the holidays, and am pretty excited to see the results of those in action. Fluid handling and transfer has always been a bit of a house of cards in this game, preventing me from adding stuff like smaller fluid containers, pipes, etc. Once things are closer to release, I'll be able to start showing off actual screenshots of the improvements here.

Rendering. This one's the monster that's been stressing me out.

The goal was simple: make the game render the depth of things (closer/further from the screen) in a modular way. Use the ECS to assign depth to objects, and then the game will automatically figure out what should be rendered in which order.

I was dreading this. Rendering is hard, and every attempt I made to start pulling render functions in the more modular, ECS approach, I got quickly overwhelmed. Part of it was psychological- I thought it was so hard that I couldn't do it, and so I had a big mental block every time I approached it.

The day after I got home, I jumped straight back into this with much more determination. It only took that single day for me to sort out exactly why I was having issues before, and how the display tree structure of this game engine works. I decided to scrap the idea of using ECS for render order, and made a new, easier plan.

The game world is now getting split into a bunch of layers, defined by their distance from the screen, and displayed accordingly. "3d" game objects that need to exist across multiple layers are split apart, but all move together as if connected to maintain the illusion of 3d. I'm not quite done doing this with the Spine rigs, but it's pretty much sorted out at this point. Two days, and that problem's basically done with. It hurts to think about all the wasted time there. :'(

And more. There's a lot more smaller things, but those were the main time sinks besides the holidays. 

Personal stuff

I've had a really hard time IRL lately. Like, life or death level of severity, plus a lot of less-intense-but-still-stressful stuff. It's been hard, but eye-opening. It's embarrassing to think of all the time in life that I've had the peace and mental space to do whatever I want, and how much of it was squandered. Peaceful times are precious. I don't want to waste them. I want to push my limits and create the things I want to create, including silly lewd games.

So yeah, I'm back home now, and working with a renewed sense of purpose.

That's all for now! Thank you guys so much for the many words of kindness and the support throughout this difficult period. I'm determined to get this update out into the world asap, and let you all see Project Maple soon after. I think it'll be worth the effort when it's all done. 

My income has gone steadily down over the last year, but miraculously I'm still making a living wage from Patreon alone despite how frustrating this update process has been. You guys are seriously amazing. I don't feel that I deserve the level of support I'm getting, but since y'all are still here, all I can say is THANK YOU. Y'all are crazy. 

<3