Progress update- code code code (Patreon)

Another another technical post >.>

Also, I’m going live on Picarto in one hour! I’ll be streaming work on the game for ~4 hours. If you miss the stream, VODS are also available. ('Videos' tab at the top.)

To new patrons: We’re in the middle of an absurdly-long update cycle. Here’s the summary and how to access content. 

So what's new?

More code stuff. Just... more code stuff.

They're listed in backwards order

UI code

After using the code for a bit, I've started simplifying it based on what the game actually needs. I had 3-part system where the game data, ui functions, and ui display were all separate. Currently I'm finding it simpler to just have game data and ui. No need to overcomplicate things.

Also, I'm starting to funnel all basic display functions for game objects through a singular place, so that any time I want an aspect of a game object to be displayed in the world or in the UI, it can just be thrown at the display factory and things will work without any extra effort. This feels ideal so far.

Simplify game object creation

Spawning game objects felt super complex, even with all my efforts before. The code is shrinking a lot as I'm smoothing things out. Consolidating spawning and display code is helping a lot. As the code is getting used in 'real life' situations, I'm able to say this is useful, this isn't, and shave away anything that's unneeded. 

Also, I'm working in the automatic parts of game object creation. Trying to make it so the game will attach animations and assets to a character or item if needed, and will use them accordingly, all without needing explicit input. Things like the fluid animations- if the fluid container is opaque (like a stomach), then there's no need to have extra animation information for different types of fluids. So the game doesn't bother with those.

Just including animations on the rig with the right names should trigger more display functions to kick in and use them, as well. That kind of thing is super useful in speeding up development time ^^

Making it work

Lots of stuff is getting changed as the code is settling into its more final state. Each time a change breaks something, though, it's getting wayy simpler to fix. It might feel like an excruciatingly small victory, but seeing a console with zero errors, with every current system running, is nice.

Q&A

When can we play a WIP version? As soon as it's actually usable :'(

Will you do humans, or anthro characters? Possibly! More non-pony stuff will be creeping its way in. The engine itself is built for that kind of flexibility. It might end up in this game, or another game using this engine.

Can we watch older stream VODs? Picarto has a limit of like 12. So, that's what's available :3

And now, a quick update on my personal life: aaaaaaa-

... anyway, that's all for now! 

This week was actually super challenging. When there's a hard code problem, it's tough for my brain to engage with it and it tends to take a lot longer to be able to dig into it. That was basically the entire week for me. I'm glad that the results seem to be positive anyway though. 

I'm also undergoing lots of personal growth outside of work, which has been giving me new tools to approach this project with. Who could have guessed that recognizing and processing emotions was part of lewd game development.

That's all I got this week. Thank you all so much for supporting and following along! 

<3