Mid-break check in, game development thoughts (Patreon)

Hey y'all! I am alive, awake, and busy as hell. As a reminder there'll be no progress update or stream tomorrow since I'm in the process of moving across the world. 

I can't help but be thinking about tooling for the game while I'm doing all of this. It's a data-driven game, which means basically every thing you see in the game is stored in a central spreadsheet. At first I figured everything would be made via that one spreadsheet, but that gets kind of laborious.

Instead, the core data could be held in the spreadsheet, but I can be putting together a friendlier interface for configuring characters and toys. This could include previewing, which would make it way easier for me to add and tweak content. 

Stuff made in here would be stored in individual config files, which are great for modding and player-created content. 

I've been thinking too much in black and white for this game- either make an entirely new character/item creation tool to read/write to the entire database, or... don't. But that's silly. I could just make it do individual things at first, like wiring up body sensitivity and personality settings which benefit from rapid testing. Or swapping out colors, which benefits from visual feedback.

The tool doesn't have to be a huge project. It can just be individual pieces that get built when I need them... with the added benefit that players will be able to play with em too.

Okay back to packing. Thank you for following along, all of you lovely people. Next time we talk I'll be across the planet~

<3