Progress update- Prototyping, and the push towards playable (Patreon)

To start with, I've been focusing entirely on p*netration and aiming mechanics the past couple of weeks. "Aiming" gives the player the ability to easily shift from one target to the other, even when the target is hard to see, or super close to something else. You scroll through the targets to choose what you wanna touch/p*netrate.

Prototyping this revealed a lot of problems with the idea. So I reconfigured the engine a bit to allow the aiming UI to pop up when hovering over an aimable area. Clicking engages the toy on the target shown. Multiple aiming zones can exist on a character now, tons of bugs have been squished, and intended functionality is more complete. 

Gameplay design-wise it's still not fully working though. The player still can't tell where aim-able areas are. My first thought is to make a non-intrusive glow appear over those areas when you're holding a toy that will use the aiming UI. That's next up on the testing block.

Debugging

I think this UI design is worth pursuing further, so I'm making a debugger page to test and display all aspects of the aiming zones and mechanics. I waited too long, I think, to bite the bullet and make the debugger for it. Part of learning how to prototype is apparently knowing when to stop the prototype phase and switch into the "okay we're actually building this for reals" phase. 

Prototyping, and looking at the big picture while not sweating the details, does not come naturally to me. It's made me think more critically about how I'm approaching this project, what I'm prioritizing, etc. That brings me to the major focus of my next couple of months...

Prototyping the full game loop

I think it's time to bring my full focus to weaving a complete playable experience together. This doesn't mean "finishing" the game, cause we ain't there yet. It instead means using the engine, in roughly its current state, to make it possible to play with every existing mechanic as one cohesive experience. 

We have a lot of functional mechanics now. As a programmer it's easy for me to get stuck in the mindset of just coding each mechanic to completion one at a time, then testing them, checking them off the todo list and moving on. But as a project manager I gotta ask "what will bring this project closer to actual launch?" I think the answer is, using this incomplete engine to make an actual game, and seeing what's already possible vs what truly needs more development time.

Gonna get us a big-picture view of what's working, what's good, and what's missing from the engine's toolbox!

So yep, my goal is to shift focus into pushing for a bare-bones but working game loop.

...and that's all for now!

This is the first time I've missed a week for posts. Sorry about that. I intend to make em regular again cause it's stressful to have that guilt hanging over me. I'm doing stuff! LOTS of stuff! Including learning buttloads of new things, and tackling major house-related tasks. Working on the game, and making public posts, are things that I'm squeezing in to all the free moments I can.

I look forward to the day when I've got my dedicated work time back. But being busy hasn't stopped progress code-wise. It's been a major balancing act trying to get things done as aggressively as I can, learn new life skills, and still respect my well-being enough to rest, recharge, and center myself each day.

Thank you so much for supporting, reading, being patient, and sharing your questions and excitement with me. I'm working on the next steps for my community, since streaming and the discord have both been out of my mind for a long while. I don't like the idea of maintaining a community purely on a platform like Patreon or Substar, since there's baggage that comes with each. And a full-on discord is more than I can really manage. But peeps do need a reliable way to interact with me. I don't have it fully figured out yet but I wanted y'all to know I'm working on it!

<3