August was all about the new house. So many appointments! At least the bulk of planned appointments ended this week. Once the final checklist for moving out of the old apartment is 100% complete (and that deadline is closing in), I'll switch to cleaning and unpacking the house. Moving is exhausting. <br>
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To entertain myself for the long stretches of time without internet access, I grabbed the first Japanese language visual novel I saw without sexual content. (I'm kind of a prude lol.) It's so risky to play roulette with a random old VN for a whole month. I didn't even read the <a href="https://vndb.org/v7716">VNDB's</a> synopsis beforehand, but I guess the tags wouldn't have tipped me off to how strange and uncomfortable 月華繚乱ROMANCE is anyway. Gekka Ryouran Romance is basically a reverse harem game set in a prestigious school, full of rich important kids who can get away with anything. The whole thing gives me Hunter Biden vibes, and the brother guy gives me uncomfortable incest vibes. No one said it was going to be scary. ;-; <br>
To entertain myself for the long stretches of time without internet access, I grabbed the first Japanese language visual novel I saw without sexual content. (I'm kind of a prude lol.) It's so risky to play roulette with a random old VN for a whole month. I didn't even read the <a href="https://vndb.org/v7716">VNDB's</a> synopsis beforehand. Gekka Ryouran Romance is basically a reverse harem game set in a prestigious school, full of rich important kids who can get away with anything. The whole thing gives me Hunter Biden vibes, and the brother guy gives me uncomfortable incest vibes. No one said it was going to be weird. ;-; <br>
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The vocabulary level is higher than anything I've read so far, barring technical or political news reports. I'm getting to the point with Japanese that I don't need a dictionary for most manga, so needing a dictionary multiple times per sentence made me feel like a beginner again. The contrast does highlight the ironically low vocabulary level of other series featuring honor students, bookworms, STEM workers, etc, though. I suppose they aren't as smart as they claim! <br>
The vocabulary level is higher than anything I've read so far, barring technical or political articles. I'm getting to the point with Japanese that I don't need a dictionary for most manga, so needing a dictionary multiple times per sentence made me feel like a beginner again. It feels good to be challenged. The contrast does highlight the ironically low vocabulary level of other series featuring honor students, bookworms, STEM workers, etc, though. I suppose most characters aren't as smart as they claim lol. <br>
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Honestly, the writing is pretty good, though, even if the vocabulary is challenging and the characters are scary. I'd recommend it for the engrossing art and atmosphere alone, so long as you're not bothered by creepy clingy weird guys and a super creepy clingy weird girl. <br>
Honestly, the writing is pretty good, though, even if the vocabulary is challenging and the characters are scary. I'd recommend it for the engrossing art and atmosphere alone, so long as you're not bothered by creepy clingy weird guys and a super creepy clingy weird girl. Now that I have access to a real computer again, though, I'm going back to 90s rpgs. <br>
@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Anyway, I can't believe I've been titling my monthly diary entries as "2020" all
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<h3>sunday, october 17 </h3>
<ul>
<li>It was below 80°F/27°C for the first time all year! My favorite season has finally arrived. Time for fall coat, warm spicy perfume, and apple butter toast with chai! The heat has been miserable, even indoors, so it will not be missed. </li>
<li>It was below 80°F/27°C for the first time all year! My favorite season has finally arrived. Time for my fall coat, warm spicy perfume, and apple butter toast with chai! The heat has been miserable, even indoors, so it will not be missed. </li>
<li>Last time I started Blessfrey, it didn't run at all. I was really motivated to add an events and a cutscene, but I debugged the game instead. Today it works okay, but I realize you can no longer talk to Chloe. That makes a lot of sense, since I designed the move-do-something loop to only worry about combat. I should get confident about the controls for interact, activate, attack, talk, pick up, move to target, don't move to target, and probably lots of other potentially overlapping controls. So...I need to make more diagrams. </li>
</ul>
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@ -25,10 +25,10 @@ Anyway, I can't believe I've been titling my monthly diary entries as "2020" all
<li>Next, I want the player to use a skill on Chloe. The skills in the player's skillbar are generic'd and all the text doesn't display. (Stupid Jiskan.)</li>
</ul>
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<h3>Halloween, saturday, october 31 </h3>
<h3>saturday, october 31 - halloween</h3>
<ul>
<li>Usually I prepare a costume or at least put out my skeleton doormat, but Halloween almost completely slipped my mind this year. At least I got candy. I've always lived in apartments, so I've never had trick-or-treaters before. I thought they all did Trunk or Treat or some school function instead these days, but we actually did have a few visitors. :) </li>
@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ It sounds nice to provide an open world where the player can set out after his o
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No matter what philosophy the game designer has, though, a player will do what he wants to do, even if it has nothing to do with the goal of the game. For example, roleplayers are prominent members of MMO communities, and they might never max out a character or finish the main storyline. They throw out all the game designers' work and focus on finding the perfect backdrop and acting out their own scene instead. There are plenty of screensaver simulators and 3D chat servers out there for them, but they turn up in "real" goal-driven games, too. There are touches of this aberrant behavior in everyone who doodles with bullet holes, names their character something funny to harvest out-of-context dialog screenshots, or hoards a useless item. <br>
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<h2>players do whatever they want anyway </h2><br>
So in a way, game designers really don't need to design a goalless game. They can trust players to forge their own fun from even the most rigid hallway simulator. In my opinion, deliberately not designing goals runs the greater risk of making players too lost, bored, or overwhelmed to find their own fun or not even finding incentive to try the game in the first place. A better approach is in the middle, building towards a purpose while taking a tip from goalless games by filling the world with choices, interesting tools, and interactibles that are fun for fun's sake. At the end of the day, though, obviously do what works for your players! <br>
<li>I'm finally caught up! It feels like I've been going nonstop for months, with househunting, moving, making a new wardrobe, meeting my guildies, getting the house together for Christmas, hosting for my husband's family, meeting end-of-the-year deadlines,...then nothing! I want to get the house not just presentable but cute and comfortable and get a demo out for my game. </li>
<li>For New Year's Eve, we watched an anime stream with guildies. When the neighbors started shooting fireworks, I asked my husband to go on a walk together around the lake. We went to the bridge, which was a little sentimental since one of the first New Years I celebrated was in RuneScape on the Keldagrim bridge with some random passerby. At least, it was nice until my husband spotted an alligator. It was just his head sticking out of the water, gliding along beside us. When we spotted him, he dived. It was pretty freaky. Judging from the size of his head, he was twice my size. A handler at Gatorland told me they are usually pretty slow on land (especially during winter), so I took my bet with running the entire way back to my neighborhood. Looking it up online, though, it says they can easily outrun a human. Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh! <li>
<li>A week later, everyone in my family and my husband's family tested positive for COVID except for us. I feel so bad. We've been using COVID fear as an excuse to avoid family gatherings, but they heard none of it this year. There are vulnerable people on both sides and not everyone's vaccinated. My family thinks they caught it from work, and his side thinks they caught it from traveling. Everyone came down with it at the same time after the get-together, though, so...it was our get-together, wasn't it? Dang. </li>
<li>At least Christmas went well. </li>
<li>I'm finally caught up! It feels like I've been going nonstop for months, with househunting, moving, making a new wardrobe, meeting my guildies, getting the house together for Christmas, hosting for my husband's family, meeting end-of-the-year deadlines,...then nothing! My next goals are to get the house not merely presentable but cute and comfortable and get a demo out for my game. </li>
<li>For New Year's Eve, we watched an anime stream with guildies. When the neighbors started shooting fireworks, I asked my husband to go on a walk together around the lake. We went to the bridge, which was a little sentimental since one of the first New Years I celebrated was in RuneScape on the Keldagrim bridge with some random passerby. It was nice. At least, it was nice until my husband spotted an alligator. It was just his head sticking out of the water, gliding along beside us. When we spotted him, he dived. It was pretty freaky. Judging from the size of his head, he was twice my size. A handler at Gatorland told me they are usually pretty slow on land (especially during winter), but this guy was thrashing around. We took our bet with running the entire way back to my neighborhood. Looking it up online, though, it says they can easily outrun a human. Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh! <li>
<li>A week later, everyone in my family and my husband's family tested positive for COVID except for us. I feel so bad. We've been using COVID fear as an excuse to avoid family gatherings, but they heard none of it this year. There are vulnerable people on both sides and not everyone's vaccinated. My side thinks they caught it from work, and his side thinks they caught it from traveling. Everyone came down with it at the same time after the get-together, though, so...it was our get-together, wasn't it? Dang. </li>
<li>At least Christmas went well while it lasted. Best Christmas ever, honestly. Never been so happy to finally see everyone again. </li>
</ul>
<h3>wednesday, january 5 </h3>
<ul>
@ -45,9 +45,47 @@ february 1, 2022<br>
<h3>sunday, january 16 </h3>
<ul>
<li>I think everything is working enough. I haven't tested all the UI elements, so maybe there's something wrong with adjusting the volume or something, but I'm happy with actual gameplay so far. I want to add hostility, factions, equipment, and a few more things, but I could work on forever on accessories to gameplay with that mindset. The core of this game is the skills, and now that degeneration and status effects are implemented, skills are more or less in a finished state. AI is also probably ready to support anything I want out of it, so gameplay is ready to go. Sounds like a perfect time for a basic release copy. </li>
<li>The release copy will be an extremely simple game. The player will find a bingo card that will prompt the player to explore the game's mechanics in at least 2 rooms. In other words, it'll just be a tech demo. </li>
<li>I made a bingo board with fonts from my computer, and after all the typesetting and saving each square, it turns out I picked GPL ones. I'm not exactly sure what that requires, but I'm not dealing with a potential forced full source code release on top of learning how to release anything at all. I'm not even sure how deep the GPL goes. Would it just be Blessfrey's code? Do I also have to share Godot Engine's code? Maybe someday, but not this early and not over a font used in one UI element. Remaking the graphic was a pain, but I don't want some contract breach to come back to haunt me. The demo will be free, but I'm pretty sure my website could be considered a portfolio, in which case, everything I put up there is technically commercial work. </li>
<li>The release copy will be a fairly simple game. The player will find a bingo card that will prompt the player to explore the game's mechanics in 3 rooms. In other words, it'll just be a tech demo. </li>
<li>I made a bingo board with fonts from my computer, and after all the typesetting and saving each square, it turns out I picked GPL ones. I'm not exactly sure what that requires, but I'm not dealing with a potential forced full source code release on top of learning how to release anything at all. I'm not even sure how deep the GPL goes. I'm open to sharing my repo later, but not this early and not over a font used in one UI element. Remaking the graphic was a pain, but I want to try to follow contracts. The demo is free, but I'm pretty sure my website could be considered a portfolio, in which case, everything I put up there is technically commercial work. </li>
</ul>
<h3>monday, january 17 </h3>
<ul>
<li>Putting together all the art assets for the demo levels </li>
</ul>
<h3>thursday, january 20 </h3>
<ul>
<li>Made all the entities for the demo. </li>
<li>The integration test wasn't good enough, but TBF, I'm basing slimes off of an untested character and plastic tubs off of the last-tested-versions-ago shopping cart. Nothing works. </li>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: ids, name keys, art, AI nodes, inspect menu, updating any old code </li>
</ul>
<h3>friday, january 21 </h3>
<ul>
<li>Added navmesh to demo levels </li>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: spawnpoints, updating any old code. </li>
<li>Removed sex option from character creation. TBH, adding a male playable character is a lot of extra work since the player character isn't a complete Tabula Rasa. I'm not going to do the bizarre thing a lot of games do where the girl is just the guy again with swapped pronouns. It's so weird and cringy. Even Guild Wars 2, which made a huge deal about roleplaying your character through dialog, forces some strange lecherous desire for the human noble women onto your character no matter your sex. Either they meant for all male main characters to be straight and all female main characters to be gay (lol), or they are yet another lazy dev. I'd want to actually rewrite everything to acknowledge your character's sex, so I couldn't bother unless I was discovered by a playerbase who'd appreciate it. Female protagonists is my comfort zone, though, so I can't promise a male protagonist wouldn't be weirdly and cringily effeminate. </li>
</ul>
<h3>saturday, january 22 </h3>
<ul>
<li>With refactoring, I'm trying to reduce the differences yet again among all the types of entities. Highlighting an entity upon hover should more or less work the same, whether it's an item or a character. </li>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: highlight for container </li>
</ul>
<h3>monday, january 24 </h3>
<ul>
<li>Will it ever work? ;~; When this is done, I'm maintaining a generic character, item, container, etc, so I can copy and paste something up-to-date instead of something old and broken. I don't think I need a character maker like I do for skillmaker because it could never make a fully realized character complete with unique dialog and AI. I'd have to change so much stuff by hand that it wouldn't do much better than a simple copypasta character. </li>
<li>I should have been testing in a mock game level the entire time instead of testing each chunk in a vacuum. I want to hold back on adding new features until this demo is published, but I still don't like all the nuances to the controls. I guess they're fine for the moment, but I have so much I want to improve. </li>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: layer/mask, projectile permeable walls, adding back missing objects for containers (where did the UI portion go??), highlight for container, character, and item. </li>
</ul>
<h3>tuesday, january 25 </h3>
<ul>
<li>I'm getting really good at making my own french fries and chips. I think boiling them first then frying in hot oil is best so far. I boil them in bay leaves and black pepper oil, fry in peanut oil, and toss in salt and cracked black pepper. If only fried pickles were so easy. I also made spice cookie dough rolls to leave in the freezer, mostly following <a href="https://homemadehooplah.com/christmas-spice-cookies/">Homemade Hooplah's Christmas spice cookie recipe</a>. Instead of flour, I'm trying pecan flour. It seems fattier, moister, and nutty, so maybe it would be good for cookies. </li>
<li>Website maintenance </li>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: container, inventory items </li>
</ul>
<h3>wednesday, january 26 </h3>
<ul>
<li>Refactoring and debugging: container, inventory items </li>
chimchooree
3 years ago
