fixed box css; use credit css now; ideabox pads out rest of table if not enough words; added email; added more credits; added an about me blurb to contact; articles

src/diary/entries/210201

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ february 1, 2021<br>
 <br>
 <h3>sunday, january 3 </h3>
 <ul>
-<li>Trendmood leaked <a href="https://www.temptalia.com/colourpop-x-animal-crossing-collection-swatches/">Colourpop×Animal Crossing</a>. That's one of my favorite IPs and one for which a makeup collaboration was unimaginable, and I'm not even excited. I don't know if it's the market oversaturation or I'm just salty about New Horizons cutting out all the villager-related game mechanics. Animal Crossing collabs are a dime a dozen now. (<a href="https://blackmilkclothing.com/collections/blackmilk-x-animal-crossing-new-horizons?utm_campaign=136203_animalcrossing-release-13oct20">BlackMilkClothing×AC</a> is still up after months, even after discounts.) Feels like Nintendo's devolving back into the toy business. </li>
+<li>Trendmood leaked <a href="https://www.temptalia.com/colourpop-x-animal-crossing-collection-swatches/">Colourpop×Animal Crossing</a>. That's one of my favorite IPs and one for which a makeup collaboration was unimaginable, and I don't care. I don't know if it's the market oversaturation or I'm just salty about New Horizons simplifying the villagers. Animal Crossing collabs are a dime a dozen now. (<a href="https://blackmilkclothing.com/collections/blackmilk-x-animal-crossing-new-horizons?utm_campaign=136203_animalcrossing-release-13oct20">BlackMilkClothing×AC</a> is still up after months, even after discounts, ouch.) Feels like Nintendo's devolving back into the toy business sometimes. </li>
 <li>Imagine if more videogame makeup leads to Urban Decay×SMT somehow, though...so grungy and neon! </li>
 <li>The character script is completely broken up - methods have been moved closer to where they are used. So, methods for calculating xp + level are moved from character to an attribute subscript. </li>
 <li>Replaced constants to subnode paths with getters. Some _ready methods need to call methods off child nodes, but those nodes will still be null. I don't understand why very well. ;-; Using a getter, plus being more conscientious about what order to call things within _ready, fixed it. I should probably document it in an article because that's been a perplexing problem since I first starting working on character movement. </li>
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ february 1, 2021<br>
 <br>
 <h3>wednesday, january 6 </h3>
 <ul>
-<li>Today, the March for Trump produced unbelievable photos of random people breaking into the Capitol offices. Kind of resembles a videogame. </li>
-<li>Organize files better. (Great idea when the game hasn't been able to start since the character restructure.) Fixed a hundred dependencies, file path references. </li>
+<li>I watched streams of the March for Trump against the Capitol. I collected some riot photos into a <a href="https://www.blessfrey.me/diary/entries/extra/stop-the-steal">gallery</a>. </li>
+<li>I organized files better. (Great idea when the game hasn't been able to start since the character restructure.) Fixed a hundred dependencies, file path references. </li>
 </ul>
 <br>
 <h3>thursday, january 7 </h3>
@@ -150,6 +150,17 @@ february 1, 2021<br>
 <li>Update website, tweak website code. </li>
 </ul>
 <br>
+<h3>wednesday, january 27 </h3>
+<ul>
+<li>Worked on character development. Listed out my key characters and bulleted out their backstory, shortcomings/bad experiences, how that affects their relationships with other characters, why that involves them in the story, the changing point in their arc, and where their story can end. I still need to do this exercise for Chloe, the pastor, and Angel's dad. </li>
+<li>The main character's still just kind of there, being dragged around in the story. It's difficult for me to add character motivation for a playable character. For the player, that's going to be coming from the game's hook and pacing and personal reaction to the game world. Some people say it's harder to get involved with a cardboard main character, but I don't know. I was absolutely hooked on Lost Eden's story, even if Prince Adam is so empty that clicking on him just takes you to the options menu void. At the same time, a quirky main character adds a lot to the fun for me. I really enjoyed picking all the clueless, amnesiac options for Ren in Persona 5 and making him low-key gay for Akechi. I was also bemused by Sophie's belligerent atheism and her in her Atelier game. I just...never wrote a game story before and don't know how to do it. ;-; </li>
+<li>Initially, I had a big cast of characters who didn't have a lot going on with them, but it would be a pain to make resources for all of them. Combining and cutting helped make the characters more interesting. Still, they didn't really have arcs. I also didn't really have the first antagonist as more than a shallow concept until this month. I still don't know her name and appearance...if I even want her to be a girl. </li>
+<li>I also worked on plot. I only have a grasp on the plot up to the mid-point and don't know where to finish it. Watching Youtube writing channels helped flesh out what I already had, at least. Since it's a game, it's more fun to have lots of paths and let the player their own place among the different factions. That's ridiculous for scope, though. I hope when I add story missions, it'll be more obvious where to go? But it would sure be easier to edit the story before all the coding and assets are made. ;-; </li>
+<li>Maybe I'm too worried about the story. Mechanics are most important at the end of the day. Even among people who play games for the story, they apparently retain very poor comprehension of the story. Instead, their attention is fully on the characters. (citation - some GDC talk) So, so long as I have cute characters, it's all good, right? </li>
+<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-I9N5LsvPM">How to Plot Your Novel FAST | Writing Advice - Ellen Brock</a> was the best video I watched for understanding the process an editor uses to build a prompt into a plot. </li>
+<li><a href="https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020031/Using-User-Research-to-Improve">Deborah Hendersen's Microsoft user research study</a> talks about how players don't remember anything but the characters. I just found some slides. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mgK2hL33Vw">Jeremy Bernstein's Creating Strong Video Game Characters</a> mentions it, but there was another that went into more detail...but I haven't watched GDC talks in forever so don't remember. </li> 
+</ul>
+<br>
 <h3>thursday, january 28 </h3>
 <ul>
 <li>The language-change button does something for the first time. Now, choosing English or 日本語 will automatically update all the text. I put all text-bearing objects in a group and update their text from the UI singleton. It's useful if I want more language options, but it's also useful to ensure each text is in my spreadsheet instead of embedded directly in the engine. It's also an opportunity to make my text-displaying code more consistent across my game. </li>
@@ -163,9 +174,23 @@ february 1, 2021<br>
 <li>Serialization works again after the character refactor. </li>
 <li>I finally tried using <a href="https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_theme.html">themes</a> instead of customizing a font for each individual object. Now I can just change the theme instead of each individual object. </li>
 <li>Fixed a highlight problem. Used to, when you hovered from one object to an immediate neighbor, you would change targets before you could unhighlight the old target. Now all highlightable targets belong to a group. When you hover over a new target, all members of that group unhighlight. </li>
-<li>basically lots of removing the hard-coding and making things more 
+<li>basically lots of removing the hard-coding </li>
+</ul>
+<br>
+<h3>saturday, january 30 </h3>
+<ul>
+<li>Refactored skills + updated the skillmaker python script. </li>
+<li>Fixed UI bugs as I found them. </li>
+<li>Made a system for meaningful object ids. They're in hexadecimal so they can be succinct + flexible at the same time. </li>
 </ul>
 <br>
 <h2>week 6, january 31 </h2><br>
-#<br>
 <br>
+<h3>sunday, january 31 </h3>
+<ul>
+<li>I left a pen in the laundry and ruined a nice sweater TT_TT </li>
+<li>Fixed more bugs, a little more refactoring for skills + character, and now it's time to add my slime character back into the game. During this refactor, all characters were removed, so the PC's getting lonely.  </li>
+<li>My refactor was biased towards there only being a PC, so I move some of the player-only logic out of the base character object. </li>
+</ul>
+<br>
+last updated 3/2/2021<br>