School, which started 6 weeks ago, is the current problem. Dropping Calculus helped but senioritus, stemming from facing an uncertain existence head on, runs deep in me. I've been burned out for well over a year. I've fallen heavily on quality entertainment as a coping mechanism. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for development. It barely leaves enough time to skim my homework.
All things considered, it's not too surprising that not much has changed since the beginning of the month. In fact, much of last weekend was spent locked into playing a 13-year-old game I mentioned in that entry: X-Com Apocolypse.
X-Com Apocolypse is a fairly staggering achievement, really.
I've even been trying to pull inspiration from Anime/Manga lately. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, Nagasarete Airanto, Negima!, Negima!? - these and other series browsed lately primarily because I'm interested in the specific comedy/supernatural/action/slice-of-life mixture involved. I'm not looking to make a game like the animes, but rather to find a better understanding of the human nature entertained by each.
Incidentally, the entire Negima!? series is up on FUNimation's YouTube channel here.
- I don't want to just set up a weak Skinner's box. I want this to be a reasonably deep and satisfying game.
- I don't want just a reasonably deep and satisfying game, I actually want to promote an immersive online environment/virtual world.
I often waffle between wanting a single unit perspective and a multiple unit perspective. The goal is to give players enough to do. If I can't cram enough meaningful choices into a single unit, giving the player multiple units is a way to accomplish this end. Lately, I'm wondering if maybe this qualm is insubstantial: there should never reach a point where the choices offered even to a single unit could not suffice.
BYOND does provide some engine limitations that partly makes this decision for me: line-of-sight cannot be generated from multiple units at once. Well, okay, you could do some cumbersome softcode jury-rigging along the lines of:
var/turf/turfsNotVisible[] = GetPlayerTurfsInView()
for (var/turf/thisTurf in turfsNotVisible)
for (var/atom/movable/thisAtom in thisPlayer.myUnits)
if (thisTurf == null) break
if (thisTurf in view(thisAtom))
turfsNotVisible.Remove(thisTurf)
thisTurf = null
continue
// Add screen objects blocking view of all turfs in the TurfsNotVisible array.
However, that's problematic if I've got to run this code every time a player or one of its units makes a move. Nested loops are about as machine intensive as you can get. It'd be much better if this were supported in the hardcode.
To an extent, I'm grateful: that eases my decision-making responsibility somewhat. Single unit (or multiple unit with each unit having its own perspective active at a time) it is. Here's what I'm currently thinking I might do:
- Keep the single-unit perspective, but allow players to customize their avatars every time they leave the game map based off of overall resources available.
- Maps are claimed by the players by restoring power to critical devices. Claiming maps makes more resources available.
- The player shifts into a map-wide perspective if they move their avatar to a central control room point. This also empowers them to make permanent changes to the map.
- All maps are dynamically generated and must be defended from an escalating level of threats.
So it's not exactly that I've been doing nothing on Project Shock lately. I've definitely been putting some thought towards it. Perhaps I'm finally getting used to my school schedule and will be able to find a way to leverage some time towards development soon.
Only because of 1:01 to 1:02.
Dat footstomp/hip shake. I could watch that all day, and it would still be awesome.