Saturday, February 15th 2020
I want to start by letting everyone know that Mr. Max Cat is doing much better. Our cancer scare appears to be a case of cat herpes. It felt very strange rooting for our cat to have herpes. I did not know this news until a couple days ago though so last weeks progress was still slightly stunted by kitty concern and duties. Last Saturday I worked on the logo a little bit more. I know this is a bit of a distraction from actual game design but our brand just seems so incomplete. I decided to move back towards more of a hand drawn look and away from the hard industrial. After that I spent the rest of the day working on integrating the roads system and bridge conditions for the procedural world generator. It was mostly just groundwork laid down. I will post a short video down below showing the full weeks progress on this.
Sunday, February 16th 2020
I spent the evening reviewing different font options that might work well with the new logo style. Alicia was very helpful with this and I ended up selecting the font below.
Monday, February 17th 2020
More road work on Monday after work. I had to add models for inverted corner tile conditions and then create the connections for those.
Tuesday, February 18th 2020
Strange Brother Blue came over and we discussed progress. We also talked about moving the weekly development log to a video format. Neither of us wants to be on video so we are thinking that we will use our avatars and some basic animations to represent us. I am excited about the concept as most people are more likely to watch a video than they are to read a weekly blog. Plus, if I post them on youtube then people can just subscribe and be notified anytime there is an update. Look out for the first attempt on the next blog. It might just be a fraction as it will take some time to get into the rhythm of it.
Wednesday, February 19th 2020
After work I spent more time implementing the inverted road tiles. After reviewing my bridge application, I decided that bridges should just be addon pieces to the tiles rather than incorporated into the actual mesh. This will allow me to texture paint them better as well as make them destructible elements in the game.
Thursday, February 20th 2020
I worked on the roads and bridges more, the video below shows progress and goals.
Friday, February 21st 2020
My truck did not start when I got up to go to work today. Alicia dropped me off and I took a uber home. I spent a good amount of time after getting home trying to figure out what was wrong. Honestly, troubleshooting car troubles reminds me a lot of troubleshooting code problems. The major difference is that I am significantly more limited by the tools I have access to on my truck. Thanks to youtube, I was able to determine the problem was in my gear shifting. The damn thing started right up when I flipped it into neutral. It will need a full repair that I am prepared to tackle but of course it will take out half to a full day off. Time is so valuable everybody.
Saturday, February 22nd 2020
Work took up most of my day and I was only able to finish the logo I posted above.
Week Review
Well, I am pleased with progress on the procedural roads and the logo. In my original goals I set out to be done with a playable prototype by the end of February. I knew this was a big ask but still am making the effort. I have one week left so this will be an intense week. In this week I will need to finish the basics of world procedural generation including buildings and city walls. I will need to implement the player drone controller, add path finding for squads and vehicles as well as a basic enemy ai. Who am I kidding, this definitely an't going to happen but I am going to give it my best effort. I am excited to show the progress. The weekly blog came in with only one participant. I decided to ask who my readers are and got a loud "leave us out of this" by the lack of replies. I appreciate the moment of humility. I am not sure a weekly blog really excites people as much as it intrigues myself. I need to go back to the drawing board with this one I think. I did post a poll for this week though if you all would be so kind as to check it out. Please let me know if you have any ideas in ways you would like to be involved in the process other than a poll.
Take this week's poll (scroll to bottom of page)
Poll Results:
Question:
"Who are you and what is your thing?"
- Family/Friend with game interest
- Family/Friend with no game interest
- Somebody with game interest
- Wandering Stranger
- Half man half dinosaur
- Time traveling self from future
Responses:
Girlface:
"You must win the gaming."
Reply: Shfifty Five!
What I did wrong:
Probably spent to much time working on the logo again.
What I did right.
I have had a tenacity about moving forward with the procedural generation. It is a struggle sometimes as the pipeline for new tiles and implementation can be mind numbing. I have to say that it still beats any day at the day job.
Thanks for reading,
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if that is not enough for you please see our contact page and we would love to discuss any questions or feedback. We have a detailed game doc for anyone who is very curious.