A million things to say
I work hard to keep this blog *clean*. That has come to mean a lot of things to mean, mostly it means silence.
My mind overflows with things I want to pour out to the world and as sad as this may seem I have learned over the years that to truly express yourself you must be your own editor. What does this mean?
It means you need to pour out your insecurities, personal problems and inner demons into a quiet place where they cannot grow. It means you need to go out into the world smiling because that's what needs to be done. I don't lie but there is a lot I edit, the truth is a hard thing to deliver to people.
For instance if I threw my mind out uncensored, edited or controlled onto paper then people would read it and they would take issue with the irrelevant. They would misinterpret the messages that are out of context and without foreshadowing. Basically people, myself included, are too stupid to understand other people without a translator.
An example, I believe killing people is good. There is a thought. You don't like it and you have already made interpretation's of me based on that raw information. You will not take the time to read past that line into my motivations and contextualisation. What that thought was actually about was the state of poor African countries and how first world prisons systems can cripple an economy in such a manner that prisoners have better care than people in state hospitals. People never think that far do they. Its a headline society where all thoughts need to be compressed and without backing.
So these are the reasons I don't spill the flurried contents of my mind out on paper, to the internet, my friends or anywhere. I take them and I edit them and slowly, deliberately and with intent release them.
To quote, "Fighting an imperfect system provides conflict, utilizing a system provides results."
Of course the horrid side effect of this is at times I cry in the corner for the little girl whose innocence never existed, and the demons that never cease to exist.
CODE : Back to Fun
Timer Needs fixing
Okay so I knuckled down and played the demo a bunch of times. Focusing once again on the combat. I kept forcing myself to envision this or that but in the end it just didn't feel "fun". The Instant Manipulation thing makes sense but feels light and tacky. The game needed weight. So I've gone a step backwards looked at the system. Ripped the engine (combat block) to pieces and looked at stripped parts on the floor
I thought let me play Shadowrun, let me read some Gibson, let me get back to my roots. Get back to the fun. After much throwing of toys and thinking this and that I decided to revert to the system I sideboarded during design which ways a weapons tray. In other words specific weapons with different function and form. Black helped me out here cause playing it lately made me remember how much fun shooting stuff can be.
So in one step I simplified and complicated the system immensely. What this meant however was a complete reworking of the Gameblock. Which thankfully only took one night. Another blessing of modulated code.
I also reverted to the matrix grid. Again going back to roots, I feel that the dots where just a place holder, but they needed to be gone. The Collision system defaults to bounding box but the object can specify a custom collision check if it requires.
- Instant Manipulation Replaced with Projectiles
- Attack / Hack Replaced by specific weapons
- Child Rendering expand with GOB system
- GOB system allows particle systems, and graphical sub routines
- Temp particle trail written for projectiles
- Game Block Base rewritten to support Actor / Message system
- Projectile Collision Written on Bounding Box with LOD collision
- Game Event Message system Implemented on a Block Basis
Whats next? Well I'll write up on the Xmen movie, it deserves a good rant, and code wise I think I will be coding the first proper ICE.