Ecological Disaster Pt. 2
The good stuff:
- Tooltips removed, sidebar added
- Card dragging fixed, to be more responsive and accurate
- Visual effects added to cards
- Living cards now move into a space if they actual consume another card
- Finally! Cards seen and Longest Turn Steak update at the Title screen
- Hand generation updated to make a little more sense
- Code base generally trimmed back in preparation for finalizing work on S:SD
I certainly hope this will help present the game in a somewhat more professional light. While I want the world of S:SD (and by extension Sap) to give off a surreal and whimsical feel, I don't want to indicate a lack of depth. Given that I'm working to tighten S:SD up. One of the ways will be to provide a little more information about each card within the sidebar - so as you can see now it shows off the card cost and genus. In addition many of the descriptions, if not all, will be updated with at least a bit more depth.
Problems this week?
There were plenty of problems this week although they were mostly of the conceptual variety. I needed to plan out exactly how much I could hope to get done with this version of the game. Ultimately the conclusion I came to is that S:SD is it's own project and it'll stay that way. When it's released (here on Itch and potentially Steam) it will be free of charge and considered a slice in time. Sap proper will be it's own project and honestly needs a complete rewrite from the ground up. While the code base for S:SD isn't totally disgusting, I've learned a lot while working on it - and my ambition for the game has grown, so the work will need to reflect that at a fundamental level. From a more grounded perspective, I did want to solve the slight lag and offset dragging that can be seen in older versions of S:SD when dragging a card around.
Yes, and?
This problem stems from very early on in it's development when I was aiming to have multiple control schemes. I fought with myself to make this make sense, and the code has a deeply divided feel to it. While the basics are there and the support for other controls does exist, I don't have time nor the inclination to make that a reality for this version of the game. The problem is the residue that this leaves within the structure of the game. One such issue is the aforementioned mouse lag. I tried a few things to fix it, but in the end Occam was right about cutting and all that. A quick fresh start and some examination of the Unity docs and 'BOOM,' I've got a much better solution. At this point I'm not writing any complex layer on top of either the native hardware, or Unity's layer. I'm simply leveraging IEventHandler (which is actually pretty old at this point) to do all the lifting, heavy and otherwise. I've got more important things to fuss with, so why try to reinvent the wheel. Lesson learned, I hope!
As always, I'd love to hear from you!
Eli
Sap: School Days
Explore a simulated, and highly combinatorial ecology of cards!
Status | Released |
Author | Threeli |
Genre | Strategy |
Tags | Abstract, Casual, Life Simulation, Pixel Art, Relaxing, Surreal, Turn-based |
More posts
- Major Information TimeFeb 27, 2023
- Play now!Feb 25, 2023
- Schools Out ForeverFeb 24, 2023
- SAP roadmap!Feb 20, 2023
- A very light updateFeb 17, 2023
- On Dynamism and GranularityFeb 10, 2023
- Ecological Disaster Pt. 1Jan 27, 2023
- Gentle delay...Jan 24, 2023
- Whingeing and WorkingJan 21, 2023
Comments
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This log is very interesting. The methodology behind asking yourself "what does the game's current state fails to do ?" is a very healthy question, and while it's hard to judge without playing the game, it seems like you are capable of being honest with yourself on it - which might be the hardest part.
It is something that has to be asked in the development of anything, especially a game, and your answer to it - making S:SD and Sap two different projects - is very interesting. This makes me want to see the game even more !
Also, actually splitting the dev into two projects is an hard decision, and I admire how confident you seem of this choice. It will certainly be for the best.
Still reading all your logs, actually login in Itch.io just to read these every 3 days or so.