Other projects and such have been vying for my time lately, and I've kind of let them for a little while because I'm wondering if what I have so far is "fun." It has the capacity to be fun, I recognize, the question is if the world builder can take advantage of the potential to create interesting situations. That is a hard problem; I've got some ideas in that direction, but there's
There's also the matter of some weird bugs that have cropped up in the fluid code with the random fluids. Notably, when walkable fluids float atop swimmable ones, it's kind of wonky. The platforming routines need a lot more work.
There's a thousand things left to do, but I'm working on them! I am sorry it isn't going as quickly as I hoped. I'm afraid I might not be as good a programmer as I had hoped -- the project is reaching the edges of my capacity to keep it all in my head at once, and that slows things down. Please bear with me in this difficult phase of the project.
Keep going! The edges of your capacity is where you learn :-)
ReplyDeleteI have faith in you. You will push out a great game so long as you don't give up on making it fun for the sake of a release date. I told you months ago that the game would already be fun enough as a base game (an incomplete system to be built upon) if the platforming controls were not so janky... don't let this game suffer the same game-crippling issues as Mayflight, do not repeat the past. You said the game was not (and is not) quite a game yet, and that roaming around with no goals would be boring, but half the charm of minecraft (the easiest game to compare this to) is exactly that and look how huge it has become. What you currently have is something comparable to minecraft classic (old creative mode); it is (ignoring the controls issue) fun to mess around in, but not quite a game. That is not a bad thing... I was addicted to minecraft even before the days of indev, yet alone the current beta. I have enjoyed my alpha time with In Profundus despite the janky controls, so don't worry so much about all the big features that are not there yet. I know how badly you want the great game features you have described to us, and know that we all want to see your dream fulfilled. You are right, a game should not be aimless and boring, but, as I tried to say before, it is more important for a game to start by simply not being frustrating to play. I know it is tough, but keep working at the physics bugs, find a better control scheme that feels right, and, more than being something that simply works, be sure to find that golden realm where it becomes a joy to move around the game world you have given us. Then you should give us another alpha (long overdue I say!) before moving your focus to the great content you really want to give us. Minecraft has taught us that perfecting terrain generation code is a very slow process, so don't get so choked up if it is not going as quickly as you would like it to; the advanced features and actual game modes will get there eventually, but for now perfecting the physics and platforming are the key to opening the doorway to that raw potential you wish to tap into. Just keep at it and know that we believe in you and are looking forward to the finished product that the still-distant future promises us all. Holy solid block of text, Batman! -Jonathan Andrus
ReplyDeleteI can wait, as long as the game does come out :)
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by your work a few weeks ago and started coding my own simulation using cellular automatons. I understand what you are talking about. Sometimes it gets hard and complicated, but that's when the real fun starts. Keep up the good work... the game looks amazing so far.
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