I made good progress today.
- Finished (for now) the “Soojin” component work – materials, new logic, etc. Seeing it now, I have one lingering question about how it looks, but I’ll put that off for now. I think it’s important that the look be precise, since understanding of the game is going to come strictly from what the player sees. A “visual design”, so to speak.
- Got the “locked” state working for Soojin and Huberts. This is a key part of some puzzles, and I’m glad it’s in place now.
Trying out the two Soojin levels I have so far, I made a discovery based on experimentation in terms of what will actually end up resulting in a puzzle, I’m sure. That has happened at least three times so far, where instead of working out a puzzle scenario ahead of time, I actually discovered neat behavior just while playing with it, behavior that I can help the player to find as well. I want more of that, because they have always been more interesting than what I come up with.
The next step (tomorrow, I hope) will be to extend the editor to allow defining how large a level is. It’s hard coded at the moment, but it needs to be flexible. I have a plan for that. Some upcoming levels need to be larger than a single screen.
On a side note, I was looking at the various game stats while the game was running, and I found a simple mesh optimization that greatly reduced the number of vertices being displayed, especially when the editor is active and all the grid points are visible. If you ever create a cylinder mesh object in Godot, be sure to tweak the parameters for it (e.g. number of radial segments and rings).
It’s amazing how fast this month is going. I’m pleased with the progress in the game, and I’m enjoying just writing.
Day 10 – the sound of two hands clapping.