Not so rainy today, but I still got a bit done. I TDD’d the new “Soojin” node. It ended up being a bit more complicated than I thought, in terms of various cases I had originally not considered, but which became clear once I started pulling it together.

I ended up in an interesting place.

Getting the component to work and seeing it in action, I began to realize what it actually was as opposed to what I originally intended it to be. I find this to be a more common occurrence than I would have imagined. And it’s part of the fun in this creative endeavor. I used to have the same experience when writing – sometimes the characters and plot would evolve as I wrote it in ways I hadn’t anticipated. It’s a joy when that happens.

I had a very specific use for this node when I sat down to create it. In the 2D game there was this component containing two nodes:

The purpose of the component was to act as a sort of “target”. Once triggered, it would remain going, enabling further sections of the graph. As I moved to 3D, I have been trying to revisit these sort of two-node components, to see if I can simplify them. Some components will need to be directional; those will come later. I have been able to reimagine these components as single node components. What that means is figuring out what is fundamental about them and then creating one or more nodes that either implement that functionality or that can be combined to do so.

What I have found is that when recreating these as single nodes, it often happens that I can implement behavior that suffices for what they used to be, but the simplification often ends up bringing it with new uses and behaviors that (ironically) the more bulky component didn’t have, since the original component was more targeted and specific. By extracting out the essence, it ends up with more and varied behavior. I don’t know if that makes sense. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to be more specific.

At one point today, I took a walk just to get away from the computer, and I began imagining different setups with this new component, and it suddenly dawned on me what it actually was. It wasn’t what I had originally thought it was (or what I had named it – “Soojin” was more a “Mary”. Don’t think about that too much. I doubt you’ll be able to attribute any sense to it. It’s more arbitrary than you might think). Apart from it being quite exciting to find new uses (and new puzzle potentials), it also means I’m going to have to redesign its look. It’s important that the components provide good feedback about their state, so players know what’s going on. The current component design doesn’t show enough. There is more going on under the surface that needs to be made surface.

Stay tuned for a new look. And for another #devtober day.

Day four, not looking forward to Monday tomorrow. All that time spent working when I could be doing this.