On the ground or in space?
TL,DR; Ground, more work but rather do space in 3D.
So I guess I will try building this system with ground-based characters for now. Most of the bits and pieces will (hypothetically) be easy enough to adapt to flying ships or sailing ships or driving vehicles or whatever, I think.
I need to make an animation based FSM to start out, then add a base AI layer on top of that so the character control system can talk to the AI layer and set behaviors, goals, places to move to, targets or whatever. This way I can decouple the control system from the character or ship or whatever and just use signals or something to talk to the AI and tell it what it routines it should be running and what it should be looking for or targeting.
I'll need to break down all the behaviors and figure out how things are stored in the characters before I can get anywhere near the MCC system. I'll whiteboard the steps I anticipate to get to the MCC so I can have a check-list and keep track of progress.
While writing it out on the whiteboard I realized I should add a pathfinding system as well. I think we have access to 2D navmeshes in Godot, if I am not mistaken.
Indeed.
Alright, with that I guess I better start setting up animations and get started on the FSM. There are a lot of animations in the sprite base I licensed back in the day with this sort of thing in mind so it could take a while.
A... whole lot more than there were when I bought it. This might take a couple days, even.
It's making me really reconsider starting with the ground just thinking about having to make clothes and hair for all of these. Good lord man.
It's times like these I really wish I was working in 3D. I could just model some clothes on a character and step through animations making sure they don't clip, deforming as needed... but with 2D you have to draw every frame or use the skeletal 2D rigging which, to me, looks like crap.
Ho boy. I guess I can ignore combat animations for now or just continue working on a space-based version first. Doesn't help that the tired feeling is setting in now.
So sick of this bouncing around all winter every winter. Never being able to just sit down and focus on a thing because my mind is wandering to other project ideas or I am passing out in my chair. I need to focus on one thing and do it before I lose my god damn mind.
Space is easier, overall. I will just go with space for now. Clearly I don't have much energy and I should probably try to keep things simple for the time being. Commit.
Feels bad man.
Can't seem to figure out a way to lock physics objects together so I can't seem to stick my engines onto my ship, when I apply force they just bugger off.
I've tried the joints they provide but no matter how I set them up they end up wobbling and tearing away from the ship eventually. I really don't understand the physics systems in Godot at all.
I really have zero drive to continue game development in these months... but I keep trying. I'm not sure it's a good idea right now.
I have no resiliancy to anything right now. Seems like every small bump in the road makes me incredibly angry. What the hell is wrong with me?
Can't seem to get any level of passion or even a spark to work on any game projects. I just end up sitting here trying to think of what I should do, attempting to do something, getting incredibly frustrated and unfocused and looping back around. If I push myself I just get more and more angry until I can't stand looking at the project in any capacity. If I push past that point I begin to feel the violence bubbling up and I just stop so I don't smash my keyboard or put my head through the desk or monitor.
I really can't stand the thought of doing anything right now. Playing games, making them, setting up servers for them, web dev, hardware dev... it all just makes me more agitated. Is this truly just depression?
I have to break this somehow. It seems to be most effective in the afternoon for whatever reason. Usually around 1-4. I have rice again so I can stop eating ramen for lunch though I somehow don't think that will do a whole lot it is the best place I have to continue my iterations to try and find a way to manage whatever this is.
I ate a lighter breakfast today and I seemed to be in a better mood in the morning, might be a good idea to continue that... though I also had some... intestinal distress, likely from a dinner of bread and ramen. I will continue with the lighter breakfasts and light and see if things improve.
As far as game projects I can't be sure of anything right now, I just kinda hate the whole thing at the moment. Once I cool down I am sure I will have a better idea but in this moment it's pointless to even consider anything to do with it.
Yeah, everything feels so daunting right now. Why? I know I can do anything I want to do as far as game development goes. I have been able to figure out how to do anything I tried so far through trial and error, I don't know why I would be afraid to try anything...
How can depression have this much power over me? I need to break it. I need to get control back. I wont let it fucking stop me.
Maybe I just need to work on the thing at the front of my mind. Unwind the stack.
I need to get the code for Toghairm and get some stuff from it.
If... I can find it. Ruh roh.
Hmm...
Looks like it's not on this drive or on the Pi I offloaded local stuff to when I shut down the office server. It could be on that server in one of the backup folders but if it's not on the livingroom PC I am probably fucked on that front. Unless...
No.
Welp. It's nearly 4. I've managed to sit here and do a whole lot of things that might as well have been nothing again. I appear to have also lost the sourcecode to one of my main projects somehow... despite having backups of backups of all my code as well as offsite backups. I will have to look at my livingroom PC, there should be a version of it on there at least. Not sure how recent though...
Either way I really need to start working on something I have passion for soon or I will just end up breaking down until April.
A simple project I can release soon would be ideal, even if it's just a prototype. Whatever it is, I need something to keep me moving. I've stagnated here way too damn long. Maybe I do need a team to help me keep moving in times like this? Hmm.
Whatever it is I will figure it out. I wont let this shit beat me.
I don't really want to make a space game in 2D, so I will just... not. I prefer 3D for space for many reasons.
I am sure I can't prototype banchobound in the time I have, at least not to any state where I would feel like I could comfortably stop and move to something else. I don't really even want to make another game like earthbound right now either as it seems pretty saturated...
But that just dumps me right back out where I started.
I can probably get this multi-character control prototype at least off the ground so I will stick with it. Maybe nothing comes of it, maybe I get a game from it. I don't know. I just need to get off the fucking ground and get moving again.
Anyway, I promised to make a bread-based dinner today so I gotta make some dough and I should also get to finding Toghairm's sourcecode so I am going to clock out today. I already whiteboarded the MCC system so I have a place to start tomorrow, no need to think about anything I can just get to work.
Off I go.